Jean-Daniel Lafond: Rideau Hall Radical

The film also gives voice to two rather spectacular conspiracy theories. One suggests that the Carter administration allowed agents of the Ayatollah Khomeini to arrange assassinations of his political enemies on U.S. soil in exchange for opening negotiations to free American hostages held by revolutionaries in Iran. The other -- the so-called "October Surprise" theory -- holds that campaign aides of Ronald Reagan and the President's father, George H. W. Bush, made a secret deal offering to supply arms to Khomeini in exchange for preventing the release of American hostages in Tehran until after the 1980 presidential election, in order to help defeat Jimmy Carter. There are some rather large problems with both theories. The author of the first, in an interview with Maclean's last week, said he had "overstated" the case in the film. And the October Surprise has been discredited by mainstream journalists and two congressional investigations -- a detail not mentioned in the film. Such theories proliferate on the Internet but have not, until now, been dignified by the vice-regal office. Lafond's film, made with subsidies from the federal and Quebec governments, will premiere April 29 at the 2006 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto, and it may very well stir things up. As far as provocations of the U.S. go, American Fugitive is more philosophical than the prime ministerial aide who called George W. Bush a "moron," and more artistic than the parliamentarian who stomped on a Bush doll. But it does come at a time when Canadian diplomats are still trying to kill rumours that 9/11 terrorists came through Canada, and as Foreign Minister Peter McKay last week travelled to Washington to lobby against tough new border security measures that could hurt the Canadian economy. "Stuff like this gives the worst impression of Canada," says Christopher Sands, a Canadian affairs analyst at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a bipartisan think tank in Washington. "I can just see Bill O'Reilly ranting about it." http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/canada/article.jsp?content=20060424_125623_125623

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