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The AIH Transcript for March 7, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

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JD: Tonight...

CO: Regrets, he's had a few. But then again, the Prime Minister didn't mention many today -- and deputy Conservative leader Lisa Raitt believes he didn't apologize because he doesn't seem to understand why he should.

JD: Leveling the paying field. China revoked the license of a Winnipeg-based canola company that is the largest crop exporter in Western Canada -- and our guest believes that is political.

CO: Best case scenario. No one has managed to get the International Criminal Court to investigate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- but a group of lawyers believe their unusual strategy might work.

JD: A promotional roller-coaster. Google says Canada's new transparency laws are too difficult for it to comply with -- so the giant tech company won't be able to run any political ads at all.

CO: Joined at the hipsterdom. A man complains when his photo illustrates an article about how cool non-conformists all look the same -- except that it is not actually him in the picture.

JD: And...orifice space. A scientist discovers that a certain jellyfish-like creature can make its anus appear and disappear when necessary -- so it's easy come, easy go. As It Happens. The Thursday Edition. Radio that figures it's decided to call the hole thing off.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Meet the sea creature with an anus that disappears when not in use

SNC-Lavalin: Raitt

Guest: Lisa Raitt

JD: Justin Trudeau did not apologize this morning. But the Prime Minister certainly seem to regret his inability to dig his way out of the SNC-Lavalin mess. The Prime Minister spoke to reporters in Ottawa in an attempt to address the string of contradictions between the testimony of his former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, and that of his former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Especially when it came to the efforts to have Ms. Wilson-Raybould rethink the prosecution of SNC.

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PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Each of these interactions was a conversation among colleagues about how to tackle a challenging issue. Each came at a time when my staff and I believed that the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General was open to considering other aspects of the public interest. However, I now understand that she saw it differently. What has become clear through the various testimonies is that over the past months there was an erosion of trust between my office and specifically my former principal secretary and the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General. I was not aware of that erosion of trust. As prime minister and leader of the federal ministry, I should have been.

JD: That was the PM speaking in Ottawa today. Lisa Raitt is the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. And we reached her in Toronto.

CO: Ms. Raitt we just heard Justin Trudeau say that it was a matter of conversations being experienced differently -- and that led to an erosion of trust between team members. Did that resolve any issues for you?

LISA RAITT: Not at all. Actually it makes me even more concerned that the prime minister and his staff don't understand the principles associated with keeping the Minister of Justice separate from the Attorney General. The attorney general can seek advice from her colleagues. It's not for the prime minister and his staff to consistently apply pressure or to even bring up matters with the attorney general at all. That is the Shawcross principle. That is how our system of separation between the executive branch and the judicial branch is founded -- and he was completely over the line.

CO: If we go back to what Gerald Butts said in his testimony yesterday -- this is a really important addition -- he said those conversations were not to say, do things differently Jody Wilson-Raybould -- they're saying take on a second opinion. This is a new law -- and because there are conflicts within this and the criminal code, take it under advisement -- and that she refused to do that. Is that not an important development?

LR: Not really -- and I'll tell you why. There's always new law -- fresh law -- that's being developed by the House of Commons. That's what we do. We create laws. Some of them are criminal code things, some of them have to do with different statutes. But we entrust the attorney general with the ability to determine whether or not there is a matter of public interest that needs to be intervened for the government. She made her decision and she said no I'm not going to intervene on that. Not only is it insulting to her abilities, but it's also improper because that is not for the prime minister or the political side of the spectrum to say to the attorney general. She really is in her own world. She really does have all of this power to wield. That's the way it was set up -- and it was set up for the reason that's coming out today which is you cannot have political partisan issues bleed into decisions around prosecution of criminal matters.

CO: But also is it not the case that she has a responsibility as the A.G. to consider new information to be looking at this up and until there is a verdict?

LR: So I've heard that. I heard that from Mr. Butts yesterday -- but as he pointed out he's not a lawyer. I have consulted with friends of mine who are lawyers on that issue and it's a bit of a conflation by Mr. Butts because the truth is while a prosecutor does have that responsibility to continuously test and look at the freshness of the evidence to make a determination if they should go ahead. That's not the attorney general. The attorney general is very different from the prosecutor. The attorney general receives information from the lead of the public prosecution service when there is a public interest. But to think and say that the attorney general is responsible for the minutiae of every single criminal case in this country is absurd. And that is exactly what Mr. Butts and the prime minister think that Canadians should believe. And that is not the case. That is not how our system works.

CO: How would you have handled this? I mean if you were in a situation where you had SNC-Lavalin as your file and that there was a criminal prosecution -- but at the same time a lot of innocent people were going to be seriously affected by it. Would you not have considered it? Would you not have said well maybe we need a deferred prosecution here in order to protect these other stakeholders?

LR: I will tell you that if I were lucky enough to ever be the minister of justice and attorney general I would take the advice of my director of public prosecutions and I would read carefully the memo that she and her crown prosecutors put together that nobody knows what's in it. So Jody Wilson-Raybould had a complete different set of information than anyone has ever seen. So we don't know what she based her decision upon. And it could be very compelling. It could be far more compelling than the number of jobs that the prime minister says are at risk. The second piece I would do if I were the minister or the attorney general is I would ask for proof of the loss of jobs. And we've asked for that at committee, and it was asked this morning in the Prime Minister's press conference. And in both cases nobody can point to a report, nobody can point to any kind of memo that came out of any department of the Canadian government. But they do point to the fact that this is what SNC-Lavalin said through their lobbyists would happen. That is not acceptable -- in order to cause an attorney general to overturn a decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

CO: You didn't take the bait yesterday when Gerald Butts was trying to lure you out as a fellow Cape Bretoner. But what he was saying to you -- what he was asking you to consider -- was that would you not have a hard time, given that you come from Cape Breton, what can happen to a community when they lose that many jobs. When they say to you, what did you do before this corporation went down -- if it should go down as you point out we don't know -- but you want to be able to say that you tried everything, right?

LR: It wasn't about bait. I know I didn't have enough time to speak to it clearly. But this is what I'll tell you -- yeah I grew up in Cape Breton like Gerry did at a time of great loss but I also fundamentally believe in the rule of law and I believe that rules are meant to be followed. And coming from Cape Breton I will tell you one thing Carol, the one thing I hate is when people get ahead in life because of who they know and how much money they put into different efforts to get their way. That does not work for me as a Cape Bretoner.

CO: Do you think that Mr. Trudeau should have apologised to her this morning?

LR: He should apologize for a couple of things. He should apologize for the way this was handled. I mean it's been a month -- and certainly the first way of dealing with this was to say the allegations were false and the second way was to minimise Jody Wilson-Raybould's contribution to the government and to put seeds in the audience as to whether or not she really was a good minister and that continued. You know I don't appreciate Mr. Butts' testimony yesterday that she only took 12 days to decide. I'm comfortable with her taking 12 days to decide. I'm very comfortable with it. I'm very comfortable with the work that was probably done by the Justice Department and the Public Prosecution Service to get there. And I'm comfortable that she did do her due diligence and I believe her. So do I think he should have apologized? I think he should apologize for interfering politically with a matter that is clearly within the four corners of a public prosecution -- and he did it and he isn't apologising to anybody. There is no contrition. He doesn't understand if he did anything wrong. And therein lies the rub. He doesn't understand that it was wrong.

CO: And he says he has nothing to apologize for.

LR: And that just seems to me -- well if he's okay with telling the attorney general what to do on criminal prosecutions, what else is happening in that office? And who else is being asked to do things that make them uncomfortable as ministers?

CO: Ms. Raitt it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

LR: Thank you Carol.

JD: Lisa Raitt is the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. We reached her in Toronto.

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Syrians I.C.C. case

Guest: Toby Cadman

JD: Since the civil war in Syria began there has been no shortage of calls for the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute President Bashar al-Assad for war crimes. Thus far, however, all those attempts have failed because Syria is not itself signatory to that court. This week however two groups of international lawyers are trying a new way to get the ICC's attention. They are representing Syrian refugees who now live in camps in Jordan -- who were forced to flee Syria. Toby Cadman is a lawyer with the Guernica Centre for International Justice -- which launched one of the appeals to the ICC. We reached Mr. Cadman in London, England.

CAROL OFF: Mr. Cadman I know your organization has visited refugees in Jordan -- what have they told you that convinces you that Bashar al-Assad should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court?

TOBY CADMAN: Well I can say both from those that our team has spoken to in Jordan and the Syrian groups that we've been working with have all been calling for justice. But certainly the the victims that we have interviewed have effectively told a story painting the bleakest of pictures that you can imagine -- the different types of torture, the mass execution of detainees. And then of course those that we have spoken to that have been subjected to aerial bombardment, indiscriminate shooting, chemical weapons, and other form of prohibited weapons is quite rightly described as the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War.

CO: There is overwhelming evidence and testimony about the atrocities that people suffered within the war in Syria. But efforts to try and bring Bashar al-Assad or the Syrian regime to international justice have failed because they say they have no jurisdiction there. So how will you get around that?

TC: Well that's right. So international justice has evaded the Syrian people for eight years on the basis that the ICC jurisdiction is narrow in scope. But last year everything changed. So the prosecutor of the ICC petitioned the court to make a ruling on jurisdiction in relation to the Rohingya in Myanmar where you had half a million refugees that were forced out of the Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh. And Bangladesh is a member of the ICC. And our group was one of a handful of groups that filed legal submissions with the court arguing that there is jurisdiction when we are looking at the crime of forced deportation, persecution, and other inhumane acts. And within that submission we raised the question that if the court rules in this way on Myanmar then the same principle has to apply to Syria and Jordan. And so effectively what we have now brought to the attention of the ICC prosecutor is that point precisely.

CO: And so if I understand this -- as you say that this narrow approach of saying that there are these forced deportations in Jordan, these people who are forced to leave the country, that if you can get that before the ICC then you can begin to lay the case. This could be first bricks in something. Is it possible, if you are able to get these cases before the ICC, that you can then make a larger argument as to why more of the alleged human rights violations and crimes could be brought to that court?

TC: Well technically no. The charges that can be brought will be restricted to the crime of enforced deportation, persecution, and other inhumane acts. But in order to get to that point you have to be able to argue the catalogue of crimes that have been committed over the last eight years because that is what has created the situation, the circumstances, in Syria that has forced these people to leave. But what we have to be very cautious of is not raising expectations too high in that every crime that has been committed in Syria will be prosecuted.

CO: For those who have followed the events in Syria -- and much of the world has -- it would seem like a no brainer that there would be grounds to bring a case of some kind against the Syrian regime for the atrocities that people have suffered there. But as you know Bashar al-Assad has friends in high places -- and we've even seen at the UN Security Council, vetoes by Russia and China have prevented that route into the International Criminal Court. How can you presume that he is not going to be able to stop a prosecution that you're trying to bring forward?

TC: Put very simply, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is wholly independent in her work, and approaches every case impartially. Now it's very limited what Syria could do and what its allies, Russia and Iran, could do. Russia withdrew from the ICC. So Russia is not really going to have the ability to prevent this. Neither is Iran -- they are not a party either. And the countries that have a great deal of influence in terms of international justice are supportive of this process.

CO: You have been doing this for years -- trying to get some kind of justice for the Syrians. You are part of that Syria project which had extraordinary documentation of torture within the prison system in Syria. How frustrating is this for you that it's so difficult to bring anyone to book?

TC: It is incredibly frustrating. Particularly when we think that the International Criminal Court was set up to deal specifically with this type of situation. Whether we are looking at Syria, Yemen, Myanmar -- these conflicts. This is what the ICC was set up to deal with. And yet there is this block of accountability. This vacuum of accountability. And I meet Syrians frequently -- and I have to try and instill in them a sense of hope that there will come a time when they will see justice. But it is incredibly frustrating. What I always say to them is that it's important today to document in order to prosecute tomorrow. We have to safeguard the evidence. We have to work closely with our Syrian counterparts. The one thing that I always say to them is we never thought we would see Charles Taylor prosecuted. We never thought we'd see Radovan Karadzic prosecuted. And Radovan Karadzic has his decision on appeal in just a matter of days -- and he's likely to spend the rest of his life in prison -- as is Charles Taylor. So I have to approach this on the basis that the wheels of international justice move very very slowly, but they do move.

CO: Mr. Cadman, I appreciate speaking with you thank you.

TC: Thank you very much.

JD: Toby Cadman is a lawyer with the Guernica Centre for international justice. We reached him in London.

[Music]

Warty comb jelly's 'transient' anus

Guest: Sidney Tamm

JD: Everybody poops. In fact, nearly everything poops. And it follows that if you need to poop, you need a permanent exit tunnel. Except, that may not be true. So says Sidney Tamm. Mr. Tamm is a researcher at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He has spent a lot of time looking at how the Warty Comb Jelly does its business. We reached Sidney Tamm in Falmouth, Massachusetts. And in case you missed everything I just said, a warning: things are about to get scatological.

CO: Mr. Tamm I know you spent a fair bit of time studying the messy business end of the warty comb jelly. So what's weird about it?

SIDNEY TAMM: Well first of all let me tell you that they have a through-gut. And this has been known for hundreds of years. In fact probably Aristotle even saw it -- the pooping. They have a through-gut which means they have a mouth and an anus -- and the material, the prey that it eats, goes all the way through from one opening to the other and it's then excrete it after the waste is processed. And the strange thing that I've found is that the anus does not seem to be a permanent structure. It appears before defecation begins, and disappears afterward.

CO: What! So you're saying basically that there's an anus only when the critter needs it?

ST: That's right.

CO: At what point does the anus show up?

ST: You have to observe these animals very carefully, immobilise, so they're not swimming. Otherwise you couldn't focus on anything for a long time. And in an animal that can't move and you can watch it under the microscope without it getting away -- what you see first is that before defecation begins there's no hole there, there is no anal structure visible in the anal canal which is where the poop accumulates. And then all of a sudden an opening appears in the anal canal which is pressing against the outside skin of the animal almost like a chimney sticking out. And this, what I think is tissue fusion between the outside surface and the anal canal surface, gives you a hole or an orifice through which the waste is then expelled. And you can see it streaming out. And the pore gets larger and larger -- big clumps can now go out from the anal canal until all the waste is expelled. And then the pore closes slowly and seals off the inside digestive compartment from the outside. And you have no anus until it poops again.

CO: It just disappears?

ST: Yes.

CO: So all of this waste builds up, as it does, inside this creature -- and it has no place to go, and it starts pushing on the outer skin, and then poof...there's an anus.

ST: Yes that's right.

CO: And then they poop and then poof...and it is gone.

ST: Yes. And so it's different...

CO: Yeah [laughs].

ST: ...from all higher animals. You know even when we're not pooping our anus is still there. It's closed by muscles -- sphincter muscles -- but the structure is still there. It is just closed.

CO: Besides the warty comb jelly have you seen this -- I guess -- this intermittent anus in any other creatures?

ST: I haven't looked.

CO: Now were you looking to see if there was a kind of transient anus on this creature or did you just happen to notice it?

ST: Oh no. No -- I wasn't looking for it because there's no indication in the literature. All the scientific literature says that the anus is a permanent structure. And in pictures of ctenophores, the anus is always drawn as a closed hole -- even during interludes between defecations. So in a non-defecating ctenophore -- in the literature you see a dot or a circle showing the anus or the anuses if it has two and it's brachia that they're showing.

CO: So you were studying this creature and then suddenly you notice: Woah! Where did the anus go?

ST: Yeah. Well, it's that way with everything.

CO: [Laughs] Well for you maybe.

ST: No, you know it's like Yogi Berra -- and the New York Yankees catcher you used to say, he said, "You can observe a lot just by looking." And that's only that's what I did.

CO: I thought you were going to tell me that Yogi Berra had some comment about anuses disappearing.

ST: He probably does. But they are unprintable.

CO: [Laughs] Now what would be the purpose in terms of why would it have this kind of transient anus?

ST: Well to tell you the truth, I have no idea. It's too early to say if it's a stage in the evolution of a permanent anus or a permanent mouth. I don't know if it is a stage in evolution or just like a dead end.

CO: [Laughs] So to speak.

ST: You know it's like right -- I compare it to a magician who does a magic trick sort of, "now you see it...now you don't.".

CO: Well if nothing else -- it's a pretty good party trick.

ST: Yes it would be. Someone told me there's a band -- a rock band -- called Transient Anus.

CO: [Laughs] Mr. Tamm it's really fascinating talking to you. Thanks so much.

ST: Thank you for inviting me.

JD: Sidney Tamm is a researcher at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. We reached him in Falmouth. We have more on that story on the As It Happens website: cbc.ca/aih.

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Environmental Law

JD: In a bold step forward for environmental law, Florida is considering a bill that would ban plastic straws in all municipalities across the state. One environmental activist happily commented quote, "The legislature has really tied the hands of local governments and given them no way to protect their local environment from the hazards of single-use plastic." That does not sound happy at all. Just a sec...oh I see. Yes. My apologies. Let me start this over. In a bold step backward for environmental law, Florida is considering a bill that would ban bans on plastic straws in all municipalities across the state. Yes -- that makes more sense now. Which is to say no it doesn't. It makes no sense at all. Nor do the words of Republican state senator Travis Hutson -- who is the sponsor of this bill. Mr. Hutson said quote, "I think we should do a study to see what the actual effect on the environment is with the use of these plastic straws." I forgot to mention that -- yes -- the bill would ban Florida municipalities from banning straws, and yes it would also ban Floridian municipalities from banning sunscreen. But as Mr. Hutson mentioned it would also mandate a study which would try to solve the complex mystery of whether millions of tiny plastic tubes that do not biodegrade, and sunscreen containing chemicals known to damage coral -- whether those things are indeed bad for the environment. I'm sure environmentalists in Florida are hoping the bill will not pass. I am afraid however that they are doing the same thing they've been doing on state beaches for years, grasping at straws.

[Music]

Part 2: Man angry his photo was used to prove all hipsters look alike — then learns it wasn't him

Canola fight

Guest: Charles Burton

JD: It is a crop with little oil-rich seeds, which gives us fields of bright yellow flowers -- and 2.5 billion dollars worth of exports. Canola -- it is one of the most important crops grown in Western Canada. And now, it seems that that industry is caught up in the ongoing political dispute between Canada and China. Earlier this week Chinese authorities revoked the canola export licence of Richardson International. Which happens to be Canada's largest canola exporter. And not only does this leave Richardson and its producers in the lurch -- industry heads and political experts say, the industry as a whole will suffer collateral damage. Charles Burton is a senior fellow at the McDonald Laurier Institute, and a former Canadian diplomat to China. We reached him in St. Catharines, Ontario.

CO: Professor Burton is there any question in your mind that this move by China is retaliation?

CHARLES BURTON: No I don't think there's any question in my mind about that. The timing of it was that Richardson initially received notification from the Chinese government that there were problems with our canola in December after Meng Wazhou -- the CFO of Huawei -- was detained at the Vancouver airport. And this is really reviving something that the Chinese have been holding over our heads for some years. Initially we were supposed to see a complete block of our canola imports into China at the end of 2017 -- and the Prime Minister negotiated an extension till 2020. Apparently that's off. So Richardson is one major company that does this work -- but I think that probably Viterra, and Cargo which are the other companies, will have the same problem.

CO: But you mentioned that this does go back a few years -- and that the Chinese government had said there were problems with Canadian canola -- fungus in it -- and they're saying again that there's some infestation in it. So is there absolutely no evidence of that? Has that all been cleared and found to not be true?

CB: Yes -- I mean you know we've inspected the canola carefully. Some of the materials that the Chinese suggest are in the canola are weed seeds, which don't exist in Western Canada. So you know we have some severe doubts about the credibility of what they're saying. I think initially there was concern that there was too much Canadian canola on the Chinese market -- and Chinese canola producers were suffering as a result. So it seems to be a combination of politics and domestic issues and trade -- and maybe the fact that our Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland grew up on a canola farm -- seemed to be a lot of things going on there. But it's pretty nasty stuff and very unfair to Saskatchewan and Manitoba producers.

CO: Break it down: if you think it is politics -- how much of this is tied to Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who is in this extradition process in Canada?

CB: Well I think a 100 percent of it is due to Meng Wanzhou in the sense that we did have an extension until 2020 to continue the discussion. Discussion really just consisting of us saying, no there's no problem with the canola -- and the Chinese coming up with these spurious nontariff barriers and claims of as you say bacteria pests and weed seeds in our shipment. So you know that's been an ongoing thing. I think the fact that they're doing it now is because the Chinese government still believes that somehow or rather that our Prime Minister can intervene in the extradition hearing which has already gone into a judicial process and that Ms. Meng will be returned to Beijing. So it's really a tragedy of China's own making because there's not going to be any return of Ms. Meng until the extradition hearing process completes. And at that time the justice minister of the day will have some discretion as to whether we follow through and send her to the United States. But as the judge who ruled on her bail hearing said, these kind of cases can go on for as long as a decade -- and so it won't likely be Mr. Lametti that will be making that decision -- but whoever is the justice minister of the government of possibly as long as 10 years hence.

CO: We're already looking at the political fallout from the Meng Wanzhou arrest. We're seeing two Canadians who are now possibly facing charges of spying that could lead to death penalty. Another Canadian is now facing the death penalty in China. There's been no effort to hide the connection because the state run media has actually drawn those connections. What now are the implications for Richardson and the canola farmers?

CB: It's not looking at all good. I think that Canada really has to change the channel on how we address China. And we have to start doing some retaliation for these you know horrendous outrageous – the possibility of three Canadian citizens being sentenced to death. Two of them you know almost certainly not guilty of espionage by any sort of acceptable international definition is just completely beyond the pale. And so I think it's time for Canada to start tightening up on China and that would include inspecting Chinese shipments of you know shipping containers and mail. Because the Chinese refuse to restrict the export of fentanyl to Canada. And I think we have to start looking at people associated at the senior levels of the Chinese regime who are doing money laundering of their ill-gotten gains through our casinos and through real estate. You know there are things that we could be doing and we haven't been doing them and I think it's time to start doing them to try and see if we can break through this logjam, get those two men back to safety in Canada, and get Mr. Schellenberger a reasonable sentence for his alleged offences of attempting to export Chinese drugs to Australia.

CO: And get our canola to China.

CB: I think certainly it's ridiculous that the Chinese government would apply that kind of sanction -- but it's not as if we haven't seen this before with them. Most recently with Australian coal when Australia decided that the Huawei company would not be installing their telecommunications 5G network. And we've seen sanctions against Scandinavian countries over other matters relating to the Nobel Prize. So you know this is standard Chinese operating procedure to declare spurious grounds for refusing a key export commodity to exert political pressure so that they can achieve other aspects of their regime interests in Western countries. But I think that Canada has to look beyond the idea of appeasing the Chinese regime in the hope of gaining economic benefits through trade and investment and uniting with our allies to try and see if we can convince the Chinese government that compliance with a rules-based international order will be much better for their overall interests and their current method of engaging in this kind of really quite sleazy and horrendous pressure techniques to leverage economically and politically their purposes.

CO: China buys 40 percent of Canada's canola. So what's the fallout? What are the implications for it stopping the shipments?

CB: Well I mean there are different things about it. For one thing, Chinese farmers may be obliged to seek alternative sources of animal feed. But most likely China will simply source their canola from somewhere else -- and Canada will then have markets in other places where the canola isn't currently going. But you know there's no question that there's going to be serious disruption to our canola exports. And I think prairie farmers will really have to rethink what they're going to be planting in the spring because of this uncertainty.

CO: Professor Burton we will leave it there. And thank you for joining us.

CB: Good to speak with you.

JD: Charles Burton is a senior fellow at the McDonald Laurier Institute, and a former Canadian diplomat to China. We reached him in St. Catharines Ontario.

[Music]

Alessandro Strumia

JD: He said men are better than women at physics. And now, the research organization CERN says it will no longer be working with that particular man. That particular man being Italian scientist Alessandro Strumia. Last October during a seminar about gender issues in physics, Professor Strumia claimed that physics was quote, "invented and built by men, it's not by invitation." Today CERN strongly disagreed -- and announced that after an investigation Mr. Strumia will not be invited back as a guest professor. After that seminar in October of 2018, Carol spoke with Jess Wade -- a physicist from Imperial College London who was in the room. From our archives, here as part of that conversation.

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JW: That presentation had obviously had a lot of time taken over it and he had done a big analysis of lots of publications and looked at the track record of men and women comparing their kind of time throughout their career and showing that at the beginning of a woman’s career and a man's career they have some number of citations for different publications and then afterwards this deviated hugely and men had more citations. And there’s actually a huge number of problems in the whole way of academic publishing at the moment. There's a bias against women and also against non-western people in the first very early stages of peer review. And then after that there's bias in who you cite. And you basically, when you're writing out a scientific paper, you cite or you reference the people that you know, the people that you're familiar with, the people that you see at conferences. And more often than not with men that's men and they cite men more often, they actually also cite themselves way more often than they cite women. So actually all of these little sneaky biases that are creeping in to make that data not right and not fair to be able to use as a metric to evaluate ability.

CO: And he said this is not just about his opinion or his bias, that this was he was proving this with his research. He said that ‘Physics is not sexist against women. However, the truth does matter because it is part of a political battle coming from outside. What was he referring to there?’

JW: What he was saying — and I think this is actually the most offensive part when you think about it — was he was saying that women had only succeeded in physics or been put in the positions that they are due to tokenism. So someone somewhere, the left, the liberals, whatever he wants to call them, had said you know ‘We need more diversity. Let's just put some women in here even if they're not as capable.’ And that's ultimately what his message was, and in one of his slides even compared himself to another successful woman who'd been given a position over him and compared all of his metrics to her.

CO: This organization, CERN, this is the world's largest centre for scientific research — based in Switzerland. And how did, first of all, how did this professor end up giving this presentation didn't anyone know he was going to do it? And what have they done about it since?

JW: CERN is a phenomenal institution and it's a huge, huge collaborative project between so many different countries all over the world. And I think he had proposed a different abstract, he had written out a proposal that he would present some analysis of women's representation in academic publishing. And people thought ‘Okay, well we should let this one go. Obviously we should let a man present. Obviously this is an equal world.’ And he went and did a presentation which was completely not what he had prepared or not what he'd proposed to do.

JD: From our archives that was Jess Wade, a physicist from Imperial College London, speaking with Carol last October. Today the research organization CERN cut ties with the Italian scientist Alessandro Strumia.

Hipster effect study

Guest: Gideon Lichfield

JD: The article was called "The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same." And it appeared last month in the MIT Technology Review, a science and tech publication that's been around for 120 years. So far, so ordinary, right? And yet the story raised the hackles of one reader who recognized himself as the hipster photographed in the article. He was upset that his image was chosen to illustrate hipsterdom. And so he fired off an angry email to the editors. Gideon Lichfield is the MIT Tech Review's editor-in-chief. We reached him in Boston.

CO: Gideon first of all just tell us -- what was this study and the article about hipsters -- what was the gist of it?

GIDEON LICHFIELD: Well the gist of it -- it was a mathematical model of why people who try to differ from the crowd end up conforming with one another. And so it took essentially a model that accounted for certain decisions that people make, and made the prediction that people will start out looking different but we'll end up conforming to others in the same nonconformist group.

CO: And you had a mathematical formula that could show that?

GL: Yes. It was a mathematical simulation.

CO: And you had a photo of a man with this article, right? What does he look like?

GL: A fairly generic 20 something -- early 30 something -- white man with a beard and a beanie and a lumberjack shirt.

CO: And it is not of somebody that you know -- it just was a picture.

GL: Yeah. It was a stock photo that we got from an agency from Getty Images.

CO: Why did you get an email from someone -- an angry reader -- who threatened to sue you because of that photo?

GL: Well so he saw the article, he saw the photo, he thought the photo was of him. And he -- I guess -- maybe has something against hipsters or against being called a hipster. But he didn't like it. He wrote some things that were very uncomplimentary about the article itself. He called that I think a tired outdated piece of dubious research or something.

CO: I think a trope -- a tired cultural trope.

GL: [Laughs] That's right. And dismissed the research. And then said that we were using the picture of him without his permission, and in a slanderous way, and that he was pursuing legal action.

CO: So what questions did that raise for you when you got that letter?

GL: I mean of course the first moment I see something like that my question is, well did we do anything we shouldn't have? So I looked at what his accusation was and I said he seems to be accusing us of implying that he's a hipster. I'm pretty sure that can't be prosecuted for slander. But then my second thought was you know I'm sure that we used this photo in accordance with a license and we got it from a reputable agency so there shouldn't be a problem with using it even if the person in the picture doesn't like the implication. So I forwarded the email to our art department and I said you know I presume this was done with the right license. And their response was yes we have the right license. But you know we can take that picture down anyway if he's annoyed. But our creative director said no -- this was an image that we used with permission and perfectly in accordance with our rights. We shouldn't take it down just because somebody doesn't like it.

CO: How did it get resolved?

GL: So in the end our creative director Eric Mongeon wrote to Getty Images -- the agency -- and said look we have an angry reader who doesn't like the way we used his photo. Could you check that he signed a model release and the license is all in order? They have a team that deals with legal complaints. And they went into their archive and checked the details. And they came back to us and they said, actually the model in this photo does not have the same name as the person who wrote to you.

CO: What?

GL: We had looked at his Facebook page because we knew the guy who had written at us. We had looked at his Facebook page -- certainly on his page he looks reasonably like the guy in the picture, but it's not totally clear cut that it's him, but it could be him. What Getty found was -- you know they dug up a whole bunch of other pictures of the same model that they have in archive and found it's not actually the same guy. And then they wrote to him and sent him those pictures and said we don't think this is you. And he replied, oh I guess you're right. It's not .

CO: Now do you know want to read his response. Or should I?

GL: Why don't you.

CO: Okay. [Reading] Wow. I stand corrected I guess. And multiple family members and a childhood friend who is an attorney who pointed it out to me thought it was a mildly photo shopped picture of me. I even had a very similar hat and shirt -- though in full colour I can see it's not the same. Thank you for getting back to me and resolving the issue.

GL: Yes.

CO: No apology though.

GL: No apology. But you know I'm happy that that's resolved.

CO: This is not a grainy distant tiny picture. This is a very very clear up-close image of a man with very distinctive features. How could you look at this and think it's you -- and it's not you. I mean does that puzzle you?

GL: I mean you know the picture is in profile. He's wearing a hat so it covers his hair. So you can't see what hair he has. And you know as a no longer in his 30s white man with a beard, I know that a lot of white men in their 30s with beards look kind of similar. So I guess it doesn't surprise me that much.

CO: I mean you and I might see this picture and say oh this looks like this other guy I've seen on Facebook or whatever. But if it's you -- I mean that's the different thing here. Wouldn't you know what you look like?

GL: You would think. You would think. I suppose you know the way we use the image -- we would change the colouring, so it's not natural colours. It's tinted. I could imagine that someone might just have looked at it and thought it was him. So I mean it's a remarkable coincidence that he and several other people looked at the image and none of them realized that it wasn't him.

CO: If this was your sort of iconic image of a hipster and somebody who is angry at the idea of being accused of being hipster, says it's not him. What does this say about hipsters?

GL: Well I think it says what the study says which is that hipsters all look alike.

CO: But even hipsters can't identify themselves. They look so much alike.

GL: So it's you know unexpected empirical verification with a mathematical model. I don't think we've spoken to the researcher to find out what he thinks but it's certainly something striking.

CO: Gideon it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

GL: Thank you very much.

JD: Gideon Lichfield is the editor-in-chief for the MIT Technology Review. We reached him in Boston.

[Music]

Music Maker

JD: The 32-year-old rapper and producer Add-2 doesn't always expect his elders to like his music. But when a 72-year-old man visited his studio recently, he didn't tell Add-2 to turn off the racket. He played him some of the racket he had made himself. A few years ago that 72-year-old -- Arthur Dubois -- discovered trap, a subgenre of hip-hop. He told BuzzFeed News, "They didn't have it in my day." But he liked the sound, and so he taught himself how to make it. And this week Mr. Dubois got up the nerve to take some of his beats to Haven Studios, near his Chicago home, and play them for professionals -- including Add-2.

SOUNDCLIP

ADD-2: My brother introduce yourself man and tell me what you do man.

ARTHUR DUBOIS: Arthur Dubois -- making beats.

ADD-2: And how old are you sir?

ARTHUR DUBOIS: 72 years old.

ADD-2: My man came here today and he was looking for a studio. I told him this is a studio for the youth, but he told me he was young at heart. And he came in playing his music. And I had to play it for somebody because man this is insane. Let me get this thing going.

[Music plays]

ADD-2: How long you've been producing for?

ARTHUR DUBOIS: About six years -- learning six years.

ADD-2: Learning six years. And just been going at it. You say you work on Pro Tools and Mixcraft.

ARTHUR DUBOIS: Yup.

JD: That's Andre Daniels -- Add-2 -- listening to a beat by Arthur Dubois. The 72-year-old has been teaching himself how to make trap for the last six years.

[Music]

Part 3: Before Google banned political ads in Canada, it did it in Washington. Here's what happened

Taverner: O.P.P.

Guest: Andrea Horwath

JD: While the Prime Minister's struggle with the SNC-Lavalin scandal is getting most of the headlines -- there is another Canadian politician trying to fend off allegations of improper political interference. And that would be Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Mr. Ford has been under attack for months for allegedly trying to get his friend Ron Taverner, a Toronto police officer, hired as the head of the Ontario Provincial Police. Even though Mr. Taverner technically did not meet the original requirements for that top job. Now Mr. Taverner has withdrawn his application. But another former OPP deputy commissioner is threatening a wrongful dismissal suit against Mr Ford. Brad Blair says he was fired by the Conservative government after speaking out against Ron Taverner's appointment as commissioner. Mr. Blair has also already filed suit about the hiring process. Here's part of an exchange between NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Premier Doug Ford today in the Ontario legislature.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDREA HORWATH: The people of Ontario have a right to know how a friend of the premier became the front runner for the top job when he didn't even qualify for the initial posting. And they want to know why a veteran officer with over three decades on the force lost his job about speaking out about his concerns. A public inquiry will get the answers that Ontarians deserve. Will the premier stop hiding and call one right now?

DOUG FORD: Mr. Speaker it's unfortunate the opposition has chosen to politicise this process rather than focusing on and supporting the frontline officers. All they try to do is get cheap political points on the backs of frontline officers, on the backs of Ron Taverner. But we shouldn't be surprised. We shouldn't be surprised -- they have never ever supported our police. They have never supported our frontline men and women.

JD: That was Ontario Premier Doug Ford and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath in the Ontario legislature today. And we reached Andrea Horwath in Toronto.

CO: Ms. Horwath we just heard Doug Ford accusing you of being the one to politicize the hiring of the Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner -- so how do you respond?

ANDREA HORWATH: Well I mean it's nonsense obviously. The premier certainly feeling the heat which is why Mr. Taverner -- his friend -- actually withdrew from the competition just last night because it's clear that the premier has interfered with this process. It's clear that his political meddling in this situation has created a great degree of angst and anxiety in our province because of course you should never have a premier hand picking the commissioner for the Ontario Provincial Police force.

CO: Okay but he's saying you're the one who's politicizing it and he went further. We didn't play that part of the clip. But he said that you are the leader of the police hating party.

AH: Well I mean it's absolutely ridiculous. And you can just hear by the way that the premier is speaking -- I mean this is what he does. He name calls. He you know behaves in a very unprofessional manner frankly. What we're doing is standing up for the public interest. Look if it was a couple of years back and we were talking about Dalton McGuinty and having his best friend as head of the OPP -- people wouldn't really have the confidence in the investigations that went on around the gas plant. It was the OPP that broke the gas plant scandal in terms of doing all of the work that needed to be done to lay the charges that got laid. There has to be independence.

CO: You referred to the gas plant (scandal) this is the multibillion dollar affair that ended with a serious investigation. In fact people were charged and convicted connected to that. So just for listeners outside of Ontario what is the overriding problem with what is happening with the selection of a chief of the -- well -- one of the biggest police forces in North America?

AH: Exactly -- that is the issue. It is one of the biggest police forces -- and it needs to be headed up by someone whose reputation and experience and qualifications for the job are unassailable. And in fact there was a person who was lining up to likely take that position -- someone named Brad Blair. And unfortunately in this process he's been sidelined. The qualifications were changed so that Mr. Ford's very close family friend, Ron Tavener, was able to then slide into the position -- the premier saying that Ron Taberner was going to be the commissioner no matter what. It was his decision to make. But it's not his decision to make. Ontario Provincial Police force needs to have a completely independent leadership -- that is not where we would have ended up with Mr. Taverner at the helm. Thankfully he did the right thing yesterday and removed himself from the competition.

CO: Okay. That's one of the developments. But then just because Ron Taverner is such a close family friend of Premier Ford does that necessarily mean he wasn't the best person for the job? I mean he has 50 years of service -- the argument that he would provide fresh leadership for the OPP. How can you be so confident that he wasn't the right guy?

AH: If he was the right person they wouldn't have had to water down the qualifications in order for him to be able to apply. I mean that's first and foremost. Mr. Taverner was at a much lower rank and has never had that kind of level of responsibility that is expected of an OPP commissioner. You know we have had a pretty sordid history here in Ontario when it comes to premiers that interfere with policing in terms of a horrifying event that took place a number of years ago with literally the shooting of a First Nations person at a park because the premier picked up the phone and told the police what to do. That was somebody named Dudley George. And that was a place called Ipperwash. And that should never have happened. And that is why especially here in Ontario, we are very very adamant that our premier's office should not be in any way connected with the operations of the police.

CO: Among the many plot twists of these past days -- Brad Blair who was the deputy commissioner, who had the job, and he has been fired, and he's filed a lawsuit about the process. But he is also accused of having leaked documents of exposing the OPP to outside scrutiny by revealing things that he never should have revealed. So was he really a person who should have done that?

AH: Well in fact you're correct in so far he is you know in the process of a court hearing in terms of his firing. But one of the things he was doing is in fact -- he was giving away Doug Ford's secrets. Not the police's secrets. Doug Ford's secrets about the fact that he had asked the police to put together an off-the-books meaning paid for by taxpayers but not disclosed that it's paid for by taxpayers -- personal van that was going to be souped up with a blu-ray player and a reclining leather couch and you know all kinds of bells and whistles. A bar fridge. All of these things. These are Doug Ford's secrets. These are not the OPPs secrets. These are Doug Ford's secrets. And with a vengeance as always Doug Ford has put the hammer down on somebody who has the courage to cross him.

CO: What guarantee do you have that we don't just end up in another process where he will choose who is the OPP head?

AH: Oh Carol that's such a great question. And that's one of the reasons why notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Taverner has finally withdrawn his name -- we still believe that a public inquiry is required. And with a public inquiry we will be able to get not only to the bottom of these things, but we will be able to get some recommendations that will make sure that not this premier or any premier in the future will be able to abuse its power in that way.

CO: Ms. Horwath we'll leave it there. Thank you so much.

AH: My pleasure Carol thank you.

JD: Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was in Toronto.

[Music]

Blaine Alan Gibson

JD: Tomorrow marks five years since Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 went missing. 239 passengers and crew were on that flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. They are presumed dead. When the most recent search ended last year, investigators were no closer to finding the plane -- let alone figuring out how or why MH370 disappeared. But because this is one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history -- theories are everywhere. One is that some sort of malfunction occurred -- possibly a fire -- that led the aircraft to depressurize, knocking out everyone on board including the pilot. Another is that the captain deliberately crashed the plane -- depressurizing the cabin and knocking the passengers and crew out beforehand. The pilot's family strongly denies this. Investigators are fairly sure that MH370 is in the Indian Ocean. And parts of the aircraft have washed up on East African beaches. Blaine Alan Gibson found one of those pieces of debris, thought to be from MH370. Mr. Gibson is not a professional investigator, but he is enthralled by the mystery and intent on solving it. From our archives, this is part of Blaine Alan Gibson's conversation with Carol in 2016 just after he made his discovery off the coast of Mozambique.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Mr. Gibson can you describe what you found this week off the coast of Mozambique?

BLAINE ALAN GIBSON: Yes. I took a boat with Junior -- the owner of the [inaudible] company and his captain out to a sandbank. When we arrived we were walking around and then suddenly Junior holds up this triangular shaped piece and calls me over. I see that it is a very light grey and has "no step" written on it which is typical on aircraft -- that it is a sort of fibre glass composite outside with this aluminum honeycomb inside. And it struck me that this is part of an airplane.

CO: The part of an airplane -- "no step" is a clue. But what led you to believe or even think it might be part of Malaysian Flight 370?

BLAINE ALAN GIBSON: I went to Australia and I met Dr. Charitha Pattiaratchi who's an oceanographer. And he said that given the way the currents and drift were that if the plane crashed in or around the search area he expected that debris would wash ashore over in La Reunion, as it did. Madagascar. Mozambique. And so that was the area that he thought things would be going.

JD: From 2016 that was Blaine Alan Gibson in conversation with Carol after he discovered a piece of debris thought to be from Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. The aircraft went missing five years ago tomorrow.

[Music]

Google ads

Guest: Chad Magendanz

JD: Canada has new rules for online political ads. Platforms must now track who buys those ads, where they run -- or they will face fines, or jail time. So that requires a certain amount of work. In fact, according to one company, too much work. Which is frankly a little surprising because the company is Google Canada. The tech giant says that these new requirements are just too tough to manage. So it is opting to ban political ads entirely in the lead up to this fall's federal election. The law kicks in on June 30th. But Google made the announcement this week. For former politician Chad Magendanz it is a familiar situation. His home state of Washington passed similar laws last summer. We reached Mr. Magendanz near Seattle, Washington.

CO: Mr. Magendanz how did Google react when your state passed these laws?

CHAD MAGENDANZ: Well it actually affected both Google and Facebook. And they had a political ad ban where they said they were accepting no political ads for the entire state. And I just accepted that as truth. You know especially when it happened in the summer. But then I started seeing more and more candidates successfully being able to advertise online. And I started to ask difficult questions. And eventually I got through to some folks at Google who apparently specialized in political ads and they were perfectly willing to accommodate.

CO: How do you account for that contradiction? And what did they tell you honestly?

CM: Honestly it seems to me that if you are in the know -- if you are an experienced media consultant, you knew how to exercise the loopholes and get in touch with the right people who would find an exception for your particular ad. And it took me about three weeks to get through that gauntlet. But when I finally got in touch with the right people they were perfectly willing to accommodate but unfortunately at that point I only had 11 days left in the campaign.

CO: How did this affect your own campaign then?

CM: Well I feel like there was an advantage to campaigns that were run with experienced media consultants. Basically there wasn't a level playing field. I was playing catch up. And the fact that I was able to get you know about 3000 dollars worth of ads passed in the last 11 days made up for some of it. But there were many campaigns who were running ads from the primary in August. And so that's a huge advantage. And what worries me is when you get a process where there's selective enforcement and these bands are you know basically only applied to folks who are just not as savvy, you don't get a level playing field. And that's really disrupting the legislative process or the democratic process.

CO: You ended up losing that race right?

CM: Yeah. 48.5 percent. Very frustrating.

CO: Can you actually prove that that was a deciding factor in your defeat?

CM: Well no -- that's the challenge. I mean there's many variables that could have factored in. And that's just one of them, but certainly a contributor.

CO: Now Google had banned ads on Google -- and why had it done that?

CM: Well the reporting requirements for Washington state are actually even a little bit more aggressive than the ones you just passed in Canada. In addition to having records of all political ads and partisan ads -- we also required the report of the target demographics and number of impressions. And so both Google and Facebook walked away from that saying we can't comply with those requirements, we're going to take a ball and go home. And it was very frustrating because you have a whole generation who prefers to engage via social media. I knocked on 30,000 doors in the past three years -- but I was so much more effective with my online ads. I was getting more post engagements -- about 5000 per video. And you really can't knock on that many doors. And most people prefer to engage online where they control the narratives -- it's on their terms, versus being called or canvassed in their neighbourhood.

CO: You support this effort on the part of your state, and I guess Canada is doing the same thing not as rigorously as Washington -- in order to have the agencies like Google record who is advertising and who they're targeting.

CM: Yes I do. I'm a big supporter of political transparency. And my concern was that you know with only 7 million people in the state of Washington we didn't exert much negotiating power there with the big social media companies. I'm hoping with Canada on board right now Facebook and Google won't be willing to walk away from that market.

CO: Now all that being said what you did encounter was that you still saw your opponent was using Google quite effectively then.

CM: I did. And anybody who is tied into the major players who knew how to play the game they had discovered the loopholes and they were engaging months before I was.

CO: And did it indicate that Google was complying with the new law in Washington state?

CM: Well that's interesting because you know their definition of a political ad has always been much broader than what actually applied to the states. For example you know Facebook and Google are now denying ads to PTAs -- parent teacher associations -- that are trying to send advocacy alerts to their members to go down to Olympia and testify for a particular bill. That's not covered at all in our legislation. And yet those ads are being denied. And so there's you know some question about you know how do you determine political ad content? Is there a consistent way to do that? And I know that that was one of Google's concerns is that they might not be able to effectively identify the ads so that they were complying. What I saw on the campaign trail I thought was pretty cut and dry -- these were clearly political ads, they were promoting a candidate, and yet they were still passing them.

CO: And so people -- they were buying these ads, right. There were ad reps for Google who are selling these ads to the people who are using them.

CM: Yeah once I got connected with the right group they were very encouraging. They wanted me to spend money. And I can't blame them. I mean most of these large corporations they make quite a bit of ad revenue and they would be leaping at the opportunity to collect that sort of revenue from political ad campaigns. It's just a question of whether they were capable of complying with reporting requirements.

CO: But they weren't. You don't have evidence that they were complying with those recording requirements.

CM: I don't. And based on their statements it was too difficult for them to comply with those. So I'm getting mixed messages from Google.

CO: Now part of the problem is perhaps there is a patchwork quilt of these different legislations, these different recording requirements being put on social media. If there was a more universal application o-- if there was a law that everyone was going by and said look Google you have to do this with every election campaign that you're part of. Do you think that that would make a difference?

CM: I think it would. And you see an example there with GDPR. When that got on the books -- and you know background: GDPR is the you know privacy legislation that was passed by the European Union. And once that was law -- all of a sudden everyone was finding ways to comply with it. And it's really about finding critical mass. If you can get California onboard for example -- I mean there are more people living in California than all of Canada right now. And you know poor Washington is sitting here at only 7 million. You know we really need to get that critical mass. If California were on board for example, I think you'd see just about everybody falling into compliance.

CO: All right we'll leave it there. Mr. Magendanz thank you.

CM: My pleasure Carol. Thanks.

JD: Chad Magendanz is a software developer, and former lawmaker in Washington state. We reached him near Seattle. And we have posted more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Charles McCarry

JD: In 2005 The Tears of Autumn was republished after being out of print for more than a decade. And at the time Brendan Bernhard of the LA Weekly wrote quote, "It is tempting to say that Charles McCarry's 'The Tears of Autumn' is the greatest espionage novel ever written by an American -- if only because it is hard to conceive of one that could possibly be better...its hero, Paul Christopher should by all rights be known the world over as the thinking man's James Bond -- and woman's too." The Tears of Autumn which was first published in 1974 imagines the assassination of JFK as a revenge conspiracy orchestrated by Vietnamese leaders in retaliation for the killing of a South Vietnamese president just weeks earlier. It was a best-seller. And the biggest seller for author Charles McCarry -- winning praise among critics for its authenticity and plausibility. Charles McCarry died last week in Fairfax, Virginia. He was 88-years-old. The credibility of The Tears of Autumn and Mr. McCarry's other novels -- ten of which feature Paul Christopher, a deep-cover agent for the CIA -- were fuelled by Mr. McCarry's own experiences as a spy. In 1976, he was a guest on CBC Radio's "Judy" -- hosted by Judy LaMarsh. He began by explaining what is exactly meant or what is meant exactly by "deep-cover."

SOUNDCLIP

CHARLES MCCARRY: It means simply that I wasn't in headquarters or in an embassy -- I was out in the field under-cover you know with an ordinary passport living an ordinary life. And had no PX privileges.

JUDY LAMARSH: You were a spy.

CHARLES MCCARRY: Yes.

JUDY LAMARSH: Gee! I have never sat in a room with a spy before.

CHARLES MCCARRY: Well you may have many times and not known it. That's the whole point of being a spy.

JUDY LAMARSH: What does a deep cover agent do Mr. McCarry?

CHARLES MCCARRY: Well I suppose it depends on what his mission is. One of the difficulties of talking about the life of espionage and one of the reasons I decided to write about it in my novels is that it's very difficult to explain to people who haven't done it what it's like. It's rather like sex in that regard. The other difficulty...

JUDY LAMARSH: All of us have some experience one way or the other with that. Not much with spying.

CHARLES MCCARRY: Yes exactly. But most of the information outsiders -- as they're called -- inside have about it has been furnished by other outsiders. That's certainly true of most of the people who write novels about it. (John) le Carre is an exception. Graham Greene is an exception.

JUDY LAMARSH: Ian Fleming.

CHARLES MCCARRY: And Ian Fleming was an exceptional. Although Fleming you know in a way pandered to that sort of romanticized-sentimentalized-sensationalized view of the life of espionage.

JUDY LAMARSH: I should think that if all the deep cover agents were gorgeous looking like James Bond with the kind of lifestyle he had you'd be able to spot him just by their lifestyle.

CHARLES MCCARRY: Well exactly. I think that Bond in real life probably would've lived for about 15 minutes. In fact he seems to have been based on a British agent who operated in the Middle East during the war and apparently was very brave and physically strong but practically brainless. le Carre writes about light cover agents. He writes about administrators and bureaucrats. No one so far as I know has written about deep cover agents as I have in The Tears of Autumn and my other novels.

JUDY LAMARSH: Well your new one that's come out in paperback The Tears of Autumn is the one in which you find an explanation for who it was that really killed Kennedy.

CHARLES MCCARRY: Yes. I hasten to say a fictional explanation which is a work of the imagination.

JUDY LAMARSH: But it's something that arises in Vietnam and it contains an indication of your experience both in that field and the depths of your experience as a deep cover agent.

CHARLES MCCARRY: Yes that's true. In fact it goes back in a sense to the days when I was in the CIA. The thesis of the book is and it was very difficult for people accept at the time that it was published in hardcover -- was that President Kennedy might in a sense have been responsible for his own assassination. If he set in train events which resulted in the murder of a foreign head of state Diem of South Vietnam.

JUDY LAMARSH: Well notwithstanding the fact that you've been a member of the CIA. And I would have to conclude from that you think it's a risky, stupid, and verboten kind of thing to do for your government to engage in that kind of extra territorial action.

CHARLES MCCARRY: I can give you a one word answer: Absolutely.

JD: From our archives that was author Charles McCarry speaking with Judy LaMarsh on CBC Radio in January of 1976. The author of The Tears of Autumn and other spy thrillers and nonfiction books, died a week ago Tuesday. He was 88 years old.

[Music]

Law Change

JD: Well they did it. They finally went ahead and did it. Because everyone else was going ahead and just doing it. Yesterday, the legislature in Utah voted to change a law --specifically Section 76-dash-7-dash-104 of the state criminal code which stipulates quote, "any unmarried person who shall voluntarily engage in sexual intercourse with another is guilty of fornication." Now for whatever reason the state has had trouble enforcing a law prohibiting unmarried people from having sex. And anecdotal evidence suggests that people violate it fairly constantly. And so on Wednesday the legislature voted to repeal that law. But the vote was close: 41 to 32. Meaning that 32 grown adults feel that sex outside marriage should still be a misdemeanor punishable by a thousand dollar fine or six months in jail. One of them is Republican state Rep. Kevin Stratton -- who is very disappointed in all of Utah's outlaws who are having sex. He said quote, "What is legally [right] is often far below what is morally right," he intoned softly -- adding quote, "I recognize that our laws are not strong enough to rule an immoral people." Well our condolences to Representative Stratton. But ultimately it was probably wise of his colleagues to get that law off the books so everyone else can legally get it on.

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March 7, 2019 Episode Transcript

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