8/3/2019 Read Sixth

1/5

An "American" draft dodger sitsin the office of the Toronto AntiDraft Programme, financed inpart by America's National Council of Churches. It was launchedby William Spira, who has beenconnected with the radical Communist National Guardian andCanadians for the National Liberation Front (Vietcong). Whenhe is not promoting desertionfrom America's Armed Forces,Spira runs a Communist book-" store. The total of draft dodgersand deserters lured to Canada bypropaganda totals nearly GO,OOO.work as European representative of the Canadian Peace Research Institute, whichthe Canada Council supports with public funds - and two directors of which, atone time, were Trudeau and Pelletier. Another director, named in 1962, wasCommunist Jean-Louis Gagnon.It pays to have important frien'ds.And Hunnius has been a consultant - at $1,000 per month - for the Company of

Young Canadians, which apparently is the Canadian version ofV.I.S.T.A., and which wasestablished and federally financed by former Premier Lester Pearson. Dozens of otherC.Y.C. revolutionaries have been caught using taxpayers' money to finance revolution,and in January, 1971, Diefenbaker demanded that the C.Y.C. be investigated too.Trudeau has also told Munro to finance the Black Power forces in Nova Scotia,

despite the opposition of real Negro leaders who live there, including Arnold Johnson,Halifax County Councillor, and Ross Kinney, Moderator of the African United BaptistAssociation of Nova Scotia, the largest black outfit in the province. And the federalgovernment awarded a large contract it was forced to withdraw, for the purchase ofdairy products for the Armed Forces, to the People's Cooperative, a Winnipeg outfitwhich has been described as a subsidiary of the Communist Party.Trudeau is also using Crown Corporations, controlled not by Parliament but by

him, to communize the economy under the guise of private enterprise.What he is organizing, an M.P. tells us, is best called "the new Fascism."

The Cannon FodderOf particular interest to Americans are the thousands of American draft dodgers

and deserters in Canada. Premier "Red Mike" Pearson had already opened the door todeserters, and in May, 1969, Trudeau opened it all the way. Deserters from the Americanmilitary, like draft dodgers, who ask to become "landed" immigrants, are now processedby Canadian Immigration without regard for their military status. Five years later, theycan become Canadian citizens. It is impossible to know exactly how many are there,because many don't try to get "landed," but the combined total of both types isapparently between 50,000 and 60,000, most of whom are in Toronto.Most of them used to be draft dodgers, better educated and more ideological; but

now, with the loosening of the draft, the majority are deserters. Some areAPRIL, 1971 13

8/3/2019 Read Sixth

2/5

k'ltIMlU 1""JilllIOI 'U&lttuaI"'J.I..t.. U ....... &tA' ., . nOlOl. ~.1Ib ., . 4.01 II At..., l'

8/3/2019 Read Sixth

3/5

Communists, some opportunists, some ordinary cowards. Most of them work at verybadly paid jobs, a few at very good ones. A few steal. A few scrounge. A few getwelfare. Half the welfare bill in Toronto is paid by the federal government, thirtypercent by the Province of Ontario and the rest by the Metropolitan area. And localWelfare Commissioner John Anderson says he is not even allowed to ask whether anapplicant is a citizen. "Almost nobody is sent back," he says, "even if he's mildlycriminal. Immigration is very lax."Preeminent among those who agitated for Canada's new federal policy toward

deserters is William Spira, a former American who apparently left at the height of the"McCarthy Era." Spira launched the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, formerly the federally-financed Student Union for Peace Action already mentioned. He has alsobeen connected with the radical Communist National Guardian in the States, and with Canadiansfor the National Liberation Front (Vietcong). He was a sponsor of C.N.L.F.'s CanadianRights Defence Committee. And he runs the Third World Information Service, a Communist bookstore in suburban Thornhill, which the Castroites decided to establish atthe Tri-Continental Conference in Havana in 1966. They mail their propaganda toComrade Spira in Toronto, who remails it to the United States.The Toronto Anti-Draft Programme (T.A.D.P.) he masterminds consists of several

rooms and offices, the walls of which are covered with Communist propaganda. Various"counsellors" are sitting around, along with the clients they are helping to dodge thedraft or desert. There isLee, for instance, who is twenty, and is sitting under a picture ofterrorist H. Rap Brown. Lee has a brother who spent eight years in our Marines, andwho he says would "rather see me dead." From time to time, Lee sees a Toronto streetthat reminds him of his American home town, but he says the memory quickly fadesand he is glad to be in Canada.And there is Dick, who is twenty-four and comes from EI Paso, where his father is a

Presbyterian minister. Dick "had a hassle" with his parents about his decision, but hemade it and now is a T.A.D.P. counsellor. His salary is $50 a week.The American people should be tried for war crimes, says Dick, who apparently

endorses the idea of collective guilt. He agrees such a trial is impossible to arrange, butwill settle for the trials of Presidents Johnson and Nixon. We are in Vietnam, he says,"to protect the oil."White people have always been aggressors, he explains, but there is a "social

revolution" in the United States, because of which they are beginning to realize it.Dick himself is white, but apparently believes he's a "good" honky. He is grim,unsmiling, trying to make amends. He loves humanity. He can't stand hate. The Bill ofRights, he says, has always been a sham. The Bill of Rights was meant to be a sham.Our War for Independence was caused by economics. The colonists wanted to makemore money. George Washington was "all lies." Benjamin Franklin was "all lies."Abraham Lincoln was "bull s**t."

The United States must make a 180 degree turn, says Dick. We should have aSocialist system in a Communist type of world. And that means a psychologicalchange is needed. Capitalism, he says rightly, is "inner directed," in sociologist DavidReisman's phrase, personal, private, individual; while Socialism is "other directed" collectivized. Dick lives in a commune, in Communism, he says. He uses "grass"(marijuana), but that's all.16 AMERICAN OPINION

8/3/2019 Read Sixth

4/5

On the wall above his head is some Vietcong propaganda, and I ask what sort ofCommunism he wants. The Russian Constitution is much the same as the U.S.Constitution, he says. Perhaps that's why he opposes the Russian form ofCommunism. Mao, on the contrary, "has done a beautiful job in China." And Dick"has heard" that Communism "is working in Cuba."Has Dick actually read the U.S. Constitution and its Russian opposite? Is he aware

that the latter promises handouts, taken originally from the people, but that ours, onthe contrary, restricts the central government - the "Establishment" Dick claims tooppose? I don't know. It doesn't matter. He probably does know that Mao has alreadymurdered more than 30 million Chinese, but as Lenin once put it, you can't make anomeletski without breaking eggs.I ask Dick why the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has let radical Communist Jerry

Rubin use a tax-free foundation to avoid income tax. Dick says Rubin is "using thesystem," and is a "media freak." He says "Movement" people are wary of its leaders.Could it be that leaders like William Kunstler are using people like Dick? Leaders likeKunstler are using me, he says. Suddenly, Dick's elderly New Psychology produces aprofound thought. Ralph Nader, the housewife's friend, is more revolutionary thanKunstler or Rubin, he says.I ask Dick why the Nixon Administration he says should be tried for war crimes is

sending military supplies to Russia and its European satellites, which in turn supplyalmost all the Vietcong's military equipment.Dick does not answer. His face is blank.Then there is the Committee to Aid Refugees from Militarism (C.A.R.M.), one of

whose counsellors is Charlie McKee. In the kitchen of the Toronto commune where heand his wife live with five other couples, some of the residents are preparing a meal. Amild, bearded, young man, straight from Turgenev, is slicing potatoes. He puts them ina pot. It will be a communal casserole. Everyone is fully clothed."This is a pretty square commune," I say. "Where's the sex orgy?"Everyone chuckles. "You're supposed to hate us," says a girl.Mrs. McKee is twenty-one, pretty, and comes from Waldwick, New Jersey. She

wants to get back to the land, she says. The residents of the commune are saving tobuy a farm. "I want to live for me," she says, "and for the children I'm going to have."Let's hope she is able to do so. She does agree that the authoritarianism she dislikes inthe States is possible in Canada, too.Her husband, Charlie, also opposes authoritarianism. He believes that government isnecessary but that it should be restricted. I ask him about a picture of Ho chi Minh onthe corridor wall. He says he doesn't like it and once took it down, but someone put it

""C-- back up. Charlie gets excited when we say we oppose the Establishment and that theEstablishment is using him to impose a dictatorship. That's exactly what Charliebelieves. He makes a telephone call and sends us to another Toronto address, where wefind a fifty ish lady named Judy Merril.Mrs. Merril, who apparently is the Mother Bloor of C.A.R.M., explains that her

Committee to Aid Refugees from Militarism is the result of a merger between theToronto American Deserters' Committee, which gave draft, immigration, job andhousing advice; and Red, White & Black, which emphasized public relations. TheC.A.R.M., for instance, publishes Carmmunique, the bi-monthly news of radicalAPRIL, 1971 17

8/3/2019 Read Sixth

5/5

A Look At The "Life Style"Then there is a place called Rochdale College, a hi-rise commune near the

University of Toronto. Rochdale isn't really a college, but a "free university" likethose in the States, working to revolutionize the U.T. area. At the American Consulate

activities in Toronto; Exnet, "maintaining contact among all Canadian aid programmesand between the Canadian scene and draft and military counsellors and the anti-warresistance in the States"; and, Out-post, which is "designed to serve a similar functionfor more American [deserters] and war-resisters all over the world - to send news ofthe U.S. resistance to Sweden, England, Japan, Vietnam and everywhere else thatmembers of the A.S.U., the C.R.V. and the growing ranks of deserters are scatteredand to bring back news here .... "The American Servicemen's Union and the Committee of Returned Volunteers areof course revolutionary organizations working to destroy our AImed Forces. C.A.R.M.does its "counselling" at a place on Huron Street called The Hall.Mrs. Merril naturally wore a sweatshirt and dungarees, which produced a discreet,

proletarian tone. She is a science-fiction writer, who came to Toronto from Milford,Pennsylvania, two years ago. In 1968, in Chicago for the Democrat Convention, shedrove for the Medical Committee for Human Rights, a revolutionary outfit which waspart of the Communist attack on the police. Indeed, she told me she "hoped to see alot of cops shot." She assures us that "all the violence after the assassination of MartinLuther King was caused by the police." Dictatorship is a necessary prerequisite to apolice state, she explains, and a total police state is the only thing that can happen inthe States - no matter who gets elected. Since she is so opposed to repression, I askwhat she thinks of the fact that the Canadian federal government financed the PoorPeople's Conference; and the possibility that Trudeau is just using it.She smiles. "It's very hard to think of the government as your enemy," she says, "if

the government gives you the money to say it." Pierre apparently sets Mrs. Merril allatingle. His intense masculinity leaves her no choice. The Johnson and NixonAdministrations have of course been financing Communist revolution for years,through such programs as the "war on poverty," but she doesn't explain why shethinks they are against her.The only solution, she says, is the elimination of national sovereignty. She wouldconvene a world constitutional convention to create a World Government. Would it be

possible, I ask, for Americans to participate in such a government with the Communists inRussia? Certainly, she says. "There is as much freedom of speech in Russia as there is inthe United States." There isn't any freedom of speech in Russia.Mrs. Merril's daughter comes in with her boy friend, Alan Reed, of Logansport,

Indiana. Mr. Reed deserted from the Medical Corps at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He isvery happy in Canada. And his parents have visited him five or six times.In Carmmunique for December 14, 1970, we read of the impending visit to Toronto

of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The C.A.R.M. is very enthusiasticabout Clergy and Laymen Concerned which, among other such things, is discussingarrangement of trials for "war crimes" of American Prisoners of War. In the sameissue, we read of a dinner for "refugees," who will be entertained by revolutionaryDick Gregory and Communist Pete Seeger.

18 AMERICAN OPINION