Whitaker, Reg. "Access to Information and Research on Security and Intelligence: The Canadian Situation." In National Security: Surveillance and Accountability in a Democratic Society, eds. Peter Hanks and John D. McCamus, 183-196. Cowansville, Quebec: Les Editions Yvon Blais, 1989.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker, Reg. "Apprehended Insurrection? RCMP Intelligence and the Oct. Crisis." Queen's Quarterly 100, no. 2 (1993): 383-406.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker, Reg. "The 'Bristow Affair': A Crisis of Accountability in Canadian Security Intelligence." Intelligence and National Security 11, no. 2 (Apr. 1996): 279-305.
In 1994, a public scandal erupted around Grant Bristow, identified as a CSIS source operating within the neo-Nazi Heritage Front. It was the first serious test of the Canadian system of accountability for security intelligence, established in 1984. Although CSIS escaped any serious charges of incompetence or impropriety, "lingering legitimacy issues remain" about the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC). The author gives the accountability system a "mixed review" in terms of its functioning in the Bristow case.
In another article carried by I&NS 11.2, SIRC's Executive Director takes issue with Whitaker's belief that a "state of crisis" exists: Maurice Archdeacon, "The Heritage Front Affair," Intelligence and National Security 11, no. 2 (Apr. 1996): 306- 312.
[Canada/PostCW][c]
Whitaker, Reg. "Canada: The RCMP Scandals." In Politics of Scandal: Power and Process in Liberal Democracies, eds. Andrei S. Markovits and Mark Silverstein, 38-61. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker, Reg. "The Canadian Security and Intelligence System: Fighting the Last War on the Next." In Security and Intelligence in a Changing World: New Perspectives for the 1990s, eds. Stuart Farson, David Stafford, and Wesley Wark, 126-134. London: Frank Cass, 1991.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker, Reg. "Cold War Alchemy: How America, Britain and Canada Transformed Espionage into Subversion." Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 177-210.
Abstract: "At the outset of the Cold War, a series of high-level Soviet espionage scandals unfolded in the English-speaking countries. These cases had a very significant impact in shaping the dominant counter-espionage model in the West."
[Canada; SpyCases/US/Gen; UK/Postwar][c]
Whitaker, Reg. "Fighting the Cold War on the Home Front: America, Britain, Australia and Canada." In The Uses of Anti-Communism, eds. Ralph Miliband, et al, 23-67. London: Merlin, 1984.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker,
Reg. "The Origins of the Canadian Government's Internal Security System,
1945-1952." Canadian Historical Review 65, no. 2 (Jun. 1984): 154-183.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker, Reg.
1. "The Politics of Security Intelligence Policy-Making in Canada: I, 1970-1984." Intelligence and National Security 6, no. 4 (Oct. 1991): 649-668.
Whitaker begins his study with the publication in 1969 of the report of the Mackenzie Royal Commission on Security and ends with the passage of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act of 1984. The focus is on the establishment of political accountability for the Canadian security intelligence entities, particularly in view of what the author calls the "domestication" of the security problem in the 1970s.
2. "The Politics of Security Intelligence Policy-Making in Canada: II, 1984-91." Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 2 (Apr. 1992): 53-76.
The author picks up his story with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act of 1984. The Act's "elements of formal accountability go a long way to moving security intelligence policy and administration in Canada sharply away from the British model and strikingly closer to the American model." Nevertheless, the rejection of the idea of a parliamentary oversight committee and the adoption of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) and the office of Inspector General gives CSIS oversight a distinctly Canadian flavor.
As a Postscript, Whitaker mentions the establishment of a parliamentary subcommittee on national security in June 1991, which "will perhaps enhance the public accountability features of the Canadian system."
[Canada][c]
Whitaker, Reg. "Return to the Crucible: The Persecution of Herbert Norman." Canadian Forum, Nov. 1986, 11-28.
[Canada/Spies/Norman]
Whitaker, Reg. "Security and Intelligence in the Post-Cold War World." Socialist Register, 1992, 111-130.
[Canada/PostCW]
Whitaker, Reg. "Spies Who Might Have Been: Canada and the Myth of Cold War Counterintelligence." Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 4 (Oct. 1997): 25-43.
Whitaker argues that, during the Cold War, Western, and specifically Canadian, counterintelligence "derived its dominant notions of the nature of the intelligence threat ... from the same ideological assumptions that underlay the Cold War itself." Using this model of the ideologically motivated traitor as a methodology to identify potential spies "focused attention away from betrayals based on non-ideological motives and sent counterintelligence experts chasing after mythical hares." Based on this viewpoint, the author examines the accusations leveled against Herbert Norman and Leslie James Bennett.
Clark comment: This reader might be more sympathetic to the author's arguments here and elsewhere in his extensive list of work on Canadian internal security if Whitaker showed any understanding that a Soviet threat, generally, and a Soviet espionage threat, specifically, actually existed. The internal security and counterespionage actions taken by Western countries, including Canada, certainly leave plenty of room for criticism and discussion; but decisions made and actions taken should be put within a more balanced context than Whitaker supplies.
[Canada/Spies][c]
Whitaker, Reg. "Witchhunt in the Civil Service: Ottawa's New Security Force Has Taken the Role of an Orwellian-style Thought Police." This Magazine 20, no. 4 (Oct./Nov. 1986): 24-30.
[Canada/Gen]
Whitaker, Reg, and Gary Marcuse. Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.
From advertisement: "Cold War Canada ... uncovers a systematic state-sponsored repression of communists and the Left.... [The authors] argue that the secret repression and silent purges used to stifle dissent and debate ... had a chilling effect on the practice of liberal democracy and undermined Canadian political and economic sovereignty."
Surveillant 4.3, quoting J.L. Granatstein in Choice Magazine: "Readers should pick their way through with caution."
[Canada/Gen]
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