Tango, and the True story of Pearl Harbor: an Investigation
A mysterious aspect of investigative writing is the role of fate. It appears suddenly, rather like visiting the university bookstore, looking from a book to see the face of a young woman, who mysteriously smiles, then, years later, you find yourself holding your firstborn child, with a happiness that you never knew existed.
At times writing, particularly investigative writing, is like that.
I had arrived from Vancouver, where I was studying at the University of British Columbia, UBC. Visiting my family home in Ottawa, in the gentle neighborhood of Alta Vista. Shortly after my arrival, I happened to glance at a bookcase, and fell upon a book by the US investigative writer Tom Mangold, about the FBI and their struggle with their KGB opponents. I turned to the index, and came across a reference to “Tango”, It brought me to the story of Leslie James Bennett, a man in the RCMP Security Service who who had the misfortune of being accused, by several of his uniformed RCMP colleagues, of being a Russian spy of the KGB. That immediately brought the loss of his security clerance, his job, his reputation, even his family,when his wife and two daughters abandoned him, and returned to her native Australia. The RCMP eventually found him innocent, but that did not bring the RCMP, the Solicitor General, or the Canadian govenment gernerally,to responsibe for the RCMP, exonerted him.
I said to myself, “We will see about that’.
After returning to Vancouver, I sent a letter to the CBC Fifth Estate, canada’s premier investigative program, that listed five potential stories that they might consider, one being the Leslie James Bennett story. The Fifth Estate sent one or their recently hired researchers to discuss them with me. Several weeks later, I was sent to Toronto for a meeting with the Fifth Estate, which was then led by their Executive Producer Kelly Crichton. A meeting attended by a dozen or so leading lights of the Fifth Estate, Producers, journalists, writers, and others.
The meeting opened with Crichton asking the research who had visited me in Vancouver to speak of the suggested stories I had provided. He did so, however not mentioning the one story I recognized as the most important. Crichton, evidently not enthused by any of the remaining four. “Is there anything else?” The researcher said nothing, which caused me to piped up, “well, there is ‘Tango’. “What’s Tango”, she said. “Oh, its the story of civilian member of the RCMP Security, who was accused of being a Russian spy, lost his security clearance, his job,and his family, who returned to Australia, was found to be innocent, but not exonerated by the RCMP or the Canadian Government, left to ‘twist in the wind.”
Crichton looked at the others, and said, “Do it, do it know.”
It became a Fifth Estate production, the Leslie James Bennett story, the leading figures of the CBC would reconize as the best story of the year. Which soon led me to the true story of Pearl Harbor.