British High Commission

and which will affect their families and the country by extension

well garth thank you it's great to have you with us today of course we first met when i had the pleasure of working in trinidad and tobago and the british high commission british embassy equivalent was active in that space but let's let's talk a little bit more about that part of your life you you served in the country's military you came out and you fell into addiction and the kind of chaotic world that goes with that can you say a little bit more about that part of your life

yes of course um but actually the the Abuse started in the military.

And as a young soldier, I had a lot of ambition and I was doing great.

So perhaps you could say a bit about the work that you've done in that time, including some of the work that you've done with the British government over the years.

Yes, it's a lot.

And I'm really grateful that our first breakthrough to being taken seriously was the first time we approached the British High Commission.

We read about the British High Commission, the Trinidad and Tobago's focus on regional security and drug demand reduction and all these things.

As night dragged on, the fight became a siege.

Craighead reached the roof, coordinated with the British High Commission to avoid friendly fire from a helicopter, and later worked with Kenyan elite units.

The ops room message was clear.

There are four terrorists on the seventh floor.

But they then gave me the option.

They said, oh, do you want to come to Cape Town and, you know, be presented or can we come to Maranatha? And it was an absolutely incredible thing because he came, the British High Commissioner, to our youth centre and all the children could be there and be part of that occasion.

of the medal handover so for them it was really them being part of royal occasion

and I

He then told me that they went into our own Department of External Affairs, that in the cipher room there was an agent of the Russians who had seen and knew all our ciphers.

The same was true at Earnscliff, the British High Commission.

In the cipher room there, the High Commissioner, the equivalent of ambassadors within the British Commonwealth, Malcolm MacDonald's dispatches were all seen, read, and known.

Just point out here that, as was common at the time, people in the West conflated the USSR with Russia.

You know, um, funny you mentioned all of that right i think back and now and something i i just said a lot sometimes i said that and i just said a word of prayer like lord thank you you know because in my wildest dream when where was i going to meet these people you know and don't get me wrong everybody's important you know it just some people are more blessed than others um and You know, having the pleasure of meeting former President Rawlings, may his soul rest in peace, and former President Kofo, former President Nana Kofo-Addo, and the current seating president, Mahama.

And King Charles, of course, and as well as, you know, the Deputy Ambassador, former Deputy Ambassador of the British Consulate, British High Commission, and then the High Commissioner at the time, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, you know, It's a blessing, right? I was very, very fortunate and very, very blessed.

But what I would say to the younger people, to everybody in general, right? You cannot just get up and to go and, you cannot just get up to go and meet somebody, yeah? You have to do something.

Do something that's worthwhile, that can have people, something positive.

I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with both of the authors of a book just out from the University of Toronto Press in twenty twenty-six titled P.S.

Burn After Reading: The Kellogg-Tachérou Commission and Soviet Espionage in Canada, which takes us into the middle of the twentieth century where we get to talk about spies, um, we get to talk about kind of what governments do about spies, governments plural here.

Yes, Canada, but some other actors are gonna get involved too, and really help us uncover what is going on in the very early days of the Cold War.

So clearly a lot for us to discuss, and of course, who better than both of the authors of the book.

Uh, it allows, uh, the state to, uh, require testimony on oath, require people to answer questions, require people to produce documents.

Uh, it's, it's quite a powerful investigative tool.

So, uh, while I was doing some work there, I noticed, uh, that the records of the Kellogg-Tachérou Commission had been released in the mid-80s.

But on two thousand and fourteen, they were put online.