A ‘great injustice’
How the military ruined an officer’s life and career
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 1 of 6. Next: The defection
He’s got severe insomnia and bouts of blood-pounding anxiety. He’s paranoid about the military police and military lawyers. His knees are shot from years of running to try to reduce stress. He worries about an underlying heart condition.
He’s been told he suffers from post-traumatic stress.
But Tim Dunne, now 72, won’t stand down.
For more than two decades, the proud ex-military man has been obsessed with repairing his unfairly tarnished reputation and demanding justice — for both himself and others — after being wronged by the Canadian military justice system.
“I devoted my life to the military, I gave them everything I had,” Dunne said in a recent Zoom call. “The things that were done to me should never have been done.
“This whole business is always on my mind. I don’t always talk about it, but it’s always there.”
Brian Duggan, a registered Nova Scotia counselling therapist, worked with Dunne for about a year. He cannot talk specifically about his client’s case.
What he can say is this: Hierarchies like the military foster common values, a sense of belonging — the belief the organization will always be there for you.
But when that trust gets shattered, it can be devastating.
“The person can experience deep psychological wounds (that) can become the root of anxiety and depression.”
How did Dunne get here? It’s a long story.
Imagine being investigated multiple times for crimes, from fraud to treason, crimes you did not commit.
Police questioning your coworkers, your acquaintances. Imagine waiting years to find out you’d been cleared.
Then, when you thought it was finally over, imagine learning legal authorities were telling your bosses — present and future — you had “escaped” punishment.
That’s what happened to Dunne, formerly a major in the Canadian Forces.
That “gross injustice,” as one military law expert put it, stained Dunne’s reputation, stalled his military career and eroded his health, mentally and physically.
And it made him wonder, if it had happened to him, how many others had suffered?
“This whole business is always on my mind. I don’t always talk about it, but it’s always there.”
Tim Dunne
EARLY YEARS
Timothy Dunne grew up a God-fearing, Irish Catholic on the south side of St. John’s in the ’40s and ’50s.
His mother was an oldfashioned Wesleyan Newfoundlander who switched to Catholicism to marry. His father, like his before him, was a St. John’s police officer.
Dunne was tall for his age. Because his dad was a cop, he got picked on anyway.
His mom was wonderful, he says. She did the best she could on a policeman’s salary. His dad was short-tempered and could be difficult. Dunne was an only child for 12 years, so he got a lot of attention.
“I was surrounded by expectations. I did what I could to live up to them.”
That included serving as an altar boy and attending evening prayers, or vespers.
When Dunne was 12 or 13, he attended Holy Cross School in St. John’s, run by the Irish Christian Brothers — the same order in charge at the infamous Mount Cashel Orphanage. The Brothers physically abused some of his friends; but if sexual abuse also occurred, no one talked about it. The Brothers largely left Dunne alone, likely due to his dad being a cop.
It was at Holy Cross that he learned a valuable lesson. A troubled younger boy who lived nearby would sometimes throw rocks at him, or punch him in the back in the schoolyard, then run away. One day, Dunne grabbed his arm, demanding he stop. The boy began yelling “Help!”
A passing Brother grabbed both boys and hauled them to the principal’s office, trailed by the younger lad’s older brother.
Brother Fitzgerald said Dunne had been assaulting the younger boy, known to have a nervous disorder. The boy and his older brother agreed that’s what happened. When Dunne tried to tell his side of things, he was ordered to be silent. Fuming, he received a stern lecture.
“That was the last time I ever allowed anyone to shut me up,” Dunne said.
Dunne became a cadet in high school. While at Memorial University studying political science, he worked part-time jobs but still found time to join the reserves. He liked the activities and camaraderie. His family had a tradition of service. His dad fought with the Royal Newfoundland Artillery during the Second World War.
He met his future wife, Rosemary Kennedy, at Memorial. They married in the summer of 1972.
When the regular forces invited Dunne to join as an officer, he didn’t hesitate. The tall (6’3”) young lieutenant became a public affairs officer in Ottawa in 1974.
“I joined the military with the belief that it is a perfect organization. Its merit. Its justice. Even its integrity,” he said.
“I now regret having believed that. In fact, I now regret ever having joined.”
Dunne advanced steadily, rising to captain in 1978, then major in 1986.
He became head of military public affairs operations in Ottawa. His team worked with domestic and foreign media wanting to do stories about the Canadian military.
It was the late ’80s and the Cold War was unravelling.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev instituted first perestroika (restructuring) then glasnost (political and cultural opening) in a desperate effort to reform the U.S.S.R.’S corrupt, inefficient economic and political systems. But Gorbachev’s reforms ran into dangerous pockets of resistance, led by hardline interests in the Communist Party and KGB.
Though no one knew it then, the Soviet empire was nearing its end. Dunne would get caught up in its death throes. To explain how, let’s rewind a bit.
SUMMER 1989
Vadim Fotinov, a Russian journalist who supported perestroika and glasnost, arrives in Ottawa on July 18 as a Soviet TV and radio correspondent.
Fotinov liked doing stories that gave audiences behind the Iron Curtain glimpses of daily life in Canada, places like shopping centres and supermarkets.
Dunne, meanwhile, was overseeing an exchange of Canadian and Soviet journalists taking basic military training in each other’s countries. The job included reporting all interactions with Soviet citizens to his contact in the office of the military’s director general of security, the branch in charge of the military police, an officer named Capt. L.M. Coo.
In November 1989, Dunne and Fotinov met at a reception at the Soviet embassy honouring the Great October Revolution.
Igor Lobanov, the Soviet press attaché in Ottawa, introduced them. Dunne, who’d been invited along with one of the Canadian exchange journalists, was motioned by the attache to follow him to another room. The major, although uncomfortable, complied. Lobanov led Dunne to a waiting Fotinov.
The Soviet journalist told the major he wanted to do stories on the Canadian military, to destroy Soviet myths about Canada for his audience. Dunne quickly suggested they meet at another time and place to discuss details.
Dunne describes the slightly comical situation.
“I was trying to think, where do we go where I’m not going to look like I’m passing pieces of paper over to a Soviet citizen?” Dunne said. “So, I figured, I was a member of the Parliamentary press club, what more public place is there than the press club.”
When they met a few days later, Dunne paid for lunch and agreed to take Fotinov’s pitch back to his bosses.
Military brass liked the idea, though it took several months to get the necessary approvals through the chain of command. In February 1990, it was approved, provided standard DND security procedures were followed.
The military’s documentation of the plan included preliminary suggestions of potential subjects for Fotinov’s stories, such as search and rescue, the Royal Military College and peacekeeping operations.
Things went smoothly for about a year. Fotinov filed reports — all positive — about Canadian military activities. Dunne kept his contact in the security branch, Capt. Coo, informed.
The first hiccup came in spring 1991.
Fotinov wanted to do a story on French language training at the Canadian Forces Language School in Gatineau, Que., across the river from Ottawa. The school taught French but also other languages, including Russian.
Dunne cleared the visit with the school’s commandant. He arranged for a public affairs officer to accompany Fotinov on school grounds.
But when Fotinov did a preliminary tour of the school on April 25, it sparked trouble.
Someone taking language training — unaware of the approved project involving Fotinov — became alarmed when they saw a Soviet journalist walking through the military’s language school.
A complaint landed at the military’s directorate of foreign liaison. They, in turn, were unhappy they had not been told beforehand about Fotinov’s visit.
Dunne had told Capt. Coo, but now promised to also inform the directorate of any future visits. The major chalked it up to just another case of military miscommunication.
TENSE MEETING
Fotinov and his cameraman planned another escorted visit to the school May 7. Dunne notified the directorate early that day.
Fotinov filed his report for broadcast in the Soviet Union.
Three weeks later, Dunne’s home phone in Ottawa rang late one night.
It was Fotinov. There was an odd tension in his voice. Could they meet tomorrow, he asked? It was quite urgent. Dunne agreed.
About 2:30 p.m., Dunne greeted Fotinov in the lobby of National Defence headquarters in downtown Ottawa, across from the Rideau Centre. The major led him to an empty table in the building’s cafeteria.
Fotinov looked apprehensive. He and his wife Svetlana were in great danger, he told Dunne.
They wanted to defect.