“Are the two linked?”
“They are. As we talk, the Cubans are supporting terrorist groups trying to seize power in almost every country of Latin America. If they succeed, the Soviets will obtain bases in our backyard to threaten us with its nuclear weapons. And the FLQ will gain supporters to help it in its campaign to seize power in Quebec.”
In my naïveté, I agreed with Longshaft’s explanation, and told him so before asking what Canada could do to counter the threat.
“I’m convinced our first priority must be to help the United States combat the terrorists in Latin America. The free world must meet force with force. When pro-Cuban guerrilla groups pop up in the cities and countryside, we should stamp them out.”
“Why don’t we try pumping development assistance into these places to create jobs, deliver health care, and build roads and schools and the like to deal with the roots of unrest? Wouldn’t that be that be more effective?”
“That’s been tried but it’s never worked — takes too long and there’s too much corruption.”
“What about the morality of it all?”
“Just last Friday you agreed that, in exceptional circumstances, the usual rules of ethical conduct could be changed, didn’t you?”
“I did, but I came to that conclusion on logical grounds, not on moral ones.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
I didn’t press the point. Instead, I asked him how fighting terrorism in Latin America would help us combat the FLQ in Canada.
“The Americans know a lot about Cuban support for revolution in Latin America. They share that information with us. But they don’t know much about FLQ ties to the terrorist groups themselves. Or if they do, they’re not giving it to us.”
The subject interested me and I asked him what Canada was doing to find out more.
“At the moment, we’re getting ourselves organized. We’ve set up an Interdepartmental Task Force on International Terrorism to monitor developments and handle crises as they come along. One of the things I’m doing is posting hand-picked Foreign Service officer recruits to our embassies in the region to be our eyes and ears and report back on their findings. In your case, after a couple of years training at headquarters, you’re going to Colombia.”
“Does that mean I’m getting a job offer?”
Longshaft ignored my question and said, “I want you to find out what is going under the surface in that country, get a feel for the political climate, and find out how the security forces are doing in their counter insurgency campaigns. I want you to make an effort to get to know people in the barrios — that’s what they call slums in Colombia — and get out into the interior to see if there’s any truth to press reports that the terrorists are growing in strength. I want you to send your reports directly back to me at headquarters. The Task Force has its own communication centre here on the ninth floor. I’ll see that the right people get to see your product.”
“Why me?” I said. “Surely there are plenty of more capable recruits who’d do a better job.”
“I don’t like it when junior officers fish for compliments. I picked you because in the interview last Friday, you said the use of torture was acceptable in exceptional circumstances. I liked that. It shows intellectual courage. Ruthlessness if you will — something the average Canadian diplomat, who thinks compromise and reconciliation are virtues rather than signs of weakness, doesn’t possess. Ruthlessness in my line of work is good. And ruthlessness will be needed in your new assignment. You’re also a brown-skinned Métis — no offense intended. Terrorists love Aboriginal people. Your identity will give you a level of entree into a milieu not normally open to a white diplomat.”
I was offended and a little confused. Burump wanted me in the Department because Aboriginal Foreign Service officers could help Canada live up to what he claimed was its potential for good in the world. When he said that, I thought he had read too many stories in his boyhood comic book collection about noble Indians and half-breeds. And now Longshaft had just told me he wanted me in the Department because I had demonstrated a ruthless streak in the interview, like the Indian and Métis sons-of-bitches in his battalion.
But should I wish to take it, a position as a Foreign Service officer was now mine — but for the wrong reasons. I persuaded myself that if I hadn’t turned my back on the interview board, I would have been offered a job anyway, based on my merits rather than on my race. I reminded myself that I had done well academically — actually better than well — I had been an A student, was widely read, and had learned to speak Spanish quickly and fluently. I took refuge in the thought that I hadn’t asked the board to give me a job because I was a Métis — something I would never do. I told myself it wasn’t my fault that Burump and Longshaft wanted me to work for them because I stood for something that fulfilled their deepest fantasies.
In due course, a registered letter arrived from the Department with the offer and I accepted it, rejoicing at my good luck. But my joy was tempered by a sense of doubt, a feeling that I hadn’t earned entry to the Department on my merits.
4: Courting Charlotte
I threw in my lot with Longshaft and spent the summer on the ninth floor as I prepared myself for my posting to Colombia, set to begin in November 1969. The security guard greeted me with a pleasant “good morning Mr. Cadotte,” as he unlocked the steel door when I came to work in the mornings. Longshaft’s private secretary, Mary Somerville, now brought me coffee when I called on her boss. My new colleagues included two other recruits, Dan O’Shea and Gregoire Harding, who had joined the Department early in the year and would leave on their first postings in the late fall. I shared an office with them and they initiated me into the arcane world of the Canadian Security and Intelligence community.
More than four decades later, the security oath I swore on joining the Department still prevents me from saying exactly what we did. Let’s just say we began each day pawing through bags filled with intercepted diplomatic, military, and security communications, from friends and presumed enemies alike, looking for nuggets of information on the great international developments of the day not available anywhere else. We then spent the rest of our mornings reading assessments sent to us by other intelligence organizations, economic and political reports from Canada’s embassies, scholarly articles by academic experts, and scraps of information from anywhere, secret or unclassified, to put the intercepted information in context. The afternoons we pulled this information together and wrote reports for the most senior decision-makers of government, which, Dan and Gregoire told me, nobody read.
And the reason nobody read our reports, they said, was because our Intelligence partners didn’t share with us the really juicy information they got from their spy agencies. They kept that for themselves, to make their reports exclusive, and thus more interesting, for their leaders. Longshaft had been trying for years to persuade the government to establish Canada’s own spy service to collect the information the Brits and Americans wouldn’t give us, but had always been turned down. But when the FLQ began waging its war of terror in Quebec, the government changed its mind. The prime minister told Longstaff he could run a modest network of spies to collect information on terrorist organizations in Latin America to see if they supported the FLQ. But since there was no money in the budget, he said Foreign Service officers on their first postings would have to do the job.
“Just the same,” I said, “he must have a lot of influence to be able to persuade the prime minister to take a step of that nature.”
“The Guardians were on side and prepared the ground with the prime minister,” Dan said, assuming I knew what he was talking about. But I didn’t and said so, prompting Gregoire to explain who they were.
“It’s an informal group that’s been around for decades in one form or another,” he said. “There’s no entrance requirement other than being unattached politically and a member of the Public Service. In fact, you can’t apply to join. But if someone demonstra
tes the right stuff — being a progressive thinker seems to be the quality they look for — someone will take note and an invitation to join will be forthcoming.”
“What about excellence, industriousness, high personal ethics, and the like? Where do they fit in?”
“I suppose those qualities are taken into account but being a progressive thinker is more important.”
“And what does being a progressive thinker mean?”
“I suspect it means sharing the world view of the Guardians, but I really have no idea.”
“How do you know those things?” I said. “Do you belong?”
“No I don’t, but its existence has been an open secret in Ottawa for years. Most people in Ottawa think it’s just another Old Boys’ network, similar to other networks of influential people in towns and cities across Canada.”
“Its members come mainly from the Privy Council Office and departments like External Affairs, Finance, Public Safety, Justice, National Defence, and agencies like the RCMP and the CSEC,” Dan added. “They hold no formal meetings, and they don’t circulate agendas or records of decisions taken. Instead, they join the same fishing and luncheon clubs where they mix business with pleasure, reaching informal agreements on the advice to give to ministers and prime ministers in times of crisis. Their influence comes from the fact they’re based in and around the national capital and the political class is dependent on them for guidance. Longshaft may well ask you to join sooner or later … he seems to like you.”
I didn’t tell them I had no interest in joining such murky outfit and would say no if approached. Neither did I mention I was destined to become one Longshaft’s spies, afraid my new friends might laugh at me. Being so well informed, they probably knew that anyway but, being discreet, never mentioned the matter to me. They likewise said nothing when other junior officers of the class of 1966, recruited like me to do some part-time espionage work in Latin America, joined us on the ninth floor.
Dan and Gregoire had rented a cottage at Lake Kingsmere in the Gatineau Hills, across the Ottawa River from Ottawa, and were looking for someone to share the costs, so I agreed to be the third. After buying a car and moving in, I discovered the cottage was the unofficial hangout for new Foreign Service officers. Every Saturday afternoon, twenty or so classmates, together with their wives, girlfriends, and friends, would come with their bathing suits and supplies of food, beer, and wine to swim, dance, and talk until late in the evening.
Those who had joined up early in the year briefed the newcomers on their headquarters assignments. The new recruits listened with deference to the words of our experienced colleagues hoping to pick up some pointers. Everyone was proud to be a member of the Department and we talked about the things we would do to make the world a better place. Some said they wanted to help stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Others wanted to end Third World hunger. Still others wanted to save the planet from environmental ruin. Nobody said they wanted to be an intelligence analyst reading the private mail of other countries or a secret agent spying on Latin American revolutionaries.
It was at one of those parties toward the end of the summer that I met Charlotte Lefidèle. She wasn’t a Foreign Service officer and I don’t know who brought her, but as we sat around a campfire on the beach, I saw her looking at me. I smiled and she smiled in return. I got up and joined her, asking her in English if she was alone. She answered in French saying she was. When I answered in French, she said she’d been looking at the Foreign Service officers to see if she could identify the Quebeckers by their appearance. “And you,” she said, “are a Quebecker.”
When I asked her why she would waste her time that way, she said it was just for something to do. “I don’t know anyone here, and the person I came with left without me.”
“Well you’re wrong … I’m a francophone Métis from Ontario.”
“Then I guess Quebeckers look like francophone Métis,” she said, laughing. “I’m not a Quebecker either. I’m Franco-Ontarian from Ottawa, although my mother comes from Quebec City. But let’s drop the subject. Tell me, what do you do? Are you a Foreign Service officer?”
The light wasn’t good and it was hard to read her expression, but I had the impression I had just passed some sort of test when I said yes. “Could you give me a ride back to the city,” she said. “I’ve no way to get home.”
A few days later, we had lunch together in a small restaurant in the market area of the city, and I saw her in the light of day. She was older than I had initially thought, but made up in sophistication what she lacked in good looks. She ordered escargots for her first course and I did the same, even though I wasn’t enthusiastic about eating the slimy little things. She ordered steak tatare with a raw egg yolk on top, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of eating raw hamburger and ordered a well-done steak and french fries. She told me a Beaujolais would go well with escargots, steak tatare, and steak. I ordered a bottle and she drank most of it.
I told her I had gone to the University of Ottawa before joining the Department. She said she had attended the same university “a few years earlier,” had written the Foreign Service officer exams, but had not received a job offer, and had settled for a job as a nursery school teacher. I told her I had lived in Penetang before Ottawa, and she said she had once visited Martyr’s Shrine to pray at the Stations of the Cross, but hadn’t had time to visit my hometown. She told me she had lived in Ottawa all her life but her passion was travel, especially to Mexico and Cuba, which she had visited many times, learning Spanish in the process.
I told her my dad was a stevedore on the docks and my grandpapa had traded in furs with the Indians in the early days. She said her father was a judge, her grandfather and great grandfather had been judges. I told her I was an only child, and she told me she had a brother who was a lawyer married to a former teacher who had given up her career to raise a family. She also had a sister who had wed her childhood sweetheart who was now a superintendent in the RCMP. In reply to her question, I told her I was a practicing Catholic, and she said she went to mass every Sunday and didn’t believe in taking the pill because the pope was opposed to birth control. I told her I was working as an analyst in the Department and was scheduled to be posted to Colombia in the fall of 1968. She told me she had always wanted to live in Colombia.
In the weeks that followed, we saw a lot of each other. Most days after work, we met for drinks at a neighbourhood pub, sometimes going back to her apartment to spend more time together. She made it clear from the outset, however, that she didn’t believe in premarital sex and told me to keep my hands to myself. About a month into the relationship, she invited me to meet her family at Sunday dinner. The evening was a great success. Everybody went out of their way to make me feel welcome. The judge, it turned out, had many friends in the Department, many of them ambassadors, several of whom I had even heard of. The RCMP superintendent, corpulent and red-faced, who had married the oldest daughter, knew Longshaft professionally and said he was a “know-it-all snob.” The lawyer son said he had considered applying to join the Department after he had been called to the bar, but Foreign Service salaries were low, his then fiancée was afraid of bugs and poisonous snakes and foreigners, and wanted to live in Ottawa, close to her mother.
It turned out that Charlotte had told everyone that I was a Métis, and to make me feel comfortable, Madame Lefidèle said her great-great grandmother had been a Huron from Loretteville, the Indian reserve near Quebec City. Not to look pedantic, I didn’t tell her the Hurons originally came from the Penetang area and some of them had sought refuge with the French colonial government at Quebec City after their wars with the Iroquois in the mid-seventeenth century. The meal was served by a uniformed maid on porcelain dishes and eaten with sterling silver cutlery. The judge opened bottles of fine imported French wines and took the time to explain to me the differences between a Chateau Angelus grand cru classé and a Vosné Romanée. I went home with the distinct impression that the family approved of me. I w
as francophone, Catholic, a Foreign Service officer, and unmarried — a perfect catch for the youngest daughter who was no longer young. My Métis identity was irrelevant.
In the months following the dinner, the Lefidèle family welcomed me into their circle. Every Sunday, dressed in a well-cut navy blue suit, a freshly pressed white shirt, and an elegant silk tie — purchased from the Timothy Eaton Company with my first paycheque — I accompanied the family, grandchildren and all, to Sunday services at the Basilique Notre Dame. Afterward, I went back for Sunday lunches and tried to look interested as the family complained about the absence of Latin in the mass, the use of guitars during the hymn singing, and the unseemly familiarity displayed by the priest to the congregation — all unnecessary reforms imposed by Pope John XXIII. After lunch, we took coffee in the parlour and as the others meandered on about family affairs, I nodded and listened as if I was already married to Charlotte.
When the family left on weekends for their ski chalet in the Gatineau Hills that winter, I accompanied them. I bought a pair of skis, ski boots, and poles, and Charlotte gave me calf-skin gloves, a stylish ski jacket, and a white sweater for après-ski. I gave her a Métis sash, which she wore for the rest of the winter. She introduced me to classical music, taking me to performances of Handel’s Messiah at the Basilique, to string quartets from visiting groups at churches throughout the city, and to performances of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra. I didn’t enjoy myself but pretended I did. She included me in the small dinners and cocktails held by the members of her close circle of friends. She enjoyed herself but I didn’t. The highlight of the summer was a visit we made to Ile Sainte-Helene in Montreal to take in Expo ’67, the world’s fair hosted by Canada to mark Canada’s centennial year. We visited the La Ronde amusement park, Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, as many national pavilions as we could, and an open-air Ed Sullivan show featuring the Supremes and Petula Clark. We had a ball.
Exceptional Circumstances Page 5
