by Ian AdamsThe Trudeau Papers
McClelland & Stewart (tel.: 416-598-1114) Toronto, 1971,108 pp.
The year is 1975, four years into the future. Two Soviet SS-9 nuclear missiles, each carrying a 50-megaton warhead, are accidentally launched from Russia in a strange CIA plot gone horribly wrong.
They sail over the Arctic carrying 6,000 times more destructive power than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The U.S., in retaliation, launches a couple of its own nukes. And guess where they all come down? Yup, we’re toast. By some freak accident, the nukes all hit Western Canada, and kill 2 million of us. Holy cow…
This book, written from the point of view of a CIA agent posing as a journalist in Canada, was the first novel of Ian Adams. Adams covered the Vietnam War for Maclean’s magazine, and went on to write a series of books on Canada’s bizarre connection to the spy world that have become cult classics.
One of them, End Game in Paris, is his fictional account of the unsolved 1971 murder of FLQ activist François Mario Bachand, which has had tongues wagging in Quebec ever since. Many have wondered about the role played by François Dorlot, husband of PQ Culture Minister Louise Beaudoin and an associate of Bachand, in the events leading up to the murder. Suffice it to say, End Game in Paris raises a lot of questions about this mystery.
In The Trudeau Papers, post-Armageddon Canada quickly descends into chaos, the FBIwhacks PM Pierre Trudeau, and thousands of Marines invade to “maintain order” and takeover the natural resources. That doesn’t go over well among us proud Canucks. Soon, aVietnam-like guerrilla war erupts, if you can imagine that, in the back woods ofNorthern Ontario. Dissidents are shot in Toronto’s Varsity Stadium. No word on thefate of the James Bay project, but Quebec does end up separating. Don’t tell the PQ,though. We don’t want them getting any crazy ideas in case they’re desperate, do we?
