Investigation has ‘spectre of harassment’

Military police build case against an innocent man

EDITOR’S NOTE:

A promising military career poisoned by lies, incompetence and baseless suspicions he was the dupe of a Russian spy. Tim Dunne’s story is a tale of military justice gone off the rails. Part 3 of 6.

The lie detector test was gruelling. “I spent four and a half hours in a chair, with wires strapped to me,” Tim Dunne said. “The guy was asking me all kinds of very personal questions, about family, about relationships.”

Dunne, a major, had agreed to a military police polygraph after denying he had given state secrets to a Soviet agent. That investigation began soon after he had helped a Russian journalist defect to Canada in late spring 1991.

In July that same year, Dunne moved from Ottawa to Halifax to take up his post as Atlantic regional director of military public affairs.

Months passed. Dunne thought the investigation was over. Then, early that fall, the

local special investigation unit (SIU) called to schedule the test.

Dunne asked Lt.-cdr. Kerr Mcvey, SIU commander in Halifax, why it was still necessary. He’d been working with the Soviet journalist, Vadim Fotinov, as part of a project approved by military brass to foster a positive image of Canada in the Soviet Union. When Fotinov unexpectedly came to him for help to claim political asylum, Dunne informed his superiors and then assisted CSIS as directed.

Mcvey downplayed the lie detector test, Dunne said, telling him the military police just wanted to ensure everything was accurate to complete their file.

(Mcvey passed away in 2017).

THE TEST

So, in early October 1991, Dunne found himself hooked up to a polygraph machine at Halifax SIU headquarters, then on Morris Street, still trying to prove he had done nothing wrong.

The major knew reliable polygraph tests are supposed to only use yes-or-no queries. But many questions he was being asked were open-ended, he said.

As the hours dragged on, Dunne became angrier and angrier.

“My patience was wearing pretty thin,” Dunne said. “I was being investigated for something I would never do. I mean, for me to betray my country, wearing the uniform of my nation, is something I found insulting.”

Finally, he was asked if he had ever passed Defence Department secrets to other countries. No, absolutely not, Dunne said.

Exhausted and irate, when Dunne got home, he told his wife he was going to ask — using freedom of information (FOI) — for every document associated with the military police’s investigation.

Dunne filed that request in early November.

On Dec. 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned. The hammer and sickle over the Kremlin was lowered, replaced by the tricolour Russian flag. The Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Fotinov called Dunne to wish his family happy holidays. Dunne, conscious they were not supposed to be in contact, reciprocated but kept the conversation short.

Mcvey had told Dunne he wanted to be kept informed about the Russian journalist, so the major reported the call. Mcvey was also alerted after a similar call from Fotinov around Easter in 1992.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

A big package of documents arrived for Dunne in June 1992. It was the response to Dunne’s freedom of information request the previous November regarding the military police investigation.

In all, there were five military police reports, dated June through November 1991. Many parts were redacted. What did they show? Fotinov’s defection seemed to trigger the investigation. There was concern about potential security breaches due to the Soviet journalist’s visits to the military’s language school in April and May 1991, but the probe began only after the defection.

The military police dug but found no evidence that anyone tried to subvert anyone’s loyalty at the school. They interviewed students and staff. They investigated a suggestion Fotinov barged into a classroom teaching Russian, but the public affairs officer accompanying the Soviet maintained that did not happen.

The SIU concluded the language school visit had not been properly authorized. But there was ample evidence the rules they cited generally weren’t being followed in practice.

Capt. Coo, Dunne’s contact inside the office of director general security, told military police that Dunne was “security conscious.” Since 1989, Dunne had scrupulously reported 25 contacts with Soviet citizens, planned and unplanned.

Finally, Dunne’s polygraph had found the major was being truthful.

The documents contained a slew of errors.

There were typos, like incorrect dates and descriptions, for example, West Bloc instead of East Bloc. A small, inexpensive glass dish given as a gift — a Russian custom — to Dunne’s wife by Fotinov’s wife was described as possibly gold or porcelain. The major’s superior at the time, Cmdr. Barry Frewer, reportedly indicated Dunne was at fault regarding the language school visits, but Frewer denies that ever happened.

The unanswered question was how did a Soviet journalist doing a story about the Canadian military learning French, then deciding to defect, add up to suspected treason by Dunne?

“I’m still flummoxed by it,” Dunne said. “I don’t understand how these idiots came to those conclusions.”

The investigation had apparently ended without charges in November 1991.

Dunne was understandably relieved it was over.

JOB REFERENCE

Not long afterward, Fotinov again reached out to Dunne. Would Dunne be a job reference for his wife Svetlana? The major gladly agreed.

As usual, Dunne mentioned the contact to Mcvey, who he believed wanted to keep tabs on Fotonov until he was finished being processed. The SIU commander asked for a short report.

In early July, Dunne went to Mcvey’s SIU office.

They talked about Fotinov. Despite not raising any red flags with CSIS, Mcvey told Dunne he was convinced Fotinov could still be a mole, working for the post-soviet Russian government.

“Mcvey got fixated on this,” Dunne said. “I don’t know why. I think he had thought he landed a big fish and was afraid of letting it slip off the hook.”

Dunne said he’ll never forget what happened next.

Mcvey showed him a thick, red-rimmed DND file folder, Dunne said. The red rimming indicated the contents were considered secret. He asked Dunne if he knew what it was.

How would he, Dunne asked.

“He said, ‘This is your investigation file. We will never trust you again. There will always be a black mark, a little red question mark, on your record.’”

The major struggled to stay calm.

“I was absolutely astonished.”

What he thought was over clearly wasn’t.

“I tossed the report on his desk and said something I can’t repeat and walked out and went back to work.”

A month later, Mcvey called Dunne again. The Halifax SIU commander had taken his suspicions about Fotinov to Ottawa. They told him the Russian was who he appeared to be, Dunne said.

The last straw came in October, said Dunne.

Mcvey, citing the concluded investigation, targeted him for a special security update clearance. An officer’s security clearances were regularly reviewed. But Dunne’s review would be done early.

‘WHAT DOES IT TAKE?’

“My thinking at the time was, when is it going to be over? What does it take?” Dunne recalled.

Dunne complained to the director of public affairs operations, Col. Geoff Haswell, in a Nov. 13, 1992 letter.

“These circumstances have caused me and my family needless pain and stress,” he wrote.

“I recognize that DND and the Canadian Forces must feel secure in the knowledge that its military and civilian members are worthy of the trust and responsibilities that are vested with them. However, a review of the facts of this investigation convinces me that it was initiated without proper cause, that it was done haphazardly and it contains inaccuracies, discrepancies and inconsistencies.”

Dunne said he doubted the special security update would be the end of it.

“This affair is taking on the spectre of harassment.”

He asked Haswell to convey a number of requests to the commander of security and intelligence and National Defence headquarters. Dunne wanted an end to further investigations of him, a letter of apology and a review to ensure other Canadian Forces members would have “protection from arbitrary investigation.”

Haswell wrote to the director general of security, Col. Al Wells, in February 1993. The investigation into Dunne was “highly questionable in its motivation and extent to which it was pursued,” Haswell stated.

Wells replied he would review the matter.

That spring, Wells sent his findings to Haswell. Dunne said he later got a copy of that letter.

“Haswell read it to me,” Dunne said. “It said, ‘We apologize for this. We appreciate that Maj. Dunne has taken this step in this manner, rather than starting an official complaint, an official grievance.’”

Wells also acknowledged unprofessional conduct by military police and indicated there’d be repercussions for some individuals, Dunne recalled.

He doesn’t know if that ever happened.

But, at the time, it was the closure Dunne sought. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of it.

“I stupidly thought, ‘The system will right itself.’ I had huge faith and trust in the military system, that it would realize its own mistake.”

He’d soon find out how wrong he was.

Thursday: Driven to a breakdown