https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/d297a0a5093cbfceb2fe6fb313639569.pdf e00d713880f63d06271919be4e3f10b3 PDF Text Text File No, Dossier Volume _ _ _ / _ ^va-/^vA 7 .From-De 7 g g £ k 2 To-A Zf^/^1 CLASSIFIED ,«iwa(fti rthiS ftCCBS\Q»^ rn x or en i -*-—^r r- TITLE—TITRE: f POLITICAL AFFAIRS INTERNAL SECURITY TASK FORCE ON KIDNAPPING ORAL HISTORY PROGRAMME TOM READ ' lis 3 53£ JS- '€*P Retention period-Periode de retention: • EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE CANADA AFFAIRES EXTERIEURES ET COMMERCE EXTERIEUR CANADA �Questions for Vr. Bead Tou were one of t>*e first people in Ottawa to Vnow about the kidn^pDing of Mr, Cross. Could you describe the events of the morning of the 5th October as they h^Dienei to you? Can you describe the first meeting of the Task Force - your ovm reaction to the crisis, the general tenor within the group, your special ore* of concern? Did members of the diplomatic corps approach you about other aspects of the crisis than their protection? Tn view of the many compldnts by dlplonats about inadequate protection (personal and property^ during the crisis, did you (in Protocol) feel that the arrangements should have been altered? Did you propose changes In the protection policy? Since the crisis, what measures have been taken (emanating from Protocol or elsewhere in D M ) to encourage the Department of Justice to introduce legislation to improve the system for protecting forel<=rn representatives in Canada? What arrangements did you, as a member of the Task Force, ^eVe with the Armed "orces and the pollce? ^hat were the circumstances leading up to the refusal of the Armed Forces to protect diplomatic missions, wntil their change of policy in early November? What about the RCRP and the municlple polie*? (Could you explain the discrepancy suggested in the note by Mathieu on you "Note for the Task Force on Protection of Foreign Representatives," October 16th?) When were you first sent to Montreal and why? Did you go at different times for different reasons? work ymx were doing there? Can you tell un about the Do yoa recall any personal incidents? Who else was in Montreal (from Ottawa) at the same time as you? Did vou work �independently or together? —Could you describe the Montreal T«sk Forco, ito set-up and its work? With whom were you dealing on the Quebec side? How would you describe the working relationship between federal (Task Force) people and thoir Qnebeo counterparts? \y Were you directly concerned with the formulation of tho safe conduct arrangements? Were other places than Torre des Hommes and tho Cuban Consulate seriously considered? Could you elaborate your suggestions on improving the safe conduct mechanism? Un ovAnraent comme celui quo vous avez vecu a-t-il d'une facon ou d'une autre modifie votro fagon do comprondro ou do voir lo Canada Francois? Sans votre bureau, £ p-rt vous, oette crise a-t-elle, en plus de faire un peu pour fait prendre eonscienco du problems franoais £ vos collogues d'expression anglaise, ou sont -ils demeuros indifferents? D*apres vous, croyez-vous que des incidents semblabloa peuvent aider la cause des manlfestants ou ne peuvent que noiroir leur imago? Could you comment on the document, "Protection of fmbassios," (submitted to tho Security Panel Meeting of November 27th, 1970 ) , an^ri particular pago 5» paragraph 10, last sentence? �QUESTIONS rt)h MR. READ Could you d e s c r i b e t h e Montreal Task Force, i t s s e t - u p , and i t s work? In vour c o n t a c t s with people in Montreal (Dmers, she p o l i c e , and o t h e r a ) did you g e t the i-npression of a p r o v i n c i a l a t t i t u d e toward the government' s r o l e i n t h e federal affair? Were p e r s o n a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s ( f a v o u r i t i s m , s u s p i c i o n s , jealousie^) obvious o r i m p o r t a n t ? Within vour e x p e r i e n c e , would you d e s c r i b e t h e working r e l a t i o n s h i p of f e d e r a l and p r o v i n c i a l r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s a s good? Could vou e l a b o r a t e your s u g g e s t i o n s for the improvement of t h e s a f e conduct mechanism? ' Could you mention some of t h e s u g g e s t i o n s for f u t u r e task force I o p e r a t i o n s you had i n mind for Mr. Barker? What were the c o m p l i c a t i o n s in o r g a n i z i n g t r a v e l documents for t h e kidnappers? I s P r o t o c o l involved i n p r o v i d i n g t r a v e l documents to the e x i l e d Felquistes i f they should d e c i d e t o r e t u r n t o Canada? Can you shed any l i g h t on t h e problem o ' i d e n t i f y i n g P i e r r e Seguin as Yves Langlois? 010478 �QUESTIONS FOR MR. RLAD Did p r e s s u r e .from t h e d i p l o m a t i c corps clause you t o urge changes i n t h e p r o t e c .i m p o l i c e ? Has t h e r e been g e n e r a l agreement i n protocol-DEA about what changes i n the p r o t e c t i o n p o l i c y a r e needed? Since trie c r i s i s , what has been done t o g e t t h e s e changes i n t o o p e r a t i o n ? C apres vous, croyez-vous q u ' u n i n c i d e n t conme c e l u i - l a a arwSanti completement l e mowement r e v o l u t i o n a i r e Qusoecois, ou croyez-vous que ces m a n i f e s t a n t s p a ^ r e r o n t a I ' a c t i o n t 8 t ou t a r d ? Un evenement comme c e l u i que vous avez vecu a - t - i l d ' u n e facon ou d ' u n e a u t r e ' modi f i e v o t r e o p t i q u e s u r l e Canada Franc, a i s ? * Do you t h i n k t n e c r i s i s has c o n t r i b u t e d t o a wider u n d e r s t a n d i n g of Quebec's problems? 010479 �Could you clarify the mysterious appearance of various photographers at Terre des Hommes December 3rd* Why, in the first place, was Robert Demers giving orders aoout photographers? Why, when those orders had been given apparently in his interest, did Choquette arrive on the scene with a jouranlist arranged for by the British Regional Information Office? Why, when the British had arranged for the presence of a photographer, was there great emoarrassment (Ashford's) when Bourassa turned up with his photographer? Did you see Lord Dunrossil arrive with Choquette? Could you comment further on the famous voyage from Terre des Hommes to the Jewish Hospital? Who was with you in Captain Marquis' police car? How much a t t e n t i o n wa? given to the p o s s i b i l i t y of another FLQ c e l l re-kidnapping Cross? Have you in Protocol Division made provisions for legal /travel documents for the I exiled Felquistes if they decide to return to Canada and face trial? 010480 �V Our interview with Mr. Read on the events of October, 1970, brought to light somo information which, though peripheral, is useful) it clarified certain areas left unclear by the files, and added to the general picture of the crisis. 1. It delimited Task Force activity in Montreal to the four man operation (Roquet, Read, Dery, Dier) on December 3rd. (It had been unclear hov; much work was done by the Task Force in Montreal.) 2. Mr. Read was very specific with suggestions on how to run a future operations contre from a hotel room. (The number of telephones, including a direct line to v Ottawa, a steno, T.V., AM and FM radios, etc.) 3. It was revealing to us that members of the Task Force (like Mr. Read) had no idea who else on the Task Force had planned the operation at Terre des Hommes and the terms for safe conduct of the kidnappers. 4.. He made some specific recommendations for future safe conduct arrangements which would probably be applicable to other sorts of crisis arrangements, emphasising the need for a trouble shooter in complete charge at every point in the operation (as in the trip from rue des Recollets to the consulate). 5. We got new insight into the way the Cubans ran their diplomatic offices in 1970, how closely they kept in telephonic touch with Havana on deciding very small details, and that Escartin was likely a much more influential man than his position indicated. 6. One of the main points Mr. Read emphasised was the lack of efficiency which the tri-level nature of the operation dictated: the lack of cooperativeness and communication among the federal people in Montreal, the British Trade Commission, and the provincial government. 7. He corrected our misimpression that there was considerable communication between Ottawa and the Montreal Office of Choquette and Bourassa, and noted that the main line was Ottawa-Quebec. �Mr. Read pointed out that Robert Demers was selected as government negotiator because of his personal friendship with Mr. Gho.iuette and the fact that he had organized the latter*s political campaign. The lack of coordination with the army, who were controlling the entry point to Terre des Hommes when Roquet and Dier tried with great difficulty to reach the Cuban Consulate, and again in arranging for the protection of diplomatic representatives in Montreal, suggests an aroa which would benefit from study for future crises. *. Mr. Read said the decision not to use the army to assist in the protection of diplomats in Ottawa was made by th? £rime Minister, who subsequently seemed surprised that it was so. He contributed the view that while the Task Force tended to see itself as the hub of the rescue operation, the Quebec Government undoubtedly felt itself to be the real centre. Mr. Read elaborated on his memoranda (on file) on negotiating the arrangements for the use of Terre des Hommes, and on developments since 1970 on measures for protecting diplomats. And he added to the lore and personal storiei interwoven in the events of 1970. �ORAL HISTORY ACCESSION FORM HISTOIRE ORALE: FORMULE D'ACCESSION * A c c e s s i o n number 'Numero .1' 1-7 31 and 1970 C r i s i s Interviewee 'Enquete Interviewer.'En queteur Tom Read Arther Blanchette N P . if t a ; » e s / T r a n s c r i p t s , \ ° da hohines/Transcriptions D urati on /Duree Date Location 25/1/74 Quality of recording 'Qua lite i]c I'enrefiistrement 4/0 Description INT E P VIE WEE /ENQUETE reeei v e d / r e c u sent/envoye Contryct/Confrar I Letter/Leffre Contract/Contrat |_ [_ I L e t t e r / L e f r r e [_ i 1 '—' New interview required Nouvelle intrevue nee esse ire Date sent 'envoyf (received Ve^u • classification CLOSED U N T I L / F E / ? M £ JUSQU'A , In accordance with government regulations Conform€ment aux reglements du gouvernement 2. Death of interviewee 'De'ces de l'enquSt4 3. Other / A(jrre Copy write held by /Droits 'ENQUETEUR j Tape checked by interviewer for quality Qualite de la bobine veritiie par I'enquSteur Level of secrecy//V/veau de INTERVIEWER j I I • • d'auteur ddtnnus par Restrictions EXTERNAL. AEFAIRS Additional comments/Aufres commenfaires Person(s) r e s p o n s i b l e for coUection/Resportsab/e('s> de la collection Signature Signature r • >*3 010483 �a c c e s s i o n Numoer/Numero 1-7 WORK PROGRESS/'ACHEMINEMENT a'entree DU TRAVAIL Verified by/ Date Verifie Tape received/Reception de la par bobine. X Re-recording/Re-enregistrement. prepared'/transcription. Transcript Transcript checked for errors/ verification typographique. Transcript checked against tape/ confrontation transcription - bobine. References checked in Library/ verification bibliothdque des references en Final Proofreading/ verification finale. Retyping if necessary/ Nouvelle copie si necessaire. Copy sent to Interviewee/ verification par par received/regu sent/envoye received/regu enquete. Copy sent to interviewer/ verification sent/envoye enqueteur. finale. Final typing/copie Subject index (on card)/ Index sujet (sur fiche). Filing of Tape/Rangement de la bobine. Filing of Transcript/ Rangement de la transcription. Filing of Index card/ Rangement de la fiche sujet. Filing of accession form/ Rangement de la formule d'accession. EXT 1 6 1 010484 �OCTOBER CRISIS ^ ^ ^ Taped interview with Mr. Ton Head. The interview was conducted by ^ • r n . Joan Halstead and ;irs. Andree Arnyot. Blanchette: I think this is going to be a real adventure. This is the first in .Pant I hope will be a series of very long and fruitful interveiws regarding the events of October, 1970 and the role that this Department player, in those events. And from that point of view you, Tom, are a historic Read: first. '.'/ell I am the grain of sand, the fir3t one from which the beach starts obviously. l»4i Blanchette: (5»3B£j=gHB3t. It£ taken a long time to get this project started. It started nearly, two years ago when Bill Barton made a suggestion to ne that it v/ould wise to try to fill the gaps and our knowledge of v/hat happened by interviewing the people concerned. It took several months to find people who would have tine to do the research and do the planning, aad pventually v/e were lucky to find Jean Halstead and Andr^e Amyot, and I must say the Penartnent/ is very grateful for the long hours of work and the excellent P research that they have done over the past year. ||We've divided this project into three phases Ton, in case you don't know. > VThe first, and it starts today, is aimed at completing the Department's written record of the crisis. Quite a number of gaps have been found in our knowledge. Frequently decisions were taken and there •ims no written evidence of v/hy or the background, aad At the same time what we're trying to do is to set up a basic model whore some sort of procedure v/hich could possibly be of use to other Task Forces involved in other crises. The second phase will entail interviews with outside officials, other government departments and eventually we'll move to the political rutin* L f32c^.~t.*t level on the provinoial side and on the frriramal side in due course. ... 2 010485 �- 2 Blanchette: ^P So this first session is starting off in a very fitting way I U.t3t find. As far as I know, you awe the first, or one of the very first people to know, to learn a£ what had happened and it came about in a very traditional way. You were dealing with diplomats who were worried and with people on the protocol side v/ho sought the protection of this Departpent and I think among the very first questions that we have put on the i? list wag: well precisely that one. ||You were one of the very first in Ottawa to know about the kidnapping, and I am wondering whether you'd like to describe the events of that morning. ss they occurred to you. The events of October 5. .That time did you learn about this, were you taken out of your bed and taken out of your home or was it at the office, how did it come about? Read: 35xe$ I can't rehearse all the events of that morning. But tho first one I do renember was that finally I'd got together with Eel MeCormick to discuss the telephones in Protocol Division and the ^y distribution of telephone lines, it was something that v/as badly overdue, and it was Mel who was sitting in my of f ice. j^nd we had started to say .veil so and so needs a line and so and so must have an extension and that sort of thing. My recollection is that it v/as about 9:20 A.M. when the telephone rang and the call was put through. It was from the British High Commission, and regretably I can't remember who it v/as, my impression •s'\ .ES ie now.a-days it being John Clayton who would have responsibility for u phoning ne or, or John Dpnrossil. But I c a n ' t remember who i t v/as i n r .. ,, , t- •R? those days and I suspect it was either Bmoruo Davis or maybe Mike McConnville, both of whom have left, aad -£he call was simply to me saying, "Ton, I think v/e may have some trouble, it seems that Jasper Cross, our Trade Commissioner in Montreal has been kidnapped". Of course that ... 3 010486 �- 3Read: ^fc terminated any further attempt to allocate the telephones in Protocol Division,aad Mel realized that something really earth shattering had happened and he said, "I better come back later", and he withdrew^ which was very kind of him. I can remember that my first thought was the problem of v/riting an anticipated question and a proposed answer for the Minister in the House of Commons. I suppose that in moments of crisis you nind gets into the easiest path and all I could think of i was the problem of v/riting a Memorandum for the Minister that, yes^ we know that the senior Trade Commissioner of Britain in Montreal has been kidnapped'', yesyeverything is being done and try and unscramble this for presentation in the House. But aside from that, I do know that I got hold of somebody 4 7 in the division immediately and said, "telephone the Undersecretary immediately to say that the word has reached us". What happened thereafter I am blank on. I do know that within a very short space of tine I was called by the Under-Secretary's office to say that a Task Force was being created and would I please turn up in the Op^ta : -.• Centre at 11 o'clock. I suspect that part of the blanking was sort of routine, that v/hat in point of fact happened v/as that I went into Cote .and its probably Cote, Jute Cote, Chief of Protocol at the tine^ who called the Under-Secretary. That would be such a normal thing that it wouldn't really attract attention and, you know, wouldn't create an extra path in the memory process. I remember also then noving across to the East Block for the first meeting of the Task Force^and the usual sense of excitement that you get when you walk into the Operations Centre for the first tine I suppose. It isn't a customary sight v/hen the first time you ... 4 010487 �- 4 Read: _^ wall: in and see the group of departmental senior people moving into position., so to speak .with finally CA Ritchie coming in and sitting down, on the side of the roomer actually but by doing so bringing the attention of everybody into it. quite certain, po. I can now see that John was in on that but I am not I think one of the interesting things about the Task Pores- to begin with was ti*», perhaps it was a personal feeling, |put I cor? sensed that nobody knew anything about a Task Force v/ith the objective < aich. as the recovery of a kidnapped Trade Commissioner. ^id it v/as in a sense that we were approaching this to see v/hat would happen and hov/ things v/ould develop, /ffhat, I fancy that in calling it a Task Force in the first place that 3d had something fairly concrete in nind, and certainly the central elenent of the organization, of the Force Was to put somebody in charge and he chose Claude Roquet. -Which was a very satisfying choice, to ne personally. -» I had shared an office v/ith Claude some years .before, had a great appreciation of him, at 1 east a great admiration for his talents.and also thought he was a past master at getting along with people. and concerned person to work v/ith. He was a very charming But once he was nominated, the work of the Task Force, I think, so far as I am concerned, pretty v/ell became a blur. The problem facing ne in regard to the Task Force was that I v/as not only a person to sit and deliberate on the problens created by the kidnapping of Mr. Cross.but I was also responsible for the executive actions required for the protection of diplomats, so that one kidnapping did not become a secondhand not a third. Now this put considerable strains, physical as v/ell as mental, jj|nd the physical one that I v/as having a hard tine to deal with at all. I had had a slipped ... 5 010488 �- 5 disc in September and I was in bed for three weeks;and had been in hospital for three days and'then this thing happened aacr I was still walking around with a canevj^id vrLth, if one v/ere permitted to suggestions as to how to run another Task ForceL-'bf the sane type, the answer would be to have it anywhere but in that particular Operations Centre in the East Block which had three levels^ ««e- prying to gallop up and down three levels with a cane, to try and answer a telephone v/hich (darn it) rang only on the top floor or on one of the call directors v/as asking too much. However we'll cover that perhaps later. The problen was for ne though how to manage this executive business at the sane time as the deliberative side. In the end, I became more and more preoccupied with the practical side of protection and after two weeks or so I left the Task Force and moved back into my own office simply because I had no office space, no telephone, no secretary, no privacy in which to organize the protection for diplomats in response to their requests or 6- in response to p^ceived need. I think thisA had another impact on my personal experience on the Task Force and that was that very many times when the Task Force was meeting there was a telephone call and I would be these rsmoved from a meeting and taken outside to one of/ telephones v/hether it ••.vas on the third level or on the second or the first to answer some urgent inquiry. Now, I had a f a i r l y e f f i c i e n t back-up, "fhats to say Dan McKinnon; (who i s no w v/ith Treasury Board, h e ' s l e f t the Department! Dan McKinnon was standing in for me as far as he could in regard to the routine i n q u i r i e s , the routine p r o t e c t i o n as managed by the d i v i s i o n during my absence. But there were too many occasions on which i t v/as up to me to get hold of Dan and apply p r o t e c t i o n . o r arrange for protection to be applied*,or when my advice was required because/at point probably knew more about the A ' . . . 6 010489 �- 6 " 43 Read: ^ ^ protection of diplomats then anybody else.fpid that leads on to another point which we might get to -at some point.-* j , ^L/confession of the inadequacies of the protection system in my view about which I had been screaming for two yearB by the time this Cross kidnapping developed. Now, perhaps the-, my experience on the Cross kidnapping which started with the initial information (which was just an informative roleiwent on to a brief experience on the Task Force. I !\ — (Pf- / s -£*-M Snight say intense pride in being a member of the Task Forcfy it v/as a J \ * it- was a group of people v/ho generated their own sense of common intention and appreciation of each others problems.and a common desire • M - O A - to work together. A most remarkable sort of esp^rit -fr*corp< sprang up in the Task Force. But aside from that particular aspect (the second one v/as the role that I had to undertake as part of the Task Force,as a member of the Task Force, but also as the act-e£Jprotection JUfficerland the third one v/as v/hen I got put into the business of arranging for TLKiy. i> A -1 ) - Ar ft. {>• to become part of the Cuban Consulate.So those are my three roles and the third one actually lead onto the point at which Mr. Cross was released by the kidnappers and I became, without any increase in pay, may I say, ^aAa-\ the representative of the federal government in the Cuban Consulate, "li '*> - -'• Mrs.Halstead: If' L^at v/as sort of exciting. Before we leave the Task Force I v/onder if you could describe a little more the functioning of the group. Mrs. Anyot: As well as the composition, the men that v/ere with you. Read: Well if I started talking about the people who were on the Task F0rce I'd start talking v/ith a Clork grade two, John McNish, and I'd go from him to Jin Puddington who is now Deputy Director of South Pacific Division or Pacific Division,/not South Pacific DivLsiorij. Then I'd swing to Claude Roquet who became the top man and then the people v/ho ... 7 010490 �- 7 - fLR/A A cane in from o u t s i d e . There was Inspector ffairerue of the RCMP and c Bernard Hefflee the Deputy, I beg your pardon, Assistant Deputy S o l i c i t o r General,laid then my mind turns immediately away from theTask Force again to B i l l L i t t l e the Executive Assistant to the S o l i c i t o r General a t the time because he was v i t a l to n e ^ i n my r o l e as Protection Officer. Rowe was a very determined and active member of the Task Force. Al^an But you know the r e s t have slipped into the dust of memory somewhere. Mrs.Halstead: But did you meet everyday then t i l l you moved to your office? Read: I would have said t h a t the Task Force was almost constantly in session but t h i s was my ov/n p a r t i c u l a r , t h i s was my own p a r t i c u l a r viev/. Oh I must say t h a t i f I am going to go and t a l k about B i l l L i t t l e i n the S o l i c i t o r General's office I b e t t e r include Immediately Jim Barker. Jim Barker played an absolutely v i t a l r o l e in the Task Force, although he wasn't a member of i t . foadow, jaaMfefr ho-^was ^ T 0 He v/as l i k e a, a very important ia that itttirr_i I t v/as h i s Operations Centre^ aad the things he did to f a c i l i t a t e the work of the Task Force were tremendous, fiwnd in point of f a c t , he played a very important p a r t , I think, in the } i deliberations of the Task Force. <Iust because he was there Rao I b e t t e r mention him. V/hen I say I think the Task Force was continuously in session, it seems to me that for the first weeks I didn't get out of the Operations Centre much before midnight on any night. If I did, it was because my father decided to come up and pay a visit at the beginning of October, e«<i j^te arrived within a few days after the kidnapping of Mr. Cross# then it became an almost incredible job to get down to theChateau to have lunch with him quickly. §r, to get him out of the house for a meal and a quiet evening because there wasn't any such thing,a«d J.t was a question of bringing him out to have a dinner and then taking ... 8 010491 �_ 8 Read: ^ f c h i n back to t h e h o t e l a t 9 and going s t r a i g h t baek t o t h e O p e r a t i o n s C e n t r e . The T a sk Force d i d meet and" d i d d e l i b e r a t e v/ith Claude R e q u i r i n g a d v i c e o r with 3d R i t c h i e . He v/ould come i n and t h e group would g a t h e r and t h e r e veuld be a d i s c u s s i o n . But tiwi, so much of t h e work of the Task Force was waiting. We were w a i t i n g f o r information} we were w a i t i n g f o r c a l l s from the Government of Quebec', we were w a i t i n g to h e a r something^ we v/ere v/aiting f o r the next communique} we were w a i t i n g to f i n d o u t what the r e a c t i o n to our r e a c t i o n t o t h e l a s t communique v/as. Saa*., you were t h e r e an awful l o t of t i n e and some of us made an awful l o t of money out of t h e , on t h e overtime s i d e . O f course we d o n ' t count %h*,, t h e normal week-day hours up t i l l 8 o ' c l o c k ^ t h e n e x t morningtve belonged to t h e government f r e e f o r anybody whose an F 3 - 1 , 2 o r 3 o r 4 o r 5 even. r ' But on v/eekends, i f you had to be i n , you did make overtime^ and a l o t of people were a b l e to buy t h e i r wives mink c o a t s o r go f o r t h a t C a d i l l a c , jrou know,the C a d i l l a c s you see down.in t h e basement, a r e t h e r e s u l t of t h e Task Force. (laughter) I t s f u l l of t h e n , y e s . But i t was a demanding job f i r s t of a l l because i n the sense y o u ' d been honoured with**"or whether you had been o r n o t , btrt -because of "~ t h i s e s p ^ r i t <HcorpCbusiness t |iaybe i t s j u s t t h e old d e p a r t m e n t a l e c p / r i t o&corprblossoming again aad the new l i f e of t h e O p e r a t i o n s C e n t r e , I d o n ' t know. But because of t h a t you d i d n ' t want t o miss any t h i n g ,tkat ti you p o s s i b l y c o u l d . ItA : * -& you wanted to say, y e s I v/as t h e r e t$f.d a l t h o u g h you were t h e r e most evenings u n t i l very l a t e you s t i l l v o l u n t e e r e d i f you c o u l d . t o cone i n and cover o*B- the weekend s h i f t . in this respect. Task Force. A«4- Allan Rowe v/as tremendous He v/as a very,—ha meets a vogy good person t o have on the I t h i n k h e ' s g o t a very a c t i v e , determined mind and s t i c k s to what, you know, i f he d e c i d e s t h a t t h i s must be done and he s e e s t h a t i t must be done. Which i s a v e r y good a t t r i b u t e and q u a l i t y . . . . 9 010492 �- 9 Read: ^fe But we, i t was a Question of continuous operation,f^nd t h i s i s where I f e l t t h a t I v/as l o o s i n g touch v/ith the Task Force because Dd would cone i n or somebody would come i n and t h e group would g a t h e r and t h e r e would be an informal d i s c u s s i o n / ( J u t because everybody was t h e r e , v/as t h a t a n e e t i n g of the Task Force? No, i t r e a l l y w a s n ' t any n o r e Znin i t had been v/hen everybody v/as being busy. Ross F r a n c i s v/ho was doing the p r e s s l i a i s o n g o t more and more t i e d i n t o the O p e r a t i o n s Centre and more and more i n v o l v e d . was r e a l l y e s s e n t i a l . His p o s i t i o n He was going from the O p e r a t i o n s Centre to the . s i n i s t e r ' s o f f i c e and back again and h e , because of the importance of h i s r o l e g r a f t e d the only o f f i c e a v a i l a b l e , / s i d e from the one up on the t h i r d l e v e l , which was taken over by^_oh.-I've f o r g o t t e n who used to v/ork up t h e r e . But, I used to envy Ross because h e ' d managed to do t h i s , and I sad no grounds f o r kicking him o u t . thin Mrs.Halstead: Read: But i n the end i t , t h i s s o r t of forced me back to-my ov/n o f f i c e . And a kind of i s o l a t i o n ? From t h e Task F o r c e . Yes, except then I k e p t on going back. I v/ould imagine t h a t I was out of the Task Force e f f e c t i v e l y on a^ during the day I was i n my o f f i c e . During t h e evening I would go up t o t h e Operations C e n t r e to see what v/as going on) and t h i s le^ld t o t h e b l i s t e r i n g moment a t v/hich my second, the second p a r t of my involvement i n the work o3 the Task Force o c c u r r e d . That v/as v/hen I t h i n k I walked i n t o the Task Force, t h e O p e r a t i o n s C e n t r e , i t v/as October 17, a t about f i v e m i n u t e s to n i n e i n t h e evening. I j u s t decided to drop i n a f t e r d i n n e r t o see v/hat was going on and t h e r e was Ed, and he looked a t me and s a i d , "Tom, hov/'d you l i k e to go to Montreal?" So, was always ready v/ith a q u i p , I / c e r t a i n I came up v/ith something q u i t e . . . 10 010493 �- 10 Read: ^ b r i l l i a n t about, "why, yes indeed 1maybe for three weeks a f t e r Easter.,and wouldn't i t be nice"} and then i t turned out t h a t I was wanted i n Montreal t h a t night- Which was, you know, p r e t t y s t a r t l i n g * m o t only t h a t night, but I had to catch the l a s t a i r c r a f t which l e f t a t ten minutes past ten. V/ell normally,of course I am neatly and soberly dressed, in the fashion thater required of the older nenbers of the O f f i c e r ' s staff of the 0 FLArON^1-* Department* vt>ut t h i s evening I was i n sports coat and flounoc, I d o n ' t know why but I was. Furthermore I did not, strangely enough, have a toothbrush in my pocket. So I s a i d , "well I ' v e got to do something about thaiJ*T Well t h a t s a l l r i g h t , I c a n ' t do i t between nov/ and ten to ten, s b u ' r e going to have to do i t , was the word. I said, "regretably, I have 77.29 i n my pocket and I ' v e got e r e d i t cards but I d o n ' t know i' if they'll work. I'll need money. That was no excuse. Ed simply took out his wallet and gave me $50.00 of his own money, (laughter) So, I went to Montreal and then there v/as something pretty frigthening. The problem, the additional problem aside from these administrative natters v/as the problem of the explaining to me/what/had to do v/hen I got there, because I had no idea, J^nd the second thing was that there v/as a vital document which wasn't available.-aad I think it was a reiteration of the terras v/hich had been offered to the kidnappers and which it was thought essential that I should take v/ith me. I actually have the copy here and I think it was the draft, the draft finally approved, with Claude Roquet's writing on it and the last minute admendments which were put on it after consultations v/ith the Government of Quebec. In any case I went home, having asked please to phone and tell e\i Pan So put a toothbrush and a clean shirt into a suitcase. I went home and T picked that up and headed for the airport and I got to the airport at the unbelievable time of about five minutes past ten. «fljy which time the olne wis waiting and everybody had been boarded.and they were holding it « . . . 11 010494 �id: - 11 jjnrii 1 d i d n ' t believe t h a t anybody held a plane these days, but they were holding it, I'd been told to phone from the airport, I phoned and they said, "you can't leave". So I said fine. They said the taxi is on its way out with She document, 50 then the plane had to wait until finally a taxi [rove up and I <p;ot the pjiper from him and I fled for the aircraft, and I thank we left two minutes late. But this was really the «Ph 1 I^AM.•• i-A 1 y^U * 1 '}>-• ;•&** M. and then this really opened a new chapter because I had various instructions So phone somebody when I got to Dorval and this I did. I think it was a question of, there v/as to be a meeting at the Canadian Earbour Board Offices near the "Place d'Accueil", a*> cZ\ "Terre des Hommes", MacKay Pier it used to be called, Cite du Havre but T couldnt 30 there direct I had to pick up the Consul of Cuba, Alfredo RE 11,- , s '_ JL ^° Z got a taxi, and I gave him the address and we drove for hours, \4 e were lost three or four times I would say. <gut, each time managed to get far enough so that he hit a main street he knew. •fell it turns out we'd been, there was a difference of opinion v/hether this was in turned St. Laurent or in another suburb ( \jut eventually we up there, paid him off and then ^ p\ \\\ R\;L E. got out his nice Oldsmobile and we headed for the 4b_er. It had bean thought that we would be at this meeting say half past ten or quarter to eleven, but it was about twenty-five minutes to midnight when we turned upland thats going pretty fast let me toll you. The Cubans are very good /there drivers'and/wasn'st much traffic and he had his diplomatic plates on, which he'd kertBe'd had them on v/hen he was at the Embassy here. So v/e got down there^and here was this meeting with JTOIW Brown and /• Colonel lauthier and a Harbours Board man to welcome usl although I think he was probably just a Commissioner)W*e**e •StKS then representatives of she Ontario provincial police and of the Montreal police,and various other people. I v/as told that Colonel Gauthier v/as going to turn out a record of that meeting so I really haven't got full details of v/ho was there and my notes are a little bit inconclusive, ^ut we then started to find out how we could use "Terre des Hommes"t as a sort of safe refuge for Mr . Cross and as a departure point for the kidnappers if they accepted the offer of an aircraft and exile in Cuba that had been made by the governmental authorities that's by the Federal Government with the act of consent of the Quebec Government. . . . 12 010495 �- 12Mrs.Am^^: But already at that time the choice of Terre des Hommes had been done by.... Read: By somebody other then myself and I have no idea who determined it. Somebody was , I was to such an extent pushed into this at the very last moment(«e that it was quite a bewildering experience and furthermore, there were decisions v/hich had been taken before hand which le?ld up to Terre des Hommesfautwho took that decision I don't know. I know that afterwards or in fact after the third meeting in Montreal, that v/e stood around and talked and decided that on the v/hole that it had been a mistake to choose Terre des Hommes. On the other hand, by great good fortune it workedkand it worked very well indeed. There were great advantages I thinkj the isolation, the ability of the Harbour Board, Harbour Police,v/hich had the police responsibility for the water, the river, j.t v/as easy for them in combination with the Montreal police who were responsible for Terre des Hommes to isolate theft thing and to keep reporters from coming across the ice or swimming across, a*** So thert there was relative privacy on the island, and fortunately the Canadian pavilion had amp1e space. I thinkiLlqiL S A Q» w ^° -*-s n o w Consul General in Toronto commented the last time I saw hin, v/hich was only two weeks ago at the Cuban National Day Party, said v/ell he'd never had a larger consulate. It was very generous Ct' with regard to tha-s"' room and it did v/ork. However there were very great disadvantages to it, but perhaps v/e could cover that further. Anyway this meeting went on, but wu were,. 11 in, fee, |the area had been choosen but the pavilion had not been choosen. What v/e v/ere looking for v/as a pavilion that it was possible to heat, where thei would be plumbing facilities that would be in order, where there would be enough space so that any number of contingencies could be taken care of./if possible) . . . 13 010496 �- 13 Read: ^fe and it boiled down in the end to the Canadian pavilion because they had done things, for instance^like putting plastic over their picture windows, ami so that the electric heating v/as effective enough to keep the place warm. Now there were many pavilions there that had no effective heating, \heyhad enough heating so that if fair closedv^-at the end of September, uu until that time they could cope with the cold weather. But, aside from that they wesus, of course all the water turned off and they v/ere mere shells^and there was no insolation or this sort of thing. But with the Canadian pavilion, the sort of thing you do yourself^Niwt the plastic over the windows and then the h eaters v/ill take care of it^-and it had lot3 of telephone lines. Thats another great thing you see. aad the water had not been turned off and there v/as a kitchenette and this sort of thing. So v/e heard about this from Captain Marque*, v/ho was there, if I recall, but he didn't have the keys. I think he had not envisaged that we v/ere going to go and see them, see the pavilion, pjpd he went off to get the keys and to get the plans so that v/e could have a closer look at this, and v/e stopped, broke off for coffee and-this must have been five or ten minutes past midnight that night. We were drinking coffee when General Brown came over to me and said, "Mr. Read, they've just found the bodies in the trunk of a car over at St. Hubert". He said, "Ian not going to tell our colleagues". I'll tell you who else was there from the Department, V/ilf LopfiC H L \'\\t S and his nunber two, whose name I know perfectly well, I have forgotten for the moment. Mrs.Amyot: Claude Bea«3oie? EpJ'-'' •'•'"*A ^'A Read: Beaujoie, yes^jhey were there because of the passport,^ut in any case in came this word from General Brown which had been handed over the A m y network and he said, "I am not going to tell, because itB not my job to communicate this but I am simply going to excuse myself and leave because I think I am needed elsewhere". So they left and just . . . 14 010497 �- 14 '*ead: requiring them said they were very sorry that they had a message/to departJ\nd they l e f t . So then we turned to the business of going back in again and Captain Marqueo cane with the keys and the plans of the pavilion, aad yt was at that point completely unreal. I mean, I knew t h a t there v/as no use our being there, there was no use discussing this.and- plow a l l we had to do was to wait u n t i l thesnews came through our Quebec network and of course i t did, iflid then we v/ere j u s t i n a s t a t e of absolute shock. I t v/as enough to make you burst into tear^, wjell i t was a t e r r i b l y emotional moment. It wasn't r e a l l y as emotional though when after we f i n a l l y closed up and I phoned Andre Bissonnette at h i s home and v/oke him up and t h i s sort of thing, said, " i t ' s a l l over, we're finished and I ' l l come home in the morning". But then going back to the h o t e l , the clerk(he v/as a youngsteA he'd been "Vn/v Rt<S»E crying, I went in and joined hiraj quite ready to a t the moment. A I t was j\ a t e r r i b l y emotional moment. However, to bed, then up i n the morning and out to the a i r p o r t and back to Ottawa. I got there and I don't know how long i t was before I was back on the plane going back to Montreal again. I t was of course only one body and I might say a t that moment I v/as so mad t h a t i f somebody had got up and said, "I believe t h a t the FLQ i s a good thing", I think I would have k i l l e d him on the spot. r i g h t down in the bottom of my soul. s t i t u t i n g the meeting. I was j u s t r e a l l y raging, furious However, back to Montreal, recon- Now I c a n ' t remember, a t one time or another. a t these three meetings I had the r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for calling i t and I fancy i t nay have been the third time but we did gather and t h i s time we reached a decision on the use of the pavilion and i t s a v a i l a b i l i t y v/as guaranteed and everything looked fine and i t v/as a question of go, go, go ^ and then the thing was to go back to Ottawa again, v/hich I did. . . . 15 010498 �- 15 - A Read: ^~ Seems to me that I should have said that Robert Demers was at that meeting, I feel certain he was, he was certainly at the third meeting when Andre P^ssormette v/as with me. He v/as at the second meeting I think but whei^ter he was at the first I don't know. However, at one time or another, it must h ave been either at the second or third meeting, we stood outside and criticized the choice of Terre des Hommes,gut by then we were committed to it. - ^ , ( ^ I I think maybe it must have been^»no lets go back and say it was , . < &However, back to Ottawa the third. The brain is adled unfortunately.n and the next move in this game was v/hen Andre Bissonnette told me that we would have to go back again because the quick action response to the amnesty and the offer of exile. <3L,quick answer iota riot having 1'nuyuiidcd, not having appeared, it was necessary to see whether we could maintain K\bA i' the use of Terre des HomftjsS for the long period of time. Problems. u " Terre des Hommes is a place v/hich requires maintenance. We were taking over and dirting the ashtrays off tho D-baff of the staff of the fair, 'yo they had to be allowed to work as unimpeded as possible. At the same tine if the v/ork v/as delayed too long they couldn't get the maintenance workers in on to the island because this was one of their requirements — that the island had to be empty,'so the maintenance workers had to leave so that the island people wanted to get^ the Terre des Hommes people wanted to get their people back in because if the schedule for maintenance got pushed behind then it wouldn't be ready to open in the spring. So on, thio wa» on the 23rd of October and.Andre and I set out/, I cane up to his office at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and v/e got into hi. car and we went home,And since for ages afterwards^Andre thought there was something wrong with my brain^rmore then the^rdinary sort of thing, I wish to report that it was Madame Bissonnette who told me that Andre ... 16 010499 �- 16 Read: __ was so t i r e d t h a t she v/as a f r a i d t h a t he would go t o s l e e p a t t h e wheel. I t v/as h e r r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r my behaviour d u r i n g t h a t r i d e , I t a l k e d i n c e s s a n t l y t h e whole way to Montreal because I v/as scared s t i f f that Andre was going to go ^Sleep a t t h e v/heel^ and I thought he v/ould probably find t h i s a l i t t l e p e c u l i a r . But, i t w a s n ' t u n t i l a f t e r w a r d s t h a t he made some comment i n a very humorous way about t h i s madman who t a l k e d a l l the way to Montreal^ s a y i n g t h i n g s t h a t he Andre had no i d e a > j a e d i d n ' t always understand. I v/as a b l e to say t h a t was your w i f e ' s f a u l t , I v/as merely looking a f t e r my l i f e . ye However, g o t to t h e Queen E l i z a b e t h and t h i s time e v e r y t h i n g l\ ' v/ent r e a s o n a b l y w e l l . V/e g o t to our meeting on time, and Robert Demers was t h e r e , ywe had our d i s c u s s i o n s , we decided on t h e m o d a l i t i e s o f , I t h i n k t h i s i s a l l on r e c o r d i n Andre ' s I A ' / e l l anyway Andre wrote a memorandum on t h i s so t h a t I d o n ' t need to r e p o r t i t . could m a i n t a i n t h e conception of t h e use of t h i s p l a c e . n But, so t h a t we One of t h e 11 -A t h i n g s about u s i n g t h e Terre des Hommes and u s i n g the Canadian p a v i l i o n was t h a t I maintained t h a t i t v/as a l l r i g h t f o r us to agree to s e t t i n g up the Cuban C o n s u l a t e as an a d j u n c t of t h e C o n s u l a t e i n the main p a r t of t h e c i t y / , (Bjit I s a i d we d i d n ' t have to do t h i s w i t h any g r e a t formality, and t h a t i t d i d n ' t have to be a Cuban Consulate u n t i l everybody v/as ready f o r i t and t h a t i n p o i n t of f a c t you could say t h a t i t w a s n ' t a Cuban C o n s u l a t e u n t i l t h e Cuban Consul a r r i v e d and took p o s s e s s i o n , and did •things l i k e p u t t i n g the f l a g up and t h a t s o r t of t h i n g . t i l s r a t h e r s i m p l i f i e d one o r two c o m p l i c a t i o n s . And I t h i n k We d i d n ' t have to g i v e then the b u i l d i n g i n October which they would then have been r e s p o n s i b l e f o r f o r s i x , e i g h t or t e n months, however long i t took. However, t h e meeting v/ent extremely w e l l I t h i n k and a f t e r w a r d s Andre had an extremely u s e f u l d i s c u s s i o n , o r he s a i d i t was, v/ith Robert . . . 17 010500 �- 17 Read: ^ D e m e r s , kept him xsp till half past one in tho morning, Shis I missed because one of our problems in these meetings was always to try and detatch the Cuban whan we didn't want him involved* J^pd in order to detatch 'RPfW I \{ ti£ this might, from further involvement with Demers and Bissonnette^, I took himinto the bar at the Queen Elizabeth v/hich allowed Andre to escape. Now, Demers was staying; on the 21st floor of the Queen Elizabeth, which had been taken over by theQuebec Government for Premier Bourassa when he came down* He was on the 21st. So that when we got out of the way Andre and Demers simply went upland (at course the, the floor was adequately equipped with a bar, and they sat aid they drank and they talked. I can't help thinking that it must an have been/extremely valuable occasion. I got' thn, developed the ;,. p',. p - • A "'.- ;','*fs•" * ;• most tremendous admiration for Robert Demers' ability, the same I ; .A '. A have for Andre Bissonnette's of course} and I thought It was a damned good thing that the two of them who were both sufeh able people v/ere *'. '•'-.. '• able to get togebjier and talk informally.and probably take the edges were off a lot of problems thai/then affooting the problem of negotiating the release of Mr. Cross through three or four levels of government, ' . •• •''*•'•• which was a very difficult thing to do. Well then after getting back to Ottawa and swinging back into the routine again. The unbelievable happened at 7:30 in the morning of December 3rd and that was when AljCsaa. Rowe called me*., and he put / f 1;R~ me into a black mood;may I say. Nobody! I was awake heaven knows (i get up at quarter past seven and I can raise my head from the bedL, §ytt Aytan just said oil that there was another committee meeting in Montreal and that I would to go to it.and knowj that IP bettor come to the office complete v/ithhave overnight kitf-you toothbrush and razor and that s o r t of thing,aaa>I said, "oh, for P e t e ' s Sake Al^tan, no; 18 ' .010501 �- 18 Read: hat's the ----..,— ,._ the J.,.- use'ywy-yow .__7__._. __...loa ,a_i.a.t, ^he ^Y whole thing's been point, . vvhats / ecided why should I go?". '.Yell he said, "perhaps its the work you've i le before', its been proving fruitful". So I said, "well yes I may done be a genius but still the Department can do without me, I am gonne V'' • come in at ny own good pace you see". Cause he said, "you must get in immediately". Mrs.Amyot: That was on the third? Read: That was on the third. 3o I almost decided to turn up at 10 o'clock just to spite them, 'well I'd been going through a pretty rugged time nay I say. If Allan hadn't been so darned concerned for security I would have been in there at 8 o'clock you see because it would have been co exciting. 3o I arrived at the East Block at 9 with my little satchel, with my rasor and toothbrush and that sort of thing, j-fiotto the Operations Centre only to find everybody about six inches off the floor of course. 3o ^^L..u then going to Montreal for a committee meeting i* was not at all a committee meeting, it wasn't a question of negotiating further the use of Terre des Hommes or anything of that sort.it; was to go and be as excited as anybody couldyAnd it was, I suppose I had no part in getting us out of there or anything of that sort but it v/as quite fascinating the problem of getting hols of Leon Mayron '4a4 liayi&n' had been at one of the earlier meetings, I think he was at the first meeting,if I am not mistaken. H 11 Mrs.Halstead: At Terre des Hommes? Read: At Terre des Hommes, v/ell noRat Terre des Hommes but at the Harbour II . v ' I* i Board office^.^ind of course it v/as planned that he would be the chap to accompany the kidnappers on the flight to Cuba,because he was well known to the Cubans and former Ambassador, known to be very fond of Cuba, as everybody v/ho goes there is, and there was sone word that he v/as going to retire there at one point. He was a good person to send, he was available which v/as the other thing, although he had his commitments which &&e very likely to Lmpede from 010502 . . . 19 �- 19 Read: ^^ t i n e to time. send ft, hypjMb But, they c o u l d n ' t g e t hold of Majrcon t h a t morning and r a t h e r U then/Claude dov/n to Cuba w i t h o u t a Spanish speaking person they g r a c e d Os&aa 3 y a r . Grhaa 4 t h i n k a t t h a t time was head o r a c t i n g head of L a t i n AAierica Mrs.Amyot: SAivision, Oui. there , I think they just phoned over/and Q«*era was available,and he Read: said sure and came up to the East Block and the first thing we knew, say about 9:30 Claude Roquet and myself and Jean-Marie Dery and Ogham v/ere in , one of a car headed for the airport .mud we went out in/the Cosmopolitan aircraft. - -'** Grhm got this dov/n as a Cosmo, Tmrt it was known familiarly as a Cosmo ~~t er r\n jwst Cnimn, I think he put it down as Cosmos,ttjutit v/as a Cosmopolitar^Av.hich is a twin engine prop jet aircraft. I'd flown in it before taking the body of an Israeli Ambassador down to New York for trans-shipment -te> (this was one of my first experiences in Protocol Division in 1968J ehipped' to El Al sent off. However, t h e r e v/e v/ere, We flew down t o Montreal and we g o t to the Queen E l i z a b e t h and v/e a l l went up t o a room, probably on t h e 6 t h f l o o r , _ i t was one of t h e s e studio-bedroom type of t h i n g s ^ aaad We v/ere then engaged with Claude on t h e telephone t o P i o r r o L o o l a i r w i t h me saying w e l l the " i "TTV-C arrangement i s t h i s or t h a t and ^ q u e s t i o n of checking and c r o s s checking, i n touch with t h e RCMP, i n touch v/ith v a r i o u s p e o p l e a l l about t h i s b u s i n e s s and d e s p e r a t e l y w a i t i n g f o r news of what happenedbecause as soon a s t h i n g s developed a t t h e house t h e r e v/as going to be a f l a t - o u t movement of t h a t c a r s t r a i g h t through to Terre des Hommes. be t h e r e . Claude and Qabem thought they ought to So one of the s t u p i d l i t t l e f l i e s i n t h e o i n t m e n t , t h e r e was a chap c a l l e d , v/ho i s a very s t r o n g person i n the Cuban Embassy d I w o u l d n ' t l i k e t o accuse him v/ithout being a b l e to j u s t i f y i t , I ' l l merely suggest t h a t the Ambassador d o e s n ' t do much t h a t he d o e s n ' t d i s c u s s 20 010503 �- 20 Read: ^ with Mr. LEEAfol UAN , and ff\y. ^ M ( l ll\J i s t h e man r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e very tough l i n e t h a t the Cubans have taken i n r e g a r d t o t h e i r p r o t e c t i o n here. They've c r e a t e d very g r e a t problems, they say t h a t you must n o t p u t a f o o t on our l a n d , but of c o u r s e you must p r o t e c t u s . So t h a t i f one of our g u a r d s , and we've had them on t h e Cubans now f o r y e a r s , one of our guards s e e s somebody sneaking i n w i t h a smoking bomb a t t h e back of t h e house, he cannot go and apprehend t h a t man.or even dash around t h e c o r n e r t o see where the bomb i s o r whats going onj he must walk up t o t h e f r o n t door and r i n g the b e l l , £jid y e t v/e're supposed to p r o t e c t t h e Cubans. t h i n k LZAf\A\ M Nov/, I i s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r a g r e a t d e a l of t h i s s t i f f n e s s and t h e y ' r e s t i l l being s t i f f i n o t h e r ways. However t h a t comment f o r t h e s i d e . l A A f ^ A LL\1 k ^ S ° t t h e r e and although t h e , he was n o t t h e Consul / he had taken over c o n t r o l , h e ' d arranged t h a t f\L\l 1 V^ l~s ~3r v/ould go t o Cuba v/ith t h e a i r c r a f t which w a s n ' t planned, h e ' d arranged t h a t ^Ul^l^O would become t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of t h e Cubans i n t h e Consulate^ w e l l he had no r i g h t t o be t h e r e . Thats t o say he w a s n ' t a member of t h e Consulate s t a f f , he v/as a member of t h e Embassy s t a f f , so t h a t ^R (j PA ( ~kfVi was going p^j/v\ AiAh to be the Consul and t h a t Ofiiaig Dyer and Claude Roquet c e r t a i n l y go to Terre des Hommes. couldn't Now t h i s broke down a number of a r r a n g e m e n t s . However, we could l i v e w i t h t h i s and i n p o i n t of f a c t t h e s t o r y of t h e i r going o u t t o T e r r e des Hommes i s i n w r i t i n g on p a p e r . back i n t o t h a t . did. I d o n ' t need t o go I t h i n k a l s o I ' v e p u t i n my memoranda p r e t t y v/ell what I The only t h i n g s I can add t o t h i s i s t h a t anybody i s a f o o l who g e t s himself locked up i n a room v/ith Jean-Marie Dery f o r four o r f i v e hours because Jean-Marie Dery n o t only c h a i n smokes, he c h a i n smokes two c i g a r e t t e s a t a time and I had t o keep on l e a v i n g our quote $ p (centre M Montreal naqunte and dashing o u t i n t o t h e c o r r i d o r to breathe from time t o t i m e . I n f a c t a t one time I q u i t completely and I v/ent down and a g a i n s t snake b i t e I bought . . . 21 010504 �- 21 a .mickey of Scotch whiskey and took i t back,a»4 Claude and I both had a slug of t h i s , and t h a t Scotch whiskey t r a v e l l e d v/ith n e , n o t Claude because Claude had gone by then,' but Jean-Marie and I had a s l u g of ScotchX which ,/.. Pots, f e l t we needed and the r e s t of the b o t t l e went v/ith Jean- T 3arie to London because v/e agreed t h e r e n i g h t be snakes i n London ton and he v/asn't poin • to have a chance to buy a n y t h i n g between then and t h e r e . VI H The o t h e r funny ha-ha and s h o u l d n ' t r e a l l y go under h i s t o r y v/as ths f a c t t h a t Orban had had a d a t e t h a t day to have lunoh with one of h i s d a u g h t e r s , (I d o n ' t know whether i t v/as Tara o r t h e o t h e r g i r l l and so he had token h e r lunch in with h i n and they were j u s t going to s i t i n h i s o f f i c e and he was going to g e t a sandwich, a n d - 1 t h i n k t h e two of thenj—1~ trunk' Xasjf o f t e n did t h i s , j2o he s t i l l had h e r lunch i n h i s b r i e f c a s when he went up to the Past Block n o t knowing q u i t e what was going to happen to Ai.s.^nd t h a t was my d i n n e r on t h e n i g h t of December 3rd. I .'sight add too t h a t we a l l ordered from Room S e r v i c e , but the Room Service v/as, t h i s was ORiv a t noon, Room S e r v i c e was bad enough so t h a t Claude and Qghflc. g o t away to i. Terre des Hommes j u s t before i t a r r i v e d . Jean-Marie and I did justice to the lunch we'd ordered but v/e had to send the r e s t back, I t h i n k I ended up paying f o r the l o t $ I am n o t c e r t a i n . I an w a i t i n g f o r Jean-Marie to send -.oe some l i t t l e payment f o r t h a t but he h a s n ' t done so and a f t e r a l l he should because h e ' s an Ambassador and of course o v e r - p a i d and under-vorked a s we a l l know. Tine o t h e r g r e a t thins: about the ending of t h i s , the t h i n g u n r o l l i n g before the eyes! o">-* E &"•*• Bow, when we were on the i s l a n d -fee remarkable t h i n g s r\ gjy&^-e^T a l l v/as t h e i n a b i l i t y of J a s p e r Cross to s t o p t a l k i n g a&*\ I d i d n ' t know anything about t h i s , August I thought i t was j u s t remarkable u n t i l tiM> i n ;han I drove Dad bads down to Toronto, a f t e r the opening of the b u i l d i n g , a n a I ' d f i x e d up a bed i n the back of t h e s t a t i o n wagon so he , . . . 7.. 010505 �c- 3 • iown and t r a v e l h o r i z o n t a l l y i f he f e l t t i r e d . He s t a r t e d t P. 33:s • the minute I picked h i n up a t the h o t e l and he stopped v/hen we pot to the f l a t i n Toronto, l i k e me and Andre B i s s o n n e t t e . Evs, t h a t s what I v/as going to say. But, he v/as n o t t r y i n g to keep ne awake, and he s a i d a f t e r we it A-V1:. of the c a r and proing to t h e s i d e , he s a i d , "you Imorr, I am a f r a i d y o u ' l l find t h a t I am t a l k i n g r a t h e r a l o t " , but he s a i d , "do prou know, I '~v-i, 1 enjoy male company so r a r e l y t h e s e d a y s " . His l i f e a t t h a t tine PaP PPPP e n t i r e l y on going a c r o s s the s t r e e t to see mother .^iiu t a l k i n g to- A&Za end. the old l a d i e s a t the v i l l a and t h a t j ..ort os' thin,;, and Cross was obviously t h i s way. PA.PPYPA I think i f you're of the a b i l i t y to communicate you d o n ' t l o o s e i t , i t merely s t o r e s i t s e l f , you g e t an o p p o r t u n i t y and away i t g o e s . HOP t h e Montreal P o l i c e had gone o u t and g o t some wine and I :s7st m a i n t a i n i t was t h e Montreal 2 o l i c e and nobody else, «t*t« Cross had had t h a t and chicken which t h e y ' d provided. on t h i : i n c i d e n t a l l y . The Cubans v/ere very bad They ./ere t o l d t h a t some arrangement would have to be made to p r o v i d e food and they knew v/e would pay f o r i t , and medical P S s i s t a n c e . a n d t h a t s o r t of t h i n g and they went a l l s t u p i d on t h i s , I i• Son' t know v/hy they d i d , but they said w e l l t h e y ' d see what the s i t u a t i o n ps when in the end the Montreal P o l i c e , Captain Marq*»S i n p a r t i c u l a r , saw to the a c q u i s i t i o n of a barbecued chicken and the two b o t t l e s of red wine. Cl course the wine went to C r o s s ' s head. The s u r p r i s i n g t h i n g though was t h a t i t went to B i l l Ashford 1 s head and A s h f o r d , t o see him walking r a t h e r u n s t e a d i l y around l i k e t h i s , w e l l a l l r i g h t i t v/as an e l e c t r i c c i r c u m s t a n c e f o r h i n , because t h e r e v/as h i s boss a n d / J a s p e r Cross i s a chap w i t h charisma and everybody l o v e s h i n and a l l t h a t s o r t of t h i n g ! , ^ r t t h e r e was Ashford v/as i* n e g o t i a t i n g quietly % &nd I t h o u g h t , hey t h a t w i n e / f o r Cross n o t f o r you. . . . 23 010506 �- 23 ;eaci: A . A'cn -°) the talkirigness was just built into Cross, he had to talk and he iid talk. My trouble there .was, there were three offices and I was going to take over one, you knov/, being invited to the island to be the Canadian government representative I thought perhaps I should have the^ (well I suppose if til federal L&A-'~ had been important enough v/e could have put it on tie door \but I v/as going to take over one of these, pit I wanted to go and C see Cross fmA go when he was in the middle of trying to describe v/hat went on and I was in there, ]fiy trouble was that Ottawa needed information frantically apparently ,and I v/as in and out to the point where I thought ./ell it was unfair to Cross to keep on having this chap bobbing in and out. mlzo it cost me all my dignity anyway, so to heck with that and I quit,. fand I missed this v/hen he v/as reporting j he was reporting to the Sgt. who was the chap from the Montreal Police who v/as in charge of the investigation, looking for Cross in Montreal*pnd so he was giving reasonable detail and I was very disappointed at having to withdraw, a very sad thing. MITB. Hal stead: Read: It wasn't ta/ped? Ho. Mrs.Halstead: But did the Sgt. t a k e n o t e s on i t ? stead: I have no i d e a . Mrs.Anyot: Well i t w a s n ' t taped because i t v/as decided not to be o r because nobody thought of art, you know, having i t r e a d y . Read: .•v, ( > t.L., . Nobody thought of it,/laid t h e n e x t time I t h i n k t h a t i f e v e r y t h i n g * happens the n e x t time we should have tape r e c o r d e r s . Well y e s , and the RCMP ought to have been t h e r e with t a p e r e c o r d e r s . b u t they c o u l d n ' t g e t i n t o it, - U . A - AA I t h i n k they c o u l d n ' t g e t i n t o t h e C o n s u l a t e . C a p t a i n Marqt*ee g o t i n every w h e r o ^ b n e of t h e n o s t remarkable c h a r a c t e r s , I s a i d t h i s i n the memorandum t h a t I thought somebody would w r i t e about h i n , about being one of t h e n o s t remarkable c h a r a c t e r s I ' v e ever n e t . He was charming, he v/as sympathetic �- 24 cead he was obviously intelligent and he was a b o m scrounger, y ° u could see that P r::.'. he was generous ao the day itself,and he got in everywhere. But then he made himself useful and do things for people and so got into the Consulate 3 s •nerel. I v/as j u s t thinking about hin and the problem presented by that, t h a t d i r t y old Chrysler, you know, there was a problem about the keys, they c o u l d n ' t g e t into the trunk and they c o u l d n ' t g e t the luggage out.awiHarqiLAC came to ne and s a i d , "Mr. Read t h e r e ' s that car out there and we c.'in't get into the trunk, Vte don't know what's i n i t , gp you suppose they could have bobby trapped i t ? " snlesss something happens. You know, w i l l i t explode i n twenty minutes So I s a i d , "v/ell, you never can t e l l , can you". He s a i d , "well, s h a l l I remove i t ? " . I s a i d , "please do". So they removed the c a r from tlie v i c i n i t y so that we d i d n ' t blow jjjV] /• [gr y •. to p i e c e s I can t e l l you that v/as one of the things. delight — Then the other moment that I remember with some/ there was t h i s business of being summoned to r e c e i v e the weapons. These chaps cane loaded so to speak, because «rnfr obviously there v/as every chance that the federal government or the Quebec government would be leading then up a garden r a t h and t h e y ' d discover that they walked i n t o the Cuban Consulate and a l l they found was sone people from, not a reform!tory but a p e n i t e n t i a r y with the handcuffs and to renove then immediately. So they brought t h e i r guns, I remember having to go i n there and being asked to take them over from Yr A • P" the Cubans, which I did. Well I d i d n ' t know what to do with then but feupquae was there and I s a i d , "will you take then?" and he s a i d , "yes", j o I said Well you know there may be f i n g e r p r i n t s on them or that s o r t of thing. But the Cubans weren't helping v/ith the f i n g e r p r i n t s , everything they picked up they put as much hand on as p o s s i b l e . \fj/hether t h i s was i n t e n t i o n a l or not 4 \$ut i t r e a l l y i s q u i t e an i n t r i g u i n g thing v/hen you walk i n t o a room and have to accept a couple of M-31s and tliree s t i c k s of dynamite. I t s not i n the 010508 �- 25 lead: ^^ Piplosiatie duty of an E x t e r n a l A f f a i r s O f f i c e r , 50 t h a t ' s the o t h e r d e v i a n t t h a t , and O'rhan Dyer 1 s ^ a n d ' T a r a D y e r ' s lunch v/hich I a t e v/ith g r e a t gusto , and f o r t u n a t e l y I had a book of Time's crossward p u z z l e s which I w h i t t l e d awiiy a t ./hen I w a s n ' t on the phone to Ottawa. Gauthier came down. And then the time Colonel Gauthier v/as supposed to have been over a t t h e bridge i n charge of t h e Amy guard and he came to t h e door and I was t o l d somebody wanted to see ne so I v/ent out and t h e r e he v/as. E.r. that He s a i d , .sad would you g e t ne p e r m i s s i o n to come i n , p\e s a i d I d o n ' t know why Rout I ' v e been removed from sy p o s t and t o l d to g e t over i n t o the Consulate i f I p o s s i b l y c a n " . So I went with fc j 'A \ ** Q> went to find and I s a i d , " E A A , • • } , Colonel G a u t h i e r , I can vouch f o r h i n , h e ' s a l l r i g h t , would you mind i f he cane i n ? " not a t a l l " . And t h e answer v/as, "no By t h a t time of c o u r s e w i t h o u t my approval o r o t h e r w i s e ther.: were a number of shady looking c h a r a c t e r s a l l of whom claimed to be p o l i c e of one s o r t 05s another had come i n and were s i t t i n g around the g l a c e , the p l a c e was f i l l i n g up( -bt*%- \R vs\E j ./ '.) i s a very g e n t l e soul and ho d i d n ' t seen to be a b l e to say no. However, Gauthier came i n and t h i s paid off i n t h e end because i t v/as G a u t h i e r who got t h e word t h a t they had landed i n Havanna, he g o t i t 12 minutes before i t cane through from any o t h e r source, aad-"you know any moments of r e l i e f a r e worth i t . fold t h a t was a g r e a t moment to be a b l e to say, "well thank God", you see cpuse than we'd j u s t have to s i t and wait f o r the r e l e a s e to cone. You have q u e s t i o n s about the a r r i v a l of J«»oa« Choquette and Bovirassa and t h e Demers 1 r e q u e s t , t h a t Choquette n o t bring a photographer with PsL.STf I t h i n k i t was and I t h i n k t h i s i s v/here we g e t i n t o the g o s s i p either s i d e . Put t h e r e was no stoppir. g/Choquette o r Bourassa. Bourassa n i g h t have had some kind of claim to be t h e r e but Choquette n o t a t a l l . except Choauette y>o 010509 �lend: 1 think, war looking for publicity. He looked as if he were going to play PAS Cross crisis right up into a stair case leading to the Prime Ministership of the province of Quebec^ I've never seen anybody play anything like this, ^Hi.AA is the only interpretation. THE END >A 1 . I. ,C , (' CA " AJ 010510 �OCTOBER CRISIS ^fc Tape number t./o of the interview conducted with sir. T. Read ^^ by Mrs. Jean Halstead and Mrs. Andr^e Amyot Read: Yes indeed a condemned man. HlmioiiMi I " Mrs.Halstead; Cany un,—say something I am trying thro—thing uul. .*-. The, between the different segments that v/ere operating in like ;ucbee,/the provincial, the federal...... Read: You got it in the police, in the police relationships mostly, thats ..Here it cane out, and the problems v/ith the, of v/hich I really didn't see very much between the federal and provincal authorities it was really a question of limits of jurisdiction more then anything else there though. Mrs.Halstead: But heated conplication? Read: V/ell the thing v/as that there were limits and everybody was being very sensitive andv/alkmg, and trying to keep within then without knowing precisely v/here they were. In the end it boiled dov/n to well you don't know where we are quite lets get Marc Lalonde to talk to somebody or Claude oquet to talk to to smooth this over because on the lower level you are conscious of sensitivities in the provincial people v/ith v/hom dealings sere being carried out. Nov/ this is pretty vague because I wasn't in on it. All I know was that you could tell what was happening. Now do you want to go back to this first question on the description of the Itontreal Task Force? Mrs.Halstead: Yes because I don't think we've recorded it. Read: Well the Montreal Task Force I presume was composed of the four officers from the Department who v/ent down to Montreal on the morning of Iccenber 3, thats to say, Dery, myself, Orham Dyer and Claude Roquet. Nov/ Claude was head of the whole Task Force but this sort of sub-force had specific duties. Orham Dyer v/as to become the accompanying senior representative of the Department, he was to replace Leon Mayron who wasn't available that morning v/hen they called for him so that in a sense he v/as ... 2 010511 �Head: the political person to go there, political in the sense of political officer ^P 7. :': . Departmental sense of political officer, thats to say he wasn't a politican darn it. But he wasn't, he was an officer from a political division in the old sense of the word. Roquet was there because he had been head of the Task Force and it v/as thought useful to have him go down to Cuba. In oth°r words, the moment was in a sense his success and I might add this is my own rationalization I never really knew exactly, I was not in the Task Pores, I was not in the Ops Centre v/hen the Task Force was dreamed up early on the morning of the 3rd. If you remember I told you I v/as at home in bed comfortably until after awaking Allan Rowe got me mobile and bad tempered by referring to yet another committee and yet another meeting in Montreal and mumbling something about the success of my earlier efforts and this .:.;••• • •• A not made me bad tempered" because at 7:30 in the morning I am/at ny best. Mrs.Halstead: You are a cad Tom. Read: You are both supposed to look as if I were exaggerating. Mrs.Halstead: You're at your best at 10 in the morning. Read: Or after my 14th cup of coffee. Mrs.Amyot: Oh boy. Read; In any case the, I wasn't aware of any other reasoning behind the choice or Roquet or Dyer or Dery, I was aware later of the reason;for the choice of Dyer} why he specifically was chosen but not of the reason for including an officer such as Dyer in the Task Force so that v/hat I've done now is to rationalise what I think was behind this. Anyway the four of us having got to Montreal and got ourselves into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel constituted the Task Force. I don't know whose room v/e choose for it but we had had four rooms reserved by telephone from Ottawa, and this enrx we did have which I r«.member on the 6th floor was one of those studio i rooms, v/ith two beds .shoved back to look l i k e couches and i t had a t e l e v i s i o n �- 3Read: set which wasteful and a telephone. ops room. It was a thoroughly inadequate If we were going to do this v/ith administrative flourish we -•ould have got one of the sample rooms in the hotel and put in a connecting line to the Ops Centre in Ottawa v/hich is just a pick up. In other words, a direct line, no requirement to dial. Mrs.Anyot: There was only one phone in there? Read: There was only one phone, the usual hotel phone and... Mrs.Halstead: Phich went through the desk? Read: Yes. Mrs.Halstead: So it wasn't very secure. Read: It was not secure. At that point however we couldn't care less about security to the extent that so far as we v/ere aware, the negotiations v/ere taking; place out in St. Laurent and they would obviously hopefully come to a head and be successful and then the mechanism v/ould come into operation so that what we had to say to Ottawa or to anybody else v/as, might have been secure for the minute but not for much longer then that. But, if you v/ere going to do this properly as I say take over a sample room, give us the ordinary hotel phone, give us a private line to the Operations Centre in Ottawa and preferably a third phone connected dirct on to the Montreal exchange which of course you can do through the, through the normal modern hotel telepiione. You dial 9 and you get an out line and away you go.I guess thats tlie way the phone v/as anyway but certainly theres a lack of security in that type of phone. The other thing we would bare had v/ould be an Kl one radio and an AM radio and at least/if not two television sets so that v/e could keep up to date with v/hat was being broadcasted locally, saying v/hat was happening. The set we had had only got a choice of either radio or television so if you listen to one you don't get the other, and I think v/e would have had the proverbial small boy there, preferably one with a steno... 4 010513 �- 4 Read: g r a p h i c pad and a p e n c i l keeping a r e c o r d of what was going on, keeping a r e c o r d of what was said i n n e s s a g e s from Ottawa, what we said i n r e t u r n , s t a t e m e n t s to Ottawa and t h e q u e s t i o n s v/e i s s u e d because t h i s I c a n . . . . Mrs.lk.i3pt nd: You d i d n ' t have a s t e n o g r a p h e r ? Read: Nothing a t a l l , n o . . . Ers.Aryot: Nothing was w r i t t e n and n o t h i n g was r e c o r d e d ? Read: So, the a l t e r n a t i v e to t h i s of course i s to put us through a •: ••-briefing p r o c e s s on, a s soon a s v/e g e t back to Ottawa and i n s t e a d v/hat they do i s f o r you to come back and you w r i t e memoranda. Which of course I ' v t done"and Orham's done and Claude Roquet has done, I h a v e n ' t seen Dery, I d o n ' t know whether he d i d . However, to go back to the o r g a n i z a t i o n of t h i s , Clau e and Orham were earmarked to go t o Havanna but Claude a s l e a d e r of the Task Force had a n a t u r a l i n c l i n a t i o n to want to be on the i s l a n d s e e i n g how t h i s t h i n g worked o u t and t h e r e to s o r t of plug any h o l e s t h a t developed. However, they were marked, t h e i r r o l e was to go to Montreal to g e t to the i s l a n d , to f l y to Cuba and n i n e v/as to stand by to take any a c t i o n r e q u i r e d , to answer any i n q u i r i e s r e g a r d i n g the o p e r a t i o n of Terre des Hommes a s the G u ban C o n s u l a t e , and t h i s I d i d . Dery was t h e r e to look a f t e r the f l i g h t from Dorval to Tendon. HA had bsen h e a v i l y involved a s you w i l l remember e a r l i e r on , i n the q u e s t i o n of the nee of A l g i e r s a s the d e s t i n a t i o n for the k i d n a p p e r s and he had a c t u a l l y t r a v e l l e d to A l g i e r s and been around and he v/as put on to the job cf e s c o r t i n g Mr. Cross to London and the four of us w e n t . t h e r e and the phone rang and we phoned and I c a n ' t remember v/hat the b i l l was, but i t s verj* i n t e r e s t i n g . The whole t h i n g was to t r y and keep o u r s e l v e s then w i t h the p r o g r e s s being made i n t h e n e g o t i a t i o n s t h a t w e r e / t a k i n g p l a c e v/ith the k i d n a p p e r s , and t h e r e v/as a secondary e f f o r t and t h a t v/as to l e t th • Cubans know we were t h e r e and then to n e g o t i a t e the a r r i v a l of Dyer . .. 5 010514 �Read: .• nd P.oqu t on tine island. This eventually was arranged but it was a fairly hair rsising experience, principally I think because the rather mild mannered lost all his power as soon as cane in and 3o i; a \rery strong person, a very intelligent and a good administrator, just.nbly obliterated . c Must who was a pleasant, easy going character decided what looked to M m good in the circumstances ana quite frankly its amazing that we got as good a pit as v/e did. were two, it was There who was hesitant about letting Dyer and Roquet get into the Consulate before the kidnappers, he could not see the sense of coin anything before then and I suppose maybe we didn't clear this point up earlier but it would have been a good thing to do and I think soul', have made less fuss about it. Nov/ Mrs.Halstead: Before the third there v/as no Montreal Task Force? Read; Hone at all. Mrs.Halstead: And no coordinated way of dealing with the provincial government sn .' Montreal? Read: 'well no the, the lines were all through Quebec City and that is a..., Mrs.Kalsteau: From Ottawa? Read: From Ottawa and they ran fron the Task F 0 rce. was tho Task Porce to The effective one but then there v/as also the Prime Minister's line to Mr. Choquette and Mr. Bourassa and the Minister's; I don't know .hethcr he was called into it but certainly there v/as a set up. You'll notice that for instance at one tine the Prine Minister's switchboard went tc so on/a 24 hour operation, thats recorded in there. So obviously/that there could be instantaneous contact betv/een the Prime Minister and Mr. Bourassa v/e were, in Quebec or alternatively with Mr. Choquette; because/this is one of the interesting things and I would like to be some time assured that tlie theorists vorking on this, that the business of trying to draw an effective ... 6 010515 �- 6 lead: 1 ins between the relative, the related authorities of the federal and provincial governments in a matter like this and drawing that line in such a say so as to not inpede communication and in such a way as to not reduce the whole thing to inefficiency. This, comes down to really the second and third questions that are on this page. A provincial attitude towards the federal government's role in the affair. We thought that as a Task Force, at least I think v/e thought, that as a Task Force that we were at ths-hub end that we were doing things but I have a suspicion that the provincial authorities were fully conscious of the fact a responsibility which was peculiarly theirs. that they v/ere exercising So that in a sense they ..ere tlie operators and we v/ere in an advisory position. "e were ln n0 position to tell then v/hat to do, we could advise them, v/e had sone control because; for instance, there was originally a mention of R500,000 worth of gold and provincial ministers of finance are notoriously generous especially •./hen they can see that if the federal government's interest gets excited the federal government can be expected to come up v/ith f. half million. So that with that sort of dangling in the background. There are other places in which federal government help ls essential. V/e had to provide the air craft that was quite apparent and this v/as enough to keep us in the picture. Hven if there had been nothing else but aside from that of course it -was a foreign representative so there's an overriding responsibility in our part. So this is really looking at the conjunction of a couple of networks and to see which string is being pulled by whom at the tine you have to work your way back into it. The essential thing v/as to have the, the thing work properly and to do this there v/as no possibility of ordering anybody to do anything from our point of view. V/hat you had to do was to trust that common sense in Ottawa equalled common sense in Quebec so that if you put a reasonable point of viev/ to the Quebec authorities it would touch them correctly in the, it would touch them in a manner . .. 7 010516 �- 7hick would be acceptable to them and which would stimulate their own thinking ^ P to follow along the sane lines. I think its a, its a, the sort of thing that university professors will be picking up and arguing about for years. It.: the effect on federal-provincial relationships of the Jasper Cross kidnapping, simply because it was fascinating. If, the ideal thing of course would have been for the federal government to have stepped right in and take over the whole business and cut out the Quebec authorities. This v/ould be efficiency mark one. That's to say we v/ould run the investigation, we'd run the guarding, we'd run the policing, we v/ould run the negotiations v/ith the kidnappers, we'd see then out of the country and we'd completely ignore the provincial government and the municipal government,' that's quite clear isn't it? You know only one person should drive a horse, you can't have the passenger take one rein and let the driver have the other. But in point of ao'.-r P IAV.'or fact completely unrealistic solution from the point of view from our Consulate General and also, we've got to say this that over a hundred years there is a certain experience in harmonizing the federal-provincial pointsof view and federal and provincial actions. This was what we fell back on, I suppose, but its a fascinating subject for anybody looking into it. './hat, the way we were operating was about as inefficient as it possibly could have planned to. V/e put so many steps in the simple chain of command. Mrs.Halstead: How do you think that the people on the federal side looked at you? Read; On the provincial? Mrs.Halstead: On the provincial side, did you, only in terms of the, of the desirability of the aircraft, ransom and of course the military help. Read: No I v/as representing a necessary factor in the picture, no question about it. Demers knew because of his power position which was much better then mind, after all I v/as not in M0ntreal as a personal friend of the Prime Minister. ... 8 010517 �- 8 Read: I had not run any political campaigns for him which Robert Demers had run a campaign for Bourassa after all, did you not knov/ that? Mrs.Amyot: No. Read: So they were great personal friends, I v/as not a personal friend of Pierre Slliott Trudeaus. Mrs. Aryot: So this explains the reason, that was a big interogation point that we had, why that man had been chosen*. Read: ,/hy that man Inad been chosen, v/ell a personal friend and ran a campaign for him. Hrs. Anyot: Thats right. Mrs.Halstead: But also very capable or did you not find that? React: Oh you have just made the understatement of the century. a ver;.- great admiration for Robert Demers. I have I thought he v/as perfectly charming, I thoug ht he was extraordinarily intelligent and I thought he vs.s very able. You know, you can be intelligent without being able and you can be the other way around, but this boy had both of them and he had a nice measurement of the effective things. I don't blame Bourassa for liking him by golly, he's a nice chap. .Ten c Mrs.Anyot: de better ^ean because this one is nearly finished so you better one just stop that/now. Mrs. Hal stead: Read: This is Jean-P'arc yes the other representative from Mr. Bourassa's office and I am, from loolcing at this I can't quite see which date this was, no idea. Put certainly he v/as there at one of the meetings because I've got his name down there and I can remember speaking to hin. Mrs.Halstead: One of the meetings at Terre des Hommes? Read: Yes, or, one of the meetings in the National Harbour Board office in Cite du Harve but to go back to our friend Demers and his attitude. ... 9 010518 �_9 I think basically he was extremely cooperative, he knew he was in the driver's ^ ^ seat, as I say his power position v/as well above mine. Furthermore, in a sense my role .vac technical. I was there to say well from the point of view of the ur.P T convention on consular relations this is it and this isn't it. Largely that because I was the representative of the Department on the earlier occasions and did not have Andre Bissonnette, I had a rather larger role. It wa:; a role at referendum. I don't think anybody expected me to take any jarthsk.aki.ng decisions and the decisions we were taking v/ere fairly small ones. But decision as choice, not decision but choice of location for the Suban Consulate in Terre des Hommes. The question of whether or not the Consulate consisted of one building or could take in the whole island and this sort of tiling. In the end as far as I was concerned the, the Consulate v/as described as Terre des Hommes and I understood that to mean both the island of St. Helene and Notre de Dame. The reason for taking both these in nt once was to give us a better perimeter so that the chance of, of our being ambushed while we're sitting in the pavilion taken over by several cells of tlie FLQ v/e reduced it so that v/e could encircle the whole tiling. Prom a practical point of view I imagine to, the police treated Terre des only Hommes as meaning/the island of Notre de Dame. I fancy that that is, would have been their definition and not including St. Ilelene. In point of fact it was as large as we needed but my feeling was that the description had been given as Terre des Hommes and that meant both islands and I v/as willing to exclude pier or Cit£ du Harve because of Habitat which was there and the national harbours board v/hich had to go on operating and these two things obviously couldn't occur in the middle of the Consulate. However, this is my role as I say was largely technical, carried a little bit more responsibility. put it that way. The sort of coordinating responsibility lets People looked at me to produce for them some idea of . . . 10 010519 �- 10 Read: . h a t the f e d e r a l government was t h i n k i n g and v/hat i t would want to do but ^aW as I say tlie d e c i s i o n s t h a t .were mine a t t h a t t i n e v/ere minor ones they were l a r g e l y t e c h n i c a l . The p l a c e where you could find f a v o r i t i s m , s u s p i c i o n and j e a l o u s i e s to quote the t h i r d q u e s t i o n v/as i n the r e l a t i o n s h i p between t h e p o l i c e f o r c e s . The HCHP found the house, the Quebec p r o v i n c i a l p o l i c e took t h e c r e d i t . Mrs.Amyot: Found t h e house where Cross w a s . . . . . Read: Found t h e house where Cross was kidnapped. The RCMP throughout the whole r o l e , throughout t h e whole c r i s i s played a, a r o l e i n t h e background end i n p o i n t of f a c t they w e r e n ' t i n t h e background a t a l l . were i n the foreground. They But they were g e t t i n g away from t h e f a c t t h a t they had no j u r i s d i c t i o n i n the p r o v i n c e of Quebec. They cannot, they can a r r e s t people yes a l l r i g h t you go and k i c k one of them i n t h e s h i n s , he v / i l l a r r e s t v/hen you. This i s f i n e they can do t h a t . But, i f / y o u ' r e i n Montreal and y o u ' r e p a s s i n g Henry B i r k s and you look i n s i d e and see a masked man knocking a case to p i e c e s and t a k i n g the diamonds out and t h i s s o r t of thing* your you d o n ' t c a l l t h e RCMP to come and i n v e s t i g a t e . Even i f t h i s c h a p , this b u r g l a r has g o t something t h a t s a y s f e d e r a l on the back, i t s the Montreal p o l i c e and i f t h e bloc g e t s o u t of Montreal i t s t h e p r o v i n c i a l p o l i c e t h e __. So what you have i s tlie, t h e , t h e , RCMP walking on eggs. They do t h a t . They were being v e r y a c t i v e i n d e e d . But, they c o u l d n ' t say they were being a c t i v e and they c o u l d n ' t phone t h e Quebec p r o v i n c i a l p o l i c e or the , they c o u l d n ' t phone the Montreal p o l i c e and say, "we've had a t i p t h a t says t h u s , t h a t says t h u s and s o , t h u s and so o r v/e b e l i e v e t h a t go and i n v e s t i g a t e " . They would have to s o r t of put t h e evidence to the Quebec people and say look t h e r e i s an i n d i c a t i o n h e r e which we find i n t e r e s t i n g and push i t a c r o s s t h e t a b l e to them and l e t t h e o t h e r f o r c e s say, "oh yes t h i s l o o k s good to us t o , v/e'11 send somebody o u t to i n v e s t i g a t e " . . . . 11 010520 �- 11 Head: Now in these circumstances their performance v/as very creditable. ^P But they're, they're fairly used to this role. We see this in our guarding activities for instance for the Consulates General in Quebec and in Montreal that we can ask the RCMP to liaise with the Montreal police or the or the Quebec police but they issue no orders, they make requests, they can pass indications along to them and thats about as far as you can take this. So they ./ere used to this but they did tell me this that it was their activity that took the police to the house where the kidnappers had Mr. Cross. Irs.Amyot: They must have been frustrated. lead: Oh yes but I think they are perpetually. But every now and then one of them just bursts the bound and says v/ell lets let the public account not know that the RCMP was there anyway. But their position depends on/taking too much credit because you scratch my back, nov/ let me scratch yours, you see what I mean? So v/hat, you help a young sgt. of the Montreal police to look good, he's going to do things for you, it works almost everywhere. Its the Dale Carneige approach so there were, however, beneath this definite suspicions that people v/ere not telling all, its a natural thing. That the, you know, the RCMP knew more then they v/ere letting on or the Montreal police knew more then they were letting on, etc., etc. You could feel this coming up through the police relationship that I saw there. Where there v/ere nice clear guide lines and Captain Marquee had to clear us on them all, he v/as in charge of the policing of Terre des Hommes and that v/as it, and the Harbour Board were happy to because the Harbour police had theirs, their responsibility ended at the shoreline and all right so they cooperated beautifully with Marquee he never got his feet wet, they never got their feet dry. Just like that, easy, friendly, comfortable relationship but when yougot beyond that v/here you got out into the wider business of the city and the RCMP and the Quebec,you could feel this undercurrent. The sane thing was happening back . . . 12 010521 �- 12 Read: on the Task Eorce 1 expect. Mrs.Amj^P: Because the jobs were not perfectly defined? Read: Thats right. Mrs.Halstead: But you were very close to the police on a number of occasions did you feel that they were inefficient in addition to having a jurisdictional problems? Read: I have a sinple faith in the police. It was severly dented the other day which is why I've got to go to court shortly. V/ith the effort of telling one youngster that he shouldn't jump to so many conclusions so quickly. that But I s t i l l have a very sinple f a i t h in the p o l i c e . I think/theyIve got a tough job and I think they do i t as v/ell as they possibly can. I have the f r i e n d l i e s t contacts with police in Ottawa and Toronto and the RCMP. I had friendly contacts in Montreal, the Montreal p o l i c e , unfortunately the chief one r e t i r e d and that was he was great fun but v/e had liaison reasonable/with the Assistant Director of the Montreal police and with others there. But nowadays I do most of my negotiating or Claude Sirois now does nost of h i s negotiating through the RCMP, because ACMP have grouped themselves to answer the need for the protection of foreign representatives and foreign v i s i t o r s . They now have the police and protection section or something of that s o r t , and the VIP security section. The VIP security section i s part of a s l i g h t l y larger section with r longer t i t l e which I can never remember, they c a n ' t remember i t either i n c i d e n t a l l y , i t doesn't get into the telephone book. Mrs.IIalstead: But you never f e l t that the police i n , in Montreal were i n f i l t e r a t e d by ths FDR or t h a t they were working against each other or trying to prolong the c r i s i s ? ead: Ho. I never thought that. No indication of it and I never . . . 13 010522 �- 13 Read: thought i t . ^•t I v/ould be very s u s p i c i o u s of anybody v/ho said t h a t they 3 A- tilings down because I t h i n k t n a t p o l i c e Pike p u b l i c i t y . v/ere Maybe t h a t ' s a comic s t r i p v e r s i o n of t h i n g s but I t h i n k p o l i c e l i k e p u b l i c i t y ars! I think they a l l want to be t h e f i r s t p o l i c e to d i s c o v e r t h i s to get t h e i r p i c t u r e s into the paper. den;- i n l i k i n g p u b l i c i t y . I must say t h a t the p o l i c e a r e n o t A f t e r a l l , i n one of my e a r l i e r p o s t i n g t o Havanna t h e r e were, i t v/as r e p o r t e d t h a t one of t h e grand dames of SPVPTJPS s o c i e t y paid the s o c i e t y e d i t o r of SIO,000 a y e a r to :ake c e r t a i n t h a t she v/as photographed a t every g r e a t f u n c t i o n she a t t e n d e d , end tne photograph v/as p r i n t e d . -/hen i t s off the t a p e . There was a . . . . , I ' l l t e l l you t h i s later I t s n o t i n the n a t u r e of t h i s but t h e r e v/as a Canadian dov/n t h e r e from Newfoundland and I d o n ' t know whether she paid the r e p o r t e r s a n y t h i n g but I remember once a t a J u l y P i r s t p a r t y t h a t she attended and we g o t a g r e a t p u b l i c i t y spread i n t h e isno'..' so'Aiehow o r o t h e r she was i n e v e r y one of tlie p i c t u r e s . and do you She had j u s t looked and watched v/here the caneranan was so t h a t every t i n e i t had to •DPS a c r o s s , he laughed i . , Senora Mary McCarthy However...... Now would you l i k e to go on to t h e safe conduct mechanism? Mrs.Halstead: Yes. Read: I imagine t h e , t h e , t h e q u e s t i o n t h a t s t i m u l a t e d by my comments to Andre B i s s o n n e t t e , the second memorandum. V/hat I v/as f e a r f u l of i n the safe conduct mechanism v/as simply t h a t you'd g e t to a p o i n t where t h e r e was nobody to decide something q u i t e v i t a l . I j u s t thought t h a t t h e i r ought to have been somebody, I d i d n ' t c a r e who i t was, v/as p u t i n charge of the whole t h i n g and a s soon a s t h e , C r o s s v/as found t h a t he v/ould suddenly become t h e a b s o l u t e c o n t r o l l e r and t h a t t h e n e g o t i a t o r s would go o u t lawyer, , the ./ho, i n c i d e n t a l l y v/as on t h e i s l a n d and h i s daughter v/as t h e r e f o r . . . 14 010523 �- 14 -% Read: P.eavens sakes. ^P When I arrived I'd forgotten about that but he'd send the negotiating tean in to talk to the kidnappers, in the meantime he would be pushing buttons to the provincial police to the Montreal police to the, particularly to the traffic police and arranging for the routing because we'd guaranteed them empty streets all the v/ay down and then to sort of sit by and be in touch by walkie talkie or radio or something with the whole tiling right the way dov/n to the, to where the kidnappers got into the island, got into the Consulate and ceased to be his responsibility. I was, for instance fearful that at a given moment the, lets say there is a tliree alarm fire on one of the streets and that the word wouldn't get through quickly enough and there'd be a -hold up and then there v/ould be a battle on the spot. Perhaps and there v/ould be nobody there to take charge .and develop on the spot immediate remedies for alternative routings or to get new cars in to replace the ones that had been shot up and I really just had concern that they, that there v/ere too many separate little packages in the over all bag and that you needed somebody who could move from one to the other very quickly. I suppose its like having Roquet as head of the Task Force. Everybody could turn to him, you reported to him, and he could sort of sift through the developments as they were reported to him and say, "right well now we must do this and take some remedial action to stop an unfortunate tendency or this sort of thing". As this worked out, it worked perfectly v/ith no problem, but there were funny things. For instance, why v/ere the army in charge of entrance and departure from Terre des Hommes? But v/hy if they were and if Gauthier told me that Roquet and Dyer would get on to the island by showing their identification cards, why did they not get on to the island when they showed their identification cards, because they didn't. Now this is the sort of thing that happened and then v/hy on the . . . 15 010524 �- 15 Read: ^P other side, although it was very important thing that happened, why did the army suddenly decide to relieve Gauthier fron his job and send him into the Consulate, which they did. Gauthier in theory was in charge of exit and.., entry and exit fron tha island. He v/asn't when I got through there, but then Mrs.Halstead: Who v/as when he was in the Consulate? Read: I have no idea. Mrs.Halstead: You think he was kicked out? Read: I don't know v/hat happened, all I know is that he turned up and said, "cart I cone in?" and I said, "I'll see". Found this and said, " here's my friend Colonel Gauthier, he's been in charge of the guard of the bridge and his authorities have asked him to cone into the Consulate, do you object? Mrs.Halstead: Do you think, there is one possibility that he was being removed and the other v/as that he was being sent in to find out v/hat was going on. Read: I think he v/as a spy, an army spy. Probably that and probably put in because they figured, well General Brown probably figured that because Gauthier and I had met that it was a good way of getting him in. Mrs.Amyot: Its clever. Read: I think its a very good move but at the same time the, the, the there could have been changes of some sort perhaps if one got dov/n to this and really thought it out or if I did, I would probably come to the conclusion that I v/as seeing things that would never exist but I was fearful that there was not enough central authority and that it would have been very useful to have had a central authority. Mrs.Halstead: If you had run into difficulty in getting to Terre des Homme the person in charge would Jaave been Read: I don't know. ? I have no idea what would have happened if I 16 010525 �- 16 Read: hadn't been able to get there. ^^ They couldn't really stop me, I'd been invited by the Cubans you see, I v/as there because wanted the Canadian government representative in the Consulate. Mrs.Anyot: ...and was the one who decided this person was coning in or not. Read: Yes, as long as or who were both there at that tine didn't object. But it v/as the Cuban side who said, perhaps it wasn't _________ maybe it was that said come and it was up to them to get the word to the gate. Whach they could do by getting hold of Captain Marquee and sendhing him but there must have been some lease liaison there, I didn't have any trouble but Dyer and Roquet did. Mrs.Anyot: Yes they had to wait for 20 minutes. Read: But I had the great fortune of wandering over there and transferring to a, Captain Marquee's car, because he came and got me. Mrs.Anyot: Yes but you did arrive on the island before, before Roquet and Dyer. Read: No, no, no. They were already there when I v/as there. They had been there for some time, because they waited 20 minutes. They v/ent over earlp- in the afternoon, so early that we had to cancel their lunches which we'd ordered fron room service. Thats another thing v/hich v/e should do is to nake certain that the Queen Elizabeth will meet its requirements for room service a little bit nore quickly in these emergency situations. (laughter) Well as you know they had plenty of time to get some food up to us and they didn't and so Roquet and Dyer didn't have any lunch. But after they had gone Dery and I had tine to have lunch, lots of time because it was after Dyer and Roquet had gone that I went and escaped fron that smoke filled roon and went wandering about and bought a mickey of Scotch whiskey which Dery took over to London v/ith him, or part of it. But no, they were there before I was definitely and thats hov/ I got Tara Dyer's . . . 17 010526 �- 17 Read; lunch because Orham had taken i t w i t h him and then he l e f t i t behind beeause i t . / a 3 v. n u i sane e. Mrs.Anyot: Oh. I t h i n k t h a t a t s t a g e t h e r e v/ere some c o m p l i c a t i o n s i n ova- o r g a n i s i n g tlie t r a v e l documents f o r t h e , f o r t h e FLQers to l e a v e , could you e l a b o r a t e on i t ? Read: 'Poll what t h e , t h e , t h e , and were prepared to i s s u e a group t r a v e l document to the k i d n a p p e r s . Irs.HalAt'SsS.: Read: Did they decide on t h a t a s a formula? I t was t h e only p o s s i b l e way, v/e could n o t go through t h e whole procedures' f o r i s s u i n g proper p a s s p o r t s . I.'Ir3.Anyot: Thats the r e a s o n why they never had any p a s s p o r t s ? Read: Thats r i g h t . Mrs.ArAyot: I see. Read: If t h e y ' d had them a l r e a d y they could have used then but t h e , the tiling v/as t h a t they had to have v i s a s and I t h i n k they had to have t h e i r p a s s p o r t s seen and the only way of doing i t v/as to i s s u e a group p a s s p o r t and t h i s would have t h e photograph on i t of the members of the group. I t h i n k t h i s v/as a e x t r a requirement i n c i d e n t a l l y , my s u s p i c i o n i s t h a t you can i s s u e group p a s s p o r t s . . . THE HID 010527 �THE OCTOBER CRISIS I n t e r v i e w with E r . T.Read conducted by Mrs. Jean Halstead end H r s . Andree Amyot. Tape Number Three. ,.'e were t a l k i n g a t the end of t h a t l a s t r e e l , t h e l a s t bofeftiiT, on tlie s u b j e c t of t h e a r r i v a l of Clioquette and Bourassa a t the Terre des Host e.v and the i n d i c a t i o n t h e r e of a c e r t a i n , c e r t a i n problems 'within the government of Quebec. Can we go back to t h a t ? Mrs.Halstead: Yes. Mrs.Amyot: Yes thats fine. Read: '.Veil the..., I have opinions on whether Mr. Chouquette ought to have come to Terre des Hommes or not. I can only imagine that he came because he ..anted to make certain that he was on page one of the newspapers. He brought with him hiv/ onw photographer or journalist; photographer I think and he came at a point v/hich was, in my view, far too early in the game and he came without asking permission of the Cubans or without giving much advance notice of his intentions. I thought that the visit was offensive, however there was nothins to do. Mrs.Halstead: What tine was it? Read: This was half past six in the, well in the evening, I think about half past six. He came roaring in with a tremendous bustle, he's a very big nan. Eou know he comes into a room I mean. Mrs.Amyot: Oh yes you notice him. Read: You notice him and he then went in and talked with Japser Cross for P'O minutes but I had, I had been talking to Robert Demers just before that. I was able to tell him that Chouquette v/as coning I think, and Demers immediately asked me to prevent him the entry of any photographer or press people with him. I said, "v/ell I'll speak to the Cubans" but there was no speaking to the Cubans. Chouquette came and he brought v/hoever he wanted ... 2 010528 �- 2Head: ^aW with him so afterwards I had to report to Demers that Choquette had come. In point od fact, he brought with him a photographer v/ho v/as working on a pool arrangement or who was committed to a pool arrangement and was able to supply the photographs he got to all the press people who were interested in having them and of course I imagine to Mr. Chouquette. It was shortly after that we heard that Bourassa was coming so he came in, very much quieter although still an important person v/hen he cones into a room and he brought Robert Demers with him and they v/ent and v/ere closetet with Cross for a while. Mrs.Anyot: Read: But wasn't there also a journalist or a photographer with Bourassa? V/ith Bourassa indeed there v/as and this v/as where Ashford v/as veiy Ashford was offended./the Information Officer and he was conscious, I, this is fascinating for me actually, he was conscious not of the local press problem but of the international press problem. I sort of sat up when I realized this and I still think its peculiar. As far as I am concerned Bill Ashford's job was to deal with the Canadian press people in Montreal, he was not there to deal with the international press at all. However, this seemed to be his prime interest because he was offended. Well it turned out afterwards that Bourassa's photographer was linked into a Canadian arrangement which had no connection with the international press, and he was, and he said, "well no this is bad". However, I didn't have much tine for I.*r. Ashfonel in any case. I didn't regard him as being germane to the story so to speak. Although afterwards I was responsible for his protection for many months may I say. However, Bourassa cane in and he went out and this was the celebrated moment at v/hich I said to Robert Demers as he went out, "a la prochaine" and he burst into laughter. And of course I was thinking when we neet next and of course a also la prochaine / neant at the next kidnapping. We burst into laughter and Bourassa said, "whats up?" and I guess and Bourassa immediately said, "Mr. Read has just said a la prochaine", he burst into laughter but ... 3 010529 �- 3Read: that was a good note for then to leave on and away they went. ^P But the problem was that as far as I am concerned Bourassa's visit was off base, Choquette's visit was certainly off base and I am convinced that nobody was in touch v/ith the Cubans with regard to Choquette's visit. \*{u,s R'as startled by this nov/ v/hether there had been some link v/ith the Cuban Ambassador in Ottawa I don't know because the Cuban Ambassador in Ottawa cane dov/n to Montreal, I think and v/as there in the vicinity, if I am not mistaken during the tine when we were waiting for Cross'3 release and the Cuban Ambassador had to be consulted but himself v/as powerless, everything has to be cleared through Havanna. This was one of the problems of dealing with this business of that the Cubans had to consult on v/hat seemed to me to be reasonably snail things but it v/as very convenient for them to hold up a decision on occasion but I think on other occasions they v/ould have liked to have been quicker themselves but they had to consult, they seemed to have far action • less freedom of/then, then we v/ould. If John for instance was an Ambassador in a situation like this I would haveexpected the Department to say, "go to it", and I would have expected him to make the decisions on the spot and say report that to Ottawa, report it to Ottawa but not wait till I get Ottawa on the phone, I would expect him to make decisions without consulting but the Cuban obviously had to consult and did so. Mrs.Halstead: Can you recall what he was consulting about? Read: No. Muss.Halstead: Could it have been about the travel documents? Read: No I think that was y f^/^^..who did the travel documents side. Mrs.Halstead: R^ad: ..and that had been arranged? That and I an thinking of the question of the travel documents for Dyer and Roquet who didn't have any. They went down with only their good looks and their departmental passes I think. ... . 4 010530 �- 4 Irs.Anyot: If only they had a paper saying, you know, personal, they're special. Read:^P Very special yes.. Well I think that this, this is not a question of consultation so much as a question of information to say that we have tpken this action to allow these people to travel on these things. You will kindly let then in, if its absolutely essential we can tell them not to go but it v/ould hold the whole thing up, it would be 90R> information or 39 information and lp' consultation. There are certain things you can't have stop no natter how man;/' rules are broken and this would/been one of then. Ho I, there v/ere a nunber of occasions on which we were waiting for the Cuban .Embassador to get authority from Havanna and I suspect that you'll find out about then as you exanine other members of the Task F0rce, they've slipped my mind at the moment. I do remember one tine when I got terribly bad tempered about the inefficiencies of my own Division and that v/as when this bloc, the Cuban Ambassador, had no residence and he v/as in fact living in 70 Rideau Terrace, which is an apartment building up near the Rockcliffe Arms in Linden Lea, and the, he had had rented a residence, had moved out into this place, their telephone nunber hadn't baen re-registered v/ith us or if it had been it certainly v/asn't indicated on anything we had and v/e could not find the Cuban Ambassador. he was somewhere, but where? Nobody knew where he v/as, we knew And I remember going dashing over to the "Prop tlie Task Force looking through everything I could find to try and find it and its one of the reasons v/hy I an continuing to be determined, gritting ~.y teeth loudly to see that we have a document, or that we have an information retrieval system in Protocol Division so that we can get information on anybody, any foreign diplomat or any foreign representative of any kind here in Ottawa, and I want to get it by pulling a number and then dialing a serial, an additional series of digits and having a ... 5 010531 �a mechanical voice come out and say, 'W^jQa^atea^a^^J* Cu'°an Ambassador M/. {M&dtffo^i Read: to Canada, a c c r e d i t e d such and such, a r r i v e d Canada such and such a d a t e , a c c r e d i t e d such and such a d a t e , r e s i d e n c e so and s o , m a r r i e d , ^ t h r e e c h i l d r e n " , and c.cxc t h a t happen so t h a t you knov/ what y o u ' r e d e a l i n g w i t h . But t h e r e w a s n ' t anything so we l o s t the Cuban Ambassador and t h e r e was a t e r r i b l e f i s h around. So t h a t s a d e f i c i t . V/e did have to c o n s u l t the Cuban Ambassador en many o c c a s i o n s duringtlie Task Force o p e r a t i o n and I t h i n k n o s t of t h o s e he had to r e f e r t h e n t o , but they were i n p o r t a n t q u e s t i o n s but I v/ould have expeeted a Canadian Ambassador to have taken t h e d e c i s i o n and to have informed h i s government r a t h e r than to ask t h e government's p e r m i s s i o n . My commentary on t h a t p o i n t . Irs.Halstead: To r e t u r n b r i e f l y to t h e q u e s t i o n of t h e p r e s s , did t h e Canadian government, did the f e d e r a l government and did you have any s p e c i a l interest i n keeping a l l p h o t o g r a p h e r s away? Read: Ho. No i n t e r e s t w h a t s o e v e r . But t h e , t h e , i n my viev/ and I v/as probably t r y i n g to s t i c k too s t i f f a l i n e on t h i s , a s f a r a s I v/as concerned Terre des Hommes v/as t e r r i t o r y w i t h i n Cuban c o n t r o l although p o l i c e d by un and in view of the Cuban a t t i t u d e towards the people t r e a d i n g on t h e i r e a r t h I wanted everybody who came t h e r e to come t h e r e e i t h e r a t the h v i t a t i o n of, o r v/ith the p e r m i s s i o n of t h e Cuban i n charge who v/as ^^,/^^f end t h i s i s one of t h e t h i n g s i f he wished t o p e r m i t p r e s s t o cone i n then I was happy to have p r e s s cone i n , coming i n , I had no i n s t r u c t i o n s to the c o n t r a r y from E x t e r n a l A f f a i r s . I c o u l d n ' t see any harm to i t b u t I did t h i n k t h a t t h i s c a s u a l assumption because the M i n i s t e r of J u s t i c e of Quebec, Choquette had f r e e e n t r y to the i s l a n d was unwarranted, and I thought t h a t , I was very s u r p r i s e d by i t . unjustified And the warning from Demers about saying, "v/ell d o n ' t l e t h i n t a k e a photographer i n " , to ne i n d i c a t e d t h a t i n the government of Quebec t h a t t h e r e v/as a c e r t a i n r i v a l r y and a 010532 �- 6Read: possibility that Mr. Choquette was hoping that the Cross crisis would ^^ catapult hin into the Premiers chair. Well its a nice hope if you want to get somewhere, you've assured yourself to be very determined on the side of law and order and a great guy you see. •dtjU-t-t icS-AAMrs.Halstead: You didn't see John Dunr*3sil abo«fr Choquette? then Read: I didn't but /I didn't know Dunrossil at that time, not really. only He'd/just arrived in Canada, I d i d n ' t know who he was probably and Dunrossil's approval i f he gave i t to Choquette, and i f he did come with Choquette was entirely i r r e l e v a n t to the s i t u a t i o n , the approval had to come from the Cubans , not from the B r i t s . Mrs.Anyot: Apparently he had been invited by Choquette. Read: Thats quite probable. After a l l i t i s n ' t everyday that you can walk in with a Mrs.Anyot: I would l i k e to go back to that a l t e r n a t i v e location which you talked about a l i t t l e e a r l i e r . Read: I think t h i s i s explained, I think t h a t I come close to explaining i t in one of these things here that i f that storm had h i t us six hours before, t h e helicopter would not have been able to get on to the i s l a n d . He v/ould have had to nake a l t e r n a t i v e plans or i f while v/e were waiting, t h e r e ' d been fourteen inches of snow, nobody could have gone anywhere. Perhaps you couldn't have gone anywhere anyway but the feeling was that the, the set up wasn't quite r i g h t . That what v/e needed was sone place a l i t t l e b i t more c e n t r a l , e i t h e r that or more i s l o a t e d . We needed a place we could take over and have a l l to ourselves v/ithout feeling that you have to be out by 9 O'clock i n the norning because the staff are moving i n , where you d i d n ' t have to upset a najor operation, which you could say fine t h i s i s good for a year or five y e a r s , i t v/ill s t i l l be there. Preferably c e n t r a l but a t the same time preferably suburban you want a place where you have got access . . . 7 010533 �- 7 Read: to the a i r p o r t , or access to highways - quickly in and quickly out. ^P But that storm as I say held off,the helicopter was able to cone i n , everything worked and the r o a r through the c i t y was f i n e , managed that. but heaven knows how they I s t i l l don't, I wish I ' d been there to 3ee the police organisation to close off that r o u t e , i t must have been f a n t a s t i c and I don't know how they did i t , but they did. And i t would have been easier if we'd had a palace up in Mount Royal and they'd Mrs.Anyot: But from your knowledge t h e r e ' s no other place before the l a s t decision cane to take Terre des Honnes a s , no other p l a c e . . . . Read: "I wasn't in on the debate that ended with Terre des Honnes. Mors.Halstead: Pas i t the nature of the Task F 0 rce and the nature of the Task P 0 rce discussions that i f you had been there you would have been able to suggest tlie d i f f i c u l t i e s or to make other proposals? Read: No. I think anybody who quibbled as I have v/ith the choice of Terre des Hommes i s enjoying a b i t of ex post facto wisdom. I v/ould think that i f somebody said Terre des Honnes he would say fine, w e ' l l look a t i t , i t s a blob,you can i s o l a t e i t , unless people walk across the ice v/hich wasn't probable. But i t , i t , you can i s o l a t e i t , there are a l l those buildings why not use one of then? Well because a f t e r a l l yon don't know that theres no insulation, you don't know theres no i n s u l a t i o n there. Mrs.Anyot: So i t v/ould look g o o d . . . . And of course nost probably at that t i n e also nobody expected that i t was going to l a s t that long, in November to have a big storm l i k e that we usually d o n ' t have them so t h a t s certainly one ofthe reasons why that p a r t i c u l a r aspect was not brought out. Read: Yes, there r e a l l y v/as a vicious storm t o . I was very glad I v/asn't to driving a car when when v/e got away fron there. One of the t h i n g s / t h a t was important on t h i s was that the Jacque Cartier bridge ices very quickly because the wind goes underneath and on top and they ought to keep the roads a l i t t l e �Read: bit.....But no I think probably its better to say Terre des Hommes v/as good, ^P it had enough space, it had the security, or nost of the security that we needed, it had the heliport which neant that there was helicopter communication and at worst we could have had linousines or big cars taking the party to Dorval, it v/ould have just lengthened the procedure. It was free, the Harbour Board didn't charge us anything for it I think, they should have, -we certainly made a ness of that, you know, the ashtrays were full b;r the tine v/e left. But I v/ould have been, if I'd chosen the spot, happier to take over the Harbour Board headquarters in the Cite du Harve which would have been a better location then the Terre des Honnes itself. Just that little bit more convenient. Mrs. Amyot: Oui. Read: . . . a n d you'BE SO c l o s e t h e r e to t h e Bonaventure Parkway v/hich .ould take you t o Dorval q u i t e q u i c k l y I t h i n k i f I am n o t m i s t a k e n . Mrs.Amyot: Yes y o u ' r e r i g h t . Read: Yes i t t a k e s you to doesn't i t , no, well I ' v e forgotten anyway but i t seems to ne t h a t i t s a n a i n road and t h e Harbour Board mi h t have done. offices But a bad, on the o t h e r hand, a bad choice because heaven knows we had to take the Canadian p a v i l i o n o u t of a c t i o n f o r long enough and t h a t was w i t h a r e a s o n a b l e s t a f f . The Harbour Board s t a f f , they probably hc-.ve s e v e r a l hundred people working t h e r e find y o u ' r e d i s l o d g i n g t h e n . Its on-: tiling to t e l l e i g h t o r t e n people n o t t o r e p o r t tomorrow morning o r Eon they h e a r t h a t some t i l i n g ' 3 happening they d o n ' t need to cone to work, can but i t s a n o t h e r t h i n g to t e l l t h r e e hundred p e o p l e . I mean/you see Montreal Harbour l i t t e r e d w i t h s h i p s above t h e s h o a l s ? Mrs.Amyot: Imagine. Read: Cause t h e Harbour Board i s n ' t working t h a t day, I d o n ' t know ./here e l s e would be b e t t e r . Mrs. Aivyot: At t h e end i t was a v e r y good l o c a t i o n . . . . . . 9 010535 �- 9..end: Yes. Ms. A^yol: ....except on that business of weather.... Read: ...exac tly... Mrs.Argot: ...in winter. Read: He v/ere lucky but as soon as you say we were lucky it means that it P S not a reliable all weather... Mrs.Amyot: In any other season there would have been no problem.. 3ea-i: Oh bit a bit, what would happen in summer with Terre des Honnes open and a hundred thousand people? Mrs.Halst'Pal: Pe wouldn't use it. Read: Think of the problem of just at the moment when you're explaining to .c'7 ral thousand people that they can't cone in today cause their buses Hnvo corns from Rimouslsi said things like that and they're all standing there at the .lace dc and you say don't cone in v/e need this and all of a cudd r. you try and get a dirty old black Chrysler and police cars coning :crspsing into the mob frosi behind, thats gorgeous, it wouldn't have done dor ths summer. So it was essentially a place that was good after the sP:o .' closed for the year. Mrs.Anyot: You're right. Hrs.Ealst-as: v Read: Yes.' Don't ask me v/here it is I v/ould never be able to find it r-.gr.in m o u went to the Jewish Hospital? ry lite. Mrs.Amyot: But you remember going? Read: I remember going because it was a, it v/as a terrifying ride in rsany aspects. First of all I 'was in the back of Captain Marquee's car, there were two of us criminals, you know. There were no door handles and no window handles. Mrs.Anyot: Ho window; ? ... 10 010536 �- 10 Read: So there you are and the car gets cranked up, you don't get out, you are there ^P until iomebody opens the- door from inside, no locks, nothing. But the funny thing was that v/hen we all piled into the cards and were moving away... Mrs. Asiyo t: V.'e all, who? Read: Oh. Marquee v/as driving this car and there v/as a youngster from the RCII in the back with me end there v/as somebody else in the front who, this was entirely sort of a police operation except for me. car v.lth Cross and Mrs. to with S u san Cross and they were in a car and they were in the convoy and Marquee was leading. then? But they had a, the V/ho else was available I don't know what happened to the Cubans, v/e said goodnight to then and v/e left, I hope they turned the lights out and went hone to bed, they certainly needed it, along v/ith all those other bodies, the police of various sorts. But in my car I was v/ith a young plain clothes Constable of the RCMP or Corporal or Sgt. and my friend Harqu*S in the front driving* and v/e took off on the .most unexpected route, wandered around through He P'ainte Ilelene I think. Mrs.Halstead: Why was it so strange simply because it Read: My friend HarqutS needed hi3 overcoat, or something of that sort which he hadn't had up to that tine and found he suddenly needed it. Mrs.Anyot: Read: Oh, thats incredible.' Re went to the sort of island police headquarters which is left off somewhere near the Jacques Cartier Bridge. But getting there v/as really up here and down there, well you know v/hen you're in the back of a car and the windshield wipers are going and the snow is coming down like this and you're plugging along don't know where you are. So we cone to these buildings and I think good heavens where are we and then of course we're not even off the island. So then you. swing around and go back dov/n again and there are four cars I think in the convoy. Mrs. Anyot: Everybody was following.... ... 11 010537 �- 11 Read: The, the, the RCMP, the police 'are red hot on let him not be ^fc kidnapped again. They did not want that to happen, but what a nice thing you see the kidnappers are on their way, they've landed fine, O.K., the 'PR second cell cones in and wants Cross again. Mrs.Halstead: Thank goodness. Read: Just to clever for words. Wouldn't it be just clever? So off we go and we finally find our './ay to the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Marques knows where he's going, I P.on't know and we start wandering through Montreal. By this tine it must be quarter past eleven, quarter past two, two o'olock? Mrs.Anyot: Oh a little before I would say because you were back at the hotel at a quarter to three. Read: Yes.Veil we were wandering through these streets and of course every time you come to a stop street you've got four cars at least, in the- shortest form of a convoy and if you stop in your stop street, can the car behind you stop, can the car behind It stop? So, there being nothing coming, you don't stop. So we went through stop street after stop street, we v/ent through red light after red light. It was quite exciting: and then finally we got to the Jewish Hospital. j Mrs* Amyot: No siren? Read: No siren, alive as the grave. Just absolutly silent. ^° "then they go around the Jewish Hospital, or now perhaps we didn't go around maybe wc only .vent partially around but v/e went in I think, through the back entrance an., then the cars stopped. But Marqutfi he had got out and then theres a movement from the others as they get Cross and Mrs. and they start in and then Marquee comes back and he said, "I guess it3 all right'1, and then with me alone,we've lost the other two at this stage. Mrs.Halstead: The other t.vo police? Read: Yes. He starts off and drives back to the Queen Elizabeth v/ith me, i which v/as very nice of him and somewhere along, you see he had no business . . . 12 010538 �- 12 Read: nny in this, once Cross v/as delivered to the hospital the Terre des Honnes police were out and that was his charge. He v/as in charge of the policing along of the two islands. So/we go and the radio is crackling av/ay with voices and this, that and the other thing and all of a sudden, dA£iMz£uadMAiM^oy^UM^c^- he said, "there v/e are", I said, "what does that nean? V/hat did he say? its*J.<..• £ti&t• •• '•• ^bduZxL Aell I said, "yes I know that but v/hat does it mean?" "It means Cross is safely in bed", so there he was. So then you go home and you'd like to then take off and do the night clubs and stay up till si.: in the morning and rejoice,the load is off the shoulders, so what happens? Go and get into a nice warm bath and go to bed and go to sleep. But then the thin; that I don't know whether, I think I mentioned this somewhere, it v/as a matter of great relief, ray job was over as far as I was concerned at this point. The Terre des Honnes had been used as the Consulate, it had served as the Consulate and I v/as out. It was then for Jean Marie Dery because he was responsible for the flight across the Atlantic and it was up to him to take over. .311 fortunately for our sanity, while we were still sort of talking to Ottawa and telling them what we could and v/hat not, a decision ../as made in Ottawa to send Vic Chapman dov/n to organize the departure and this was trenendous because he is a natural for this 3ort of job. He's a big man and he speaks quietly and people listen to hin and the first thing ,-e know Joan Marie and himself, I think they v/ere out in an RCMP car because we couldn't get a taxi, Montreal is snow up to here you see, it really v/as a blizzard and its a city that comes to a grinding halt. So I, I am not certain, I tliink it was probably by an RCMP car, we're out to the airport late that afternoon. This was on the afternoon of the 4th and Vic Chapman called a meeting of everybody v/ho had anything to do v/ith this, he had the PC.H, he had the Montreal police, the provincial police, I fancy I an not . . . 13 010539 �- 13 Read: certain, the managenent of the airport, probably Ashford I should think est 1 LP' not certain, or somebody fron that office and the question is to orpanise the departure of Mr. Cross and there were maybe 19 people at this .tins, -itting around the VIP room and nobody quite knowing what anybody vise- ..as going to do about this and just quietly, with vera- great ease and fficiency Vic let the talking start and details come out in general exchange of facts and this sort of thing and then he quietly just pulled all the Accreaec just like this and the first tiling v/e know everything was organized. It was a beautiful job, bravo, just beautiful, so smooth you can't believe it, end there E/e had a plan for the departure and this required us to be out ver:/ early in the lAoming, far too early for . I think we had to b- is Ane VII roos at a quarter to seven and there to welcome Bryce 1 ackeeay v/ho cane up to represent the federal government. I fancy there './as representative from the Mayor's office there but he may have been in on tlie first discussions the night before. There nust have been a representative of the Quebec government but I haven't got the faintest idea who it was at this point and...Cross and company arrived in convoy, guarded up to the hilt, .•sis then they came into the VIP room and...... Mrs.Halsteaa: Hayman... Read: 1' eter Hayman was he there? Mrs.Amyot: i-ster Hayman, yes I think he was. .iead: I think he nust have been. Mrs.Anyot: Peter Hayman? Read: I think he must have been at tlie departure of Cross, I an not certain. An yes it was, thats v/ho I got my ride hone fron the Uplands in the Rolls Royce. Mrs.Halstead: Peter Hayman, of course at the end of the book. Mrs. Amyot: Oh geej Read: Po I think that he was there and then I think that everything v/as ... 14 010540 �- 14 lead: organized so as Cross arrived you. see everybody was there and we all troop into ths, there was c sort of cafeteria place next door or small restaurant, and that had been cooped, taken over and so v/e sent to the VII room and then th. r: .as this press conference and then through, around and down and into the funny little VIP room that the Department of Transport, its really a VIP on trance, the Department of Transport has and tin en out and into the aircraft. But I didn't go out at that point because I think v/e just saw then off and they got into the, the press were permitted to cone out on the balcony which save them a pretty good view even looking downwards at the procession out of he airport. But the descent through the, down the escalators and through the departure lounge and out that or through the VIP lounge which they v/ent. That sac no press so then they got on board the aircraft waving like made, including Jean Marie Dery and away they went and there it '.'/as. Co at that point v/e went and collected coats and things and got into one of the small Department of Transport jets v/ith Peter Hayman and back to Ottawa. Vic Chapman'and Peter gave ne a lift back to the, a lift to the Vast Block I think, either that or to the Centennial Tower I an not certain which and that v/as it. Back home at 10:30 or so if I remember right. I know it A/as a fast flight fron Montreal I renenber that and then of course being Caturday morning, oh he must have taken me home, no. •Irs. Halstead: lost par tun depression? iead: Didn't have a nonent. I v/as back in the office again by quarter to twelve. Mrs.Anyot: But on a Saturday? Read: Yes. Mrs.Anyot: Oh my d e a r . Read: Somebody had p u t a bomb i n the hallway o u t s i d e the Cuban Consulate i n Toronto. . . . 15 010541 �- 15 Mrs.Anyot: Its true, i t s true. _ Read-^ So I went back i n . a n d I did a n o t h e r t h r e e o r four h o u r s overtime on t h a t . There was no Consul b u t somebody p u t a bomb t h e r e so then the problem ...• .z to g e t r e p r e s e n t a t i o n fron Cuba o r do something to g e t i n to see v/hether t h e r e had been any damage i n s i d e o r something of t h e s o r t . , F i r s t S e c r e t a r y . h e r e , they s e n t him dov/n. But they s e n t So he went dov/n, se teed t h a t up w i t h a charming I n s p e c t o r of t h e Toronto P o l i c e Force v/ho decided i f __needed e n t e r t a i n i n g , so a f t e r t h e y ' d been and dov/n t h e i r i n s p e c t i o n of the p l a c e and i t seemed t h a t t h e damage was a l l i n the h a l l w a y , o u t s i d e , i t v/asn't even n e a r t h e i r f r o n t door, no problems were c r e a t e d and e v e r y t h i n g was f i n e . He j u s t s a i d , "v/ould you l i k e a r i d e around?" o he p u t , he p u t h i n i n t o the p o l i c e c a r and drove him around Toronto f o r a couple of hours on a s i g h t s e e i n g t o u r , which must be f a s c i n a t i n g , the police must know the n o s t wonderful p l a c e s to go. Mrs.Anyot: They c e r t a i n l y know how to g e t to t h e n . Read: How t o g e t to the n o s t f a s c i n a t i n g p l a c e s . So they gave h i n a r i d e around and he v/as simply d e l i g h t e d to g e t back to Ottawa and e v e r y t h i n g was smoothed o u t q u i t e n i c e l y . But I t h i n k i t v/as I n s p e c t o r Cole i f I am n o t mistaken, but he did very w e l l by us on t h a t but t h a t was the ending I r e a l l y felt. I was, the;/ could have l e f t ne alone t h a t weekend you know, s o r r y about t h a t darn bomb. Hers.Hal s t e a d : You'd have to c a r r y on t i l l S u nday. Mrs.Anyot: You're n o t supposed t o have your h o l i d a y on your day o f f before Sunday. Mrs.Halstead: While you v/ere i n Montreal did you have anything to do with people i n the B r i t i s h . . . . Read: Not r e a l l y . Mrs.Halstead: . . . c o n n e c t i o n except Ashford? . . . 16 010542 �- 16 Read: ^P No, and I only saw Ashford and they were all very hostile. They ,i n't want interference from a federal government representative. Oh no, they were running this with the big government of the province of Quebec. 'dr. Ashford certainly v/as absolutely oriented towards their provincial responsibility and of course I was there to say, "well the federal government nee a little interest in this natter you know". I didn't really have nuch contact with Ashford cause I really didn't like him very nuch, he's a very unlikable person and I thought well I don't like you. Mrs.Halstead: He's very interesting. Read: "Yes. Now Dunrussil's part, as I say I didn't know Dunrussil really end he, I think, was also oriented towards the provincial people. Simply because he'd been told to sit in dov/n in Montreal almost as soon as he got here and had to go into a Trade Commission situation in a sense, and I don't think that he at that tine, I don't think Ashford knew of the importance of the role of the federal government in this kidnapping at all, in the rescue of Mr. Cross. Mrs.Halstead: ...and that v/asn't, that view wasn't corrected by the High Commission in Ottawa? Read: I think , I think that the High Commission knew perfectly well what as going; on. If you remember that Peter Hayman really rather shocked things because the moment he arrived and was greeted exceptionally by 3d Ritchie. As you know, the Protocol doesn't require a welcoming gesture of the presence of an Under-Secretary at the airport, it requires merely the presence of the Chief of Protocol and Bd went out, I think, because he wanted to be able to say to Ieter Haynan on arrival, "look, just to assure we really are working terribly hard on thisi'and I think that they were a little shocked when Peter Haynan said, "right, well now lets go straight to the Ops Room". As if he had some right to be in the Operations Centre, v/hich of course he didn't. . . . 17 010543 �- 17 Read: ^P Our cooperation with the British High Commision here through Mike RcConnville or Bmerous Davis was verjr close indeed. V/e had their after hours numbers, they v/ere operating their own Task Force or their ov/n Operations Centre in the British High Comnission, because they have a big staff and they can do it and they had sort of created their ov/n little ops centre and they were dealing with us and dealing v/ith their Trade Comnissioner in Montreal. They knew v/here we v/ere on this. At the same tine I think that John Dunrussil having cone in and gone immediately dov/n to Montreal had no chance to do this and then he v/as engaged in dealing directly v/ith the Montreal Police who were investigating and our presence was on a perhaps at second hand there, our importance was, was not really apparent probably and you remember of course that the number of public statements made by Er. Choquette and by Mr. Bourassa outweighed the federal government's statements by about ten to one. Mrs.Halstead: How do you account for that? Read: .Veil because the division of police powers requires that the provincial government and provincial attorney generals to respond, ia required to go through the investigation of, to do the investigating of all crines under tlie Criminal Code. The, the RCMP in theprovince of juebec, who has a liaison function but it has no investigative function •and thats, thats what put Jerome Choquette into the key position.On the other hand, the dealings of the FLQ v/ere as much federal as they were provincial because the demands they made were essentially, I think, federal demands. They would have become entirely federal if that de:iand for PROO,000 worth of gold that was made, I can't see the Minister of Finance of the province of Quebec being happy to try to dig that up for himself. I think he would have said, "oh well thats a federal matter". That v/ould be my reaction if I v/ere a federal, a provincial Minister . . . 18 010544 �- 18 Read: of Finance anyway. ^P r i . .. i n t o Mrs.Halstead: But i t v/as a, t h e p o l i c e r e s p o n s i b i l i t y Rioquette, no q u e s t i o n a b o ' t V'as t h e r e any d i f f i c u l t lead: funneled it. about C r o s s ' s d i p l o m a t i c status? Ho. Ho v/hat t h e r e was, v/as a l i t t l e s u r p r i s e , t h a t . . . . I look a t t h i s Prom a l o n g e r t e r n p o i n t of view. In ny time on p r o t e c t i o n work here in P r o t o c o l D i v i s i o n I have seen the excitement g e n e r a t e d by t h e kidnapping of an Honorary Vice Consul. Now d i p l o m a t i c a l l y an Honorary Vice Consul i , j u s t s l i t t l e b i t more then z e r o . I f you had to r a t e h i n i n t h e d i p l o m a t i c t i l i n g , an Honorary Vice Consul i s zero p l u s , he d o e s n ' t even pet so one. But now t h a t nan stay make a s nuch f u s s about i t , of course the p r e s s a l l say t h i s d i p l o m a t , they d o n ' t say t h i s Honorary Vice Consul, t h i s zero p l u s . H e ' s j u s t a s good a s an Ambassador, you can make i t i n t o publicity thats important. You're t r y i n g to a t t r a c t a t t e n t i o n f o r your cause t h e r e f o r e kidnap anybody and you can g e t f r o n t pages of t h e newspapers, you con hold then f o r weeks, r a n s o n demand r e c e i v e d , you s e e , and t h i s s o r t of t h i n . Mrs.Anyot: I f we can r e c a l l fron t h e t a p e t h a t lias been done on t h e t r i p from E o n t r e a l to Londonwith Mr. Cross i t seens t h a t , no i t s n o t on t h a t t r i p , One, i t s the- t r i p fron Montreal to Cuba v/ith t h e , t h e FLQ, / I t h i n k i t s Lanctfit, no t h a t nentioned to Mr. Dyer t h a t Mr. Cross i n sone, during a period wasvery, i t s not shocked, v/hats the word should I have u s e d , very u p s e t about t h e f a c t t h a t h i s government a s w e l l a s the Canadian government did not pay a s nuch a t t e n t i o n to h i n ao they would have done to an Ambassador for instance. Read: Mr. Cross d i d n ' t know hov/ much a t t e n t i o n should be paid to a kidnapped Ambassador. Do you see? This i s the answer. a s an Ambassador v/ould have g o t . Cross got j u s t a s nuch a t t e n t i o n He was v i t a l to t h e government of Canada and . . . 19 010545 �- 19 Read: ^p he got the treatment that should have been accorded to hin. But, what he d i d n ' t Isio.v, l e t s sap-, i t wasn't a question of knowing but there was Cross in an isolated s i t u a t i o n feeling neglected, he had no idea v/hat v/as going on. Mrs.Anyot: Thats i t . Read: . . . a n d I don't know how he hoped to get anything.- V/hether or not v/e should have been flashing messages in case he had a t e l e v i s i o n set or v/hat i t should have been. Sort of, "Jasper v/e love you, signed P i e r r e " . Can you see tills coring up on the t e l e v i s i o n , on the t e l e v i s i o n networks a l l the tine? Mrs.Halstead: Read: I t s quite an idea Ton. 'Or sonething. But I d o n ' t know the extent to which he did watch t e l e v i s i o n , but how can you t e l l a kidnapped nan, you see. horrified at the thought that h i s Cross v/as wife night have thought him dead. Mrs.Anyot: Yes, oh yes. Read: ..'ell v/hat Mrs.Amyot: P e l l there was a reason for that v/hy he v/as so upset about i t . Read: You see, how can you when you're i s o l a t e d , know v/hats going on and Cross reacted as any human being would have reacted and t h a t s to say to forget that he was conpletely ignorant and to go on the basis of the indications which he had and that was minus zero. he f e l t neglected. He d i d n ' t have any contact, therefore, V/ell t h i s i s quite normal but we, I nust say t h a t the kidnapping of any person, any foreign representative even i f i t i s nerely the Chamber Maid a t the Japanese Consulate General i n Vancouver. It would have to be handled v/ith the sane thoroughness, you wouldn't give anything for an Ambassador, he doesn't get any, he doesn't deserve any pereater care. You assume that i f h e ' s an Ambassador he may have contacts in h i s own government which w i l l be important and that the housenaid in the Japanese Consulate General in Vancouver has no contacts in the government . . . I--AJ 010546 �- 20 Read: ^P and is an unimportant person but she's just as good to the kidnappers as an P...:. .-pdor. shoot her. The only thing is that they can probably, no even if they Supposing for instance they took somebody and they eventually Pilled then but the noise made in tlie press on behalf of that unfortunate noise girl would have been no less then the/made if the body of Jasper Cros3 had been found. All these people are just levers in a great big game thats playing. They go down here and the other end goes up and they say look but its the sane length lever and this is the appalling thing to realize. It doesn't have to be an Ambassador, it can be anybody. Whats nore if you lidnap the housemaid of the Japanese Consulate General in Vancouver the wife of the Japanese Consul General in Vancouver is going to create nore fuss then a government v/ould over the loss of an Ambassador. Mrs.Halstead: And its a very good thing to do, to kidnap a Japanese housemaid, I wouldn't mind trying that myself. Read: They're not important, they're merely vital, yes. Mrs.Halstcad: Tom perhaps I'd very nuch or we'd like very much to have you go into the protection plans at sone length perhaps that v/ould be better at a different session. Read: V/e could deal v/ith protection at the next session. Its easy cause I can, this is v/here Andre Bissonnette comes back into the picture again. Because as PDF he had a senior interest in the protection matters although hin no departmental organization showed/as having any part in this, it just i3 taken for granted that PDF has got an interest and whats more PDF became a vital link in this business of putting protection on various people, various diplomats. Mrs. Halstead: Did we actually record what you were saying about the Ops Centre in Montreal? . . . 21 010547 �- 21 Read: Ho, I d o n ' t t h i n k v/e d i d . E r s . l ^ P t'Pad: .Pell hov/ are pou f e e l i n g , v/ould you l i k e to make t h a t the next s e s s i o n , i t s .getting on. Hrs.Aiyot: I t s a l r e a d y 20 minutes p a s t . . . . . . . Mrs.Halstead: . . . . w e l l into the afternoon Read: well..... Mrs.Anyot: Because t h e r e a r e c e r t a i n l y a few o t h e r t h i n g s v/hich we would l i k e you to t e l l us about s o . . . . Read: Any n o t l e a v e i t f o r a n o t h e r s e s s i o n then? Mrs.Halstead: Well t h a t s sweet of you. Read: Hot a t a l l . Mrs.Amyot: ('.Thispers with a s o f t , I ' d be q u i t e happy t o . sweet, sexy v o i c e "Thank y o u " . ) TIPS END HOT'J: The balance of the t a p e i s a d u p l i c a t e of a p o r t i o n of t a p e nunber two. 010548 �W- A OCTOB:PR 'I?? ORIS 13 Taped interview with Mr. Ton Read. The interview was conducted by Mrs. Jean Halstead and Mrs. Andree Amyot. Blanchette: I think this is going to be a real adventure. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of very long and fruitful interveiws regarding the events of October, 1970 and the role that this Departnent played in those events. And from that point of view you, Ton, are a historic Read: first. Well I am the grain of sand, the first one fron which the beach starts obviously. Blanchette: Otuml, gaBT. It/a taken a long tine to get this project started. It started nearly two years ago when Bill Barton nade a suggestion to ne that it v/ould wise to try to fill the gaps and our knowledge of v/hat happened by interviewing the people concerned. It took several nonths to find people v/ho v/ould have tine to do the research and do the planning,, anil gventually we were lucky to find Jean Halstead and Andree Amyot, and I must say the Department^ is very grateful for the long hours of v/ork and the excellent research that they have done over the past year. I|We've divided this project into three phases Tom, in case you don't know. _A \The first, and it starts today, is aimed at completing the Department's written record of the crisis. Quite a nunber of gaps have been found in our knov/ledge. Frequently decisions were taken and there was no written evidence of why or the background^aaad fat the same time what we're trying to do is to set up a basic nodel '.were sone sort of procedure which could possibly be of use to other Task Forces involved in other crises. The second phase v/ill entail interviews with outside officials, other government departments and eventually we'll move to the political ridiit* L fa</s/,-JLi*L level on the provinoial side and on the feduaial side in due course. . . . 2 010549 �Blanchette: So this first session is starting off in a very fitting way I find. As far as I know, you saev the first, or one of the very first people to knov/, to learn a£ what had happened and it cane about in a very traditional v/ay. You v/ere dealing with diplomats who v/ere worried and with people on the protocol side who sought the protection of this Department and I think among the very first questions that v/e have put on the list wag; wall precisely that one. H You v/ere one of the very first in Ottawa to know about the kidnapping, and I an wondering v/hether you'd like to describe the events of that norning. as they occurred to you. The events of October 5t What tine did you learn about this, were you taken out of your bed and taken out of your hone or v/as it at the office, how did it cone about? Read: Tfafr; I can't rehearse all the events of that norning. But the first one I do renenber v/as that finally I'd got together v/ith Mel McCormick to discuss the telephones in Protocol Division and the distribution of telephone lines, it was something that v/as badly overdue, and it was Mel who was sitting in my office,ftndv/e had started to say well so and so needs a line and so and so nust have an extension and that sort of thing. My recollection is that it v/as about 9:20 A.M. when the telephone rang and the call v/as put through. It v/as from the British High Commission, and regretably I can't remember who it was, my impression i*f\ it's is now-a-days it being John Clayton who v/ould have responsibility for v phoning ne or, or John Dpnrossil. A? p / But I can't renenber who it v/as in those days and I suspect it v/as either Bnoruo- Davis or maybe Mike McConnville, both of whom have left, and tlie call was simply to ne saying, "Tom, I think v/e may have some trouble, _it seems that Jasper Cross, our Trade Commissioner in Montreal has been kidnapped". Of course that ... 3 010550 �- 3Read: terminated any further attenpt to allocate the telephones in Protocol Division,a»d Mel realized that something really earth shattering had happened and he said, "I better come back later", and he withdrew v/hich v/as very kind of hin. I can renenber that my first thought v/as the problen of writing an anticipated question and a proposed answer for the Minister in the House of Connons. I suppose that in monents of crisis you mind gets into the easiest path and all I could think of Si ,p was the problen of writing a ^Memorandum for the Minister that, yesy we know that the senior Trade Commissioner of Britain in Montreal has been kidnapped'*, yes,everything is being done and try and unscramble this for presentation in the House. But aside from that, I do know that I got hold of somebody 4,f.,in the division immediately and said, "telephone the Under-Secretary immediately to say that the word has reached us". V/hat happened thereafter I an blank on. I do know that within a very short space of tine I v/as called by the Under-Secretary's office to say that a Task Force v/as being created and would I please turn up in the Ops Centre at 11 o'clock. I suspect that part of the blanking was sort of routine, that v/hat in point of fact happened was that I went into Cote and its probably Cote, &n#m. Cote, Chief of protocol at the time^, v/ho called the Under-Secretary. That would be such a normal thing that it wouldn't really attract attention and, you know, wouldn't create an extra path in the nenory process. I renenber also then moving across to the Hast Block for the first meeting of the Task Forcejand the usual sense of excitenent that you get when you walk into the Operations Centre for the first tine I suppose. It isn't a customary sight when the first time you. A • . . L r 010551 �i - 4 - walk i n and see t h e grouD of d e p a r t m e n t a l s e n i o r people moving i n t o A' position so to speak .with finally Hd Ritchie coming in and sitting down; on the side of the roomy, actually but by doing so bringing the attention of everybody into it. quite certain, po. I can now see that John was in on that but I am not I think one of the interesting things about the Task Force to begin with was «k», perhaps it was a personal feeling, Jput I sensed that nobody knew anything about a Task Force with the objects* <;aich as the recovery of a kidnapped Trade Commissioner, {and it v/as in a sense that v/e v/ere approaching this to see v/hat v/ould happen and how X things v/ould develop. /That, I fancy th»t in calling it a Task Force in the first place that Hd had something fairly concrete in mind, and V , I c e r t a i n l y the c e n t r a l element of the o r g a n i z a t i o n , of the Force was CO ^ to p u t somebody i n charge and he chose Claude Roauet, A Jii'hich was a • ' ' very satisfying choice, to me personally. I had shared an office with Claude some years before, had a great appreciation of him, at least a great admiration for his talents and also thought he v/as a past master at getting along with people. He v/as a very charming send concerned person to v/ork with. But once he v/as nominated, the v/ork of the Task Force, I think, so far as I an concerned, pretty well became a blur. The problen facing ne in regard to the Task Force v/as that I v/as not only a person to sit and deliberate on the problems created by the kidnapping of Mr. Cross but I v/as also responsible for the executive actions required for the protection of diplomats, so that one kidnapping did not become a secondhand not a third. Nov/ this put considerable strains, physical as well as mental,^nd the nhysical one that I v/as having a hard tine to deal with at all. I had had a slipped �- 5disc in September; and I v/as in bed for three weeks)and had been in hospital for three days and then this thing happened a«4 I was still walking around with a canevpnd with, if one v/ere permitted to suggestions as to hov/ to run another Task Forces/of the sane type. the answer v/ould be to have it anywhere but in that particular Operations Centre in the Hast Block v/hich had three levels^ «»ftl-prying to gallop up and down three levels with a cane, to try and answer a telephone which (darn it) rang only on the top floor, or on one of the call directors v/as asking too much. However we'll cover that perhaps later. The problem v/as for ne though how to manage this executive business at the sane time as the deliberative side. In the end, I became more and nore preoccupied v/ith the practical side of protection and after two weeks or so I left the Task Force and moved back into my own office simply because I had no office space, no telephone, no secretary, no privacy in which to organize the protection for diplomats in response to their requests or in response to prpceived need. I think this*) had another impact on my personal experience on the Task Force and that was that very many tines v/hen the Task Force was neeting there was a telephone call and I v/ould be these renoved from a meeting and taken outside to one of/ telephones whether it v/as on the third level or on the second or the first to answer sone urgent inquiry. Now, I had a fairly efficient back-up, "piats to say Dan McKinnon^ (who is no w v/ith Treasury Board, he's left the Department! Dan McKinnon was standing in for ne as far as he could in regard to the routine inquiries, d the routine protection as managed by the division during my absence. But there v/ere too many occasions on which it v/as up to ne to get hold of Dan and apply pro tec tion .or arrange for protection to be applied*, or v/hen my advice was required because/at point probably knew nore about the A ^ ... 6 010553 �- 6 Read: (\A y protection of diplonats then anybody else.jfpid that leads on to another point which we night get to at some point.—» j ^/confession of the inadequacies of the protection systen in ny view about which I had been screaming for two years by the tine this Cross kidnapping developed. Now, perhaps the-, ny experience on the Cross kidnapping which started with the initial information (which v/as just an informative roleVwent on to a brief experience on the Task Force. I might say intense pride in being a nenber of the Task Fores,, ^t was a y it was a group of people who generated their own sense of common intention and appreciation of each others problems.and a common desire ?L*. o^ to work together. A most remarkable sort of esp^rit •fi-*corp< sprang up in the Task Force. / But aside from that particular aspect fthe second one v/as A the role that I had to undertake as part of the Task Force,as a member of the Task Force, but also as the act e£].Protection Officer^.and the third one v/as v/hen I got put into the business of arranging for I E g g - p L—' to become part of the Cuban Consulate.So those are my three roles and the third one actually lead onto the point at v/hich Mr. Cross v/as released by the kidnappers and I becane, without any increase in pay, nay I say, the representative of the federal government in the Cuban Consulate, -aad &- \ -jfrffA AMrs.Halstead: "'E'fthat v/as sort of exciting. Before we leave the Task Force I wonder if you could describe a little nore the functioning of the group. Mrs. Amyot: As well as the conposition, the nen that were with you. Read: Well if I started talking about the people who were on the Task Force I'd start talking v/ith a Clerk grade two, John McNish, and I'd go fron him to Jim Puddington who is nov/ Deputy Director of South Pacific Division or Pacific Division, not South Pacific Division. Then I'd swing to Claude Roquet who became the top nan and then the people who ... 7 010554 �- 7 Read: came in from outside. r There was Inspector Fairerus of the RCMP and R• Bernard Hofflee the Deputy, I beg your pardon, Assistant Deputy Solicitor General.And then ny nind turns immediately away from theTask Force again to Bill Little the Executive Assistant to the Solicitor General at the / time because he v/as vital to ne> in my role as Protection Officer. Al^an Rowe was a very determined and active member of the Task Force. But you know tlie rest have slipped into the dust of memory somewhere. Mrs.Halstead: But did you meet everyday then till you. moved to your office? Read: I v/ould have said that the Task Force was almost constantly in session but this was my ov/n particular, this was my own particular view. Oh I nust say that if I an going to go and talk about Bill Little in the Solicitor General's office I better include immediately Jim Barker. Jim Barker played an absolutely vital role in the Task Force, although he wasn't a menber of it. He was like a, a very inportant daadow,in--that he was- th pre in.. tfea^-e^&Lia^ It v/as his Operations Centre^ aad the things he did to facilitate the work of the Task Force were tremendous„ (^nd in point of fact, he played a very important part, I think, in the • r | r deliberations of the Task Force. Just because he was there,so I better nention hin. V/hen I say I think the Task Force was continuously in session, it seens to ne that for the first weeks I didn't get out of the Operations Centre nuch before midnight on any night. If I did, it was because ray father decided to cone up and pay a visit at the beginning cf October, aftd pie arrived within a few days after the kidnapping of Mr. Cross, bpid then it became an almost incredible job to get dov/n to theChateau to have lunch v/ith hin quickly. Or, to get hin out of the house for a neal and a quiet evening because there wasn't any such thingiaad Xt v/as a question of bringing hin out to have a dinner and then taking 010555 �- 8 Read: h i n back to t h e h o t e l a t 9 and going s t r a i g h t back to the O p e r a t i o n s C e n t r e . The Task Force did meet and did d e l i b e r a t e v/ith Claude ( r e q u i r i n g a d v i c e o r w i t h 3d R i t c h i e . He would cone i n and t h e group v/ould g a t h e r and t h e r e \ould be a d i s c u s s i o n . But t k o , so much of t h e v/ork of the Task Force was v/aiting. V/e were w a i t i n g f o r i n f o r m a t i o n ; v/e were w a i t i n g f o r c a l l s from t h e Government of Quebec', v/e v/ere v/aiting to h e a r something^ v/e were w a i t i n g f o r t h e n e x t communique} v/e were v/aiting to f i n d out v/hat the r e a c t i o n to our r e a c t i o n to t h e l a s t communique was. 2ha4, you were t h e r e an awful l o t of time and some of us made an awful l o t of money out of t h e , on t h e overtime s i d e . O f course v/e d o n ' t count %tii^ t h e normal week-day hours up t i l l 8 o'clockpgthe next norningy/e belonged to t h e governnent f r e e U' P V (for anybody whose an F3-1, 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 even. But on weekends, if you had to be in, you did make overtime and a lot of people were able to buy their wives mink coats or go for that Cadillac, you know the Cadillacs you see down in the basement, are the result of the Task Force. (laughter) Its full of then, yes. But it v/as a demanding job first of all because in the sense you'd been honoured v/ithf or v/hether you had been or not, but because of this esp^rit fPcorpfbusiness Raybe its just tlie old departmental . -Aesp/rit aicorpcblossoming again and the new life of the Operations Centre, I don't know. But because of that you didn't want to miss any thing#that Tt-i you possibly could. -$# you wanted to say, yes, I v/as there ^ d although you were there nost evenings until very late.you still volunteered, if you could, to O d J «/ cone in and cover o&t the weekend shift. As*4- Allan in this respect. Task Force. ) J A, Rowe v/as trenendous He v/as a very,~ha-wes"ft-very good person to have on the I think he's got a very active, determined mind and sticks to wJftsefc, you know, if he decides that this nust be done and he sees that it nust be done. Which is a very good attribute and quality. ... 9 010556 �- 9 id: But we, i t v/as a q u e s t i o n of c o n t i n u o u s operation,-jand t h i s i s where I f e l t t h a t I was l o o s i n g touch v/ith the Task Force because 3d v/ould come i n o r somebody v/ould cone i n and t h e group v/ould g a t h e r and t h e r e would be an informal d i s c u s s i o n / © i t because everybody was t h e r e , v/as t h a t a n e e t i n g of the Task Force? Ho, i t r e a l l y v/asn't any n o r e 6- th0n i t had been when everybody was being busy. Ross F r a n c i s who v/as doing the p r e s s l i a i s o n got n o r e and nore t i e d i n t o the O p e r a t i o n s Centre and nore and n o r e i n v o l v e d . v/as r e a l l y e s s e n t i a l . His p o s i t i o n He was g o i n g fron the O p e r a t i o n s Centre to the M i n i s t e r ' s o f f i c e and back again and h e , because of t h e importance of h i s r o l e graphed t h e only o f f i c e a v a i l a b l e , / s i d e fron t h e one up on t h e t h i r d l e v e l , v/hich v/as taken o v e r b y ^ ^ o h . I ' v e f o r g o t t e n v/ho used to v/ork up t h e r e . But, I used to envy Ross because h e ' d nanaged to do t h i s , and I had no grounds f o r k i c k i n g h i n o u t . But i n t h e end i t , t h i s s o r t of t h i n g forced ne back to my o\/n o f f i c e . .Halstead: ead: And a kind of i s o l a t i o n ? Fron t h e Task F o r c e . Yes, except then I k e p t on going back. I v/ould imagine t h a t I v/as out of the Task Force e f f e c t i v e l y en ny d u r i n g the day I v/as i n ny o f f i c e . During t h e evening I would go up to t h e O p e r a t i o n s C e n t r e to see what v/as going on ,and t h i s le*id t o t h e b l i s t e r i n g moment a t v/hich ny second, the second p a r t of my involvement i n the work of the Task Force o c c u r r e d . That v/as when I t h i n k I walked i n t o the Task F o r c e , t h e Operations C e n t r e , i t v/as October 17, a t about f i v e n i n u t e s to n i n e i n tlie evening. I j u s t decided to drop i n a f t e r d i n n e r to see what was going on and t h e r e v/as 3d, and he looked a t ne and s a i d , "Ton, hov/'d you l i k e to go to Montreal?" So, v/as always ready w i t h a q u i p , I / c e r t a i n I cane up v/ith sonething q u i t e . . . 10 010557 �- 10 Read: brilliant about, "why, yes indeed,maybe for three weeks after Easter,and wouldn't it be nice"{ and then it turned out that I was wanted in Montreal that night. Which was, you know, pretty startling* mot only that night, but I had to catch the last aircraft which left at ten minutes past ten. Well normally of course I am neatly and soberly dressed, in the fashion thats'required of the older members of the Officer's staff of the Department;, ,'but this evening I v/as in sports coat and flounoe, I don't know why but I was. Furthermore I did not, strangely enough, have a toothbrush i n my pocket. about t h a t T So I s a i d , "v/ell I ' v e got to do something Well t h a t s a l l r i g h t , I c a n ' t do i t between now and ten to t e n , wbu're going to have to do i t , was the word. I said, "regretably, I have 07.29 i n my pocket and I ' v e got c r e d i t cards but I don't know i f t h e y ' l l work. I ' l l need noney. That v/as no excuse. out h i s w a l l e t and gave me 050.00 of h i s ov/n noney. 3d simply took (laughter) So, I went to Montreal and then there v/as something p r e t t y frigthening. The problen, the additional problen aside fron these administrative -o£r I matters was the problen of the explaining to me/what/had to do when I got there, -because I had no idea, Jand the second thing was that there was a vital document v/hich wasn't available.-asd I think it v/as a reiteration of the terms which had been offered to the kidnappers and which it was thought essential that I should take with me. I actually have the copy here and I think it was the draft, the draft finally approved, with Claude IRoquet's writing on it and the last minute admendments v/hich v/ere put on it after consultations with the Government of Quebec. In any case I went home, having asked please to nhone and tell eu Pawn to put a toothbrush and a clean shirt into a suitcase. I went home and I picked that up and headed for the airport and I got to the airport at the unbelievable time of about five minutes past ten. J&y which time the plane was waiting,and everybody had been boarded.and they were holding it ' . 11 010558 �- 11 nH T Read: jj - didn't believe that anybody held a plane these days, but they v/ere holding it. I'd been told to phone from the airport, I phoned and they said, "you can't leave". So I said fine, they said the taxi is on its way out with the document, \o then the plane had to wait until finally a taxi drove up and I got the paper frtam him and I fled for the aircraft, and I think v/e left two minutes late. P , .•..«_ But this was really the" f>.: <Lv„, ••• - I I'EJP' i I !'•>• and then this really opened a new chapter because I had various instructions to phone somebody when I got to Dorval and this I did. I think it was a question of, there was to be a meeting at the Canadian Harbour Fioard Offices near the "Place d'Accueil", ©*> cZ\ "Terre des Hommes", MacKay Pier it used to be called, Cite du Havre but I couldnt go there direct I had to pick up the Consul of Cuba, Alfredo Y\ ii i P -A-. So I got a taxi and I gave him the address and we drove /i for hours, Uje were lost three or four times I would say. d§ut, each time managed to get far enough so that he hit a main street he knew. "Hell it turns out we'd been, there was a difference of opinion whether this was in St. Laurent or in another suburb ( \^ut eventually v/e i turned up there, paid him off and then RA, |R., V-.' got out his nice Oldsmobile and we headed for the -Ester. It had been thought that we would be at this meeting say half past ten or quarter to eleven^ but it was about twenty-five minutes to midnight when we turned upland ) /there thats going pretty fast let me tell you. The Cubans are very good drivers' and/wasn'.t much traffic and he had his diplomatic plates on, which he'd kestne'd hael them on v/hen he v/as at the Embassy here. C U E ! KALSO we got down there^and here v/as this meeting with .foiw Brovm and Colonel Gauthier and a Harbours Board man to welcome us/ although I think he was probably just a Commissioner)trke*»e •bwfe tnen representatives of the Ontario "provincial police and of the Montreal police,and various other people. I v/as told that Colonel Gauthier was going to turn out a record of that meeting so I really haven't got full details of v/ho was there and try notes are a little bit inconclusive,'out we then started to find out how we could use "Terre des Hommes"* as a sort of safe refuge for Mr Cross and as a departure point for the kidnappers if they accepted the offer of an aircraft and exile in Cuba that had been made by the governmental auihorities^-that's by the Federal Government with the act •of consent of the Quebec Government. . . . 12 010559 �- 12 Mrs.Amyot: But already at that time the choice of Terre des Hommes had been done by.... Read: By somebody other then myself and I have no idea who determined it. Somebody v/as , I v/as to such an extent pushed into this at the very last noment -so that it v/as quite a bewildering experience and furthermore, there were decisions which had been taken before hand which legd up I >' to Terre des Hommes but v/ho took that decision I don't know. I know that afterwards or in fact after the third neeting in Montreal, that v/e stood around -and talked and decided that on the whole that it had been a V I1 mistake to choose Terre des Hommes. On the other hand, by great good fortune it worked,,and it worked very well indeed. There were great advantages I thinkj the isolation, the ability of the Harbour Board, Harbour Police,which had the police responsibility for the v/ater, the river, Jt v/as easy for then in combination with the Montreal police v/ho were responsible for Terre des Hommes to isolate that thing and to keep reporters from coming across the ice or swimming across, aaad" so "feat there v/as relative privacy on the island, and fortunately the Canadian pavilion had ample space. I think APRS, ;. R.> 3>, v/ho is nov/ Consul General in Toronto commented the last time I saw hin, which was only two weeks ago at the Cuban National Day Party, said well he'd never had a larger consulate. It was very generous its with regard to this room,and it did work. However there were very great disadvantages to it, but perhaps we could cover that further. Anyway this meeting went on, but- we - were, the, -the, (the area had been chobsen but the pavilion had not been choo'sen. V/hat v/e were looking for v/as a pavilion that it was possible to heat, where theK would be plumbing facilities that would be in order, where there v/ould be enough space so that any number of contingencies could be taken care of./if possible) . . . 13 010560 �- 13 Read: and it boiled dov/n in the end to the Canadian pavilion because they had done things for instance like putting plastic over their picture windowsg a»d so that the electric heating v/as effective enough to keep the place warm. Nov/ there v/ere nany pavilions there that had no effective heating, \;hqyhad enough heating so that if fair closed^p-at the end of Septenber, up until that tine they could cope with the cold weather. But, aside fron that they w«*e, of course all the water turned off and they were mere shells and there v/as no insolation or this sort of thing. But with the Canadian pavilion, the sort of thing you do yourselfijvMfwrt the plastic over the windows and then the h eaters will take care of it)-and it had lots of telephone lines. Thats another great thing you see,-and "ihe water had not been turned off and there was a kitchenette and this sort of thing. So v/e heard about this from Captain Marquo*, v/ho v/as there, if I recall, but he didn't have the keys. I think he had not envisaged that v/e were going to go and see them, see the pavilion, Js^id he went off to get the keys and to get the plans so that we could have a closer look at this, imd v/e stopped, broke off for coffee and-this must have been five or ten minutes past midnight that night. We v/ere drinking coffee when General Brown cane over to ne and said, "Mr. Read, they've just found the bodies in the trunk of a car over at 3t. Hubert". He said, "Ian not going to tell our colleagues". I'll tell you who else ; A\ was there fron the Department, Wilf AfiEA, ' R L 1 R ^3 and his number two, whose name I know perfectly v/ell, I have forgotten for the nonent. E ' .. Mrs.Anyot: Claude Beaujoie? Read: Beaujoie, yes,they were there because of the passport, but in any case in came this word from General Brown v/hich had been handed over ) the Army network and he said, "I am not going to tell, because its not ny job to communicate this but I an simply going to excuse myself and leave because I tliink I am needed elsewhere". So they left and just . . . 14 �- 14 Read: requiring them said they v/ere very sorry that they had a nessage/to depart,And they left. So then v/e turned to the business of going back in again and Captain \E 1 M a r q u e e c a m e v/ith t h e k e y s and t h e p l a n s o f the p a v i l i o n ^ <a»d } t v/as a t that point completely unreel. I mean, I knew that there was no use our being there, there was no use discussing this-and- pfow all v/e had to do v/as to wait until thenev/s came through our Quebec network and of course it • i did, «id then v/e were just in a state of absolute shock. It v/as enough to make you burst into tear% ^ell it v/as a terribly enotional moment. It wasn't really as emotional though when after v/e finally closed up and I phoned Andre Bissonnette at his home and v/oke lain up and this sort of thing, said, "it's all over, we're finished and I'll cone hone in the norning". But then going back to the hotel, the clerk(he v/as a youngsteA he'd been crying, I v/ent in and joined him» quite ready to at the noment. A It v/as a terribly enotional moment. However, to bed, then up in the norning and out to the airport and back to Ottawa. I got there and I don't know how long it v/as before I was back on the plane going back to Montreal again. It v/as of course only one body and I might say at that noment I was so nad that if sonebody had got up and said, "I believe that the FLQ is a good thing", I think I would have killed him on the spot. right dov/n in the bottom of ny soul. stituting the meeting. I was just really raging, furious However, back to Montreal, recon- Now I can't renenber, at one time or another at these tliree meetings I had the responsibility for calling it and I fancy it nay have been the third time but we did gather and this tine we reached a decision on the use of the pavilion and its availability was guaranteed fineto and it v/as a question go, go, go^and thenand theeverything thing was looked to go back Ottawa again, which of I did. . . . 15 010562 �- 15 Read: tf P 2eens to me that I should have said that Robert Deners v/as at that neeting, I feel certain he was, he was certainly at the third meeting v/hen Andre Bissonnette v/as v/ith ne. He was at the second meeting I think but v/hehter he v/as at the first I don't knov/. However, at one tine or another, it nust h ave been either at the second or third meeting, v/e stood outside and criticized the choice of Terre des Hommes,gut by then we v/ere committed to it. -—% „y I think maybe it must have been^.no lets go back and say it v/as the third. The brain is adled unfortunately.P However, back to Ottawa and tlie next move in this game was when Andre Bissonnette told ne that we would have to go back again because the quick action response to the o amnesty and the offer of exile. dUquick answer em* nut haulng reupunQed, not having appeared, it was necessary to see v/hether v/e could naintain the use of Terre des HomjafgS for the long period of time. Problems. Terre des Honnes is a place which requires maintenance. We were taking over and dirting 'tl the ashtrays o£f-Afche-etei£#- of the staff of the fair, t\ yo they had to be allowed to work as unimpeded as possible. At the sane time if the work was delayed too long they couldn't get the maintenance workers in on to the island because this v/as one of their requirements — that the island had to be empty,so the maintenance workers had to leave i, so that the island people wanted to get^ the Terre des Honnes people wanted to get their people back in because if the schedule for maintenance got pushed behind then it wouldn't be ready to open in the spring. So on^- this woe- on the 23rd of October aad-Andre and I set out/„ I cane up to h i s office a t 3 o'clock in the afternoon and we got into h i s car and we v/ent home,And since for ages afterwards,Andre thought there v/as something wrong v/ith ny brainjrnore then theordinary sort of thing, I wish to report t h a t i t v/as Madame Bissonnette v/ho told ne that Andre . . . 16 010563 �- 16 Read: v/as so tired that she was afraid that he would go to sleep at the wheel. It was her responsibility for ray behaviour during that ride, I talked incessantly the whole way to Montreal because I was scared stiff that Andre v/as going to go ^.sleep at the wheel, a»d I thought he v/ould probably find this a little peculiar. But, it v/asn't until afterwards that he made some comment in a very humorous way about this nadman who talked all the v/ay a'. • A cc-.-. a to Montreal^ saying things that he Andre had no ideav..jae didn't always understand. I v/as able to say that v/as your wife's fault, I v/as merely loolcing after my life. toe However, got to the Queen Elizabeth and this time everything A. ' went reasonably well. We got to our meeting on time, and Robert Demers v/as there, ywe Had our discussions, we decided on the modalities of, I think this is all on record in Andre'sIA'/ell anyway Andre wrote a nenorandum on this so that I don't need to report it. But, so that v/e could naintain the conception of the use of this place. One of the things about using the Terre des Honnes and using the Canadian pavilion was feat I maintained^that it was all right for us to agree to setting up the Cuban Consulate as an adjunct of the Consulate in tlie main part of the city/, put I said v/e didn't have to do this with any great formality, and that it didn't have to be a Cuban Consulate until everybody v/as ready for it and that in point of fact you could say that it wasn't a Cuban Consul^ate until the Cuban Consul arrived and took possession, and did things like putting the flag up and that sort of thing. And I think tiis rather sinplified one or two conplications. V/e didn't have to give then the building in October which they would then have been responsible for for six, eight or ten months, however long it took. However, the meeting went extremely well I think and afterwards Andre had an extrenely useful discussion,or he said it v/as, with Robert . . . 17 010564 �- 17 Demers, k e p t him up t i l l h a l f p a s t one i n t h e morning. This I missed because one of our problems i n t h e s e meetings v/as always to t r y and d e t a t c h the Cuban v/hen we d i d n ' t want him involved^ (and i n o r d e r to d e t a t c h E\ PT\T\ 1 \{ | _ £ t h i s might, from f u r t h e r involvement w i t h Demers and B i s s o n n e t t e ^ , I took himinto t h e bar a t t h e Queen E l i z a b e t h v/hich allowed Andre to e s c a p e . Now, Demers was s t a y i n g on the 21st f l o o r of t h e Queen E l i z a b e t h , which had been taken over by theQuebec Government f o r P r e m i e r Bourassa when he came down. He was on t h e 2 1 s t . So t h a t when v/e g o t o u t of the way Andre and Demers simply v/ent up # a»d Gf course t h e , t h e f l o o r was a d e q u a t e l y equipped v/ith a bar and they s a t aid they drank and they t a l k e d . I c a n ' t h e l p t h i n k i n g t h a t i t must an have been/extremely v a l u a b l e o c c a s i o n . I g o t the., developed t h e n o s t tremendous a d m i r a t i o n f o r Robert Demers' a b i l i t y , the same I have f o r Andre B i s s o n n e t t e ' s of course} and I thought i t was a damned good t h i n g t h a t t h e two of them v/ho were both subji a b l e people were a b l e to g e t t o g e t h e r and t a l k i n f o r m a l l y and probably take the edges were o f f a l o t of problems t h a t / t h e n a f f e c t i n g t h e problem of n e g o t i a t i n g t h e r e l e a s e of Mr. Cros3 through t h r e e o r f o u r l e v e l s of government, which v/as a v e r y d i f f i c u l t t h i n g to d o . V/ell t h e n a f t e r g e t t i n g back to Ottawa and swinging back i n t o the routine again. The u n b e l i e v a b l e happened a t 7:30 i n t h e n o r n i n g of December 3rd and t h a t was v/hen AlAan Rowe c a l l e d me, and he put me i n t o a b l a c k mood.may I 3ay. Nobody, I was awake heaven knows(l g e t up a t q u a r t e r p a s t seven and I can r a i s e zny head fron the bedl, (fcpt Al^an j u s t s a i d ok t h a t t h e r e v/as a n o t h e r committee n e e t i n g i n Montreal and t h a t I would have to go to i t . a n d t h a t I b e t t e r cone to the o f f i c e complete w i t h o v e r n i g h t kit,—you knew, t o o t h b r u s h and r a z o r and t h a t s o r t of tiling„aaehI s a i d , "oh, f o r P e t e ' s sake Al/Lan, n o . . . . 18 010565 �- 18 Read: V/hat's the p o i n t , whats t h e use ymmf -ye«-kno\i, 3 h e whole t h i n g ' s been / decided v/hy should I g o ? " . 'Pell he s a i d , "perhaps i t s the work y o u ' v e done before', its been proving fruitful". So I said, "well yes I may be a genius but still the Department can do without ne, I am goe»e Rc' 3 Jvtc .... ,.< i come in at ny own good pace you see". Ofw»re he said, "you nust get in immediately". Mrs.Anyot: That was on the third? Read: That v/as on the third. So I almost decided to turn up at 10 o'clock just to spite then. V/ell I'd been going through a pretty rugged time may I say. If Allan hadn't been so darned concerned for security I would have been in there at 8 o'clock you see because it v/ould have been so exciting. So I arrived at the Bast Block at 9 with my little satchel, with my razor and toothbrush and that sort of thing.}fi-otto the Operations Centre only to find everybody about six inches off the floor of course. So then going to Montreal for a committee meeting it was not at all a committee meeting, it wasn't a question of negotiating further the use of Terre des r " Honnes or anything of 'that sort.it was to go and be as excited as anybody could^Ajid it v/as, I suppose I had no part in getting us out of there or anything of that sort but it was quite fascinating the problen of getting Oi E'it-^1 •'D ' ^'>-• • i-••''I • hold of Leon Matron '-and Lsyxon had been at one of the earlier meetings, I think he was at the first meeting if I am not mistaken. IV 'I Mrs.Halstead: At Terre des Hommes? Read: At Terre des Hommes, v/ell not at Terre des Honnes but at the Harbour „ i, v /< Board office^^ind of course it v/as planned that he would be the chap to accompany the kidnappers on the flight to Cuba because he was v/ell known to the Cubans and former Ambassador, known to be very fond of Cuba, as everybody v/ho goes there is, and there v/as some word that he was going to retire there at one point. He was a good person to send, he was available which v/as the other thing, although he had his conmitments v/hich ape very likely to impede from . . . 19 010566 �- 19 O r A ueaa: Ap,.i. ' t i n e to t i n e . But, they c o u l d n ' t g e t hold of Mayron t h a t morning and r a t h e r /end ^ then/Claude down to Cuba w i t h o u t a Spanish speaking person they grasped A-<< ~L>\tfR 6im>L Orhas. Dyer. Qrhasa <I t h i n k a t t h a t t i n e was head o r a c t i n g head of L a t i n America Division, Mrs.Amyot: Oui. Read: there , I t h i n k they j u s t phoned over/and Q-phani was a v a i l a b l e / a n d he s a i d sure and cane up to t h e Hast Block and t h e f i r s t t h i n g v/e knew, say Oftiv\ about 9:30 Claude Roquet and myself and Jean-Marie Dery and Orham were i n , one of a c a r headed f o r t h e a i r p o r t ,a«d we v/ent o u t i n / t h e Cosnopolitan a i r c r a f t . <A]W\ — » ©rhaffl g o t t h i s dov/n a s a Cosmo, hurt i t was known f a m i l i a r l y as a Cosmo <t~~-A o r nn j u s t Cncmn, I t h i n k he put i t dov/n a s Cosmos^ tgut i t was a Cosmopolitans v/hich i s a twin engine prop j e t a i r c r a f t . I ' d flov/n i n i t before t a k i n g t h e body of an I s r a e l i Ambassador dov/n to New York f o r t r a n s - s h i p n e n t 4e-, ( t h i s i v/as one of my first experiences in Protocol Division in 1968J shipped- to 31 AIL sent off. However, there we v/ere. We flew dov/n to Montreal and we got to the Queen Elizabeth and v/e all went up to a room, probably on the 6th floor, it was one of these studio-bedroon type of things^ and We were then engaged with Claude on the telephone t«~Piogro Loolai-r with ne saying well the arrangenent is this or that and >a_question of checking and cross checking, in touch with the RCMP, in touch with various people all about this business and desperately waiting for news of v/hat happenedbecause as soon as things developed at the house there was going to be a flat-out movenent of that car straight through to Terre des Honnes. Claude and Orhoa thought they ought to be there. So one of the stupid little flies in the ointment, there was a chap called , v/ho is a very strong person in the Cuban Embassy And I wouldn't like to accuse him without being able to justify it, I'll merely suggest that the Ambassador doesn't do nuch that he doesn't discuss 010567 �- 20 Read: v/ith Mr. L X f d R l \ ?)> » and (>f\y. ^.ER yPy ! g,j i s t h e man r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e very tough l i n e t h a t the Cubans have taken i n r e g a r d to t h e i r p r o t e c t i o n here. They've c r e a t e d very g r e a t problems, they say t h a t you must n o t p u t a f o o t on our l a n d , b u t of c o u r s e you n u s t p r o t e c t u s . So t h a t i f one of our g u a r d s , and we've had them on t h e Cubans now f o r y e a r s , one of our guards s e e s somebody sneaking i n w i t h a snoking bonb a t t h e back of t h e house, he cannot go and apprehend t h a t n a n . o r even dash around t h e c o r n e r to see v/here the bomb i s o r whats going onj he must walk up to t h e f r o n t door and r i n g the b e l l , ^nd y e t w e ' r e supposed to p r o t e c t the Cubans. Nov/, I t h i n k L1A/;AH It 1 i s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r a g r e a t d e a l of t h i s s t i f f n e s s and t h e y ' r e s t i l l being s t i f f i n o t h e r ways. However t h a t comment f o r t h e s i d e . EAAf\Rl l)\iLad g o t t h e r e and a l t h o u g h t h e , he was n o t t h e Consul y he had taken over c o n t r o l , h e ' d arranged t h a t f\Z\l I Y- £ v/ould go t o Cuba v/ith t h e a i r c r a f t v/hich w a s n ' t planned, h e ' d arranged t h a t RRRJ 9L > C>Q v/ould becone t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of t h e Cubans i n t h e Consulate^ (naell he had no r i g h t t o be t h e r e . Thats to say he v/asn't a nenber of t h e Consulate s t a f f , he v/as a nenber of tlie Bnbassy s t a f f , so t h a t \\ j (c\ l_iX> v/as going > PR f to be t h e Consul and t h a t Grhanr Dyer and Claude Roquet c e r t a i n l y go t o Terre des Hommes. couldn't Now t h i s broke down a number of a r r a n g e m e n t s . Hov/ever, we could l i v e w i t h t h i s and i n p o i n t of f a c t tlie s t o r y of t h e i r Vi going o u t to Terre des Hommes i s i n w r i t i n g on p a p e r . back i n t o t h a t . did. I d o n ' t need to go I t h i n k a l s o I ' v e p u t i n my memoranda p r e t t y v/ell v/hat I The only t h i n g s I can add to t h i s i s t h a t anybody i s a f o o l v/ho g e t s h i m s e l f locked up i n a roon v/ith Jean-Marie Dery f o r four o r f i v e hours because Jean-Marie Dery n o t only c h a i n smokes, he c h a i n snokes trv/o c i g a r e t t e s I. " a t a t i n e and I had to keep on l e a v i n g our qwerbe $ p (centre M. Montreal unquoi* and dashing o u t i n t o t h e c o r r i d o r to breathe f r o n time to t i m e . I n f a c t a t one t i n e I q u i t completely and I went down and a g a i n s t snake b i t e I bought . . . c.± 010568 �- 21 Read: a nickey of Scotch v/hiskey and took i t back ( -a»4 Claude and I both had a slug of t h i s , and t h a t Scotch v/hiskey t r a v e l l e d w i t h n e , n o t Claude because Claude had gone by then,' but Jean-Marie and I had a s l u g of S c o t c l u which v/e both f e l t v/e needed and the r e s t of the b o t t l e went v/ith Jean-Marie to London Qoecause we agreed t h e r e n i g h t be snakes i n London too and he w a s n ' t going to have a chance t o buy a n y t h i n g between t h e n and t h e r e . The o t h e r funny h a - h a and s h o u l d n ' t r e a l l y go under h i s t o r y v/as t h e f a c t t h a t Orham had had a d a t e t h a t day to have lunoh v/ith one of h i s d a u g h t e r s , [ i d o n ' t know v/hether i t was Tara o r t h e o t h e r g i r l \ and so he had taken h e r l u n c h i n v/ith h i n and they v/ere j u s t going to s i t i n h i s o f f i c e and he was going to g e t a sandwich, a s d - 1 t h i n k the two of themj—i~ t h i n k they o f t e n did t h i s , %o he s t i l l had h e r lunch i n h i s briefcase when he went up to the 'East Block n o t knowing q u i t e what v/as going to happen t o him,^nd t h a t was ity d i n n e r on t h e n i g h t of Decenber 3rd. I might add too t h a t we a l l o r d e r e d fron Roon S e r v i c e , but tlie Room S e r v i c e was, t h i s was a t noon, Roon S e r v i c e v/as bad enough so t h a t Claude and Qefe&m g o t away to v •« T e r r e des Honnes j u s t before i t a r r i v e d . Jean-Marie and I did justice to the lunch we'd o r d e r e d but v/e had to send the r e s t back, I t h i n k I ended up paying f o r the l o t £ I am n o t c e r t a i n . I an w a i t i n g f o r Jean-Marie to send ne sone little paynent for that but he hasn't done so and after flail he should because he's an .Ambassador and of course over-paid and under-worked as we all know. The other great thing about the ending of this, the thing unrolling CTIAJ b e f o r e the eyesi f\ t*S«. re New, when we were on the i s l a n d -fee remarkable t h i n g s £±3?e4~o£-ali v/as t h e i n a b i l i t y of J a s p e r Cross to stop t a l k i n g s&£ I d i d n ' t know a n y t h i n g about t h i s . I t h o u g h t i t v/as j u s t r e n a r k a b l e u n t i l M««M, in August v/hen I drove Dad back dov/n to Toronto, a f t e r t h e opening of tlie building ( a*wt I ' d f i x e d up a bed i n the back of t h e s t a t i o n wagon so he 90 010569 �- 22 Read: could lie down and travel horizontally if he felt tired. He started talking the minute I picked hin up at the hotel and he stopped when we got to the flat in Toronto, like ne and Andre Bissonnette. Mrs.Anyot: Yes, thats what I was going to say. Read: But, he -was not trying to keep ne awake, and he said after v/e got out of the car and going to the side, he said, "y-«*-IBIOTT, I am afraid you'll find that I am talking rather a lot", but he said, "do you know, I hav^, I enjoy male company so rarely these days". His life at that tine had been entirely on going across the street to see mother and ,.M.r^. -and-talking to-Mrs* and the old ladies at the villa and that sort of thing, and Cross was obviously this v/ay. I think if you're deprived of the ability to communicate you don't loose it, it merely stores itself, you get an opportunity and away it goes. How the Montreal Police had gone out and got some wine and I must maintain it was the Montreal Police and nobody else, «a*4 Cross had had that and chicken v/hich they'd provided. on this incidentally. The Cubans v/ere very bad They were told that sone arrangenent v/ould have to be nade to provide food and they knew we v/ould pay for it^and nedical assistance,and that sort of thing and they went all stupid on this- I 11 don't know why they did, but they said well they'd see v/hat the situation >> OIL v/as v/hen in the end the Montreal Police, Captain MarqwoS in particular, saw to the acquisition of a barbecued chicken and the two bottles of red wine. Of course the wine went to Cross's head. The surprising thing though was that it went to Bill Ashford's head.and Ashford,to see him walking rather unsteadily around like this, w e H all right it was an electric circunstance for him, because there v/as his boss send/Jasper Cross is a chap with charisma and everybody loves him and all that sort of thingl, ^it there v/as Ashford i> Was »\ negotiating quietly> (kid I thought, hey that wine/for Cross not for you. ... 23 010570 �- 23 Read: 3ven so, the talkirigness v/as j u s t b u i l t into Cross, he had to t a l k and he did t a l k . My trouble there v/as, there v/ere tliree offices and I v/as going to take over one, you know, being invited to the island to be the Canadian y. ~~ [ government representative I thought perhaps I should have the^ Iwell I suppose if the federal LOfa^p, had been important enough we could have put it on the door jbut I was going to take over one of these, tput I wanted to go and r seeand Cross ^»4_ao v/hen he in the middle trying to describe what went on I was in there, pjyv/as trouble was that of Ottawa needed information frantically apparently and I was in and out to the point v/here I thought well it v/as unfair to Cross to keep on having this chap bobbing in and out „ /also it cost ne all ny dignity anyway,so to heck with that and I quity fopd I missed this v/hen he was reporting} he v/as reporting to the Sgt. v/ho v/as the chap from the Montreal Police who was in charge of the investigation, looking for Cross in Montreal,, pnd so he was giving reasonable detail and I was very disappointed at having to withdraw, a very sad thing. Mrs.Halstead: It v/asn't tapped? Read: No. Mrs.Halstead: But did the Sgt. take notes on it? Read: I have no idea. Mrs.Amyot: Well >it wasn't taped because it v/as decided not to be or because nobody thought of ±U, you know, having it ready. Read: Nobody thought of it.j^nd (%..-(• »3 Si • the next tine I think that if everything >j happens the next tine we should have tape recorders. Well yes, and the RCMP ought to have been there v/ith tape recorders,but they couldn't get into it, A*P-*4 I t h i n k they c o u l d n ' t g e t i n t o t h e C o n s u l a t e . C a p t a i n Marquee g o t i n every w h e r e y ^ n e of t h e most remarkable c h a r a c t e r s , I s a i d t h i s i n the memorandum t h a t I thought somebody v/ould w r i t e about h i n , about being one of t h e n o s t r e n a r k a b l e c h a r a c t e r s I ' v e ever n e t . He v/as charming, he was sympathetic 24 010571 �- 24 Read: he was obviously intelligent;and he was a born scrounger, you could see that and he v/as generous as the day itself,and he got in everywhere. But then he made himself useful and do things for people and so got into the Consulate A General. I v/as just thinking about him and the problen presented by that, that dirty old Chrysler, you know, there v/as a problen about the keys, they couldn't get into the trunk and they couldn't get the luggage out.andMarquae cane to ne and said, "Mr. Read there's that car out there and v/e can't get into the trunk, We don't know whats in it, gp you suppose they could have bobby trapped it?" You knov/, will it explode in twenty minutes unless sonething happens. So I said, "well, you never can tell, can you". He said, "well, shall I remove it?". I said, "please do". So they removed the car fron the vicinity so that we didn't blow '^h' /• (ERA/K to pieces I can tell you that v/as one of the things. delight — Then the other nonent that I renenber v/ith some/ there v/as this business of being summoned to receive the weapons. These chaps cane loaded so to speak, because an& obviously there was every chance that the federal government or the Quebec government would be leading them up a garden path and they'd discover that they walked into the Cuban Consulate and all they found was sone people fron, not a refornitory but a penitentiary with the handcuffs and to remove then immediately. So they brought their guns, I remenber having to go in there and being asked to take them over fron the Cubans, which I did. V/ell I didn't know what to do with then but Marquee was there and I said, "wall you take then?" and he said, "yes", So I said «jell you know there nay be fingerprints on then or that sort of thing. But the Cubans -weren't helping with the fingerprints, everything they picked 3 up they put as much hand on as possible. \EWhether this was intentional or not^ Apsut it really is quite an intriguing thing when you walk into a roon and have to accept a couple of M-31s and tliree sticks of dynanite. Its not in the 010572 �- 25 Read: diplonatic duty of an Bxternal Affairs officer,§o that's the other deviant that, and Oxhad Dyer's,-and Tara Dyer's lunch v/hich I ate v/ith great gusto , and fortunately I had a book of Time's crossward puzzles v/hich I whittled away at v/hen I wasn't on the phone to Ottawa. And then the time Colonel Gauthier came dov/n. Gauthier was supposed to have been over at the bridge in charge of the A m y guard and he cane to the door and I was told that sonebody wanted to see ne so I v/ent out and there he was. He said, "Mr. Read would you get me permission to come in,"1 f\e said" I don't know v/hy)but I've been removed fron my post and told to get over into the Consulate if I possibly can". So I went with l'\R EA ; L„ g;, went to find \\ UT'., ! A'R and I said, " W.bfi^ i L;-0, Colonel Gauthier, I can vouch for him, he's all right, would you mind if he came in?" And the answer was, "no not at all". By that tine of course without my approval or otherwise there were a nunber of shady looking characters all of whom claimed to be police of one sort or another had come in and were sitting around the place, the place was filling up, -but- \\ vp \"E \ ., ., is a very gentle soul and he didn't seen to be able to say no. However, Gauthier cane in and this paid off in the end .because it was Gauthier v/ho got the word that they had landed in Havam/a, he got it 12 minutes before it came through from any other sourcq aad-tyou know any moments of relief are worth it * and that v/as a great nonent to be able to say, "v/ell thank God", you see cause then we'd just have to sit and wait for the release to cone. You have questions about the arrival of Jea?eae Choquette and Bourassa and the Demers' request, that Choquette not bring a photographer with him^ I think it v/as and I think this is where v/e get into the gossip either side. But there was no stopping/Choquette or Bourassa. Bourassa might have had sone kind of claim to bo there but Choauette not at all, except Choauette . . . 26 010573 �- 26 Read: I think, v/as looking for publicity. He looked as if he v/ere going to play the Cross crisis right up into a stair case leading to the Prime Ministership of the province of Quebec^ I've never seen anybody play anything like this, "•fcis is the only interpretation. TH3 END t ic fy ' \ • 010574 �OCTOBER CRISIS Tape number two of the interview conducted with Mr. T. Read by Mrs. Jean Halstead and Hrs. Andree Amyot Read: Yes indeed a condemned nan. ZA&s&BS±±?-. Q-arip/ uu, say soasthing I ar, trying tlsE... thing uul.—r. Mrs.Halstead: The, betv/een the different segments that were operating in like Quebec,/tlie provincial, the federal...... Read: You got it in the police, in the police relationships mostly, thats v/here it came out, and the problems with the, of which I really didn't see very much between the federal and provincal authorities it v/as really a question of limits of jurisdiction more then anything else there though. Mrs.Halstead: But heated complication? Read: 'sell the thing v/as that there were limits and everybody was being very sensitive andwalldng, and trying to keep within then 'without knowing precisely where they v/ere. In the end it boiled dov/n to well you don't know v/here v/e are quite lets get Marc Lalonde to talk to somebody or ClaudeRoquet to talk to to smooth this over because on the lower level you are conscious of sensitivities in the provincial people v/ith whom dealings v/ere being carried out. Now this is pretty vague because I v/asn't in on it. All I know v/as that you could tell v/hat was happening. How do you want to go back to this first question on the description of the Montreal Task Force? Mrs.Halstead: Yes because I don't think we've recorded it. Read: Well the Montreal Task Force I presune v/as composed of the four officers fron the Department who went down to Montreal on the norning of Jbcenber 3, thats to sap/, Dery, myself, Orham Dyer and Claude Roquet. Now Claude was head of the whole Task Force but this sort of sub-force had specific duties. Orham Dyer v/as to become the accompanying senior representative of the Department, he was to replace Leon Mayron who wasn't available that morning v/hen they called for hin so that in a sense he v/as ... 2 010575 �Read: the political person to go there, political in the sense of political officer in the Departmental sense of political officer, thats to say he wasn't a politican darn it. 3 u t he wasn't, he v/as an officer fron a political division in the old sense of the word. Roquet v/as there because he had been head of the Task Force and it was thought useful to have hin go down to Cuba. In other words, the nonent was in a sense his success and I night add this is my ov/n rationalization I never really knew exactly, I v/as not in the Task Force, I was not in the Ops Centre when the Task Force v/as dreamed up early on tlie norning of the 3rd. If you remember I told you I was at hone in bed comfortably until after awaking Allan Rowe got ne mobile ant. bad tempered by referring to yet another committee and yet another meeting in Montreal and nunbling something about the success of my earlier efforts and this .- ! S'. . w. 'not nade ne bad tempered because at 7:30 in the morning I am/at my best. Mrs.Halstead: You are a cad Ton. Read: You are both supposed to look as if I v/ere exaggerating. Mrs.Halstead: You're at your beat at 10 in the norning. Read: Or after my 14th cup of coffee. Mrs.Anyot: Oh boy. Read; In any case the, I wasn't aware of any other reasoning behind the choice or Roquet or Dyer or Dery, I was aware later of the reasons for the choice of Dyer; v/hy he specifically was chosen but not of the reason for including an officer such as Dyer in the Task Force so that what I've done now is to rationalize what I think was behind this. Anyway the four of us having got to Montreal and got ourselves into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel constituted the Task Force. I don't know whose room we choose for it but v/e had had four rooms reserved by telephone fron Ottawa, and this &-. t v/e did have which I renenber on the 6th floor was one of those studio rooms, v/ith two beds shoved back to look like couches and it had a television ... 3 010576 �Read: set v/hich wasteful and a telephone. ops roon. It v/as a thoroughly inadequate If v/e v/ere going to do this v/ith administrative flourish v/e would have got one of the sample rooms in the hotel and put in a connecting line to the Ops Centre in Ottawa v/hich is just a pick up. In other words, a direct line, no requirement to dial. Mrs.Anyot: There v/as only one phone in there? Read: There v/as only one phone, the usual hotel phone and... Mrs.Halstead: Which went through the desk? Read: Yes. Mrs.Halstead: So it wasn't very secure. Read: It was not secure. At that point however we couldn't care less about security to the extent that so far as we v/ere aware, the negotiations were taking place out in St. Laurent and they would obviously hopefully cone to a head and be successful and then the mechanism v/ould cone into operation so that what we had to say to Ottawa or to anybody else v/as, night have been secure for the minute but not for nuch longer then that. But, if you v/ere going to do this properly as I say take over a sanple roon, give us the ordinary hotel phone, give us a private line to the Operations Centre in Ottawa and preferably a third phone connected dirct on to the Montreal exchange which of course you can do through the, through the nornal modern hotel telephone. You dial 9 and you get an out line and away you go.I guess thats the way the phone v/as anyway but certainly theres a lack of security in that type of phone. The other thing we v/ould hve had v/ould be an FM one radio and an AM radio and at least/if not two television sets so that we could keep up to date with v/hat v/as being broadcasted locally, saying what v/as happening. The set we had had only got a choice of either radio or television so if you listen to one you don't get the other, and I think v/e v/ould have had the proverbial snail boy there, preferably one with a steno... 4 010577 �- 4 Read: graphic pad and a pencil keeping a record of v/hat was going on, keeping a record of what was said in messages from Ottawa, v/hat we said in return, statements to Ottawa and the questions we issued because this I can.... .Irs.Halstead: You didn't have a stenographer? Read: Nothing at all, Mrs.Anyot: Nothing v/as written and no tiling v/as recorded? Read: So, the alternative to this of course is to put us through a no... de-briefing process on, as soon as we get back to Ottawa and instead v/hat they do is for you. to cone back and you write memoranda. V/hich of course I've done and Orham's done and Claude Roquet has done, I haven't seen Dery, I don't know v/hether he did. However, to go back to the organization of this, Clau e and Orham were earmarked to go to Havanna but Claude as leader of the Task Force had a natural inclination to './ant to be on the island seeing how this tiling worked out and there to sort of plug any holes that developed. However, they v/ere marked, their role v/as to go to Montreal to get to the island, to fly to Cuba ana nine v/as to stand by to take any action required, to answer any inquiries regarding the operation of Terre des Hommes as the C u ban Consulate, and this I did. Dery was there to look after the flight from Dorval to London. He had been heavily involved as you will renenber earlier on , in the question of the use of Algiers as the destination for the kidnappers and he had actually travelled to Algiers ana been around and he was put on to the job of escorting Mr. Cross to London and the four of us went there and tlie phone rang and we phoned and I can't renenber what the bill was, but its very interesting. The '.-/hole thing was to try and keep ourseLves then with tlie progress being made in tlie negotiations that were/taking place v/ith the kidnappers, and there 'was a secondary effort and that was to let tlie Cubans know we were there and then to negotiate the arrival of Dyer 010578 �Read: and Roqu t on the island. This eventually was arranged but it was a fairly hair raising experience, principally I think because the rather mild mannered ______ lost all his power as soon as ________________ cane in and v/ho is a very strong person, a very intelligent and a good administrator, justably obliterated so that ___ who was a pleasant, easy going character decided what looked to hin good in the circusistar.ces end quite frankly its amazing that v/e got as good a pit as we did. v/ere two, it was There who 'was hesitant about letting Dyer and Roquet get into the Consulate before the kidnappers, he could not see the sense of doing anything before them and I stvnpose maybe we didn't clear this point up earlier but it v/oulO have been a good thing to do and I think _______„_ v/ould have made less fuss about it. Nov/ Mrs.Halstead: Before the third there was no Montreal Tack Force? Read; Hone at all. Mrs.Halstead: Paid no coordinated '.'/ay of dealing with the provincial government in Montreal? Read: Well no the, tho lines './ere all through Quebec City and that is a... Mrs.Halstead: From Ottawa? Read: From Ottawa and they ran from the Task Force. was the Task Force to The effective one A o u ^ "feen there was also the Prime liinister's line to Mr. Choquette and Mr. Bourassa and the Minister's; I don't know whether lie was called into it but certainly "there was a set up. You'll notice that for instance at one tine tlie Prise Minister's switchboard went to so on/a 24 hour operation, thats recorded in there. So obviously/that there could be instantaneous contact between the Prime Minister and Mr. Bourassa we were, in Quebec or alternatively with Mr. Choquette; because/this is one of the interesting things and I v/ould like to be some time assured that the theorists working on this, that the business of trying to draw an effective 010579 �Ptead: line between the relative, the related authorities of the federal and provincial governments in a natter like this and drawing that line in such a way so as to not impede communication and in such a way as to not reduce the whole thing to inefficiency. This, cones dov/n to really the second and third questions that are on this page. A provincial attitude towards the federal government's role in the affair. We thought that as a Task Force, at least I think we thought, that as a Task Force that we were at the hub and that we were doing things but I have a suspicion that the provincial authorities v/ere fully conscious of the fact a responsibility v/hich v/as peculiarly theirs. that they v/ere exercising Co that in a sense they were the operators and we were in an advisory position. " e v/ere i n n0 position to tell them what to do, we could advise then, v/e had sone control because; for instance, there v/as originally a mention of Q500,000 worth of gold and provincial ministers of finance are notoriously generous especiall;/' v/hen they can see that if the federal government's interest gets excited the federal government can be expected to come up with p. half million. So that with that sort of dangling in the background. There are other places in v/hich federal government help is essential. He had to provide the air craft that was quite apparent and this was enough to keep us in the picture. 3ven if there had been nothing else but aside from that of course it v/as a foreign representative so there's an overriding responsibility in our port. So this is really looking at tlie conjunction of a couple of networks and to see which string is being pulled by whom at the tine you have to v/ork your v/ay back into it. The essential thing was to have the, tlie thing v/ork properly and to do 'this there v/as no possibility of ordering anybody to do anything from our point of view. What you had to do was to trust that common sense in Ottawa equalled common sense in Quebec so that if you put a reasonable point of view to the Quebec authorities it would touch them correctly in the, it would touch then in a manner . .. 7 010580 �- 7 v/hich v/ould be acceptable to them and which would stimulate their ov/n thinking to follow along the same lines. I think its a, its a, the sort of thing that university professors will be picking up and arguing about for years. Its the effect on federal-provincial relationships of the Jasper Cross kidnapping, simply because it was fascinating. If, the ideal tiling of course v/ould have been for the federal government to have stepped right in and take over the whole business and cut out the Quebec authorities. be efficiency mark one. This v/ould That's to say we would run the investigation, we'd run the guarding, we'd run the policing, we would run the negotiations with the kidnappers, we'd see then out of the country and -we'd conpletely ignore the provincial government and the municipal government, that's quite clear isn't it? You knov/ only one person should drive a horse, you can't have the passenger take one rein and let the driver have the other. But in point of fact conpletely unrealistic solution fron tlie point of view fron our Consulate General and also, we've got to say this that over a hundred years there is a certain experience in harmonizing the federal-provincial pointsof view and federal and provincial actions. This v/as v/hat v/e fell back on, I suppose, but its a fascinating subject for anybody looking into it. What, the v/ay we were operating v/as about as inefficient as it possibly could have planned to. V/e put so many steps in the simple chain of command. Mrs.Halstead: How do you think that the people on the federal side looked at you? Read; On the provincial? Mrs.Halstead: On the provincial side, did you, only in terms of the, of the desirability of the aircraft, ransom and of course the military help. Read: No I v/as representing a necessary factor in the picture, no question about it. Deners knew because of his power position which was nuch better then mind, after all I v/as not in M0ntreal as a personal friend of the Prime Minister. ... 8 010581 �Y- 0 S Read: I had not run any political campaigns for him v/hich Robert Demers had run a campaign for Bourassa after all, did you not know that? Mrs.Anyot: No. Read: So they were great personal friends, I v/as not a personal friend of Pierre Elliott Trudeaus. Mrs. Amyot: So this explains the reason, that v/as a big interogation point that v/e had, -why that man had been chosen. Read: V/hy that man had been chosen, well a personal friend and ran a campaign for hin. Mrs. Amyot: Thats right. Ens.Halstead: But also very capable or did you not find that? Read: Ch you have just made the understatement of the century. a very great admiration for Robert Doners. I have I thought he was perfectly charming, I thous: ht he was extraordinarily intelligent and I thought he v/as very able. You know, you can be intelligent without being able and yosi can be the other way around, but this boy had both of them and he had a nice measurement of the effective things. I don't blame Bourassa for liking him by golly, he's a nice chap. Mrs.Anyot: We better -pjesn because this one is nearly finished co you. better one just stop that/now. Hrs. Hal stead: Read: This is Jean-Marc __________ yes the other representative from Mr. Bourassa'c office and I am, from looking at this I Ccoi't quite see which date this v/as, no idea. Hut certainly he '.vas there at one of the meetings because I've got his name down there and I can remember speaking to him. Hers .Halstead: Read: One of the meetings at Terre dec Honnes? Yes, cr, one of the meetings in the Rational Harbour Board office in Cite du Harve but to go back to our friend Demers and his attitude. ... 9 010582 �_ o_ Read: I think basically he was extremely cooperative, he knew he was in the driver's seat, as I say his power position v/as well above nine. Furthermore, in a sense my role v/as technical. I v/as there to say well from the point of viev/ of the under convention on consular relations this is it and this isn't it. Largely that because I v/as the representative of the Department on the earlier occasions and did not have Andre Bissonnette, I had a rather larger role. d It was a role at referendum. I don't think anybody expected me to take any earthohaking decisions and the decisions we '//ere taking './ere fairly stall ones. But decision as choice, not decision but choice of location for the Cuban Consulate in Terre des Hommes. Tlie question of whether or not the Consulate consisted of one building or could take in the whole island and this sort of thing. In the end as leer as I was concerned the, the Consulate v/as described as Terre des Hommes end I understood that to mean both the island of St. Helene and Notre de Dame. The reason for talcing both these in at once was to give us a better perimeter so that the chance of, of our being ambushed while we're sitting in the pavilion taken over by several cells of the FLQ v/e reduced it so that we could encircle the whole thing. From a practical point of view I imagine to, the police treated Terre des only Hommes as meaning/the island of Notre de Dane. I fancy that that is, v/ould have been their definition and not including St. Ilelene. In point of fact it was as large as v/e needed but ny feeling v/as that the description had been given as Terre des Hommes and that meant both islands and I was willing to exclude pier or Cite du Harve because of Habitat which -,/as there and the national harbours board v/hich had to go on operating and these two things obviously couldn't occur in the middle of the Consulate. However, this is my role as I caps v/as largely technical, carried a little bit nore responsibility. The sort of coordinating responsibility lets put it that v/ay. People looked at ne to produce for then sone idea of . . . 10 010583 �- 10 Read: v/hat the federal government was thinking and what it would want to do but as I say tlie decisions that were nine at that tine were minor ones they v/ere largely technical. The place v/here you could find favoritism, suspicion and jealousies to quote the third question was in the relationship between the police forces. The RCMP found the house, the Quebec provincial police took the credit. Mrs.Anyot: Found the house v/here Cross v/as Read: Found the house v/here Cross was kidnapped. The RCMP' throughout the whole role, throughout the whole crisis played a, a role in the background and in point of fact they weren't in the background at all. They were in the foreground. But they v/ere getting away from the fact that they had no jurisdiction in the province of Quebec. They cannot, they can arrest people yes all right you go and kick one of then in the shins, he will arrest when you. This is fine they can do that. But, if/you're in Montreal and you're passing Henry Birks and you look inside and see a masked man knocking a case to pieces and taking tlie diamonds out and this sort of thing; your you don't call the RCMP to cone and investigate. Even if this chap, this burglar has got sonething that says federal on the back, its the Montreal police and if the bloc gets out of Montreal its the provincial police the . So v/hat you have is the, the, the, RCMP walking on eggs. They do that. They v/ere being very active indeed. But, they couldn't say they v/ere being active and they couldn't phone the Quebec provincial police or the , they couldn't phone the Montreal police and say, "we've had a tip that says thus, that says thus and so, thus and so or v/e believe that go and investigate". They v/ould have to sort of put the evidence to the Quebec people asid say look there is an indication here which we find interesting and push it across the table to then and let the other forces say, "oh yes this looks good to us to, we'll send sonebody out to investigate". . . . 11 010584 �- 11 Read: Now in these circumstances their performance v/as very creditable. But they're, they're fairly used to this role. We see this in our guarding activities for instance for the Consulates General in Quebec and in Montreal that v/e can ask the RCMP to liaise v/ith the Montreal police or the _________ or the Quebec police but they issue no orders, they make requests, they can pass indications along to then and thats abost as far as you can take this. So they v/ere used to this but they did tell me this that it was their activity that took the police to the house v/here the kidnappers had Mr. Cross. Jrs.Amyot: They must have been frustrated. Read: Oh yes but I tliink they are perpetually. But every now and then one of then just bursts the bound and says well lets let the public account not know that the RCMP v/as there anyway. But their position depends on/taking too nuch credit because you scratch my back, now let ne scratch yours, you see what I nean? So v/hat, you help a young sgt. of the Montreal police to look good, he's going to do things for you, it works alnost everywhere. Its the Dale Carneige approach so there v/ere, however, beneath this definite suspicions that people were not telling all, its a natural thing. That the, you know, the RCMP knew nore then they were letting on or the Montreal police knew more then they v/ere letting on, etc., etc. You could feel this coning up through the police relationship that I saw there. Where there v/ere nice clear guide lines and Captain Marquee had to clear us on then all, he was in charge of the policing of Terre des Hommes and that was it, and the Harbour Board v/ere happy to because the Harbour police had theirs, their responsibility ended at the shoreline and all right so they cooperated beautifully v/ith Marquee he never got his feet wet, they never got their feet dry. Just like that, easy, friendly, comfortable relationship but v/hen yougot bep/ond that v/here you got out into the wider business of the city and the RCMP and the Quebec,you could feel this undercurrent. The same thing was happening back . . . 12 010585 �- 12 Read: on the Task Force I expect. Mrs.Anyot: Because the jobs v/ere not perfectly defined? Read: 'Thats right. Mrs.Halstead: But you were very close to the police on a nunber of occasions did you feel that they v/ere inefficient in addition to having a jurisdictional problens? Read: I have a sinple faith in the police. It was severly dented the other day which is why I've got to go to court shortly. With the effort of telling one youngster that he shouldn't jur.ip to so nany conclusions so quickly. that But I still have a very sinple faith in the police. I think/theyIve got a tough job and I think they do it as well as they possibly can. I have the friendliest contacts v/ith police in Ottawa and Toronto and the RCMP. I had friendly contacts in Montreal, the Montreal police, unfortunately the chief one retired and that v/as he was great fun but v/e had liaison reasonable/with the Assistant Director oP the Montreal police i and with others there. But nowadays I do nost of ciy negotiating or Claude Sirois now does nost of his negotiating; through the RCMP, because RCMP have grouped themselves to answer the need for the protection of foreign representatives and foreign visitors. They now have the police and protection section or something of that sort, and the VIP security section. The VIP security section is part of a slightly larger section with a longer title v/hich I con never renenber, they can't renenber it either incidentally, it doesn't get into the telephone book. Mrs.Halstead: But you never felt that the police in, in Montreal, were infilterated by the FLQ or that they were working against each other or trying to prolong the crisis? Read: Ho. I never thought t h a t . Ho i n d i c a t i o n o f i t arid I never . . . IP 010586 �- 13 Read: thought it. I v/ould be very suspicious of anybody who said that they were holding things down because I think that police like publicity. Map/be that's a conic strip version of things but I think police like publicity and I think they all want to be the first police to discover this to get their pictures into the paper. alone in liking publicity. I must say that the police are not After all, in one of my earlier posting; to Havanna there v/ere, it was reported that one of the grand dames of Havanna society paid the society editor of SIO,000 a year to nake certain that she v/as photographed at every great function she attended, and the photograph v/as printed. when its off the tape. There v/as a...., I'll tell you this later Its not in the nature of this but there was a Canadian down there from Newfoundland and I don't know v/hether she paid the reporters anything but I remember once at a July First party that she attended and we got a great publicity spread in the knov/ somehow or other she v/as inevery one of the pictures. and do you She had just looked and watched v/here the cameraman v/as so that every time it had to some across, lie laughed i . , Senora Mary McCarthy __ However...... Now v/ould you like to go on to the safe conduct mechanism? Mrs.Halstead: Yes. Read: I imagine the, the, the question that stimulated by ny comments to Andre Bissonnette, the second memorandum. V/hat I was fearful of in the safe conduct mechanism was simply that you'd get to a point where there was nobody to decide something quite vital. I just thought that their ought to have been sonebodpy, I didn't care who it v/as, v/as put in chsirge of the whole thing and as soon as the,Cross was found that he would suddenly become the absolute controller and that the negotiators v/ould go out lawyer. , the Who, incidentally v/as on the island and his daughter was there for ... 14 010587 �- 14 -* Read: heavens sakes. When I arrived I'd forgotten about that but he'd send the negotiating team in to talk to the kidnappers, in the meantime he v/ould be pushing buttons to the provincial police to the Montreal police to the, particularly to the traffic police and arranging for the routing because we'd guaranteed then empty streets all the v/ay dov/n and then to sort of sit by and be in touch by v/alkie talkie or radio or something with the whole tiling right the way down to the, to where the kidnappers got into the island, got into the Consulate and ceased to be his responsibility. I was, for instance fearful that at a given nonent the, lets say there is a tliree alarm fire on one of the streets and that the word wouldn't get through quickly enough and there'd be a battle on the spot. hold up and then there would be a Perhaps and there v/ould be nobody there to take charge and develop on the spot immediate remedies for alternative routings or to get new cars in to replace the ones that had been shot up and I really just had concern that they, that there were too many separate little packages in the over all bag and that you needed somebody v/ho could move from one to the other very quickly. I suppose its like having Roquet as head of the Task Force. Everybody could turn to him, you reported to hin, and he could sort of sift through the developnents as they v/ere reported to him and say, "right well now we nust do this and take sone remedial action to stop an unfortunate tendency or this sort of thing". As this worked out, it worked perfectly -with no problem, but there v/ere funny things. For instance, why v/ere the army in charge of entrance and departure from Terre des Hommes? But v/hy if they v/ere and if Gauthier told ne that Roquet and Dyer v/ould get on to the island by showing their identification cards, why did they not get on to the island v/hen they showed their identification cards, because they didn't. Now this is the sort of thing that happened and then why on tlie • • • J-J 010588 �- 15 Read: other side, although it v/as very inportant thing that happened, v/hy did the army suddenly decide to relieve Gauthier from his job and send hin into the Consulate, which they did. Gauthier in theory v/as in charge of exit and.., entry and exit fron the island. He wasn't v/hen I got through there, but then Mrs.Halstead: V/ho v/as when he v/as in the Consulate? Read: I have no idea. Mrs.Halstead: You think he v/as kicked out? Read: I don't know what happened, all I know is that he turned up and said, "can I cone in?" and I said, "I'll see". and said, " Found this here's ny friend Colonel Gauthier, he's been in charge of the guard of the bridge and his autliorities have asked hin to cone into the Consulate, do you object? Mrs.Halstead: Do you think, there is one possibility that he v/as being renoved and the other was that he v/as being sent in to find out v/hat was going on. I think he v/as a spy, on army sp7r. Read: Probably that and probably put in because they figured, v/ell General Brown probably figured that because Gauthier and I had met that it v/as a good v/ay of getting him in. Mrs.Anyot: Its clever. Read: I tliink its a very good move but at the same time the, the, the there could have been changes of some sort perhaps if one got down to this and really thought it out or if I did, I v/ould probably come to the conclusion that I was seeing things that v/ould never exist but I v/as fearful tliat there v/as not enough central authority and tliat it would have been very useful to have had a central authority. Mrs.Halstead: If you had run into difficulty in getting to Terre des Homme the person in charge v/ould have been Read: I don't know. _? I have no idea v/hat would have happened if I �Read: hadn't been able to get there. They couldn't really stop ne, I'd been invited by the Cubans you see, I was there because wanted the Canadian government representative in the Consulate. Mrs.Anyot: ...and v/as the one v/ho decided this person was coning in or not. Read: Yes, as lone as time didn't object. or v/ho were both there at that But it was the Cuban side v/ho said, perhaps it v/asn't __________ naybe it was that said come and it was up to then to get the word to the gate. Which they could do by getting hold of Captain Marquee and sendhing him but there nust have been sone lease liaison there, I didn't have any trouble but Dyer and Roquet did. Mrs.Amyot: Yes they had to wait for 20 minutes. Read: But I had the great fortune of wandering over there and transferring to a, Captain Marquee's car, because he cane and got ne. Mrs.Anyot: Yes but you did arrive on the island before, before Roquet and Read: No, no, no. They were already there when I was there. been there for sone tine, because they waited 20 minutes. Dyer. They had They went over earlpr in the afternoon, so early that v/e had to cancel their lunches which we'd ordered fron roon service. Thats another thing v/hich v/e should do is to make certain that the Queen Elizabeth will meet its requirements for roon service a little bit nore quickly in these emergency situations, (laughter) Well as you know they had plenty of time to get some food up to us and they didn't and so Roquet and Dyer didn't have any lunch. But after they had gone Dery and I had tine to have lunch, lots of time because it was after Dyer and Roquet had gone that I went and escaped from that smoke filled room and v/ent -wandering about and bought a mickey of Scotch whiskey which Dery took over to London with him, or port of it. they But no, v/ere there before I v/as definitely and thats how I got Tara Dyer's 17 010590 �- 17 Read: lunch because Orham had taken it v/ith hin and then he left it behind because it was a Mrs.Anyot: nuisance. Oh. I think that at stage there v/ere cone complications in oui- organising the travel documents for the, for the FLQers to leave, could you elaborate on it? Read: V/ell what the, the, the, end were prepared to issue a group travel document to the IsLdnappers. Mrs.Halstead: Read: Did they decide on tliat as a formula? It v/as the only possible way, v/e could not go through tlie whole procedures for issuing proper passports. Mrs.Amyot: Thats the reason why they never had any passports? Read: Thats right. Mrs.Anyot: I see. Read: If they'd had then already they could have used ther: but the, the Miing v/as that they had to EaAre visas and I think they had to have their passports seen and the only way of coins; it was to issue .a group) passport and this would have the photograph on it of the members of the group. I think this was a extra requirement incidentally, try suspicion is that .you can issue /group passports TIE! 3ND 010591 �THE OCTOBER CHIPIP Interview with Mr. T.Read conducted by Mrs. Jean Halstead and Mrs. Andrce Amyot. Read: Tape Number Three. V/e 'were talking at the end of that last reel, the last beb'oirr, on the subject of the arrival of Choquette and Bourassa at the Terre dec Honnes and tlie indication there of a certain, certain problens v/ithin the government of Quebec. Can we go back to that? Ers.Halstead: Yes. Mrs.Amyot: Yes thats fine. Read: V/ell the..., I have opinions on v/hether Er. Chouquette ought to have come to Terre des Hommes or not. I can only imagine that he came because he wanted to make certain that he was on page one of the newspapers. He brought v/ith him hiv, on// photographer or journalist; photographer I think and he cane at a point v/hich was, in my view, far too early in the game and he came without asking permission of the Cubans or without giving nuch advance notiee of his intentions. I thought that the visit was offensive, however there was nothing to do. Mrs.Halstead: What tine v/as it? Read: This was half past si:-: in the, v/ell in tlie evening, half pact six. nan. I think about He came roaring in v/ith a tremendous bustle, he's a very big You know he cosies into a room I mean. Mrs.Anyot: Oh yes you notice him. Read: You. notice hin and he then went in and talked v/ith Japser Crocs for 20 ninutes but I had, I had been talking to Robert Demers just before that. I was able to tell him that Chouquette was coning I think, and Doners immediately asked ne to prevent him. the entry people with hin. of any photographer or press I said, "v/ell I'll speak to the Cubans',' but there v/as no speaking to the Cubans. Chouquette cane and he brought whoever he wanted 010592 �Read: with hin so afterwards I had to report to Demers that Choquette had cone. In point of fact, he brought with him a photographer who v/as working on a pool arrangement or v/ho v/as committed to a pool arrangement and v/as able to supply the photographs he got to all the press people v/ho were interested in having them and of course I imagine to E r . Chouquette. It v/as shortly after that we heard that Bourassa v/as coming so he came in, very nuch quieter although still an inportant person when he cones into a roon and he brought Robert Demers v/ith hin and they went and were closetet v/ith Cross for a while. Mrs.Anyot: Read: But v/asn't there also a journalist or a photographer v/ith Bourassa? With Bourassa indeed there v/as and this v/as v/here Ashford v/as very Ashford was offended./the Information Officer and he v/as conscious, I, this is fascinating for me actually, he was conscious not of the local press problem but of the international press problen. I sort of sat up v/hen I realized this and I still think its peculiar. As far as I an concerned Bill Ashford's job was to deal with the Canadian press people in Montreal, he was not there to deal with tlie international press at all. However, this seemed to be his prime interest because he v/as offended. Well it turned out afterwards that Bourassa's photographer v/as linked into a Canadian arrangement v/hich had no connection with the international press, and he v/as, and he said, "well no this is bad". However, I didn't have nuch tine for Mr. Ashfoad in any case. I didn't regard hin as being germane to the story so to speak. Although afterwards I v/as responsible for his protection for many months may I say. However, Bourassa cane in and he went out and this was the celebrated noment at which I said to Robert Deners as he went out, "a la prochaine" and he burst into laughter. And of course I v/as thinking when v/e meet next and of course a also la prochaine / meant at the next kidnapping. V/e burst into laughter and Bourassa said, "whats up?" and I guess i and Bourassa immediately said, "Mr. Read has just said h. la prochaine", he buret into laughter but ... 3 010593 �Read: that v/as a good note for then to leave on and away they went. But the problen v/as that as far as I an concerned Bourassa's visit v/as off base, Choquette's visit v/as certainly off base and I an convinced that nobody v/as in touch v/ith the Cubans with regard to Choquette's visit. R"as startled by this now whether there had been some link with '\y[Uj,M the Cuban Ambassador in Ottawa I don't know because the Cuban Ambassador in Ottawa cane dov/n to Montreal, I think and v/as there in the vicinity, if I am not mistaken during the time v/hen v/e were waiting for Cross's release and the Cuban Ambassador had to be consulted but himself was powerless, everything has to be cleared through Havanna. This was one of the problems of dealing v/ith this business of that the Cubans had to consult on what seemed to me to be reasonably small things but it was very convenient for them to hold up a decision on occasion but I think on other occasions they would have liked to have been quicker themselves but they had to consult, they seemed to have far action less freedom of/then, then we would. If John for instance was an Ambassador in a situation like this I would haveexpected the Department to say, "go to it", and I v/ould have expected hin to make the decisions on the spot and say report that to Ottawa, report it to Ottawa but not wait till I get Ottawa on the phone, I v/ould expect hin to make decisions v/ithout consulting but the Cuban obviously had to consult and did so. i'irs.Halstead: Can you recall what he v/as consulting about? Read: No. Hrs.Halstead: Could it have been about the travel documents? Read: No I think that v/as JZ^KL^L--':,'no Irs.Halstead: s~ad: ^ ^ne di< travel docunents side. ..and that had been arranged? That and I am thinking of the question of the travel docunents for Dyer and Roquet who didn't have any. They v/ent down v/ith only their good looks and their departmental passes I think. . ... 4 010594 �- 4Mrs.Anyot: Read: If only they had a paper saying, you knov/, personal, they're special. Very special yes. Hell I think that this, this is not a question of consultation so nuch as a question of information to say that v/e have taken this action to allow these people to travel on these tilings. You v/ill kindly let then in, if its absolutely essential we can tell then not to go but it v/ould hold the whole thing up, it would be 90;' information or 99;Q information and lE consultation. There are certain things you. can't have stop no matter how nany rules are broken and this would/been one of them. Ho I, there were a number of occasions on which v/e v/ere waiting for the Cuban Ambassador to get authority fron Havanna and I suspect that you'll find out about then as prou examine other nenbers of the Task Force, they've slipped my mind at the moment. I do renenber one tine when I got terribly bad tempered about the inefficiencies of np/ ov/n Division and that v/as when this bloc, the Cuban Ambassador, had no residence and he v/as in fact living in 70 Rideau Terrace, v/hich is on apartment building up near the Rockcliffe Arms in Linden Lea, and the, he had had rented a residence, had noved out into this pP.ace, their telephone nunber hadn't been re-registered with us or if it had been it certainly v/asn't indicated on any tiling v/e had and we could not find the Cuban Ambassador. Nobody knew where he was, we knew he was somewhere, but './here? Paid I rsnersber going dashing over to the f,Ju^j^ from tlie Task Force looldsigj through everything I could find to try and find it and its one of the reasons why I est continuing to be determined, gritting my teeth loudly to see that v/e have a document, or that v/e have an information retrieval system in Protocol Division so that we can get information on anybody, any foreign diplomat or any foreign representative of any kind here in Ottawa, and I want to get it bpr pulling a number and then dialing a serial, an additional series of digits and having a 010595 �Read: a mechanical voice come out and say, &U A?y^/^^-/rAn •- Cuban Ambassador to Canada, accredited such and such, arrived Canada such and such.a date, \ l A accredited such and such a elate, residence so and so, married, three children", and have tliat happen so that you know "what p'ou.'re dealing with. But there v/asn't anything so we lost the Cuban Ambassador and there was a terrible fish around. So thats a deficit. V/e did have to consult the Cuban Ambassador on many occasions duringthe Task Force operation and I think most of those he had to refer then to, but they v/ere important questions but I v/ould have expected a. Canadian Ambassador to have taken the decision and to have informed his government rather than to ask the government's permission. Ay commentary on that point. Irs.Halstead: To return briefly to the question of the press, did the Canadian government, did the federal government and did you have any special interest in keeping all photographers away? Read: No. No interest whatsoever. But the, the, in my view and I v/as probably trying to stick too stiff a line on this, as far as I was concerned Terre des Honnes was territory within Cuban control although policed by us and in view of the Cuban attitude towards the people treading on their earth I wanted everybody v/ho came there to cone there either at the hvitation of, or with the permission of the Cuban in charge v/ho v/as H ,^/^Aand this is one of the things if he wished to permit press to come in then I was happy to have press cone in, coming in, I had no instructions to the contrary from lb-eternal Affairs. I couldn't see any harm to it but I did think that this casual assumption because the Minister of Justice of Quebec, Choquette had free entry to the island v/as unwarranted, unjustified and I thought that, I was very surprised by it. And the warning from Demers about saying, "v/ell don't let him take a photographer in", to ne indicated that in the government of Quebec that there v/as a certain rivalry and a ... 6 010596 �- 6Read: possibility that Mr. Choquette was hoping that the Cross crisis would catapult hin into the Premiers chair. Well its a nice hope if you want to get somewhere, you've assured yourself to be very determined on the side of law and order and a great guy you see. aytturt M-^-Act Mrs.Halstead: You didn't see John Dunrtfssil abont- Choquette? then Read: I didn't but /I didn't knov/ Dunrossil at that tine, not really, only He'd/just arrived in Canada, I didn't know who he was probably and Dunrossil's approval if he gave it to Choquette, and if he did come with Choquette v/as entirely irrelevant to the situation, the approval had to come fron the Cubans , not fron the Brits. Mrs.Anyot: Apparently he had been invited by Choquette. Read: Thats quite probable. After all it isn't everyday that you can walk in with a Mrs.Anyot: I v/ould like to go back to that alternative location which you talked about a little earlier. Read: I think this is explained, I think that I cone close to explaining it in one of these things here that if that storn had hit -as six hours before, the helicopter v/ould not have been able to get on to the island. He would have had to make alternative plans or if while we v/ere waiting, there'd been fourteen inches of snow, nobody could have gone anywhere. Perhaps you couldn't have gone anywhere anyway but the feeling v/as that the, the set up wasn't quite right. That what v/e needed was sosie place a little bit nore central, either that or nore isloated. We needed a place we could take over and have all to ourselves v/ithout feeling that you have to be out by 9 O'clock in the norning because the staff are moving in, where you didn't have to upset a najor operation, v/hich you could say fine this is good for a year or five years, it will still be there. Preferably central but at the sane tine preferably suburban you want a place v/here you have got access �- 7Read: to the airport, or access to highways - quickly in and quickly out. But that storm as I say held off, the helicopter v/as able to come in, everything worked and the roar through the city was fine, managed that. but heaven knows how they I still don't, I wish I'd been there to see the police organisation to close off that route, it must have been fantastic and I don't know how they did it, but they did. Paid it v/ould have been easier if we'd had a palace up in Mount Royal and they'd But from your knowledge there's no other place before the last Irs.Amyot: decision came to take Terre des Hommes as, no other place.... lead: I v/asn't in on the debate that ended v/ith Terre des Hommes. irs.Halstead: Was it the nature of the Task Force and the nature of the Task Force discussions that if 'you had been there you would have been able to suggest the difficulties or to make other proposals? Read: Ho. I think anybody v/ho quibbled as I have v/ith the choice of Terre des Honnes is enjoying a bit of ex post facto wisdom. I v/ould tliink that if sonebody said Terre des Hommes he v/ould say fine, we'll look at it, its a blob,you can isolate it, unless people walk across the ice v/hich wasn't probable. But it, it, you can isolate it, there are all those buildings why not use one of them? Well becauae after all you don't know that theres no insulation, you don't Isiow theres no insulation there. Mrs.Anyot: So it would look good.... And of course nost probably at that tine also nobody expected that it was going to last that long, in Hovenber to have a big storm like tliat we usually don't have them so thats certainly one ofthe reasons why that particular aspect v/as not brought out. ead: Yes, there really v/as a vicious storn to. I v/as very glad I v/asn't to driving a car when when v/e got away from there. One of the things/that v/as important on this v/as that the Jacque Cartier bridge ices very quicklpv because the wind goes underneath and on top and they ought to keep the roads a little • • •o 010598 �bit....But no I think probably its better to say Terre des Hommes was good, it had enough space, it had the security, or most of the security that v/e needed, it had the heliport which meant that there v/as helicopter connunication and at vorci v/e could have had limousines or big cars taking the partp/ to Dorval, it would have just lengthened the procedure. It v/as free, the Harbour Board didn't charge uc anything for it I think, they should have, v/e certainly made a mess of that, you know, the ashtrays v/ere full by the tine we left. But I would have been, if I'd chosen the spot, happier to take over the Harbour Board headquarters in the Cite du Harve v/hich v/ould have been a better location then the Terre des Hommes itself. Juct that little bit siore convenient. Oui. ...and you're so close there to tlie Bonaventure Parkway which .ould take you to Dorval quite qtuckly I think i f I am not mistaken. Yes p/ou1 re r i g h t . Yes i t takes you to doesn't i t , no, well I ' v e forgotten anyway "out i t seems to me tliat i t s a main road and the Harbour Board offices n i Eat have done. But a bad, on the other hand, a bad choice because heaven knows v/e had to take tlie Canadian povilion out of action for long enough and that was with a reasonable staff. 'The Harbour Hoard staff, they probably have several hundred people working there end you're dislodging them. Its one thing to t e l l eight or ten people not to report tomorrow norning or when they hear that something's happening they don't need to come to work, can but i t s another thing to t e l l three hundred people. I nean/psou ceo Montreal Harbour l i t t e r e s with chips above the shoals? Imagine. Cause the Harbour Board i s n ' t -working that daps, I don't know './here else would be b e t t e r . At tine end i t was a very good l o c a t i o n . . . . . . 9 010599 �_ o _ Read: Yes. Ms. Anyot: . . . . e x c e p t on t l i a t b u s i n e s s of - w e a t h e r . . . . Read: ...exac t l y . . . Mrs.Anyo t: ... in winter. Dead: We v/ere lucky but as soon as you. say v/e v/ere lucky it means that it was not a reliable all weather... Mrs.Anyot: In any other season there would have been no problem. Road: Oh bit a bit, what would happen in sunner with Terre des Hommes open and a hundred thousand people? Hrs.Halstead: We wouldn't use it. Read: Think of the psroble:.: of just at the 'moment v/hen you're explaining to several thousand people that they can't come in today cause their buses Have cosie from Rimouski and things like that and they're all standing there at the Place de .and gou soy don't corse in we need this and all of a sudden you try ana get a dirty old black Chrysler and police cars coning screaming into the mob from behind, thats gorgeous, it wouldn't Have done for the summer. So it v/as essentially a place that v/as good after the chow closed for the year. Mrs.Anyot: You're right. Mrs.Halstead: You went to the Jewish Hospital? Read: Yes.' Don't ask me where it is I v/ould never be able to find it again in my life. Mrs.Anyot: But you remember going? Read: I renenber going because it was a, it was a terrifying ride in many aspects. Egret of all I '.vac in the back of Captain Marquee's car, there were two of us criminals, prou know. There were no door handles and no window handles. Mrs.Anyot: Ho window ? . . . 10 010600 �- 10 Read: So there you are and the car gets cranked up, you don't get out, you are there until somebody opens the door fron inside, no locks, nothing. But the funny thing was that './hen v/e all piled into the cards and v/ere moving away... Mrs.Anyot: He all, who? Read: Oh. Marquee was driving this car and there was a youngster fron the RC1E? in the back v/ith ne and there was somebody elce in tlie front v/ho, this was entirely sort of a police operation except for me. But they had a, the car with Crocs and Mrs. to v/ith Susan Cross and they v/ere in a car and they v/ere in the convoy and Marquee '//as leading. V/ho elce v/as available then? I don't know what happened to tlie Cubans, v/e said goodnight to them and v/e left, I hope they turned the lights out and v/ent home to bed, they certainly needed it, along with all those other bodies, the police of various sorts. But in my car I was v/ith a young plain clothes Constable of the RCMP or Corporal or Sgt. and my friend MarqufcS in the front driving*. and we took off on the nost unexpected route, wandered around through lie Sainte ilelene I think. Mrs.Halstead: why v/as it so strange simply because it Read: My friend MarqulS needed his overcoat, or something of that sort v/hich he hadn't had up to that time and found he suddenly needed it. Mrs.Anyot: Read: Oh, thats incredible! He went to the sort of island police headquarters which ic left off somewhere near the Jacques Cartier Bridge. But getting there was really up here and down there, well you know v/hen you're in the back of a car and the v.indshield wipers are going and the snow is coning down like this and you're plugging along don't know v/here you are. So v/e cone to these buildings and I think good heavens where are we and then of course we're not even off the island. So then you swing around and go back down again and there are four cars I think in the convoy. Mrs. Anyot: Everybody v/as f o l l o w i n g . . . . . . . 11 010601 �- 11 Read: The, the, the RCMP, the police kidnapped again. are red hot on let hin not be They did not want tliat to happen, but v/hat a nice thing you see the kidnappers are on their way, they've landed fine, O.K., the FLQ second cell cones in and wants Cross again. Mrs.Halstead: Thank goodness. Read: Just to clever for words. cay to the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Wouldn't it be just clever? So off v/c go and we finally find our MarqufiS knows where he's going, I won't know and we start wandering through Montreal. By this time it nust be quarter pact eleven, quarter pact two, two o'clock? Mrs.Anyot: Oh a little before I v/ould say because you v/ere back at the hotel at a quarter to three. Read: Yes.Well v/e were wandering through these streets and of course every tine you cone to a stop street you've got four cars at least, in the shortest form of a convoy and if you stop in your stop street, can the car behind you stop, can the car behind it stop? So, there being nothing coming, you don't stop. So v/e v/ent through stop street after stop street, we v/ent through red light after rod light. It v/as quite exciting and then finally v/e got to the Jewish Hospital. Mrs. Amyot: No siren? Read: No siren, alive as the grave. Just absolutly silent. So then they go around the Jewish Hospital, or now perhaps v/e didn't go around maybe we only went partially around but v/e went in I think, through the back entrance and then the cars stopped. But Marqut_ he had got out and then theres a movement fron the others as they get Crocs and Mrs. and they start in and then Marquee comes back and he said, "I guess its all right", and then with me alone,we've lost the other two at this stage. Mrs.Halstead: Tlie other two police? Read: Yes. He starts off and drives back to the Queen Elizabeth with me, v/hich v/as very nice of him and somewhere along, you see lie had no business . . . IS 010602 �- 12 Read: any in this, once Cross was delivered to the hospital the Terre des Hommes police '//ere out and that v/as his charge. He was in charge of the policing along of the t./o islands. So/we go and the radio is crackling away v/ith voices and this, tliat and the other thing and all of a sudden, A/Ssuf//{(^/i/.sxA 4f//1cyj.4^^y^yj'^- he said, "there v/e are", I said, "what does that mean? Chat did he say? .£j/A^///A^,<//.^M(^ Evell I said, "p/es I know that but what does it mean?" "It means Cross is safely in bed", so there he was. So then you go home and you'd like to then take off and do the night clubs and stay up till si;: in the norning and rejoice,the load is off the shoulders, co what happens? Go and get into a nice warm bath and go to bed and go to sleep. But then the things that I don't know whether, I think I nentioned this somewhere, it was a natter of great relief, my job v/as over as far as I was concerned at this point. The Terre des Honnes had been used as the Consulate, it had served as the Consulate and I was out. It 'was then for Jean Marie Dery because he v/as responsible for the flight across the Atlantic and it was up to hin to take over. Well fortunately for our sanity, 'while v/e v/ere still sort of talking to Ottawa and telling then v/hat v/e could and what not, a decision v/as made in Ottawa to send Vic Chapnan down to organize the departure and this was trenendous because he is a natural for this sort of job. He's a big man and he speaks quietly and people listen to him and the first thing ve know Jean Earie and himself, I think they were out in an RCMP car because we couldn't get a taxi, Montreal is snow up to here you see, it really was a blizzard and its a city that cones to a grinding halt. So I, I ass not certain, I think it was probably by an RCMP car, v/e're out to the airport late tliat afternoon. This v/as on the afternoon of the 4th and Vic Chapman called a meeting of everybody who had anything to do v/ith this, he had tlie RCMP, he had the Montreal police, the provincial police, I fancy I am not . . . 13 010603 �- 13 Read: certain, the managenent of the airport, probably Ashford I should think but I am not certain, or somebody fron that office and the question is to organize the departure of Er. Cross and there were maybe 19 people at this meeting, sitting around the VIP roon ans nobody quite knowing v/hat anybody else was going to do about this and just quietly, with very great ease and efficiency Vic let the talking start and details come out in general exchange of facte and this sort of thing and then he quietly juct pulled all the threads juct like this and the first thing we knov/ everything was organized. It was a beautiful job, bravo, juct beautiful, co smooth you can't believe it, and there we had a plan for the departure and this required us to be out very earlps in the morning, far too early for • 1 think v/e had to be in the VIP room at a quarter to seven and there to welcone Bryee MacKesay who cane up to represent the federal government. I fancy there was a representative fron the Mayor's office there but he may have been in on the first discussions the night before. There nust have been a representative of the Quebec government but I haven't got the faintest idea v/ho it was at this point and...Cross and company arrived in convoy, guarded up to the hilt, and then they cane into the VIP room, and Hrs.Halstead: Hayman... Head: Peter Hayman was he there? Mrs.Anyot: Peter Hayman, yes I think he was. Read: I think lie must have been. Mrs.Anyot: Peter Hayman? Read: I think he must Have been at the departure of Crocs, I am not certain. OH yes it was, thats who I got ny ride home from the Uplands in the Holla Royce. Hrs.Halstead: Peter Hayman, of course at the end of the book. Mrs. Amyot: Oh geeJ Read: So I think that he v/as there and then I think that everything was ... IP 010604 �- 14 lead: organized so as Cross arrived you. see everybody was there and we all troop: into the, there was a sort of cafeteria place next door or small restaurant, and that had been cooped, taken over and co we cent to the VIP room and then there v/as this press conference and then through, around and down .and into the funny little VIP room, that the Department of Transport, its really a VII" entrance, tlie Depart/sent of Transport has and then out and into the aircraft. But I didn't go out at that point because I tliink we just saw then off and they got into the, the press v/ere permitted to come out on the balcony which gave them a pretty good view even loolcing downwards at the procession out of he airport. But the descent through the, down the escalators and through tlie departure lounge and out that or through the VIP lounge v/hich they went. That was no press so then they got on board the aircraft waving like made, including Jean Marie Dery and away they v/ent and there it v/as. So at that point v/e went and collected coats and things and got into one of the small Department of Transport jets -with Peter Hayman and back to Ottawa. Vic Chapnan and Peter gave me a lift back to the, a lift to the Fact Block I think, either that or to the Centennial Tower I an not certain v/hich and that was it. Back home at 10:30 or so if 11 remember right. I know it v/as a fast flight fron Montreal I remember that and then of course being Saturday norning, oh he must have taken ne home, no. Prs.Halstead: Post partun depression? lead: Didn't have a moment. I was back in the office again by quarter to twelve. Mrs.Anyot: But on a Saturday? Read: Yes. Mrs.Amyot: Oh my d e a r . Read: Somebody had put a bomb i n the hallway o u t s i d e the Cuban Consulate i n Toronto. . . . 1? 010605 �- 15 Mrs.Anyot: Its true, its true. Read: So I went back in and I did another three or four hours overtime on that. There was no Consul but sonebody put a bomb there so then the problem was to get representation from Cuba or do something to get in to see v/hether there had been any damage inside or something of the sort. But they sent , First Secretary,here, they sent him down. So he v/ent down, v/e teed tliat up with a charming Inspector of the Toronto Police Force who decided if needed entertaining, co after they'd been and down their inspection of the place and it seemed that the damage was all in the hallway, outside, it v/asn't even near their front door, no problems were created and everything v/as fine. He just said, "v/ould you like a ride around?" So he put, he put him into the police car and drove him around Toronto for a couple of hours on a cightseeing tour, which must be fascinating, the police nust know the most wonderful places to go. Mrs.Anyot: They certainly know how to get to them. Read: How to get to the nost fascinating places. So they gave hin a ride around and he was simply delighted to get back to Ottawa and everything was snoothed out quite nicely. But I think it v/as Inspector Cole if I an not mistaken, but he did very v/ell by us on that but that was the ending I really felt. I v/as, they could have left ne alone that weekend you know, corr;/ about that darn bomb. Mrs.Halstead: You'd have to carry on till Sunday. Mrs.Anyot: You're not supposed to have your holiday on your day off before Sunday. Mrs.Halstead: Phile you v/ere in Montreal did you have anything to do v/ith people in the British.... Read: Not really. Mrs.Halstead: ...connection except Ashford? . . . 16 010606 �- 16 Ho, and I only Read: saw Ashford and they v/ere all very hostile. They didn't want interference from a federal government representative. Oh no, they v/ere running this with the big government of the province of Quebec. Mr. Ashford certainly v/as absolutely oriented towards their provincial responsibility and of course I was there to say, "well the federal government has a little interest in this matter you know". I didn't really have nuch contact v/ith Ashford cause I really didn't like hin very nuch, he's a very unlikable person and I thought well I don't like you. Mrs.Halstead: He's very interesting. Read: Yes. Now Dunrussil's part, as I eay I didn't know Dunrussil really end he, I think, v/as also oriented towards the provincial people. Simply because he'd been told to sit in down in Montreal almost as soon as he got here and had to go into a Trade Commission situation in a sense, and I don't think that he at that tine, I don't think Ashford knew of the importance of the role of the federal government in this kidnapping at all, in the rescue of Mo-. Cross. Hrs.Halstead: ...and that wasn't, that view wasn't corrected by the High Commission in Ottawa? Read: I think , I think that the High Commission knew perfectly well what -..as going on. If you renenber that Peter Haynan really rather shocked things because the nonent he arrived and '.vas greeted exceptionallps by Ed Ritchie. As you know, the Protocol doesn't require a welcoming gesture of the presence of an Under-Secretary at the airport, it requires merely the presence of the Chief of Protocol and Ed v/ent out, I think, because he wanted to be able to say to Peter Haynan on arrival, "look, just to assure v/e really are -working terribly hard on this','and I think that they v/ere a little shocked when Peter Haynan said, "right, v/ell now lets go straight to the Ops Roon". As if he had some right to be in the Operations Centre, v/hich of course he didn't. . . . 17 010607 �- 17 Road: Our cooperation with the British High Commision here through Hike McConnville or Enerous Davie was very close indeed. We had their after hours nunbers, they were operating their own Tack Force or their own Operations Centre in the British High Commission, because they have a big staff and they can do it and they had sort of created their own little ops centre and they -were dealing v/ith us and dealing with their Trade Commissioner in Montreal. They knew- where v/e -//ere on this. At the same time I think that John Dunrussil having cone in and gone immediately down to Montreal had no chance to do this and then he v/as engaged in dealing directly with the Montreal Police v/ho v/ere investigating and our presence v/as on a perhaps at second hand there, our importance was, was not really apparent probably and you remember of cource that the nunber of public statements made by rec. Choquette and by Err. Bourassa outweighed the federal government's statements by about ten to one. Mrs.Halstead: How do you account for that? Read: Well because the division of paolice powers requires that the provincial government end provincial attorney generals to respond, is required to go through the investigation of, to do the investigating of all crimes under the Criminal Code. The, the RCMP in theprovincc of Quebec, who has a liaison function but it has no investigative function and thats, thats what put Jerone Choquette into the key position.On the other hand, the dealings of the FLQ -were as much federal as they were provincial because the demands they made were essentially, I think, federal denands. They v/ould have become entirely federal if that desiand for ','500,000 worth of gold that was made. I can't see the Minister of Finance of tho province of Quebec being happy to try to dig that up for himself. I think he would have said, "oh v/ell thats a federal matter". That v/ould be my reaction if I v/ere a fede .al, a provincial Minister . . . 18 010608 �- 18 of Finance anyway. But it v/as a, the police responsibility furineled right into Choquette, no question about it. d: Was there any difficulty about Cross's diplonatic status? Ho. Ho v/hat there was, v/as a little surprise, that.... I look at this fron a longer term point of view. In ny tine on protection work here in Protocol Division I have seen the excitement generated by the kidnapping of on Honoisry Vice Consul. How diplomatically an Honorary Vice Consul is just a little bit more then zero. If you had to rate hin in the diplomatic thing, an Honorary Vice Consul is zero plus, he doesn't even get to one. But now that man nay make as much fuse about it, of course the press all say this diplomat, they don't say this Honorary Vice Consul, this zero plus. He's just as good ac an Ambassador, you can make it into publicity thats important. You're trying to attract attention for your cause therefore kidnap anybody and you. cap get front pages of tlie newspapers, you. can hold them for weeks, ransom demand received, you see, and this sort of thins. If v/e can recall from: the tape that has been done on the trip from Hontreal to Londonv/ith Mr. Cross it seems that, no itc not on that trip, One, its the trip fron Montreal to Cuba v/ith the, the FLQ. /I think its IPanctot, no that mentioned to Er. Dyer that Mr. Cross in some, during a period wasvery, itc not shocked, whats the word should I have used, very upset about the fact that his government as well as the Canadian government did not pay as nuch attention to him as they would have done to an Ambassador for instance. Mr. Cross didn't know how nuch attention should be paid to a kidnapped Ambassador. Do you see? This is the answer. Cross got just as .much attention as an Ambassador would have got. He v/as vital to the government of Canada and . . . 19 010609 �- 19 Read: he got the treatment that should have been accorded to him. didn't knov/, lets say, But, what he it wasn't a question of knowing but there v/as Cross in an isolated situation feeling neglected, he had no idea v/hat was going on. Mrs.Amyot: Thats it. Read: ...and I don't know how he hoped to get anything. Whether or not v/e should have been flashing messages in case he Had a television cet or -.vhat it should have been. Sort of, "Jacper v/e love prou, signed Pierre". Can you see this coming up on the television, on the television networks all the tine? Mrs.Halstead: Its quite an idea Ton. Read: Or something. But I don't know the extent to which he did watch television, but hov/ con p/ou tell a kidnapped nan, you see. Crocs was horrified at the thought that his wife night have thought him dead. Mrs.Anyot: Yes, oh yes. Read: V/ell v/hat Mrs.Amyot: Well there v/as a reason for tliat why he v/as so upset about it. Read: You see, how can you. v/hen you're isolated, know whats going: on and Cross reacted as any husian being v/ould have reacted and thats to say to forget that he v/as conpletely ignorant and to go on tlie basis of the indications which he had and that v/as minus zero. He didn't have any contact, therefore, he felt neglected. Well this is quite normal but we, I must say that the kidnapping of any person, any foreign representative even if it is merely the Chamber Maid at the Japanese Consulate General in Vancouver. It would have to be handled with the came thoroughness, you wouldn't give anything for an Ambassador, he doesn't get any, he doesn't deserve any greater care. You assume that if he's an Ambassador he may have contacts in his own government which will be important and that the housemaid in the Japanese Consulate General in Vancouver has no contacts in the government . . . I^Aj 010610 �- 20 Read: and is an unimportant person but she's just as good to tlie kidnappers as an Ambassador. shoot her. The only thing is that the;- can probably, no even if they Supposing for instance they took sonebody and they eventually killed them but the noise nade in the press on behalf of that unfortunate noise girl would have been no less then the/siad-e if the body of Jasper Cross had been found. All these people are juct levers in a. great big game thats playing. They go down hero and the other end goes up and they say look but itc the sane length lever and this is the appalling thing to realize. It doesn't have to be en Ambassador, it can be anybody. Whats nore if you lidnap the housemaid of the Japanese Consulate General in Vancouver the wife of the Japanese Consul General in Vancouver is going to create more fuss then a government v/ould over tlie Iocs of an Ambassador. Mrs.Halstead: And itc a very good tiling to do, to kidnap a Japanese housemaid, I wouldn't nind trying that myself. Read: They're not inportaint, they're sierelpv vital, yes. Mrs.Halstead: Tom perhaps I'd very nuch or we'd like ver;/ nuch to have you go into tlie protection plans at some length perhaps that v/ould be better at a different session. Read: We could deal v/ith protection at tlie next session. Itc easy cause I can, this is where Andre Bissonnette cones back into the picture again. Because as PDF he had a senior interest in the protection natters although hin no departmental organization showed/as having any part in this, it juct is taken for granted that PDF has got an interest and whats nore PDF became a vital link in this business of putting protection on various people, various diplomats. Mrs. Halstead: Did v/e actually record v/hat you v/ere saying about the Ops Centre in Montreal? . . . 21 010611 �- 21 Read: No, I d o n ' t t h i n k v/e d i d . Mrs.Halstead: Well how a r e you f e e l i n g , would you l i k e to nalce t h a t the n e x t s e s s i o n , i t s g e t t i n g : on. Mrs.Anyot: Its already 20 minutes past Mrs.Halstead: ....well into the afternoon Read: well Mrs.Anyot: Because t h e r e a r e c e r t a i n l y a few o t h e r t h i n g s which we v/ould l i k e you to t e l l us about so.... Read: V/hy n o t l e a v e i t f o r a n o t h e r s e s s i o n then? Mrs.Halstead: Well t h a t s sweet of you. Read: Not a t a l l . Mrs.Amyot: (Whispers w i t h a s o f t , I ' d be q u i t e happy t o . sweet, sesy v o i c e "Thank y o u " . ) THE END NOTE: The balance of t h e t a p e i s a d u p l i c a t e of a p o r t i o n of tape number two. 010612 �• _,• D • • Government of Canada Gouvernement du Canada CLOSED VOLUME VOLUME COMPLET A compter du ~7 ^O/2 S Jusqu'au A'^/O/^A-^) AFFIX TO TOP OF FILE - A METTRE SUR LE DOSSIER DO NOT ADD ANY MORE PAPERS - NE PAS AJOUTER DE DOCUMENTS FOR SUBSEQUENT CORRESPONDENCE SEE - POUR CORRESPONDANCE ULTERIEURE VOIR File No. - Dossier n° Volume P3 - yy - /TEA - A A- ? QC 31 (88/08) 7540-21-857-8809 010613 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDTF00133 Title A name given to the resource Political Affairs - Internal Security - Task Force on Kidnapping - Oral history programme - Tom Read Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 25-Jan-74 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Political Affairs - Internal Security - Task Force on Kidnapping - Oral history programme - Tom Read, RG25, vol. 25748, 20-22-TFK-11-7, Library and Archives Canada (LAC). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Department of External Affairs Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource October Crisis, TFK Description An account of the resource Entire file Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en