John Benjamin Clark Watkins

John Benjamin Clark Watkins (* 1902 at Norval Station near Brampton , Ontario , † October 12, 1964 in Montreal ) was a Canadian ambassador .

Life

John Watkins was the first child of Jane Clark and John Watkins, who lived on a farm near the small Grand Trunk railway depot of Norval Station. His father died in 1906. Watkins studied Scandinavian education at the University of Manitoba and joined the foreign service in 1946.

In 1948 he was sent to the embassy in Moscow . He won a large circle of friends, which enabled him to travel to places that other foreign diplomats were inaccessible. For example, he visited Central Asia from September to October 1954 and the Crimea from July 5 to 14, 1955 . In 1955 he organized as chargé a state visit of Canadian Foreign Minister Lester Pearson at Nikita Khrushchev .

In 1961 Anatoly Mikhailovich Golitsyn reported that Watkins had been forced to recruit by the KGB. In 1963, Yuri Wassiljewitsch Krotkow reported further details. In 1964, Yuri Ivanovich Nossenko Watkins was identified as an upside-down ambassador. James Jesus Angleton reported the suspicion to the Canadian government authorities.

Watkins, retired, was sick in Paris . He was summoned to London from retirement . Watkins was arrested in London and, with the help of the CIA, transferred to the Holiday Inn, Downtown 420 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal. There Watkins was interrogated from mid-September 1965 by Leslie James Bennett and Harry Brandes of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police . Watkins died less than a month after his arrest. The coroner conducting the inquest had not been told that Watkins was a reactivated diplomat. The official obituary stated that John Watkins died of myocardial infarction at a farewell party with his illustrious friends .

In 1980 David Martin published the book Wilderness of Mirrors in which it was alleged that Watkins was the target of Soviet blackmail because of his homosexual orientation . In October 1981 called Jean-François Duchaine, a parliamentarian of the Parti Québécois , from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a report on the death of Watkins. The protocol of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from 1964 showed gaps in the meantime.

In a hearing on Watkins' death, it was alleged that the almost month-long interrogation of Watkins in Canada was suspended for ten days, during which Watkins visited his cousins ​​in Norval and the doctor Alec Capon, who admitted him to a hospital. Watkins did not follow the briefing at his own risk. The latest police report admitted that Watkins died during police interrogation in a Montreal hotel room and found that he had failed to comply with blackmail attempts by the Soviet Union .

Publications

• Ian Adams , Agent of Influence: A True Story Toronto: General, 1999.

predecessor	Office	successor
Leolyn Dana Wilgress	Canadian Ambassador to Moscow September 1, 1948 to February 15, 1951	John Wendell Holmes
Edward Joseph Garland	Canadian Ambassador in Reykjavík June 9, 1952 to March 1954	Chester Alvin Ronning
Edward Joseph Garland	Canadian Ambassador in Oslo July 31, 1952 to March 1954	Chester Alvin Ronning
Robert Arthur Douglass Ford	Canadian Ambassador to Moscow January 14, 1954 to March 15, 1956	David Moffat Johnson

predecessor	Office	successor
Herbert Frederick Brooks-Hill Feaver	Canadian Ambassador to Copenhagen December 2, 1958 to 1960	Hector Allard

Individual evidence

1. ^ Watkins, John, Dispatches : Inside Cold War Russia Toronto: Lorimer, 1987
2. ↑ ISLANDE: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ NORVÈGE: Archived copy ( Memento of the original of May 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ DANEMARK: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Watkins, John Benjamin Clark (Carrière): Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.