Category: History

The Secret JFK Files: How Australia and the CIA Hid Assassination Warnings About Soviet Ties

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Declassified Documents Reveal a 60-Year Cover-Up of Australia’s Role in Suppressing Key JFK Assassination Leads

For decades, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) played a largely unknown role in suppressing critical evidence related to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Newly analyzed declassified documents confirm that ASIO’s chief, Sir Charles Spry, personally lobbied the CIA to keep Warren Commission Document CD-971 hidden from public view. This document detailed anonymous phone calls to the U.S. Embassy in Canberra warning of Soviet financial involvement in JFK’s murder.

These revelations, combined with the fact that portions of ASIO’s correspondence remained classified until 2023, suggest that Australian intelligence agencies were more deeply entangled in the cover-up than previously known. Even though CD-971 was partially declassified in 1976, intelligence agencies on both sides of the Pacific continued redacting and withholding critical details about the Canberra calls for six decades.

CD-971: The Assassination Warnings Intelligence Agencies Buried

CD-971 is a CIA memorandum from November 29, 1963, documenting two key anonymous phone calls made to the U.S. Embassy in Canberra, Australia:

  • October 15, 1962: A caller warned of a plot to assassinate President Kennedy.
  • November 23, 1963: Hours after JFK’s murder, a second call suggested that the Soviet Union had financed the assassination.

The caller, claiming to be a Polish chauffeur working for the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, provided specific intelligence that was forwarded to U.S. Naval Intelligence and later to the CIA. However, the CIA only became fully aware of these warnings on November 24, 1963—one day after Kennedy’s death.

While mainstream news reports have framed these calls as “crank calls,” intelligence memos from the time suggest otherwise. If the CIA and ASIO truly believed these were hoaxes, why did they fight for six decades to keep CD-971 suppressed?

ASIO and the CIA’s Coordinated Cover-Up

President Kennedy

Newly released records confirm that Sir Charles Spry, head of ASIO, personally wrote to CIA Director Richard Helms in October 1968, urging him not to declassify CD-971 despite increasing pressure for transparency. A memo from the CIA’s Far East Division Chief, William Nelson, also supported Spry’s position, marking this as a coordinated international effort.

According to a recently unsealed letter from Helms to Spry, dated November 1968:

“There is not, at the present time, any intention to release [CD-971].”

Helms further assured Spry that if the issue arose again, ASIO’s objections provided enough justification to keep the document secret indefinitely.

This wasn’t just a routine classification issue—it was a deliberate, high-level suppression of intelligence that could have altered the official narrative of JFK’s murder.

Even After 1976, the Cover-Up Continued

While CD-971 was partially declassified in 1976, it has now been revealed that significant portions of ASIO’s correspondence with the CIA remained classified until 2023. A News.com.au investigation found that ASIO and the CIA fought for nearly 60 years to prevent public access to the full unredacted records.

This raises disturbing questions:

  • What exactly was redacted or withheld in the 1976 release?
  • Why did intelligence agencies continue suppressing these records decades later?
  • Did ASIO have deeper knowledge of Soviet connections to the assassination than publicly acknowledged?

ASIO’s Role Was Likely Stronger Than the CIA’s

A 1968 Naval Investigative Service memo, previously overlooked in news reports, states that U.S. Naval Intelligence had no objections to declassifying CD-971—but still required clearance from ASIO.

This means that ASIO wasn’t just consulted as a courtesy—it had an active veto over whether U.S. intelligence could disclose the document. This revelation places Australia’s intelligence agencies at the center of the decades-long suppression effort.

What Was the Real Purpose of the Canberra Calls?

The most explosive claim in CD-971 is the assertion that the Soviet Union may have put up $100,000 to finance Kennedy’s assassination.

This raises two possibilities:

  1. Genuine Intelligence: The calls contained real information about Soviet involvement, which intelligence agencies later suppressed to avoid Cold War escalation.
  2. Disinformation Operation: The calls were part of an effort to shift blame to the Soviets, muddying the waters in the immediate aftermath of the assassination.

Regardless of which scenario is true, the fact remains that ASIO and the CIA actively buried this intelligence for decades.

A 60-Year Suppression Finally Exposed

For over 60 years, ASIO and the CIA worked together to keep critical JFK assassination warnings from public view. The newly uncovered files confirm that Australian intelligence played a far greater role in hiding key leads about Soviet connections than previously known.

Even after CD-971 was declassified in 1976, Australian and U.S. intelligence agencies continued redacting and withholding key documents—only fully releasing them in 2023.

Key Unanswered Questions:

  1. Why did ASIO fight so aggressively to keep CD-971 classified?
  2. What exactly was removed or altered before its 1976 release?
  3. Did ASIO have direct knowledge of Soviet financing for JFK’s assassination?
  4. What other intelligence records remain hidden?

With today’s JFK files shedding light on one of the biggest cover-ups in Cold War history, it is time for researchers and historians to demand the full, unredacted truth.

Sources:

NOTE: Artificial Intelligence (a.i.) Used to Develop this Article

This article by Donald Best was developed with extensive assistance from ChatGPT-4o (paid version) over the course of several hours and multiple revisions. While AI played a significant role in structuring and refining the content, the final article is the result of independent research, fact-checking, and verification by Donald Best.

Early AI-generated drafts contained serious inaccuracies and outright falsehoods. For example, ChatGPT initially claimed that Warren Commission Document CD-971 had never been released, when in fact, a quick online search confirmed it was declassified in 1976 and widely available for download.

This serves as yet another reminder that AI is a powerful tool but must never be relied upon without human verification.

Readers are encouraged to fact-check, provide feedback, and share insights in the comments or via email at [email protected].

Bombshell FOI Emails: Will Theresa Tam Finally Face a Reckoning?

Emails Expose Secret No-Consent RSV Palivizumab Vaccine* Experiments on Inuit Children.

What Else Are They Hiding?

by Donald Best   February 25, 2025

For three years, Canadian officials used Inuit children as guinea pigs for an experimental RSV Palivizumab vaccine* injections program – without parental consent and without the knowledge or involvement of the Inuit population. This shocking revelation, buried in newly uncovered Freedom of Information (FOI) emails, is completely unrelated to COVID-19 – yet it raises damning questions about the government’s approach to public health experiments on Indigenous communities and all Canadians.

Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, knew about the ethical concerns. So did other top public health officials. In a December 16, 2019, email to Tam and others, Dr. Tom Wong, Director General of the Office of Population & Public Health at Indigenous Services Canada, explicitly warned them that health care workers had raised serious red flags.

“Some ethical concerns were raised by health care workers regarding the guarantee of a free and informed consent from parents or caregivers, as well as the absence of involvement of Inuit population in the decision and implementation process.” — Dr. Tom Wong to Dr. Theresa Tam and others, December 16, 2019

Yet rather than halt the program, the government pressed forward. Parents were kept in the dark, as were Inuit leaders and the broader community. Worse, the experiment had already failed – the RSV Palivizumab vaccine* injections didn’t work as intended. But officials concealed this and continued using an Indigenous population as unknowing test subjects.

December 16, 2019 email confirms ‘No-Consent’ Medical Experiments on Inuit Babies

This isn’t the first time Canada’s medical establishment has used Indigenous children as test subjects without consent.

From the 1940s-50s nutritional experiments in residential schools, where researchers deliberately starved Indigenous children to study malnutrition, to the 1933 tuberculosis vaccine trials on 600 Indigenous children in Saskatchewan, where nearly 20% died, history has already proven that officials were willing to sacrifice Indigenous lives for so-called “science.” (ref **)

“The difference between medical research’s clinical trials and human experimentation is patient consent. Given the very unequal power relationships between medical staff and patients, coupled with often perplexing language barriers, and the widespread perception that many Aboriginal people would not willingly accept treatment, patient consent for treatment was often simply taken for granted.” (Lux, M. Separate Beds, University of Toronto Press, 2016, p.112)

Canada’s medical establishment deliberately starved Indigenous children in secret experiments.

The RSV Palivizumab vaccine* injection experiments on Inuit children are not an isolated incident – Canada has a documented history of using Indigenous children as non-consenting test subjects in government-run medical experiments. One of the most shocking examples took place in the 1940s and 1950s, when Canadian scientists deliberately starved Indigenous children in residential schools to study malnutrition.

Newly uncovered historical research confirms that the Canadian government and top nutrition scientists saw Indigenous children not as victims, but as research opportunities.

“Two separate long-term studies that went so far as to include controlled experiments conducted, apparently without the subjects’ informed consent or knowledge, on malnourished Aboriginal populations in Northern Manitoba and, later, in six Indian residential schools.” (Mosby, 2013, p. 145-146) (ref**)

The experiments were brutal in their design:

•Some children were fed vitamin-enriched food, while others were deliberately left malnourished as a “control group” to see how they deteriorated.
•Researchers withheld dental care, believing that “improving dental health might skew the results.”
•Some Indigenous children were subjected to these experiments for up to five years, without their knowledge or consent.

“From the perspective of Tisdall, Kruse, and the other nutrition experts involved in the study, it was clear that the levels of malnutrition witnessed… were a tragedy, but also an unprecedented research opportunity.” (Mosby, 2013, p. 152)

This wasn’t a one-time crime—it was a blueprint. Before the government starved Indigenous children in the 1940s-50s, it had already run tuberculosis vaccine trials on Indigenous children in Saskatchewan in 1933—without their parents’ knowledge.

Page References from Mosby (2013) (Available below for download)**

•Lack of Consent & Secret Experiments: p. 145-146
•Children as Test Subjects: p. 151
•Researchers Saw a ‘Scientific Opportunity’ in Malnutrition: p. 152
•Children Were Denied Treatment for Study Integrity: p. 163

These horrific practices set a clear historical precedent – one that makes the secretive RSV Palivizumab vaccine* injection experiments on Inuit children even more alarming.

If the Canadian government has done it before, what else have they done – and what are they still hiding? One thing is certain: During the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Informed Consent wasn’t just ignored – it was obliterated.

The Sears FOI Releases: A Crack in the Wall

Bret Sears

This chilling discovery is only the beginning. Credit goes to Bret Sears, a relentless New Brunswicker who pried 1,818 pages of internal government emails loose through FOI requests – 447 pages of which are now public. Many of these emails shift focus to COVID-19 and the mRNA vaccines, hinting at what officials knew as the crisis unfolded.

Over the next year, hundreds of thousands more pages are set to be released – a potential goldmine that could expose hidden deals, suppressed risks, or even darker truths.

A New Age of Citizen Investigators

Thanks to Bret Sears (X = @Bret_Sears), everyday Canadians are now tearing into these documents at unprecedented speed. Over the past three days, I joined citizen groups using AI tools like ChatGPT and Grok to analyze hundreds of pages of the emails, associated news stories, regulations, and government policies. This isn’t like past whistleblower leaks: this is crowdsourced investigative journalism on steroids with A.I. instantly making connections that usually take weeks or months to discover.

Someone spots a red flag – “Look what I found!” – and instantly, others connect the dots, “That ties to this!”

“The truth is coming together faster than ever before. This level of synergy is something I’ve never before witnessed. Tam and her colleagues should be terrified.” Donald Best

Indigenous children in Canada’s residential schools—many of whom were subjected to secret government medical experiments without consent.

The Big Question: Could This Lead to Criminal Charges?

As a former Toronto Police Sergeant (Detective), I have one question…

If these emails or the flood still to come prove that Theresa Tam and other officials knew the mRNA injections caused significant harm and fatalities, yet continued pushing them on the public and Indigenous communities while concealing the truth – could this support criminal charges?

The answer could be yes. Potential charges could include Criminal Negligence Causing Injury or Death – and that’s just the start.

The Truth Is Breaking Free – Join the Hunt

The Tam FOI emails are now searchable.

NOTE: See Tam FOI for all released files RIGHT HERE

Below, you’ll find the first two .pdf files as released by Bret Sears. (Bret Sears can be found on X: @Bret_Sears)

Original Documents:

ReleasePackage – A-2021-000114 – 2025-02-21_Part1

ReleasePackage – A-2021-000114 – 2025-02-21_Part2

Since the government released these files as non-searchable PDFs, I have used Adobe Acrobat OCR to make them fully searchable. Now, you can use the ‘find’ function of your computer to quickly scan for key terms and find critical information.

Searchable OCR Versions:

🔍 ReleasePackage – A-2021-000114 – 2025-02-21_Part1 OCR

🔍 ReleasePackage – A-2021-000114 – 2025-02-21_Part2 OCR

The December 16, 2019 email from Dr. Wong to Dr. Tam is on page 410 / 1818 and is located in the second file (Part 2).

New Find – Report downloaded from a link shown on page 410 – OCRd and searchable:

‘Evaluation of new palivizumab immunoprophylaxis
recommendations in Nunavik infants : results for 2014
to 2017’

‘report_palivizumab_immunoprophylaxis_nunavik_infants_cor OCR’

Now It’s Your Turn

These emails are just the beginning. With each new release, the full scale of government deception may finally come to light.

Were Theresa Tam and other officials knowingly complicit in secret medical experiments on Indigenous children—without consent, without oversight, and without accountability? Did they push dangerous COVID-19 vaccines while concealing the risks?

The truth may be buried in these documents—but not for long.

Dig in. Expose what they never wanted you to see. Your work, your analysis, could be the discovery that shatters the official narrative and triggers criminal investigations into Theresa Tam and other government officials.

Good hunting.

Donald Best – February 25, 2025

NOTE: See Tam FOI for all released files RIGHT HERE

* References – RSV Palivizumab Vaccine* Injections

I had used the colloquial term ‘vaccine’ for the RSV Palivizumab Injections to communicate that these were ‘no-consent / no-knowledge’ injections, but as with the mRNA COVID-19 injections – the Palivizumab Injections are not true ‘vaccines’.

A reader and medical professional asked me to clarify that the injections were of ‘monoclonal antibodies’ and not a true vaccine. As he said…

“The real issues as you’ve identified are the ethics when parents have no knowledge of, and did not consent to, having their children injected with anything in a secret medical experiment.”

I am informed by ChatGPT… Palivizumab (brand name: Synagis) is a monoclonal antibody used to prevent severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections in high-risk infants and children. It is not a vaccine but works by providing passive immunity against RSV.

** References

Canada has a documented history of conducting unethical medical experiments on Indigenous children without consent. Two of the most notorious cases include:

1. Nutritional Experiments in Residential Schools (1940s-1950s):

Between 1942 and 1952, Canadian government researchers deliberately starved Indigenous children in residential schools to study the effects of malnutrition. Essential nutrients, vitamins, and even dental care were withheld from at least 1,300 Indigenous individuals—about 1,000 of them children—without informing the children or their families.

• Source: Mosby, I. (2013). Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942–1952. Histoire Sociale/Social History. PDF download

2. Tuberculosis Vaccine Trials (1933):

In 1933, Canadian researchers conducted tuberculosis vaccine trials on 600 Indigenous children in Saskatchewanwithout parental consent. Nearly 20% of the children died from preventable illnesses like gastroenteritis and pneumonia, exacerbated by the poor conditions of Indigenous reserves.

• Source: Lux, M. (2016). Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s. University of Toronto Press.

Enlisting in the Military: A Very, Very Bad Idea

Wounded Vet: Don’t Die for Arms Industry Profits in Ukraine, China

by Fred Reed

If you are a young man wondering what to do with your life, you may consider enlisting in the military. Don’t.

Yes, the military has its appeal, or seems to. You may need a job. The uniform looks good. There can be adventure. You might get laid by Asian lovelies in foreign countries. These things have their appeal. They did for me as a young Marine. But they aren’t worth being mutilated, blinded, or spending the rest of your years in a wheel chair. This can happen. It does happen. And Washington doesn’t give a damn.

Recruiters won’t tell you of this. They are liars. They lied to me. They will lie to you. At the very least, they will talk only about good things that might happen, about college money and job training you might get but probably won’t. They will make you feel welcome. You are joining a team of brothers, they will say. You are a patriot. You are defending your country.

Don’t believe it. The US military does not defend America. The last time it did this was in 1945, at the end of World War Two. Since then, American soldiers were sent for twenty years to Afghanistan. Is Afghanistan America? No. Was it, is it, important to America? No. Then Iraq, Syria, Iraq again,and Serbia, bombing helpless cities. Iraq isn’t America. In my day – I’m an old guy – it was Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, where 63,000 Americans died, and killed huge numbers of peasants who did nothing wrong–for no reason.

Washington is now getting ready to start a war with China.

China is on the other side of the world.

Let me tell you what the military does to young men, what Washington does. Long ago I was driving a truck near the Marine base in Danang, Vietnam. A bullet came through the windshield. The glass spatter went into my eyes, filling them with blood and blinding me for, as it turned out, several months. I lay for maybe an hour beside the road until a chopper finally came to take me to the Naval Support Activity hospital. For a couple of weeks a Viet nurse gave me a large injection of penicillin every few hours because if the blood got infected, that would be it for my vision.

Across the corridor from me were two Marines whose tank had been hit by an RPG, rocket-propelled grenade. It ruptured the hydraulic lines and the hydraulic fluid had exploded into flames. The two crewmen across from me had gotten out somehow, though horribly burned. I was told they were covered with a plastic sheet that dripped with evaporation from their burns, but I don’t know.

“The other two had cooked alive, burning, burning, in agony, skin sloughing off, unable to breathe in the flames, desperately trying to find the hatch. The two across from me said they could hear them screaming. It is what the military did to them. It is what the military will do to you.”

A recruiter might tell you that I am an old guy, and things have changed. No. They have not. The military still uses tanks, rifles, land mines, bombs, flamethrowers, artillery. Aircraft carriers, important for the upcoming war with China, still carry large quantities of jet fuel and explosives. They are barbecues waiting to be lighted. You can have your bowels blown out, or burn alive, as easily now as then.

Did Vietnam have anything to do with America? No. It’s on the other side of the freaking world. Likewise Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq. So why does the military, why does our government do it?

Answer: So the arms industry can make money. And so Washington can try to control the world.

“Are you willing to die, to spend your life in a wheel chair, to wear a colostomy bag full of your own shit and never have a date because you were gut-shot so Lockheed-Martin’s stock shares will go up? Don’t do it. Don’t let the bastards use you.”

The wars never stop because the money is sweet, the profits enormous.

Washington just finished twenty years of killing in Afghanistan, meaning twenty years of juicy contracts. How did this defend America? Now we have Ukraine, so far costing taxpayers over a hundred billion dollars. Is Ukraine America? The United States is falling apart as anyone can see and Washington sends money to Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians, Russians and Ukrainians, have died there, for nothing. But of course most of that money going to Ukraine is used to buy weapons from the arms companies. Follow the dollar.

For Washington, for the arms industry–they are almost the same thing–long wars in distant places are desirable because companies like Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon can keep selling the Pentagon missiles, tanks, helicopters and simple things like gasoline at jacked-up prices. War is about money. Washington cares about money. It does not care about you.

Don’t let them use you.

I’ll tell you another story. I spent about a year on the eye ward, 4B, at Bethesda Naval Hospital as it was then called, just outside of Washington. In hospital wards you see what the military really does to people. There was a guy blind because a defective rifle grenade detonated on the end of his rifle. Another fellow had taken an AK round through the jaw, shattering the bone. The fragments had to be removed, leaving the flesh where his jaw had been hanging down in a formless blob like a wet sock. He ate through a nasogastric tube going through his nose. We called him Jawless.

Military wards are full of such. The one I most remember was a young Marine from Tennessee, maybe nineteen. One side of his face was grotesque hamburger. He was stone blind. I was nearby when his high school sweetheart, maybe seventeen, came to visit him.

“Johnny…Johnny…Oh, Johnny.”

So much for the marriage, I figured. What young high school senior wants to tie herself for life to a blind horror that she will have to lead around?

“The war in Vietnam was lost, of course, but it wasn’t in vain. It made unimaginable profits for the arms industry. Why do you think American wars last so long? If America wins the war, the money stops flowing. If it loses the war, the money stops. Keep the war going, and the money flows.”

This is the military the recruiters don’t tell you about. It is the real military.

Want to know the lousy medical care the Pentagon gives the wounded? An incompetent military eye surgeon managed to destroy my remaining good eye years later. To see the kind of thing that happens, read this at the Unz Review. It will show you what you can expect.

How We Defend America

Think what, if you enlist, you will really be doing. Let’s say that you are ordered to fire artillery at some city or village. In your impact zone, a little girl of seven, hit by shell fragments, looks down in surprise as her intestines fall from her stomach, and begins crying, then screaming. This happens, frequently. What do you think hot jagged shrapnel does to a soft young belly. She holds out her arms to mommy for help, this being instinct with the very young, before collapsing from profuse bleeding. Large blood vessels are found in the abdomen. Her mother goes stark bugfuck crazy, desperate to save her daughter but watching her die. It is how we defend America, see.

This is what the military is, what it does. It is what you will be used to do, directly or indirectly.

Those in Washington who will send you to kill people you have never met, and to be mutilated, do not themselves go to war. Rich young men do not enlist. Students at Harvard and Yale do not enlist. The military preys on, takes advantage of, ordinary kids, usually high-school grads, often from the South.

If you are twenty years old, what I am about to say will be ancient history, but I ask you to think about it. The same thing is going on today.

The following men were all of military age during Vietnam, and they now rule the country or did: President George Bush II, Bill Clinton, John Bolton (of whom you have probably never heard, but a major warhawk), Biden, Trump. All avoided military service. All now want to send you to wars.

To express it clearly, they see you as suckers. Think about it.

I tell you, as one who has been there, who has seen it. Don’t let them use you.

Fred Reed started as a Navy brat born in 1945 in a coal town in West Virginia. His father was serving on the USS Franks, a destroyer in the thick of the Pacific war at places like Iwo Jima, Guam, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Throughout his school years, Reed was “the kid other kids weren’t supposed to play with.” After graduating high school he rode freight trains across the USA and Mexico until joining the US Marines out of boredom. He returned from Vietnam mostly blinded and spent a year in hospital recovering enough sight to function.

Reed became a war correspondent in the early 70s and covered wars and military conflicts in the Middle East and Asia. He was one of the last US correspondents to leave Saigon and Phnom Penh.

Later he became the Law Enforcement correspondent for the Washington times. Fred Reed is married to the perfect woman and is based in Mexico where he has lived for many years.

Fred Reed Website: Fred On Everything

Fred Reed Biography and Books

Pope John Paul II blessed me… during a knock-down, drag ‘em out fight

Attack on the Pope during the 1984 Toronto Visit

An Early Lesson in Media Censorship

On September 9, 1984, Pope John Paul II landed at Quebec City to start a grueling twelve-day, 15,000km marathon that saw him visit millions from Newfoundland to British Columbia. It was a national event and the first time a Pontiff had set foot in Canada. In Toronto alone, almost a million people attended mass at Downsview airport.

But not everybody loved the head of the Roman Catholic Church – so my friends and I at the Toronto Police Oriental Crime Unit found ourselves working undercover protecting the Pope, along with a thousand other police officers from all over Ontario.

“Everything happened slowly, and then very quickly… I realized we might be too late.”

The danger to Pope John Paul II was real, and everyone on the security detail was nervous. Just three years earlier a Muslim terrorist shot the Pope twice during an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square.

Bulgarian military personnel had been involved in the St. Peter’s attack, so any attempt in Toronto might also be supported with resources from a USSR satellite nation. This was at the height of the Cold War. Martial law was in force in Poland against Solidarity and its leader Lech Walesa. The Polish Pope strengthened the resolve of the Poles and weakened the Soviet Block. That made him even more of a target.

We were therefore a serious bunch, suspicious of everything – armed to the max and ready-to-rock at every moment that “il Papa” was anywhere near us.

But it was also a happy time as Canada celebrated. The massive crowds were joyous, loved to touch the Pope and he permitted it. You can imagine our er, ‘delight’ with the Pope’s walking into crowds as he often did even after the assassination attempt.

The University Avenue Attack

Everything happened slowly, and then very quickly.

Thousands lined University Avenue waiting to see John Paul II as waved and blessed the crowd from the slow-moving Popemobile.

I was one of hundreds of undercover police officers along the parade route when one of my team made eye contact and scratched his ear – our signal that he’d seen something. I walked to him and immediately spotted the target.

The man was in his early thirties. There was nothing outstanding about his clothes or appearance, but in this crowd his body language was all wrong and that’s what attracted our attention.

Everyone was smiling and waving at the Popemobile slowly coming towards us about 75 feet away. Our friend looked towards the Pope, but every so often he glanced at the uniformed police on the other side of the street. Then he slowly swiveled his head left and right – looking for undercover officers, for us. He wasn’t smiling.

But he didn’t spot us. We were smiling and waving at the approaching Popemobile even as we signalled for assistance to take him down.

Within a shorter time than it takes to tell, there were five of us within striking distance and we were just about to grab his arms and flash a badge and the Pope was closer and then it all happened so quickly and I realized we might be too late…

Fast as anything he shoved his right hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out a round green object, cocked his arm, and started to throw. Everybody launched themselves at the man’s arm and hand and for an instant I thought he held a grenade – but it was an apple that fell to the ground.

Frenzied Rage

Down we went and he started screaming in a berserk rage “The Pope is Satan! The Pope is Satan!” Then he started biting.

Those of you who have never been a police officer, paramedic, or worked at a hospital probably don’t understand how one person in a frenzy can have the strength and violence to resist or even overpower five or six big men. Doctors have many theories about bipolar behaviour, ‘Intermittent Explosive Disorder’, and the role of various drugs in precipitating rage – but none of that matters in the middle of an attack.

In those days we had no pepper spray or tasers – only physical restraint, fists, and chokeholds – but nothing seemed to work.

Fists flew in both directions as we struggled to gain control. One of the team screamed as the man squeezed his privates. During the melee he bit three of us. When he chomped my forearm I had to punch him twice in the face before he let go. Then I got on top, and hit him hard on the jaw.

I cocked my arm to give him another, but the fight was done – so for the first time in a while I looked up…

And there was Pope John Paul II frowning as he surveyed the chaos, making the sign of the cross – blessing us. By this time some uniform officers were arriving and in an instant the Pope realized who we were.

Still looking at ‘il papa’, I shrugged my shoulders – and saw him smile, wink at me and make the sign of the cross again. Then he was gone as the Popemobile continued on.

And that is how Pope John Paul II smiled, winked, and blessed me in the middle of a fight.

Afterward

The public never heard about the incident on University Avenue, nor of a handful of similar happenings across Canada. Like the man we arrested, most of the ‘attackers’ were troubled individuals with long histories of mental illness.

At the time it was thought by those in power that there should be nothing in the news to mar the feeling, image and historical record of the Pope’s Canadian visit. So the police said nothing of any incidents, and newspapers printed nothing even if they knew.

At the time I agreed with the non-reporting of incidents during the Papal Tour – but given the rise of government and corporate collaboration to censor, it should have been a caution to me about the power of the news media to deliberately ignore events in order to control and construct narratives.

“No matter how well-intended, censorship always becomes a weapon for those in power.”

Donald Best