Others Had To Know Of The Air India Threat

On the surface, the lieutenant-governor's unprecedented testimony before former Supreme Court justice John Major's Air India inquiry this week seems simply bizarre. If Bartleman knew that the government had been told before the bombings that a terror attack was imminent, why did he wait 22 years before going public? Certainly, the attack itself was dramatic enough. On June 23, 1985, bombs loaded onto two Air India aircraft flying out of Vancouver killed 331 people – 329 aboard eastbound Flight 182, and two Tokyo airport workers unloading baggage from a westbound flight. Yet, apparently, even as controversy swirled after the attack, Bartleman said nothing to anyone. His explanation is not entirely satisfactory. He says he was out of the country after 1985 and not following the case closely. He also says he did notify a senior RCMP officer just minutes after he read the warning – passed on to him by the Communications Security Establishment – but can't remember the man's name. He told reporters yesterday that he decided to speak up in 2005 only after he read that the government was planning a formal inquiry. But he didn't act until the following spring when, by happenstance, he ran into the inquiry's chief counsel as both men were walking their dogs. Just imagine what we wouldn't know if Bartleman had been a cat lover. Still, assuming that he is telling the truth (and why would he lie?), the key part of the Bartleman tale is the source of the Air India warning. The CSE is Canada's other security agency, one so hush-hush that even its existence was kept secret until 1983. Set up in 1947 to eavesdrop on Soviet telephone conversations, by the '80s it was a major international player in the snoop business, with links to a worldwide network of Western agencies that intercept telecommunications. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/210681 [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 7, 2007]

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