Igor Gouzenko was a code clerk in the Russian embassy in Ottawa whose decision to defect in September 1945 set off a political earthquake. Because he took with him a few hundred pages of documents that implicated a number of Canadian civil servants and scientists as Soviet spies, his case generated headlines, roiled diplomatic waters, and reverberated in both American and Canadian politics for years afterwards. Amy Knight, a freelance Russian expert, is only slightly exaggerating when she titles her account of the case, How the Cold War Began.

While she has thoroughly canvassed recently opened archives about Gouzenko and the firestorm he created, Knight is not a terribly reliable guide to what the case revealed about Soviet espionage in North America or the Western response to it. She misstates key pieces of evidence and labors to exonerate individuals now confirmed to have been Soviet agents. Despite all her research, she misunderstands both the institutional loyalties of domestic Communist parties and the nature of the threat faced by counter intelligence agencies.