Zabotin, Nikolai

(c. 1910– )

   As GRU rezident in Ottawa from 1943 to 1945, Zabotin had a successful career, managing a staff of 14 officers and running important agents in the Canadian and British governments and within the Anglo-American nuclear weapons program. His rezidentura’s most important agent was Allan Nunn May, a Canadian nuclear physicist. But when Igor Gouzenko, one of Zabotin’s code clerks with whom he had very good relations, defected in September 1945, Zabotin’s career and life changed forever. His agents were exposed and several went to prison. Zabotin was blamed for Gouzenko’s treachery and recalled to Moscow. A special commission headed by Lavrenty Beria and Viktor Abakumov was created by Joseph Stalin to investigate Zabotin’s rezidentura. He was found guilty of professional misconduct, and he, his wife, and son were rusticated in a forced labor camp until 1953.