The CIA's Canuck

By James Whyte

The CIA recruits the help of Canadian copper miners in the heart of Africa, a world of Cold War espionage, gun running, gold smuggling and warfare. In spite of danger from the happy smiling thieves and killers who staff the secret police force in Uganda in the 1960s, the young Canucks survive. They even find time to pursue the randy mature women in the Rwenzori Country Club, a centre of expat mischief and debauchery. Ultimately, true love triumphs. Above all, this story chronicles the destruction of the Kingdom of Buganda and the Asian community by corrupt politicians leading to the ascent of the mass-murderer, General Idi Amin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Whyte
• Release date: Aug 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773029764

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This book is dedicated to the memory of the admirable Dr. Henry Kagoda, Uganda’s Commissioner of Veterinary Services, killed by Idi Amin

Table of Contents

Magic

Arrival

King Mutesa Mine

Kumar Singh

Homer

Out and About

The Gujarati Social Club

The Katokas

Doctor Akena Okoda

Captain Apollo Okoda

The Rwenzori Country Club

Sherman Tank

Sparrownest Brass

Exit Plan

Kerfuffles

Shoestring Bob

El Presidente

Susannah’s

Culture Shock

Protection

Indira Elizabeth Patel

Vacation

Honesty

Courtship

Crisis

In From The Cold

Acknowledgement

Magic

To the best of my knowledge, I have never killed anyone. But for most of my adult life I was sure I had done so, not that it troubled me much once I found my mantra. There came the day when the past caught up with me. Is there truly such a thing as the present time? Is it truly possible to experience a day unshaped by your past and with no consequence for your future? Too often, what people call the present is simply that moment in time when the unrelenting past overwhelms our future.

So there I sat, fully enjoying the present time, especially that classic moment when the rabbit popped out of the hat accompanied by the crowd’s satisfying gasps. I felt ever so smug, well-fed and just nicely glowing in the after-effects of Johnnie Walker Blue. I was a recognized financial master of the mining industry being paid $4,000 an hour to smile in a beatific way on a covey of youngsters fresh out of college. They were being groomed by a respected Canadian bank to sell mutual funds to the innocent public. I had actually been required to speak for all of 45 minutes to these children during my five-hour paid stay at the bank. Yes, a $20,000 day plus helicopter and limo rides to and from my Muskoka chalet. Gosh, as a boy I should have gone into banking. The bank robber Willie Sutton was right when he explained to the judge, Because that’s where all the money is.

In my 45-minute chat I managed to gloss over most of their young eyes by speaking one simple truth after another. You know the stuff: how everything we consume is either grown or mined, that the world’s growing population needs more resources, Canada’s mining exploration firms benefit all of mankind, etc. I noticed the word mankind made two or three lovely young faces first grimace then tune out. Should I have said person-kind? What the hell, I didn’t care. I just pleasantly smiled and carried on spouting the reassuring platitudes at $4,000 an hour. Besides, it was becoming increasingly obvious to me that a couple of the young lovelies in the front row were not only paying attention but were trying to attract my attention. When you are in your late seventies, this is a completely innocent but, nevertheless, heart-warming delight.

I am, after all, a man of dubious importance, a mining stock promoter. My full name is Jean-Guy Adélhardt Blackburn. The simpler version, J.A. Blackburn, is irrevocably linked to the King Billy Mine in Northern Ireland and the myth that gold was first discovered there on July 12th, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. Every successful promotion needs a bit of blarney. The truth is that someone probably first took gold out of the site as far back as Roman times before the modern calendar was invented. But, who knows? Maybe that ancient date was the modern day equivalent of July 12th. The irrefutable fact is that my more than one hundred successful promotions resulted in three working mines. One of them, King Billy, was actually fabulously profitable for the shareholders. And the world keeps giving me credit for it in all my mining promotions.

Over a hundred successful promotions, you say, and just one profitable mine? To understand that, you have to grasp exactly what is meant by successful promotion. Bob Hoye of Institutional Advisors has a delightful explanation: A successful promotion starts when the public has the money and the promoter has the vision. And a successful promotion ends when the promoter has the money and the public has the vision. The King Billy mine was just another promotion in which a lapsed Roman Catholic from Canada successfully sold shares to heathen Northern Irish Protestants and bestowed on them the grand leprechaun vision. (I suddenly find myself wondering after all this time whether they have leprechauns in Northern Ireland, or are they restricted to the South?) But the heathens certainly acquired the vision and, to my surprise, the gold. I had, of course, routinely sold off my promoter’s allotment of shares in a sweet spot before the drill results came in. In that famous July 12th press release, a modest five hole 2500 metre drill program unbelievably found more than 90 grams per tonne over 700 metres with some lumps so pure you could scoop them out with a butter knife! I had to scramble to buy back the shares before the common shareholders realized the full significance. I was ever so happy to pay two to three times the price that I had recently sold them for. It still warms my heart to think that those shareholders actually made some money; it’s good for the industry.

The heart of my five-hour day at the bank was not, of course, the 45-minute talk to all the fresh young faces, many of whom could not conceal their boredom or stifle their yawns. If I had ever been a fresh-faced university graduate when I was their age, I probably would have behaved exactly the same way, full of myself and believing I knew everything when I didn’t know diddly-squat. It would have been so easy to feel superior to that old man standing before them who actually did believe in the important and proud role Canadians have played in mining all around the world. It would have been so easy to stop listening, start day-dreaming or, perhaps, jealously wonder why the young lovelies in the front row were actually paying him so much attention. It would have been so tempting to write off as evidence of dementia the moment he stopped talking in mid-sentence, suppressed a belly laugh, then carried on without explanation as though nothing had happened. They were too young to appreciate that moment was just another example of the old man’s increasing ability to step out of his body, observe what he was doing, then laugh at himself with great pleasure.

At the end of my talk, there were a pleasing number of kind questions, and I was happy to observe some of them probing me for inside information about mining shares. I, of course, tut-tutted and mouthed the appropriate sanctimonious words about security laws and why I had to keep my lips sealed. It is important to set an example for the young. Only one question was designed to embarrass me. One bright young spark who had actually done some research rose to ask, Isn’t it true that virtually all of the mining shares you have promoted through the years now have a market value of zero?

Yes, I cheerfully admitted and nodded in agreement in an exaggerated way. He stood there completely disconcerted by my admission.

Finally he babbled out, But isn’t that wrong, all those investors losing all that money?

No, I replied. It always turns out that most holes just aren’t worth drilling, but you only find that out after the money’s gone. It’s the nature of the beast, high risk, high reward.

But wouldn’t it be better to go the racetrack and place a hundred to one bet on a horse?

Only if you think at the end of the day, the horse racing industry is more valuable to mankind than the copper mining industry. That shut up the little prig, to the general approval of his sniggering classmates.

No, my talk was not the main event. The heart of my five-hour day turned out to be a two-hour lunch well away from the youngsters’ innocent ears. The bank’s board of directors wined and dined me, all capped by a freshly opened bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. The old rogues took delight in telling me how my kind was going the way of the dinosaurs. It seems the province was about to pass legislation preventing brokers from selling speculative mining shares to any client with less than a million dollars in equity in his account. The bankers had expensively lobbied and bought enough politicians to herd all the innocents away from the hundred to one shots and into the safe sanitized world of bank mutual funds paying the bank 2% or more every year no matter how well or poorly the funds performed. It seems the youngsters I had addressed were being trained as an expansion of their mutual fund marketing program in anticipation of the legislation. How the old rogues gloated. I found myself thinking that they had probably drafted the legislation themselves, and, before long, another retired politician or two would appear on related boards of directors. Then, of course, the old rogues turned to the real reason for inviting me and paying the outrageous $20,000.

When their director of personnel first contacted me to speak to the children in the name of professional development, (a legitimate expense on the bank’s corporate tax return I am sure), the idea had no appeal to me. But in business it is better to state a ridiculously high price rather than say no. This can be an especially effective and an occasional laughably lucrative ploy when dealing with governments. But surely money should have some meaning to a supposedly private sector institution such as a bank. I could tell from the director of personnel’s quavering voice when he phoned me back that he was even more surprised than I was that the bank was willing to pay so much. As it turned out, the real purpose was the two-hour lunch with the board of directors. They picked my brains for all the latest gossip from Bay Street and Howe Street. They were particularly astute in their probes about timing. With mining shares, timing is everything. It goes without saying they all had millions of dollars in their own brokerage accounts and they weren’t foolish enough to buy their own mutual funds. That bank’s shareholders should be proud of the depth of knowledge and the acumen displayed by their board of directors in acquiring $20,000 worth of information. And it didn’t cost the directors a cent.

After the lunch, I still owed them two hours of availability before the limo showed up to take me to the helicopter. So feeling wonderfully mellow and self-satisfied, I rejoined the youngsters in their round of professional development activities. We all went to a traditional magic show with sleight of hand, a genuine rabbit and prizes for finding the pea. It was delightful, and a wonderful exercise in misdirection. This was surely good training for future mutual fund representatives. (I learned you are not allowed to call them mutual fund salesmen anymore.) During the performance, one of the young lovelies took me aside and plundered my brain. I basked in her close attention, fluttering eyelashes and cute gasps. I must confess that I whispered into her very attractive ear some of the same information her board of directors had acquired concerning the King Zog Mine prospects in Albania. Johnnie Walker Blue has a lot to answer for.

After the magic show we somehow all ended up in a bar in the basement level of the office tower. My group of young lovelies clustered around a table with an old fellow about my age. His face had that lobster-red colour that comes from too much sun and gin. He wore a turtleneck shirt, cheap cardigan and corduroy pants. He seemed to keep glancing anxiously around, especially studying any newcomers walking into the bar. He seemed nervous, wary and out of place. Who let him in? I decided to ignore the man, and didn’t bother to seek an introduction. But the youngsters showed respect.

So what have you kids been up to? he asked.

Magic, Homer, magic, someone replied.

Homer?, I found myself thinking. Homer? I gave him a closer look only to see him give me a knowing look in return.

Do you believe in magic, Homer? someone else asked.

Magic? he replied, Do I believe in magic? Why, I’ve visited the juju man on the ‘tebbe Road. I’ve drunk the potion from the skull. I have the fetish in my pocket. Listen while I tell you a true magic story.

My knees almost gave way, and he grinned at my wobble, but no one else paid me any attention. It’s Homer, I thought, as the youngsters gathered around. Africa again, I thought, as my face burned. Bloody Africa! Happy, smiling thieves and killers, and they were the secret police!

This true magic story, he continued, took place in the post office in Rexdale, Ontario of all places, before many of your parents were even born. I had recently dropped out of school and started my first full-time adult job as a letter carrier. Now, it’s a little known and easily forgotten fact that the letter carriers spend about two hours in the morning sorting the mail for their routes before they go out on their deliveries. On this particular morning, the rest of us were just finishing our sorting when Alfie came in late. Poor Alfie, a drunk! He would go on to lose his job, his wife and house because of the booze. That morning, his hangover radiated gloom. He carried his large pile of mail up to his sorting desk and dumped it on the shelf in front of all the pigeon holes. As we stood around watching, none volunteering to help, Alfie closed his eyes and screwed up his face. He extended his arms and fluttered his hand over the unsorted pile, then abruptly raised his hands as he shouted out ‘Shazam!’ Wouldn’t you know, eh? When he opened his eyes, the mail remained in the unsorted pile. Not a single letter had flown to its proper hole. Do I believe in magic? I believe in Muskoka Cream Ale. Hey, who’s going to buy me one, eh? The youngsters all laughed and two of them raced toward the bar.

At that moment I became aware of someone from the personnel office trying to tell me that the limo was now waiting to take me to the helicopter. I thanked him and said there had been a change in plans, that I would find my own way home. I then settled back in an easy chair in the far corner of the bar to watch a phantom, a shadow, a furtive spy who had come in from the cold. As I nervously stroked the fetish in my own pocket, I waited for my chance to compare memories starting with the prophecies of the juju man on the road to Entebbe. After fifty wonderfully prosperous and happy years, my past had just caught up with me. I was looking at the one man still alive who could identify me as a killer.

Arrival

Once upon a time when the world was full of promise, there was happiness in Uganda. I was there to witness it. I first arrived at Entebbe Airport near Kampala in January, 1965, on an overnight flight from London in a BOAC VC10. Most of the other passengers managed to fall asleep during the journey on what proved to be a very quiet and comfortable aircraft with lots of legroom in the economy section for my six foot frame. But I was much too excited to sleep and spent the hours devouring Alan Moorehead’s book, The White Nile, a great read. So I already knew what a Kabaka of the Buganda was before I actually saw him at the airport, King Freddie, himself.

After a rather bumpy landing, our aircraft rolled toward the terminal, the same place where the famous Rescue at Entebbe of the Israeli hostages occurred in 1976. As we approached, I looked out the window for my first glimpse of Uganda only to see more black Mercedes Benz automobiles lined up along the tarmac than I have ever seen again in one spot. Now Uganda was supposed to be a very poor country at that time with a World Bank report stating the annual GDP per capita at an incredibly precise figure of something like US$138, if memory serves me correctly. I have no interest in digging into the archives to correct my memory, since the number, whatever the dollar amount, was pure nonsense. I have come to learn that anyone who uses GDP to measure how well off people are is either a charlatan or a fool and, of course, if he claims to be an economist, both. The fact is that most Ugandans managed to feed themselves, clothe themselves and house themselves through their own efforts in their own villages without any use of money. The monetary cash flows that went into the official GDP figures were a joke. All of the people were far better off than an income of US$138 a year indicates, especially the ones who owned the Mercedes. These privileged few, mostly politicians and their relatives, were becoming known in East Africa as the Wabenzi, literally the Mercedes owning tribe. They were the ones who were busy learning how to suck the economy dry.

The Wabenzi were driving up to the airport in their dozens, accompanied by a polished parade of troops, the Ugandan police band, at least a hundred folk dancers complete with spears and shields, and thousands of spectators. They were gathering to welcome the start of the state visit of Julius Nyerere, the President of Tanzania, whose plane arrived an hour after mine. I got to see the whole show since my East African Airways connection to Rwenzori wasn’t able to go anywhere until all the speeches, trooping and dancing had ended.

All the potentates assembled led by the Prime Minister of Uganda, Milton Obote, who was protected by armed paramilitary bodyguards whose grim faces and eyes kept sweeping the crowd through sunglasses. They reminded me of the Tonton Macoute thugs in Haiti backing Papa Doc Duvalier. Also there going walkabout was the smiling King Frederick Mutesa, the Kabaka (king) of Buganda, the largest and most populous part of the nation. No one seemed to be protecting him as he circulated close to the crowd. The Ganda as they were known, gave him a loud joyful welcome, unlike their subdued treatment of Obote. But the best welcome was for President Nyerere who descended from his aircraft to loud cheers that drowned out the music

The speeches by the two leaders were mostly in English and seemed directed at a handful of foreign journalists including an old-fashioned newsreel crew, but there were occasional long bursts of Swahili that were very popular with the crowd. Both presidents praised the glories of socialism and one of them uttered the French phrase, un gouvernement bénévole, as though talking directly to me. But everyone seemed to warmly catch the idea of a benevolent government providing a glorious future full of jobs, schools, hospitals and all the free lunches thanks to the wisdom of farsighted leadership. Nyerere boasted that his government was already drafting his country’s first Five Year Plan modelled after the successes of the Soviet Union, the country that was leading the world into outer space. An electric spark seemed to pass through the throng at the mention of the word Sputnik, and it received loud applause. It seems Sputnik is Sputnik even in Swahili and turned out to be a popular name to write on the side of the local taxis.

As I enjoyed listening to the speakers and watching the crowds, I became aware that others were watching me. A group of three men in particular were focused my way. I didn’t know their names at the time and incredibly never did properly learn the name of the one I would come to think of as the snake lieutenant, a tall, slim black fellow with heavily lidded eyes and a constant sardonic expression. As for the other two, I later came to know them too well when they blighted my life, Doctor Akena Okoda and his nephew, Captain Apollo Okoda. I assumed they were prosperous businessmen, father and son, wearing well-tailored business suits with an imperial lordly bearing. The snake lieutenant was in parade uniform with highly polished boots, a gleaming Sam Browne belt and a cap at a jaunty angle. A few words from Doctor Okoda sent him over to me, and he politely asked who I was. My passport was already in my hand, so I let him examine it; I explained my connection with King Mutesa Mine. He politely thanked me and reported to the others who took no further interest in my direction. I was much too innocent to know it at the time, but I had just had my first encounter with the secret police.

Speaking of innocence, I was totally unaware of how much I must have stood out in the crowd. There were dozens of other whites, all wearing business suits or summer dresses, standing in small clusters near the dignitaries but attracting no special attention. But it is only with reflection many years later that I realized that it wasn’t just the Ugandan dancers who were wearing folk costume. So was I. Yes, there I stood in my flannel shirt, braces, blue jeans and boots. The shirt, it goes without saying, was red plaid modelled after the pattern found on a bar of Mackintosh’s Toffee, a lightweight long lasting energy food that I recommend you include in your pack for any trek into the northern woods. Oh yes, I looked like the lumberjack in that notorious Monty Python skit. At least I didn’t still have my tuque on. I had packed it away in my luggage before leaving Heathrow.

Eventually the delegations drove away, the crowds cleared the runway, and an old DC3 pulled up for boarding. Filled with very warm thoughts about East Africa’s future, the friendly faces and enthusiasm of the crowd and the inspiring visions of Africa’s leaders, I smiled my way on board. As the plane became airborne, I still felt enthralled and inspired by the righteous zeal of President Nyerere. I can picture him to this day, his slim figure in a Mao tunic, castigating the evils of colonialism and capitalism and praising Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas about village industry. I felt the call to become his disciple, to follow in his footsteps and create a better future for all mankind. Nyerere was an inspirational giant among men. Yes, I was still very young. Friedrich Hayek, one of the few economists that I have acquired respect for, said that if you are not a socialist at age twenty, you have no heart. If you are still a socialist at age thirty, you have no brain. I was twenty-five.

As the East African Airways DC3 banked above the waters of Lake Victoria and vectored itself over land heading West, I gradually became aware of the panorama below. In a word, lush. Winston Churchill described Uganda as the Pearl of Africa. He picked the wrong gem. It should have been emerald, though perhaps the Irish even in his day had a lock on that shade. The old DC3 was already over 1000 metres above sea level when sitting on the runway at Entebbe, and it seemed to be constantly struggling to climb to the 1500 metre elevation of the town of Rwenzori. We were never far from the ground. The Uganda below the wings became a quilt of all the shades of green. There were large and small patches of what I learned later were tea, coffee, cotton, maize, sorghum and tall grasses with even larger areas of forest or jungle. Plumes of grey smoke rose from from the charcoal makers on the hillsides. There were a few scattered clearings with small villages of grass or bark covered huts, some with metal roofs. There were a few towns with a small commercial grid and dirt main street surrounded by an unplanned jumble of huts and shacks. The largest towns were on the rail line that the pilot seemed to be using for direction. We were flying West in the direction of the Rwenzoris, the best candidate for the fabled Mountains of