Bower Featherstone

Bower Featherstone was a Canadian civil servant who was convicted of espionage in 1966.[1]

Bower Featherstone
Born1940 (age 80–81)
NationalityCanada
Other namesBower Edward Featherstone
Occupationcivil servant
Known forConvicted of being a GRU mole in 1966

Featherstone was a lithographer who worked for the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.[2]

A promising young officer in the RCMP Security Service, Gilles G. Brunet, played a significant role in his conviction, work for which he won a promotion.[1][3][4] His handler was Eugen Kourianov. According to Nigel West Kourianov was suddenly recalled to the Soviet Union, suggesting a mole had tipped of the Soviets. Decades later western intelligence learned that Brunet, the young officer who won promotion for his work in convicting Featherstone, had also been a mole.

The main document he was convicted of handing over to the Soviets was a confidential chart of two shipwrecks southeast of Newfoundland.[2] Although he was convicted of violating Canada's Official Secrets Act none of the documents he passed on was actually secret. Featherstone was the first individual to be convicted under the Official Secrets Act since the trials that followed the defection of Igor Gouzenko in the lat 1940s.[5]

Featherstone received a 30-month sentence, and served 10 months—2 months in the maximum security Collin's Bay Penitentiary, and 8 months at a minimum security forestry camp—before he was paroled.[2]

References
  1. Nigel West (2007). "Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence". Scarecrow Press. pp. 99–100. ISBN 9780810864634. Retrieved 2013-12-02. Featherstone, Bower, Convicted of breaches of Canadian Official Secrets Act in 1966, and sentenced to 30 months imprisonment, Bower Featherstone was a civil servant who undertook minor tasks for his GRU handler, Eugen Kourianov. Soon after Featherstone came under surveillance by the RCMP, the GRU cut contact with him and Kourianov was recalled unexpectedly to Moscow, suggesting that the investigation, codenamed Gold Dust, had been compromised by a leak from inside the RCMP.
  2. "Featherstone released after ten months". Ottawa Citizen. 1968-02-28. p. 46. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
  3. Reginald Whitaker; Gregory S. Kealey; Andrew Parnaby (2012). "Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada -- from the Fenians to Fortress America". University of Toronto Press. pp. 236–238, 240, 267, 306, 532. ISBN 9780802007520. Retrieved 2013-12-02. Brunet was marked for a brillian trajectory in the force. He joined the security service in the early 1960s. At the Russian desk, he won promotion in 1966 for investigative work that led to the conviction of Bower Featherstone.
  4. Nigel West (2007). Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence. Scarecrow Press. pp. 42–43, 99–100. ISBN 9780810864634. Retrieved 2013-12-02. Convicted of breaches of Canadian Official Secrets Act in 1966, and sentenced to 30 months imprisonment, Bower Featherstone was a civil servant who undertook minor tasks for his GRU handler, Eugen Kourianov.
  5. "Gouzenko episode recalled". The Windsor Star. 1978-02-10. p. 8. Retrieved 2013-12-05. RCMP testimony in a 1967 court case named Soviet attache Eugeni Kourianov as having met government mapmaker Bower Featherstone, then 28. Featherstone was sentenced to 30 months in jail, and served 10, for obtaining and retaining maps in violation of the Official Secrets Act -- the first under that law since the Gouzenko trials.
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