I am a Cold Warrior. I grew up in the heat of it, and for the final decade of it, I was directly involved. It was intense. It was personal, and it left me with a profound sense of accomplishment. But unlike the shelling of Ft. Sumter (1861), or the invasion of Serbia (1914) or the Poland (1939), the actual beginning of the Cold War is a bit more… nebulous.
One could argue that the roots of the Cold War was in the politics and stresses of the pre-war years and the inevitable ideological struggle between communism and the liberal western democracies. But when did it actual… you know… start?
Igor Gouzenko in 1946Public Domain
What if the whole thing started with a crying baby?
In September of 1945, a young Soviet embassy staffer walked in to the office of the Ottawa Journal, carrying a briefcase. He asked to see the editor of the paper, he hesitated and chose not to reveal his reason for the visit. Later that day, his resolved steeled, he returned, but was told that Editor was not in the office.
The disappointed and nervous young man left and went home. But the next day, his request for Canadian Citizenship would be the catalyst for the next forty-six years of the Cold War…

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