Ratkai was born in 1963 (25 years old in 1988) near Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He had a troubled childhood: his mother killed his half-sister and herself when he was five years old, and his father returned to Budapest with his young son. Ratkai grew up in both Hungary and Canada, finishing high school in Canada and attempting unsuccessfully to join the Canadian Forces when he was 19. Rejected on physical grounds, he returned to Budapest and studied chemical engineering.[1]
Espionage
While studying in Hungary, Ratkai was recruited by Soviet Intelligence to act as a courier for operations in Canada. His first mission was to receive documents from an apparently disaffected US Navy officer stationed in Argentia, Newfoundland. The officer, Lieutenant Donna Geiger, was actually a double agent, and the entire situation was a "sting" operation concocted by the US Naval Investigative Service;[2] after meeting her several times, receiving documents pertaining to the US SOSUS network, and paying her several thousand dollars, Ratkai was arrested by the RCMP at the Hotel Newfoundland in St. John's, Newfoundland on June 11, 1988.[1][3]
Apparently a model prisoner, Ratkai was released on parole to a Moncton, New Brunswick, halfway house. He got a job as a bricklayer, and later returned to Hungary in 1993. In 1994, he was reportedly selling trucks in Budapest.[1]
^Security Awareness in the 1980s:Featured Articles from the Security Awareness Bulletin, 1981-1989. Richmond, Virginia: Department of Defense Security Institute. p. 202. ISBN0-941375-50-1.
