ZGram - 8/11/2004 - "CSIS mole Bristow is hauled to the fore"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - August 11, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I only know that Bristow was a CSIS agent who was activiated to do 
mischief to discredit the White race under Blais's watch sometime in 
the very early 1990s.  It was investigative reporter Bill Dunphy who 
outed Bristow and triggered a huge scandal, embarrassing for CSIS. 
Why would Bristow suddenly surface - and should he not now testify 
about what happened some ten years ago? 

This sudden development bears watching!  I cannot imagine why Grant 
Bristow, the mole that was in the employ of CSIS and hired to 
discredit the Canadian Heritage Front as a "racist" organization, is 
suddenly being flushed to the fore.  Is something bigger brewing in 
the background?  Is someone getting antsy about what's coming to the 
surface in the mismanaged Zundel Case with Judge Blais still 
presiding, embarrassing the legal profession by so blatantly doing 
the bidding of his handlers? 



[START]

CSIS mole ends silence, defends role inside racist Heritage Front

JIM BRONSKILL
Canadian Press

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

OTTAWA (CP) - Grant Bristow, who infiltrated the white supremacist 
movement as a paid informant for Canada's spy service, has broken his 
long silence, saying he took on the unsavoury task because it was 
"the right thing to do."

Bristow's comments mark the first time he has publicly discussed his
controversial role as an undercover operative for the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service since being exposed in the media 10 years ago. 
He tells his side of the spy saga in the September issue of The 
Walrus magazine, to be published Thursday.

The 46-year-old Bristow, who has long lived in relative quiet under a new
name, sat down with journalist Andrew Mitrovica in a drab Edmonton 
motel room to try to dispel his lingering public image as a 
hatemonger.

"Now is the time," he told Mitrovica, "that I can say, 'Not guilty."'

Bristow insists that far from being a racist, he was determined to 
make the world "a less hateful place."

His mother, Janet, had imbued the young Bristow with a devotion to civil
rights and a respect for all races, the article says. And the harrowing
recollections of a family friend who had survived the Holocaust left "an
indelible mark" on Bristow.

His relationship with CSIS began in 1986 when he was working as a 
private security consultant and a South African diplomat tried to 
persuade him to spy on Canadian anti-apartheid activists.

On the advice of a friend, he approached the intelligence agency.

"In the nomenclature of spies, Bristow had become an 'asset."' the 
article says.

His chance meeting with a member of the extreme right eventually led 
to Bristow's central role in Operation Governor, a CSIS investigation 
of the white supremacist movement.

The racist right had been invigorated by the April 1989 deportation to
Canada of white supremacist Wolfgang Droege, fresh from a U.S. prison
sentence for cocaine trafficking and weapon possession.

In October of that year, Droege set up The Heritage Front, a continental
network of racists.

Bristow lived a schizophrenic existence, working by day as an 
investigator for a shipping firm and spending evenings and weekends 
nurturing his ties to the racist right, the article says.

"I was keeping watch over violent hate groups," he said. "It was the right
thing to do."

The operation grew troubling when tensions erupted between the 
supremacists and anti-racist groups.

Bristow insists he faced an unenviable dilemma. As Droege's deputy, he
couldn't be seen to ignore provocations of the Heritage Front's 
enemies, the article says. At the same time, as a government-paid 
agent, he could not promote or countenance a violent response.

"I was walking a very thin tightrope," Bristow said.

His solution was to co-ordinate and take part in a campaign, with the
knowledge and approval of his CSIS handler, to harass key anti-racist
activists at home and work.

"I was trying to find a response that didn't include out-of-control,
escalating violence," he told the magazine. "If I was wrong in the actions
that I took, I must take responsibility for that."

Bristow's attempts to keep a lid on the violence fell apart in May 
1993 when police, anti-racist activists and about 60 Heritage Front 
members clashed in a wild melee in downtown Ottawa.

During Bristow's time inside the racist organization, information he
supplied to CSIS led to the arrest and deportation of some 
supremacists, the article says.

In early 1994, convinced the Heritage Front was imploding, Bristow 
planned to bow out of Operation Governor.

A short time later, his involvement was exposed by the Toronto Sun,
prompting the operative and his family to go underground.

A 1995 report by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the 
watchdog over CSIS, concluded Bristow (not identified by name in the 
report) played only a small role in the Heritage Front's development 
despite being part of its inner circle.

The review committee admonished Bristow for tactics that "tested the 
limits" of acceptable and appropriate behaviour, but ultimately found 
Canadians owed him a debt for doing valuable work.

At the time, Elisse Hategan, a prominent defector from the Heritage 
Front, slammed the report as a whitewash. She told a Commons 
committee the front would never have been so effective without 
Bristow's work.

Bristow now says it was all business, arguing he never suffered from 
what he calls "target love."

Following his exposure in the press, CSIS set Bristow and his family 
up in a new city. But the media soon found him.

The article says the stress and uncertainty of life in the aftermath of his
covert work led to the collapse of his marriage four years ago.

Bristow took the first step toward openly discussing his role last 
year in a speech to a private gathering of the Canadian Jewish 
Congress in Toronto.

His story was greeted with applause, muffled weeping and a standing 
ovation, the article says.

Irving Abella, a historian and former president of the congress, effusively
praised Bristow at the invitation-only gathering. "I think what was most
important about this evening was how heroic this man was."

Still, the article notes Bristow's long public silence has deepened the
mystery that surrounded his clandestine work for CSIS.

"To his foes, he is a Judas who betrayed loyal friends. To others, he
remains an unrepentant agent-provocateur on the public payroll," 
Mitrovica writes.

"Still others consider him a hero who risked his life for his beliefs, and
is now living with the consequences - a dissolved marriage, an uncertain
future, and an occasional brush with fear."

© Copyright 2004 The Canadian Press