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Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 10:59:34 -0400
From: Floyd Rudmin <frudmin@psyk.uit.no>
It is interesting that economic warfare is coming to the for now.
However, it is certainly not a new activity. The US had economic
warfare specialists during WWII. Two of them came into Canada
and were instrumental in getting rid of Diefenbaker.
Livingston Merchant and William Walter Butterworth were both
Princeton Univ. graduates. Both worked in economic warfare
in Europe. Both went to China immediately after WWII, along with
William Casey, Reagan's 1980 campaign director and later CIA director.
Merchant served in 1950 with the Office of Policy Coordination,
comprised of former OSS officers engaged in covert operations.
His main project was a covert counter-insurgency program in the
Philippines against the Huk Balahap guerillas fighting for
rural land reform. He was US ambassador to Canada 1956-1958,
and again 1961-1962. In the interim, he was in Washington,
part of the group arranging the assassination of Patric
Lamumba in the Congo.
In 1961, the CIA's National Intelligence Estimate #99-61
entitled "Trends in Canadian Foreign Policy" concluded
that the political evolution of Canada, the natural course of events,
would lead to "a sharpened sense of national unity, including
an improved relationship between the major English- and French-speaking
communities." Lisee (p.29) praises this document as
"clairvoyant" because of its "uncanny accuracy" and said,
"it reads like a retrospective on a decade that had barely begun".
Unfortunately, from the CIA's perspective, growing Canadian
national unity also means growing anti-Americanism.
When Livingston Merchant was posted to Ottawa as US ambassador,
at least eight more US espionage officers were posted to Canada,
including Louis A. Wiesner, a former OSS officer, as 1st Secretary
in Ottawa and Robert D. Yoder, a veteran of the Philippines
operations, as consular officer in Quebec City.
In 1962, the Pentagon began a secret project in Quebec code
named "Task Revolt", which has never been examined in detail
or explained.
Merchant also orchestrated the US project to get rid of Prime
Minister Diefenbaker, including subverting Canadian air force
officers, for example, Wing Commander Bill Lee, and propagandizing
the Canadian press, for example, Arch MacKenzie and Charles Lynch.
Butterworth was US ambassador to Canada from 1962 to 1968. During
WWII, he at one point was an equal with Allen Dulles, as a top
secret contact with Walter Schellenberg, chief of German
military intelligence.
At least six more US diplomats with intelligence backgrounds
were posted to Canada in 1962, including Richard H. Courtenaye
as consul general in Quebec City and Joanna W. Witzel (Martin)
as vice consul, both fluent in French.
Buttworth continued to orchestrate the US project to get rid
of Diefenbaker. For the 1962 June elections, President Kennedy's
friend and pollster, Lou Harris, is appointed campaign advisor
to the Liberals. He operates under the pseudonym of Lou Smith. Diefenbaker
survives with a minority government.
One curious thing in 1962 is a letter from a young Brian Mulroney
to the White House professing his admiration and asking for a
copy of their campaign organization manual.
In 1962, Diefenbaker, with the support of both opposition parties
and of British Prime Minister Macmillan, refused to put Canadian
military forces on alert for President Kennedy's Cuban Missile
Crisis. But the Canadian Air Force obeyed the Pentagon and
went on alert anyway.
January 30, 1963, Butterworth drafted a press release
insinuating that Diefenbaker is a liar. As a result, one week
later his minority government falls. The press release was
conceived by one-time CIA advisor Willis Armstrong,
was written by Butterworth, polished by George Ball, and
approved by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. In a
later memo to President Lyndon Johnson, Bundy joked that
"George Ball and I knocked over the Diefenbaker government
with one incautious press release".
In 1963, Le Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ) is finally operational,
and revolt begins with the first FLQ bombs in late April.
In 1963, The US National Security Agency (NSA) begins almost two
decades of intercepting communications by and about Rene Levesque.
These are still classified TOP SECRET. In a 1989 court proceedings,
NSA made an argument, which is also secret, that public release of
these intercepts "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave
damage to the national security".
In 1964, At least three more US diplomats with espionage backgrounds are
posted to Canada. Arriving in Ottawa in July are Joseph W. Scott, Deputy
Director of Coordination for the Bureau of Intelligence Research, to work
as Deputy Chief of Mission, and William M. Johnson, Jr., fresh from
Canada's National Defence College, to work as counsellor on political
affairs.
In August, 1964, the Revolutionary Army of Quebec sets up a training
camp in St. Boniface, Quebec.
In April, 1965, US consul general in Montreal, Richard Hawkins, arranges
for Andre Patry to meet privately in Washington DC with two State
Department officials. The Canadian embassy was not informed. Patry was a
Quebec separatist and advisor to Quebec's Premier Lesage.
In 1965, at least 11 new US diplomats posted to Canada have intelligence
backgrounds. These include Frederick S. Quin and Harry F. Cunningham to
Quebec City, and Leon A. Shelnutt, Roger A. Provencher, Richard D. Harding,
and Harrison W. Burgess to Montreal. Charles Kiselyak moves to Washington
as officer-in-charge of Canadian Affairs.
For the 1965 November elections, the Liberal Party hires US pollster Oliver
Quayle, known as "Olly" to his friends in the White House, whom he keeps
well informed of the campaign.
In 1966,"Task Revolt" is exposed by Conservative Party MPs.
Pressed by former Prime Minister Diefenbaker, Prime Minister
Pearson admits that the Canadian government did not know about this
US espionage projects.
In 1966, Brian Mulroney, Jean Bazin, and others help manipulate
first the Quebec and then the national Conservative Party conventions
to remove Diefenbaker from leadership. Bazin had been president
of the Canadian Union of Students, had coached Mulroney through his
third try at passing the Bar exams, and provided legal services to
the US-owned Iron Ore Company of Canada, which later hired Mulroney as
president, giving him the stature, connections, and other resources
needed to become a serious political contender.
In 1967, Samuel J. Hamrick Jr. is posted to Montreal as a
staff aide. According to Who's Who in CIA, he was a specialist
in economic sabotage.
In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle comes to Montreal and
declares, "Vive le Quebec libre". One unnamed CIA official told Lisee that
"everybody howled with glee" at the political nightmare this would
cause for Canada.
In 1967, the National Student Association of Canada appears in a
list of organizations that have been funded by CIA money coming
through the Rebb Charitable Foundation and the J. Frederick Brown
Foundation.
In 1967, James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr.,
had four false IDs, all based on men living in Toronto, a city he
had never visited. His Eric Galt ID included information only
available in Galt's security clearance file at Union Carbide, which was
accessible by RCMP and US intelligence services. Ray claims he received
his false IDs in 1967 in Montreal from Raoul Maora, who has been
identified by an unnamed former CIA agent and by one Jules Ron Kimble
to have been a CIA false identities specialist living in Mount Royal.
In 1967, the CIA has a training camp near Trois Riviere,
ccording to a 1989 BBC documentary.
In 1967, Gerald Bull's Space Research Corp. is created with
CIA support and is situated south of Montreal on a 10,000 acre
cross-border property explicitly located for the purpose of
moving munitions without normal border controls.
In 1967, the Quebec Liberal Party convention orchestrates a
rejection of Rene Levesque. In attendance is US espionage
agent Frederick Quin.
In 1967, US intelligence services learn that France has budgeted
$5 million to promote Quebec independence. This information is
not passed on to the Canadian government.
A secret US intelligence document produced in February 1968
entitled "Quebec, Ottawa, Confederation: The 1968 Round Begins"
oncludes that Rene Levesque is "articulate and
influential" and brings "a new respectability" to separatism.
In 1968, George Ball writes that Canada-US free trade is inevitable and
will lead eventually to political union, to the benefit of Canadians.
In 1968, one week prior to the founding convention of the Parti
Quebecois, US consul general in Montreal, Richard Hawkins,
invites Rene Levesque to his home for a "familiarization visit"
with Edward W. Doherty, who was a career intelligence agent then
working in the US State Department's Planning Council in Washington DC.
All of this activity took place when economic warfare specialist
Butterworth was ambassador to Canada. In 1969, the new man replacing
Butterworth was Adolph W. Schmidt. While serving in the
OSS during WWII, he took over William Casey's espionage projects
in Germany when Casey shifted his activities to China.
So, economic warfare is not just something that affects Third World
countries. See my web article for citations of sources of
information for this little account.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ucurrent/uc5/5-rudmin.html
**********************************************************
Floyd W. Rudmin
"History is a nightmare,
Institute of Psychology from which I am trying
University of Tromsų to awake."
Tromsų, Norway, N-9037 James Joyce
Tel: +47 77 64 59 53
Email: FRudmin@Psyk.UiT.No
FAX: +47 77 64 52 91
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