Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 2:47 PM
Gordon Lunan has died last night in the hospital in Hawkesbury, Ontario, Canada. He was admitted in the hospital after a fall in his own house. Gordon was old (89) and tired.
Gordon was our grandfather, great grandfather, our neighbour in Canada and builder of our house. He was also a father, a speech writer for Paul Martin sr., a spy, a prisoner who refused to tell on his comrades, a communist, a strawberry farmer, and a writer.
Gordon´s career as a 'spy' was exposed when Igor Gouzenko, who was the cypher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, defected in 1945. The movie "The Iron Curtain" (1948) tells the story from the perspective of Gouzenko. The actor playing Gordon actually looks like him.
Gordon wrote an autobiography. It was first published in 1995 under the title "The Making of a Spy". The book was republished by BT Publishing, with an additional chapter on his work as a speech writer for paul Martin sr, just a couple of weeks ago. The title is: Redhanded: Inside the spy ring that changed the world.
Added October 5: The Ottawa Citizen had an obituary today on the front page. Here is the link to the online version
There is also a social network mapping of Gordon as 'spy', see Namebase.