Dime-thriller ‘case’

E he “spy” case of George Victor Spencer is all but
closed. The “evidence”, such as it was, all in.
The “accused” (deceased) didn’t live to hear it — or to
speak in his own defence. ;

This dime-thriller “evidence’’ embalmed in two hund-
red pages of RCMP “secret” files on Spencer — the kind
of stuff that passes for “evidence” in Star Chamber tri-
bunals, but not in open court, will serve as the material
upon which Commissioner Mr. Justice Dalton Wells and
RCMP Assistant-Commissioner W. H. Kelly will base
their final verdict; viz, that George Victor Spencer was
engaged in “spying” activities for the Soviet Union!

That being the case the Pearson government would
have been “derilict in its duty” and for the “security” of
Canada, had it not previously fired Spencer from his post
office job, later stripped him of his pension, made a lot of
public allegations on his “spying” activities— then left it
to the monopoly press and other media of coldwar propa-
ganda to brand Spencer “guilty”, without his having re-
course to legal Court precedure or judicial “hearing” on
the charges made by government members.

Needless to say, the coldwar press and other media
of public misinformation got all the “sensational” anti-
Soviet, anti-Communist mileage they could possibly
squeeze out of the case. Pictures showing Spencer’s home,
inside and out, garbage cans with a plentiful supply of
beer bottles showing, designed to convey the suggestion
that Spencer was an “alcoholic’’—or better still a “sui-
cide”. Spencer fixing a tire on his car at the roadside, or
lurid tales of his travels through B.C. cemeteries photo-
graphing tombstones, thousands of column inches of news-
paper balderdash, and infinitum, ad nauseum.

In retrospect it would certainly seem that anti-Soviet
propaganda was the prime objective of both the Pearson.
government and the kept press in this bizarre Spencer
“spy” extravaganza.

A sinister feature in such “hearings’”’ is that the de-
fense attorney, in this case Mr. Harry Rankin of Vancou-
ver, cannot question or cross-examine the sources of
RCMP “evidence”. That is presumed to be “top secret”
and inimical to the “security” of Canada—if made public!

Time will undoubtedly set the record straight on the
Spencer case as it has done on previous occasions on simi-
lar “spy” witch-hunts; and common justice prevail over
coldwar prejudices, regardless of the latter's “extra-legal”

wrappings.

Tom |
Mc EWEN’

ray

THE CommosMvEALTA

-
“But he won't let go of my arm!

Silence—our crime

M uch space would be required tolist the machi-
‘nations of foreign powers involved in plotting the
military coup which overthrew the Sukarno government
of Indonesia.. Suffice it to say that the “old hands” at
counter-revolution in London and Washington were right
in on the ground-floor as co-conspirators with Indonesian
reaction. :

Not since Hitler’s mass extermination of whole com-
munities and peoples has the world seen such mass killing
as now goes on in Indonesia—almost equalling that of the
U.S. in Vietnam.

Current estimates put the figure at nearly one-and-a-
half million Indonesians, men, women and children, Com-
munist and non-Communist, brutally tortured, clubbed to
death, shot down on the streets or before military firing.
squads, since the military junta, (quickly “recognized” by
Washington and London) took over.

Yet, in face of such a saturnalia of violence and death
at the hands of Indonesian reaction, the Canadian press
has been ominously silent. Scarcely a word or note of pro-
test at the horrible magnitude of this shocking crime. And
from the Liberal government of Canada, a silence more
silent than its feeble apologies for U.S. genocide in Viet-
nam.
Are we becoming inured to killing on a mass scale —
in accord with the Pentagon’s “kill and overkill” psycho-

sis?

For the benefit of trade union
men and women a number of those
exporters as given by the Can-

not only of Vietnam but that of
world peace, hangs in the
balance — with the people of
Vietnam carrying the heaviest
burden in “blood, sweat and
tears.”

adian Press are listed in the
april edition of the “UE Re-

«It is to Vietnam that our search Bulletin.”

rime Minister L.B, Pearsor

had another vote of “confi-
dence” last week, but it was a
close shave — 133 to 106 ona
Tory censure of Pearson’suse of
RCMP “snoop’’ reports on the
private lives of MPs, The Tories
claim it ‘would destory the inde-
pendence of all Members and
undermine the institution of Par-
liament,” They should know.

In its May 4 edition the Vancou-
ver Sun came close to genius
when it headlined the story:
**You’re Not Guilty, But Don’t Do
It Again.” Even the classical
Scots verdict of “Not Proven’’
runs a poor second to that one.

Be that as it may, Pearson’s
resort to the files of hispolitical
police, (in this case the RCMP),
in search of smut and kindred
filth with which to blackmail
eritics into silence, reduces Par-

- liament and the integrity of its
institution to a new low.

Tt is also highly probably that
the vote of “confidence” given

by the fear of “another election”
which might end up with more of
the same. A sorry plight for a
nation to be in,

Four days prior to the Prime
Minister’s latest phyrric “vic-
tory” in Commons, his “address”
to the meeting of the Council of
the World Veterans Federation
in Toronto was delivered — by his
colleague the (Hon.) Roger Teil-
let. :

In this “address’’ the PM is in
a highly philosophical mood, far
removed from the dirt he had
been pawing through in RCMP
files in order to get the political
drop on his fellow MPs,

“The trouble with the worldis,”
says the PM, ‘‘what it hasalways
been; there are not enough ma-
ture and good and strong men in
the right places at the right time,
As a result, too much of our
pre-occupation is with violence
and with killing and with strife.”

Plowing a rather heavy and
monotonous philosophical furrow
in his “address,” Pearson finally

We

got to Vietnam, where the fate,

thoughts turn at this moment as
we think about those ultimate
questions of peace and war,
There seems to me to be one
over-riding consideration here;
not who is responsible for what,
but how can the fighting and the
slaughter and the suffering be
ended and the people of that dis-
tressed land be allowed to live
their lives in peace and free-
dom in a political society of
their own choice without outside
interference in making that
choice, and outside pressures
after the choice has been made.”

Sounds good doesn’t it, lofty
and humane? Quite different from
the usual Pearson- Martin gutless
grovelling,
apologizing for U.S. aggression in
Vietnam, But it is mostly Pear-
sonian guff,

’ While Mr, Pearson is weeping

crocodile tears for Vietnam, and
Parliament getting set to give
him still another “not guilty —
put don’t do it again” vote, the
Canadian Press was giving out
some chilling facts on the rising
export of Canadian military ex-
plosives to *help meet U.S, needs
in the Vietnam war,”

kow-towing and ~

These include Canadian In-
dustries Ltd., (CIL); Canadian
Arsenals Ltd., a Crown-owned
Corporation(?); Cynamid of Can-
ada Ltd., producers of rocket and
cannon propellants; Hand Chem-
icals Industries, who specialize
in grenades, flares and other
‘military pyrotechnics, etc., etc.

Were Mr. Pearson to display
his crocodile tears for Vienna
in the Parliament of Canada,
and in accord with the sentiments
of the Canadian people,. unre-
served condemnation of U.S. war
atrocities and genocide against

Pactfie

‘ Death”

Worth
| Quoting

If double talk killed, Washington
would be a ghost town today. Never
in the long, squalid history of govern-
ments’ conditioning people for war has
so much rubbish, half-truth, dissem-
bling, falsehood and righteous palier-
ing been heard. .

—Richard Starnes in New York
World-Telegram, as quoted by
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM.

*

When we question a fellow, he must
be thrashed or else he would not tell
us what we need. And as soon as he
talks he is killed because he is a rebel
and rebels are outlaws. As a rule we
do not take prisoners, but if it happens
we cuthim to pieces, bit by bit. First
his right leg, and then his left leg . . -
We fought in the Congo for the West
. . . Africa does not mean anything to
me but the defense of the West in
Africa.

—West German mercenary Major
Mueller, PEOPLE'S VOICE, New:
Zealand, Mar. 16, '66.

*«

Maybe a little study of history
would help. Maybe i? wouldn't do any
harm fo point to other labor situations,
in other years—and some taking place
right now in deteriorating unions—in
which we find that workers think they
have such a huge sfake in this affluent

. society that they lose sight of the fact

that they are still workers, and thatthe
employers still own the machines and
control the purse strings . . .

—J.R. (Bob) Robertson, THE
DISPATCHER, April 29, '66

*

As a’member of the people who
were here first and witnessed—I hate
to express it—the white advent in this
province. | congratulate you on this
100th birthday year of British Colum-
bia. But, congratulations aside, that
land debt will have to be paid. This is
the only place in the world where a
people have not been paid for theil
land.

‘I tell you that one day a govern-
ment is going to sit on that side of the
fence and they are going to damn well
pay for the Province of British Colum-
bia.

—Frank Calder, NDP-MLA (Atlin)
in NATIVE VOICE, April ’66.

the Vietnamese people, his words
would have meaning, content —
and guts, But obviously on his
own sayso, the “right man in the
right place” at the right time, is
not reflected in his own spine-
less being!

Since Canadian “Merchants of
require no export li-
censes to ‘thelp U.S, needs in
Vietnam” — with a fat and blood-
stained profit to themselves,
Prime Minister Pearson could
clap a tight embargo on the ex-
port of all such death-dealing
war material,

But Mr, Pearson is just not
that kind of a man — as his pen-
chant for browsing in RCMP files
on the private lives of MPs doubly
clinches,

Oh, Gerda, vas haben Sie tun? _

“Tntbane

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Circulation Manager — JERRY SHACK
Published weekly at
Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone 685-5288
Subscription Rates:

Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months. North and South America
and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00
one year. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department,
Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash.

May 13, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page