Guard Lifted

Ever since he fled from Ottawa's Soviet embassy in 1945, Cipher Clerk Igor Gouzenko has been guarded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police against Communist reprisals. Last week his Mountie guard was withdrawn. The government decided that it was no longer practical to keep watch over the Russian fugitive who exposed the Soviet spy ring in Canada.

The removal of his bodyguard was largely Gouzenko's own responsibility. For the first few years after his escape, the guard worked well; Gouzenko lived in deep seclusion, and the Mounties were able to guarantee his security. Later, when royalties rolled in from a movie and a book about him, Gouzenko tired of the sheltered life. He developed a taste for shopping and for driving around in snappy cars, making it hard for the guards to keep up with him.

Over the past six months, the watch over Gouzenko became almost totally unworkable. With his new book, The Fall of a Titan, about to be published, the publicity-conscious author began to set up interviews and to pose for photos wearing a pillowcase mask. Usually he slipped away to the interviews, giving the Mount ies no opportunity to screen his visitors. Said a government official: "Each guy he met could have been Malenkov himself for all we knew."

Since Gouzenko evidently preferred it that way, the government finally decided to let him go ahead on his own. Nobody was happier than the Mounties. For some time now, assignment to the temperamental Russian has been regarded as one of the "punishment" duties on the force.

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