The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Military officer driven to a breakdown
EDITOR’S NOTE:
A promising military career poisoned by lies, incompetence and baseless suspicions he was the dupe of a Russian spy. Tim Dunne’s story is a tale of military justice gone off the rails. Part 4 of 6.
The misguided military police investigation into his loyalty wasn’t Tim Dunne’s only problem after arriving in Halifax the summer of 1991.
Dunne, newly installed as regional director of military public affairs, soon had his hands full with an aggressively ambitious subordinate.
Dunne’s immediate boss, Cmdr. Doug Caie, the public affairs deputy director in Ottawa, tried to warn the major to watch his back. Dunne was unconcerned. He shook things up a bit at the office, putting an end to the popular but pricey annual holiday reception for senior military, media and local opinion leaders.
Dunne also volunteered for the Canadian Red Cross Society and Veith House, a community organization helping families in north-end Halifax.
One night in 1992, Dunne was watching the late news at home in Dartmouth when he saw a mother from Green’s Harbour, N.L., interviewed after learning her son — a peacekeeper in Sarajevo — had stepped on a landmine.
The woman, in tears, said the army wouldn’t tell her his condition.
Dunne immediately went to the office. He tracked the woman down, called and promised to learn her son’s condition.
“I cannot see someone in trouble without helping,” Dunne said in an interview years later.
He contacted the Sarajevo base. The soldier lost part of his foot but survived. Dunne relayed the news to his family. Their son was in the care of a Canadian military doctor, surrounded by buddies and in good spirits.
Next morning, Dunne connected the family with Sarajevo. His parents spoke to the doctor and commanding officer. Then the young man came on. “Everybody was in tears.” The parents had been kept in the dark because the military’s next of kin notification only allowed a single designated contact and their son named his European girlfriend. Dunne learned that form was later changed.
In July 1994, Dunne’s troublesome junior officer was transferred. His replacement was a refreshing change, he said.
The relief wouldn’t last long.
MPS WANT TO TALK
That October, Dunne heard local military police wanted to talk to him.
The major didn’t think anything of it. A frequent spokesman on military matters, Dunne often conferred with MPS.
He met with a military cop. “I went into an interview room. And that’s when he said, ‘OK, you’re being interviewed, we had complaints about you. This is being recorded. And so you need to sign this.’ It was a criminal caution.
“I was flabbergasted, because I had done nothing wrong. Now, all of a sudden, I’m the subject of a criminal investigation, for a second time.”
His junior officer had, before leaving, gone to military police and laid a slew of petty complaints against Dunne.
“I was devastated. I cannot describe how I felt.”
He called his wife. He was too upset to drive. Rosemary came and got him.
“This system is wrong,” Dunne told her.
“The wrong people are in charge. They’re doing the wrong things. And they’re causing people problems.”
As was his right, this time he refused to answer questions. He mistrusted the military police’s motives.
Dunne suspected this was payback for the first investigation.
Ray Riddell, the Halifax civilian lawyer Dunne hired at the time, agrees.
“When he was exonerated (in 1993), I think he showed that they had lied … and they got a bee in their bonnet,” Riddell, now retired and living in New Brunswick, said in a recent interview.
Dunne wanted to give Riddell background information from the prior investigation.
The major especially wanted to share the 1993 letter from the head of the security branch that had offered an apology to Dunne and criticized the military police.
LETTER HAD DISAPPEARED
But when Dunne checked his office files, the letter was gone. Someone had removed it.
Dunne has his suspicions about who took it, but said he can’t prove it. He’s never been able to get another copy.
In early November, the military police seized his only office computer.
Maj.-gen. Jean Boyle, associate assistant deputy minister of national defence (policy and communications) who would later be forced to resign over the Somalia affair, ruled Dunne could not travel or take leave without approval.
“This was humiliating to me,” Dunne said.
The shock affected his mental state.
Dunne would walk, for hours at a time, to relieve stress. He started running, long distances and commuting to work.
He’d always operated on little sleep. Now, growing insomnia stole from his nightly five hours.
Early in 1995, Dunne fought his way to the office through a snowstorm. He saw he had a voice message from the military police special investigation unit (SIU). Dunne lost it.
Later, he learned the message was unrelated.
But at that moment, he assumed the worst and had “an extreme reaction.”
He’d been severely depressed. But this was “a mental breakdown.”
His wife, deeply worried, immediately took him to the base hospital in Halifax.
There, a medical professional “talked me down,” Dunne said.
“I’ve had many, many bad days. But that was literally the worst.”
Leaving hospital, Dunne resolved to keep fighting.
He filed a freedom of information request for documents from the military police’s latest investigation.
BAD REPUTATION
The Canadian military’s reputation at this time was in tatters.
The Canadian Airborne Regiment had been sent to Somalia in December 1992 to assist Un-sanctioned humanitarian efforts after a civil war.
The Airborne, trained for high-octane fighting, was a poor fit for the job. In March 1993, Airborne members killed two Somalis after catching them in camp trying to steal food.
The government disbanded the regiment and ordered a public inquiry in early 1995, under Federal Court Judge Gilles Létourneau.
OFF TO EUROPE
Months passed. Dunne heard nothing. Then he learned he was going overseas.
The military made him senior public affairs officer for Canadian troops in Bosnia and Croatia, part of UN peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans. It wasn’t a plum assignment, Dunne said.
What about the investigation, he asked. Don’t worry, resolution was “imminent,” he was told.
In late summer 1995, the matter still unresolved, Dunne left for Croatia.
Meanwhile, controversy erupted back in Canada. Military documents about events in Somalia had been altered and destroyed, journalists learned in September.
When Dunne finished his tour in December, NATO replaced the UN in the Balkans. The major signed on to a second deployment, this time as deputy commander for NATO’S press information centre in Bosnia.
In Canada, the Somalia scandal kept deepening.
By spring 1996, the military’s public affairs branch was at the centre of an alleged coverup.
Two of Dunne’s former bosses were in trouble. Col. Geoff Haswell, director of public affairs operations, faced a court martial. His deputy, Cdr. Caie, also was under investigation.
(Haswell and Caie left the military shortly afterwards. In early 1997, Haswell was acquitted at his court martial. Caie was found guilty.)
BACK IN HALIFAX
Dunne returned to Halifax in July 1996. His old job was gone. He became senior public affairs officer for the army in the region (Land Force Atlantic).
At home, there was a package — documents associated with the military police’s second investigation, from his access to information request.
They showed the military police had spent eight months investigating petty allegations like whether he had allowed a civilian to use his office’s fax machine, how $55 for an office microwave had been expensed and whether a business trip to Newfoundland had been timed so Dunne could attend his brother’s wedding afterward.
The investigation concluded in March 1995 without recommending charges, but more than a year later, the file remained with his chain of command, still open.
Among the documents was a March 1995 letter from Dunne’s then-immediate boss, Cmdr. Caie, to director general of public affairs Ruth Cardinal.
“This entire episode is the result of a disgruntled junior officer who took it upon himself to get even with his boss for what he considered unfair treatment,” Caie wrote.
Caie urged the matter be settled. Dunne, he wrote, had “suffered a tremendous amount of strain over the past 10 months and I am concerned for his health.”
But Cardinal’s review the following month ignored Caie’s assessment and, although acknowledging many accusations had been refuted, said Dunne showed poor judgment. She recommended he receive a reproof, and said Caie concurred.
That was the first Dunne had heard of a reproof. He would have fought it. Cardinal had never talked to him. But nothing came of it.
More months passed. In fall 1996, a new acting director general of public affairs, Col. Ronald C. Coleman, took over.
Dunne’s lawyer, Ray Riddell, wrote to the colonel.
‘TREATED LIKE A CRIMINAL’
Riddell blasted the military police’s handling of the investigation, including saying they threatened witnesses. Dunne was getting counselling to deal with the stress, he said.
“Major Dunne is not a criminal,” Riddell wrote. “He has been treated like a criminal by the Military Police and his superiors based on the unjustified complaints of a disgruntled employee.”
In late December 1996, Coleman found there was insufficient evidence for charges, no criminal intent and most allegations had been refuted.
The matter did not warrant a reproof, he wrote.
Coleman thought Somalia likely distracted Dunne’s superiors. He called it “extremely regrettable” the matter had taken 29 months to conclude.
With the military police’s latest investigation concluded in December 1996, Dunne decided to counterattack.
That month, Dunne filed a formal redress of grievance. That’s a military process for members to challenge perceived injustices.
“I wanted any vestige of doubt about my integrity to be erased,” Dunne said.
What was Dunne after?
A FIGHT FOR COMPENSATION
A long list, including legal fees, compensation for pain and suffering, written apologies, letters exonerating him sent to all those he worked with whom military police interviewed, an investigation into the actions and motivations of his accuser and the military police.
Dunne didn’t expect to get all of that. But he hoped to highlight problems with military justice.
Initial reaction to Dunne’s grievance from his chain of command was mixed.
The military police’s performance was stoutly defended.
The problem, they said, had been the failure of Dunne’s immediate bosses — preoccupied with their own Somaliarelated problems — to monitor and settle the matter.
That was why Dunne had been left dangling for over 20 months, they said.
At first, there seemed to be openness to refunding Dunne’s legal fees, possibly even to compensation for pain and suffering, apologies and letters of explanation.
But by September 1997, compensation for pain and suffering was off the table. The commander of Land Force Atlantic, Brig.-gen. H.C. Ross, agreed Dunne deserved reimbursement of legal fees and apologies. (Dunne had dropped his request for letters of explanation. He later did the same with apologies).
The file was kicked further upstairs.
The following year, national headquarters rejected almost all Dunne’s demands.
Lt.-gen. W.C. Leach, chief of land staff, wrote to Dunne in October 1998 and ruled out reimbursement of his legal fees and other compensation.
Although he had “unanswered questions” about the motives of Dunne’s subordinate, too much time had passed for an investigation. The general also said his accuser’s alleged interception of Dunne’s private mail would be referred to civil authorities since the military’s three-year statute of limitations had run out.
The delay in settling his case was unfortunate, Leach agreed, but said Dunne was partly to blame for refusing to co-operate fully with investigators.
In the summer of 1999, Dunne complained to the Canadian Forces grievance administration about the suggestions he was the “author of his own misfortune.”
He never got an answer. Dunne’s grievance climbed to the top of the chain of command, then chief of defence staff Gen. Maurice Baril.
In December 1999, Baril wrote to Dunne with his final decision.
The general agreed to pay legal costs but dismissed Dunne’s request for compensation for pain and suffering.
Too much time had passed for the further investigations Dunne sought, Baril wrote, and pursuing further civil charges “would not be in the public interest.”
It appeared the military was uninterested in doing right by Dunne and even less interested in reforming deep rooted problems in the military justice system.
Friday: The secret letter