World War II

Britain and France declared war on Germany in September 1939, and Canada followed. Higgitt was posted to Ottawa, Ontario, for special war duties and to serve in the Intelligence Branch. By the late 1930s, various fascist groups across Canada had combined into the National Unity Party under the leadership of Adrien Arcand. Other such groups, and individuals sympathetic Nazism, remained underground. Higgitt was appointed Government advisor to the Commons Judicial Committee on Internment Operations, a committee set up to identify and mitigate potential security risks to Canada and the Allied effort against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan,^[16] and prior to the Allies' pivotal Normandy Landings these operations led to the removal of several hundreds of German- and Italian-born Canadians, Arcand included, to detention camps in Canada's hinterlands until the surrender of the Axis powers. On the first day of World War II, RCMP agents broke the German-financed Canadian fascist group Deutsche Arbeits Front, interning four hundred Nazis. When Soviet Russia entered the war, more than one hundred Communists were interned at Hull, Quebec.^[17]

By 1945, however, it had become clear that though the Nazi presence in Canada was largely subdued, a Soviet spy ring was operating from the rear wing of the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. A Red Army officer at the Embassy, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk trained in intelligence work, defected to the RCMP. Gouzenko's briefcase, containing Russian-language cablegrams and copied secret Canadian Government papers, given over to Higgitt and the Intelligence Branch, showed that the Russians had details of matters that only Britain and Canada should have known.^[18] The RCMP advised the Canadian Federal Government that Japanese Canadians, for their part, posed relatively little threat as a supposed 'fifth column' of spies and saboteurs. Subsequently, the Government, not believing the RCMP, took the responsibility for evacuating coastal Japanese Canadians to interior British Columbia out of the Mounties' hands and gave it to the BC Security Commission, and in turn, by 1943, to the Department of Labour.^[19][20]

Political scientist Reg Whitaker and historian Gregory Kealey have argued that the relative effectiveness of the RCMP's Intelligence Branch in carrying out the responsibility of penetrating and monitoring pro-fascist groups, along with the nullification of the espionage, sabotage, or subversion threats believed to have been posed by these groups, ensured that the RCMP would carry out of the War an enhanced prestige within the Canadian state and some surety of a continued pre-eminent role in security intelligence in the postwar era.^[21] Higgitt remained a key figure in the RCMP's Cold War era security intelligence operations, but over the course of his career also showed consistent unease with counterespionage operations that brushed against ethical and legal questions. As officer in charge of the Counter-Espionage Section of the RCMP Security Service, Higgitt wrote to his superiors in 1950 about what it meant to "fight fire with fire."

To be successful in counterespionage work it is often necessary to adopt very unorthodox methods which do not fit in with our regular mode of operations. In this regard it is a matter of real and constant concern to the members of the Counter-Espionage Section of Headquarters Special Branch, that they have to request, or at least feel they should request, rather unusual courses of action by our field personnel well knowing that by complying with the request the investigator may be seriously jeopardizing their own futures in the Force if through bad luck or human error their operations are discovered by those persons against whom they are directing the investigation. Such discovery could lead to most embarrassing incidents and possibly legal action against the members concerned. It is to be hoped that some official notice can be taken of this situation and some overall directive laid down for guidance. Again it is to be stressed that extraordinary measures and methods must be used if we are to effectively cope with extraordinary situations. To some extent the axiom of 'the end justifies the means' is very true in Counter-Espionage operations but the personal risk to the operating members must be recognized before they can be expected to extend themselves in connection to these matters.^[22]

As Whitaker has written, associated with this, as Higgitt realized, was another disturbing aspect of security intelligence work, especially counterespionage: the work could literally lie at the margins of life and death. "Running secret sources and double agents was a very risky business, especially for the sources and agents, but that anxiety could extend to their handlers as well, who had to contend with troubling responsibilities, not to speak of moral dilemmas."^[23]

The Gouzenko Affair

In 1945, Higgitt, along with John Leopold of the RCMP's Intelligence Branch and two other future RCMP Commissioners, Charles Rivett-Carnac and Clifford Harvison, was a principal investigator of Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada who defected on September 5, three days after the official close of the War, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in Canada and the United States. Higgitt was in charge of liaison with the special Crown prosecutors at the series of criminal trials related to Gouzenko and had control of the exhibits and documents. Gouzenko's defection was one of the major catalysts for the beginning of the global Cold War, and compelled RCMP leadership to organize a special counter-espionage section of the RCMP, which Higgitt headed until 1952.^[24] This was a forerunner of the RCMP's Security Service, an arm of the RCMP that had responsibility for domestic intelligence and security in Canada. While officer in charge of the counterespionage section, Higgitt, along with his colleagues in allied nations, did not believe that security screening at border crossings was alone proof against the penetration into Canada of Communist Bloc spies. As Higgitt wrote to his superiors in 1952, "[W]e feel a person who has been sent to Canada as a Soviet agent, is not likely to be one whose background, upon enquiry, will show any unusual or suspicious circumstances, but will undoubtedly be a person whose background has been well prepared so that nothing abnormal will become visible from even the closest scrutiny."^[25]

In April 1952, Higgitt was commissioned a Sub-Inspector and shortly afterwards became Inspector and Personnel Officer in Ontario. A year later, in 1953, the KGB agent Yevgeni Brik, while living in Canada under the alias of David Soboloff, confessed to the RCMP Security Service that he had been running a Soviet spy ring inside Canada's top-secret Avro Arrow CF-105 interceptor program, and Brik subsequently became a double-agent, the most valuable spy for the West since World War II.^[26] Higgitt moved to western Quebec that same year to serve as Inspector at "C" Division, then was transferred to Montreal in June 1954 to take charge of the RCMP's Montreal Subdivision and supervise the RCMP's investigation and enforcement of the Canada Customs Act. Higgitt stayed in Montreal for three years. He was the personal escort to Princess Katharine, Duchess of Kent, during her visit to the Laurentians in 1954,^[27] and received additional intensive training in undercover and surveillance operations by the RCMP in 1955,^[28] and was posted to the RCMP's Security and Intelligence at RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa in 1957, the year Soviet spy Rudolf Abel was arrested in New York.^[29] With the Security Service, Higgitt became the officer in charge of counterespionage under the Directorate of Security and Intelligence.

In October 1957, at the 27th meeting of the Security Sub-Panel, Higgitt told Canada's Privy Council that members of the Soviet Military Attache's Office were covertly engaged in making extensive photographic and other records of military, hydro-electric, radio and electronic installations as well as coastlines and general topography throughout Eastern Canada.^[30] In a secret December 1957 meeting at an Ottawa hotel, Higgitt learned that Soviet agents had been attempting to recruit members of Higgitt's counterespionage unit responsible for surveillance of Soviet-bloc Embassy personnel in Ottawa.^[31] Higgitt was subsequently involved in the investigations of KGB agents Rem Krasilnikov and Nikolai Ostrovsky. He was also involved in the coordination of Operation Keystone related to the double-agent Brik, codenamed Gideon, whose whereabouts had become unknown after Brik's rendezvous in Moscow with British SIS officer Daphne Park.^[32]

Three years later Higgitt was assigned to London, England,^[33] where he served as Liaison Officer with British Intelligence and, later, with Western Europe via the Canadian Delegation to the General Assemblies of Interpol.^[34] While in London, a Soviet scientist, Dr. Mikhail A. Klochko, defected to Canada, and shortly thereafter the RCMP Security Service learned that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had personally passed the order, "Get Klochko, to the KGB's 13th Department.^[35] Higgitt remained in Europe for three years, travelling extensively and working closely with police organizations and intelligence agencies throughout the continent. Higgitt made regular visits to Bonn to compare notes with Canada's Ambassador to West Germany, John Kennett Starnes, who was also head of the allied military mission to Berlin, which sought to collect intelligence on the Soviet military. Starnes eventually went on to become the Director of Canada's Security Service, replacing Higgitt in 1969 when Higgitt moved on from the Security Service to take the job as head of the Force.^[36]

Promotion to Commissioner

Higgitt returned to Ottawa in 1963, taking the position of RCMP Security Service Superintendent.^[37] In 1967, Higgitt became RCMP Assistant Commissioner and Director of Security and Intelligence.^[38] In this capacity he worked closely with counterparts in the United States and Europe to monitor communist movements. In the late 1960s, he was also worried about the potential for racial violence in Canada, particularly in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the presence there of radical US Black Panther members. In a secret report to the Government in 1968, Higgitt wrote that "The outside influence and support by US Black nationalists, coupled with revolutionary and militant support from organizations in Canada sympathetic to the Negroes' cause, could very well result in racial violence in Halifax and other centres in Canada having Negro communities".^[39] Community leaders in Halifax expressed concern that this worry, and the surveillance activities it induced, were discriminatory and meant to actually suppress the civil rights movement as opposed to keeping the peace.

In 1969, Higgitt was promoted to Deputy RCMP Commissioner and became Director of Operations for all Criminal and Security Service matters throughout Canada. He held this position for only twenty-two days before being appointed RCMP Commissioner, over several of his senior officers, by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, on October 1, 1969. This was the RCMP's fourteenth commissioner. Upon his appointment, at the height of the Cold War, The New York Times described Higgitt as being "in the tradition of quiet‐spoken, approachable but tough headed men who hardly ever, by word or deed, draw attention to themselves".^[40] This made sense given Higgitt's background in intelligence and counterintelligence going all the way back to WWII. "He talked about communist spies like they were the boy next door, implying that he knew them and their methods so well that they can hardly surprise him".^[41]

Reader's Digest described "greying, magnetic" Higgitt as "a tough, 53-year-old lawman who worked his way up through the ranks. Higgitt rarely talks publicly about the RCMP, but he runs his 11,250-man organization with the kind of quiet devotion to duty that filled history books with stories of heroic RCMP feats."^[42] The Calgary Herald said that Higgitt and the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover have many things in common: "They are relentless civil police officers. They seldom put themselves in public view. And they have reputations for being hard to get to know".^[43] Higgitt continued his duties as Commissioner on a one-year extension granted by Canada's Solicitor-General. Upon his promotion to Commissioner, Higgitt told the Los Angeles Times, "I believe Canada has the greatest, most efficient and most human police force in the world".^[44] Following his appointment as Commissioner, Higgitt was unanimously elected a vice-president of Interpol.^[45] Higgitt received a tipstaff at the 65th annual conference of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, London, Ontario.

Cold War Espionage

Canada's Cabinet Committee on Security and Intelligence met on 19 December 1969, and suggested that Canada should expand its capacity to gather intelligence abroad. In January 1970, Higgitt and Starnes met with Prime Minister Trudeau, then flew to London for a week to visit the headquarters of MI5 and SIS, and meet with leaders of Britain's intelligence community.^[58] Priorities for Higgitt and Starnes were separatism and the close international connections that tied revolutionary groups from Cuba to Europe to the Middle East. In the first part of 1970 the police foiled two kidnapping attempts, first against an Israeli consul and then against the US consul in Montreal.^[59] Tensions between the RCMP and the Trudeau Government regarding Maoist China continued as well.

In May 1971, after Canada and China had agreed to exchange ambassadors, Higgitt was brought before a Commons Judicial Committee to testify about communist espionage. He was asked by MP Harold Stafford if he maintained his 1969 position that the new embassy would mean an increase in subversion. "That was not quite my statement," Higgitt replied. Higgitt said that he had been asked at a news conference whether a mainland Chinese embassy would result in more agents in Canada. "In 1969," Higgitt continued, "the obvious answer had to be yes".^[60] When Stafford pressed the point, Solicitor-General Jean-Pierre Goyer, who had authorized the wiretapping operation, Operation Cobra, against the militant Agence de Presse Libre du Quebec (APLQ),^[61] intervened to say an improper picture of relations with Communist countries shouldn't be developed, as relations are excellent.^[62][63] Goyer went on to defend the Mounties, maintaining that the RCMP was obliged to often engage in surveillance in order to gather intelligence on foreign and domestic subversive activity. MP Donald Stovel Macdonald asked Higgitt to define subversive activity. Higgitt's response was that this is a most difficult question that anybody could be asked to answer; that the RCMP and the Canadian Government have argued for years on what a proper definition of subversive activity is.

Generally speaking, I think probably an acceptable definition [of subversive activity] is trying to achieve some political purpose by illegal means, or improper means, and trying to destroy the institutions of the country by nondemocratic means, I suppose, if that's understandable.^[64]

Less than a year after Higgitt's testimony, in April 1972, the Cuba Trade Commission in Montreal was bombed, killing one Cuban and injuring seven others. Seven Cubans were detained and six were charged with weapons possession and interfering with a police investigation which saw the RCMP locate an electronic bomb-firing device as well as a Cuban code book. From Havana, an angered Cuban President, Fidel Castro, charged the police with “brutal and fascist methods” in their handling of the affair.^[65] The FBI concluded that the electronic firing device was "quite similar" to that which the US Coast Guard recovered from the attempted bombing of the British deep sea freighter Lancastrian Prince three hundred miles east of Miami, Florida in 1968.^[66]

Higgitt also directed RCMP operations during the FLQ Crisis in Quebec in 1970, which was the last time the War Measures Act would be invoked until Justin Trudeau declared a public order emergency in 2022. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, relations between Canada and France were strained because of what was perceived as official French sympathy for those in Quebec who wanted to take the province out of the Canadian confederation. According to an August 1981 report of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Trudeau government at the time believed that French intelligence agents in Quebec were funneling money to pro-separatist groups. In June 1970, a bomb had gone off at National Defense Headquarters in Ottawa, killing telecommunications operator Jeanne d'Arc Saint- Germain. The bombing was attributed to the FLQ. Other bombings in Montreal over the month of July increased the pressure on the RCMP to bring to justice those responsible and to identify their supporters. The CBC said that in the fall of 1970, Trudeau met with Higgitt and John Starnes, and approved plans for spying on French diplomats. Trudeau was said to have told Higgitt and Starnes that he would deny any knowledge of the operation if it was ever discovered.^[67]

The October Crisis

Federal ministers from Quebec, including Prime Minister Trudeau, believed that the FLQ Crisis only became a crisis because the intelligence on Quebec separatism gathered by the RCMP Security Service was inadequate, if not worse. What followed in the 1970s was a much more aggressive and intrusive pattern of intelligence targeting of Quebec separatism by the Security Service, which blew up in the face of the government with a series of public scandals of RCMP "wrongdoing"—actions that went beyond lawful limits or were seriously questionable from the standpoint of liberal democratic ethics.^[68] Whitaker summarizes the situation like this: In effect, the government blamed the RCMP for originally not doing enough, then later blamed the RCMP for going too far, then took matters into their own hands with the War Measures Act.^[69]

Higgitt opposed the use of the War Measures Act by the Government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, which gave the police and military special powers to crack down on the FLQ.^[70][71] According to journalist Peter C. Newman, "[u]nlike most police officers faced by persistent politicians, Higgitt proved to be very tough, very precise, and equally persistent." On October 13, 1970, Trudeau famously told CBC reporter Tim Ralfe, "Well, just watch me", after Ralfe questioned Trudeau on how far he would go in the suspension of civil liberties to maintain order. A day later, in a confidential Ottawa meeting with Trudeau, Deputy Minister of Justice Don Maxwell, and Lieutenant General Michael Dare, Higgitt argued against the Act's use; telling Trudeau it would be a heavy-handed overstep. Higgitt warned that a broad sweep and preventative detention of suspects in Quebec was not likely to lead to the abductors of the Deputy Premier, Pierre Laporte, and the British Trade Commissioner, James Cross, and that "[these events] ought not to be allowed to over-rule calmer reaction at the federal level."^[72] Only Maxwell agreed with Higgitt.^[73] According to security and intelligence scholar, Reg Whitaker, Trudeau and his cabinet deliberately exaggerated the crisis to obtain emergency powers to intimidate Quebec separatists. Trudeau cabinet minister, Don Jamieson, recalled that Higgitt confirmed that the War Measures Act had produced nothing of any consequence to the RCMP's investigations.^[74]

To the question of why Higgitt wasn't listened to by Trudeau in 1970, Starnes put it this way in 1992:

It is difficult, so long after the event, to know why more weight wasn't given to the RCMP Commissioner's views. I suspect it may have been due, in part, to Len Higgitt's style and how he was regarded within the bureaucracy. He was not comfortable with the abstract, often woolly ideas and philosophical concepts that were a hallmark of various Trudeau administrations, preferring pragmatic, straightforward approaches to solutions. Although he could be articulate what he said usually was couched in unadorned, even blunt, language. Len Higgitt sometimes gave the impression of being a simple man, but he was not. He had an undeveloped natural subtleness of mind that many of his detractors failed to perceive and take into account. He never adapted to the trendy phrases and catchy "buzz words" then much in vogue in the bureaucracy. As a consequence, what he said was sometimes discounted by his peers, and by some ministers.^[75]

Higgitt called the two kidnappings and murder "probably the most vicious and complicated crimes ever committed in Canada".^[76] Many Members of Parliament came to agree, and questions were asked as to both the excessiveness of the War Measures Act and the failures in intelligence gathering that allowed such events to transpire. Simultaneously, critique was also turned toward the Mounties' increasing use of electronic surveillance in the name of 'public safety'. The conflicting interests, then, against the backdrop of ongoing socio-cultural change in Canada, demanded close analysis. The October Crisis and the use of the War Measures Act led to an official critical review of the security and intelligence situation in Canada called the Royal Commission on Security, chaired by Maxwell Mackenzie. Higgitt was questioned, in 1971, by Mackenzie and a House of Commons committee regarding what he knew about the RCMP's law-bending or law-violating methods in intelligence gathering. Higgitt denied having any knowledge of RCMP officers' wiretapping and unlawful break-ins, and the Royal Commission inquiry ultimately produced no evidence that he did know. Globe and Mail journalist Jeff Sallot drew this conclusion: "A trim man even in his fifties, he [(Higgitt)] looked every inch the policeman who had risen to the top because of his intelligence, dedication, and honest hard work. His sharp facial features betrayed no hint that he knew about skeletons in the closet. But in thirty-six years with the force he had learned a lot, especially about how to keep secrets".^[77]

Upon completing its report, the Commission recommended that a new civilian non-police agency be established to perform the functions of a security service in Canada instead of the RCMP. This eventually led, in 1984, to the establishment of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), effectively creating a separation of domestic policing and foreign intelligence in Canada similar to the distinction between the FBI and the CIA in the United States.^[78] In an address to the Security Panel (a senior interdepartmental committee of officials), Higgitt termed the recommendation for a separate civilian intelligence service "a travesty of justice," and added that "the Soviet Intelligence would be jubilant. They could never hope to duplicate the accomplishment".^[79]

Kainai Chieftainship

Higgitt organized the RCMP Centennial Celebrations in 1973. In early July of that year, in formal ceremonies marking the Centenary, Higgitt along with Queen Elizabeth met Chief David Ahenakew, leader of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, and later with Cree activist Harold Cardinal, Indian Association of Alberta. As many Canadian news media outlets of the time reported, Ahenakew went off program after presenting the Queen with a peace-pipe and affirming the Indigenous Peoples of Saskatchewan's ongoing faithfulness to her and the treaties made between Indians and the Canadian Government: Ahenakew told the Queen and Higgitt that Indigenous Peoples "have been prisoners under the yoke of dependency imposed by the Government", and that "over the years some of your representatives have not respected their commitments".^[80] Higgitt also met with Chief Joe Crowfoot, 77-year-old member of the Blackfoot tribe at Cluny, Alberta, and grandson of Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Kainai Nation, who in 1877 negotiated peace with the Mounties' first Commissioner, Lieutenant-Colonel James Macleod. Higgitt told Crowfoot, "You put us on a pedestal. You gave us a very heavy responsibility then -- one of conducting ourselves so that you will never be sorry you put us up there in the first place."^[81]

In late July 1973, in Standoff, Alberta, Higgitt was honored with a Kainai Chieftainship by the Blood Indian Band. Higgitt was given the Blackfoot name "Great Chief" and was presented with a head-dress and peace pipe by Joe Chief Body, Bob Black Plume, and Blood Reserve war veteran Pat Eaglechild.^[82] In turn, Higgitt and Sgt. B. Thorstad, NCO in charge of the RCMP's Cardston Detachment, presented Chief Jim Shot Both Sides with an honorary RCMP Centenary Winchester Rifle in appreciation of the one hundred years of peaceful association between the Blood Tribe and the RCMP; pledging that the RCMP would continue to work in the service of the Kainai and the Blackfoot Confederacy. Centennial neck medallions were also given to other present-day Chiefs of the tribes involved in the signing of Treaty 7: Chief Leo Pretty Young Man of the Blackfoot Band, Chief Gordon Crowchild of the Sarcee Band, Chief John Snow of the Wesley Band, and Chief Frank Kaquitts of the Chiniquay Band.^[83] In her address to Higgitt and the assembled Chiefs, Alberta Indian Princess Jenny Fox said: "I'm very happy to see so many people down here to honor the RCMP and new members of the Kainai Chieftainship. In spite of all the criticism and unfairness that some people give to the RCMP, we have to admit one thing, and that is that they have given us one of the most important things in our society today, that which is law and order".^[84]

Higgitt was also appointed Commander in the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (Order of St. John), invested with the insignia of that rank in 1971 by Governor General Roland Michener. He was awarded the Canadian Centennial Medal and the RCMP Long Service Medal.