The story is a real-life spy thriller.
A Russian agent enters Canada in 1951 at the height of the Cold War, speaking with a strong Brooklyn accent. But when Yevgeni Brik falls madly in love with a married Canadian woman two years later, he turns himself in to the RCMP, who make him a double agent. But the betrayals continue: a cash-strapped RCMP officer informs on Brik to the Russians, who soon recall him to Moscow. Then, without warning, Brik resurfaces at the British embassy in Lithuania nearly four decades later.
“Both Canadian and British governments had both pretty much established in their own minds that he had been executed by the KGB back in 1955,” Donald G. Mahar told CTV News Channel on Friday.
Mahar is the author of a new book, ‘Shattered Illusions: KGB Cold War Espionage in Canada,’ which tells Brik’s story. Mahar, who, spent more than four decades working in the intelligence field for Canadian agencies like the RCMP Security Service, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Communications Security Establishment (CSE), headed the team that brought Brik back to Canada in 1992, where the former spy quietly lived until dying in 2011 at the age 0f 89.
“I took the lead in this case,” Mahar said. “It was a fabulous experience.”
For more on Mahar’s book, visit the publisher’s website at www.rowman.ca.
