Old Age Claims RCMP "Mole" of Cold War Era

[Daniel Mulvenna]

Regarding Mr. Jack's e-mail concerning the death of Jim (Leslie James)
Bennett, (the spelling of the surname is BENNETT with two t's) the former
RCMP Security Service official wrongly suspected in the early 1970's of
being a Soviet "Mole", may I, with respect, correct two or three of the
points he made and offer some additional observations.

The RCMP Security Service investigation of Jim Bennett (GRIDIRON) concluded
in 1972 that there was NO evidence that he had been a Soviet penetration
agent.  However the Director General of the Security Service at the time,
John Starnes, with the support and approval of the Commissioner of the RCMP
and concurrence of the Solicitor General of Canada, opted to revoke Mr.
Bennett's security clearance, citing a loss of confidence in Mr. Bennett due
to certain actions on his part that came to light during the investigation.
I will not go into this aspect of the case at this point - some of it is
covered in the public literature; for a sympathetic account of Mr. Bennett's
situation, see John Swatasky's well-researched "For Services Rendered",
published in 1982, and the 1993 CBC TV treatment on The Fifth Estate.  Later
in 1993 the then Solicitor General of Canada finally and fully exonerated
Mr. Bennett in the House of Commons.  Subsequently the Government awarded
him a lump sum, reportedly around $100,000 CDN, by way of compensation.

The GRIDIRON investigation was conducted by the Security Service of the RCMP
and was NOT "an RCMP-CIA investigation".  Certainly counterintelligence
specialists/counterparts in both American and British services provided such
support, from time to time, as requested by the Security Service.  But
contrary to what has been written in several books (Mangold's Cold Warrior
among others), the CIA and James Angleton, the Head of the CI Staff at CIA,
did not initiate, control or otherwise unduly influence this investigation.
Both our American and British allied services were deeply concerned with
penetrations of their own services at the time.  Understandably they were
also quite interested in the progress and final conclusions of the GRIDIRON
investigation, as we were with regard to their investigations.

Jim's death, on Saturday 18 Oct 2003, from renal failure, followed a longer
period of illness involving other severe diseases.  His children had moved
him to Melbourne to better care for him.  His illness was such that since
December 2002 it was difficult if not impossible to communicate with him.
The only news we had of him was through his family. His death was not "kept
secret for over five months" (by whom?).  A number of former RCMP members
including myself who have been in touch with him over the years knew about
his illness.  Although we did not learn of his death right away we knew of
it some months ago.  I do not know if the RCMP or CSIS was informed of his
death by his family.  Probably Canada Pension was in connection with his
benefits.  Sorry, but there was no conspiracy to keep Jim's death silent -
probably just the fact that the media had no way to pick it up until it
appeared in the RCMP Veterans Newsletter.  Jim was made an honorary member
of the Veterans Association in recognition of his service to the Force in
the early 1990's I believe.

Some additional observations; (1) There is certainly room for debate on the
withdrawal of Jim Bennett's security clearance.  In essence it meant that
Jim could no longer be employed in the Security Service.  Starnes made his
decision based on a number of factors, not the least of which was the
Service's relationship with friendly services.  Jim was offered a senior
position in another (non-sensitive) Government Department, albeit at a
slightly lower salary, but he opted to take a medical pension; he did have
legitimate and persistent health problems.  He also opted to follow his
estranged wife to Australia, her native country, to be closer to his
children. (2)  The 1993 full and complete exoneration ("...nothing to show
that he was anything other than a loyal Canadian...") should have been made
much earlier; there had been a statement in the House of Commons some years
before that but it had simply said that there was "no evidence" he had been
a Soviet agent.  Understandably Jim found this lacking.  (3) The amount of
the "compensation" was, in my opinion, insufficient, given all the factors
and when compared to similar cases/situations in the U.S.  (4) To the end
Jim was understandably bitter.  The situation he found himself in caused
irreparable hardship to both he and his family.  (5) This was a very
complicated situation, important aspects of which are not in the public
domain.  Suffice to say that there was indeed a Soviet penetration (Mole in
the popular lexicon) in the same area of operations as Jim Bennett and at
the same time.  The Security Service believed that it had been penetrated -
because of the large number of highly secret operations that had gone sour
over an extended period of time - and the fact is that this conclusion was
well founded.  While others with the necessary access and knowledge were
discreetly examined in the GRIDIRON investigation, the focus turned to Jim
for a variety of reasons.  Given what was known at the time he was the best
and indeed most logical candidate.  The real penetration, operating under
the radar screen, and I might add that the KGB was not inactive in
attempting to protect their penetration and throw suspicion elsewhere, was
of course identified some years later - but that's another story.  (6)
Identifying penetrations - absent solid defector information or your
penetration of the hostile service - is an extremely difficult task.  In the
past mistakes have been made by most if not all intelligence/security
services and unfortunately they continue to be made; the latest public
example being the FBI mole hunt targeting a CIA officer as a penetration
suspect in the U.S. intelligence community - he was a perfect "fit" - only
for the FBI to ultimately learn (through defector information) that they too
had the "Wrong Man" and that the real penetration was an agent inside the
FBI. (The Robert Hanssen case.)

Although it has taken a good number of years the case HAS been "settled"; we
now know a great deal more than we did in 1972 and later; although I doubt
we could ever say that it has been settled to everyone's "satisfaction".
The "Bennett case" was a tragedy, especially for Jim.  Could we have done
better - with the benefit of hindsight, of course!

Regards

Dan Mulvenna

Intelligence Forum (http://www.intelforum.org) is sponsored by Intelligence
and National Security, a Frank Cass journal (http://www.frankcass.com/jnls/ins.htm)