The JFK dossier turns up the surprising inclusion of a Toronto-based organization that may have influenced the West’s China pivot.

By Sam Cooper | The Bureau

Summary

President Trump’s extensive release of CIA documents related to the JFK assassination reveal a connection between a Toronto-based organization and the direction of Western elite opinion towards the “One China” policy under Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai.

The declassified dossier centers on controversial American journalist Sam Jaffe and his role in influencing the recognition of Communist China by both Canada and the U.S. during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The CIA’s JFK file on Sam Jaffe reveals that he provided valuable information on a Chinese news official and assisted the Agency in reporting on the Toronto-based organization, the Committee for New China Policy (CNCP). However, it does not explain why this intelligence was included in the JFK records or offer much detail about the group itself.

The Bureau’s research indicates that this academic pressure group played a significant role in shaping Canada’s diplomatic shift towards Beijing in the late 1960s, coinciding with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s rise to power. Trudeau had pledged to reassess Canada’s defense alignment with the United States and adopt a new approach to Cold War adversaries.

Although the CNCP was based in Canada and focused on influencing domestic debate, its network and intellectual influence extended across the Canada-U.S. policy and academic spheres, significantly broadening its impact.

In 1955, while working as a freelance journalist, the CIA file records that Sam Jaffe secured an exclusive interview with Premier Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong’s right-hand man and the architect of Red China’s spy network, at the Bandung Conference of Third World nations in Indonesia.

This interview represented a major journalistic coup and holds even more significance in retrospect. Zhou Enlai serves as a curious link between the Committee for New China Policy and its key founder, Daniel Tretiak, then a professor of Chinese politics at Toronto’s York University. Tretiak’s influence extended from meetings with Chinese officials in Canada and New York to delivering a speech at the 1972 Republican National Convention. In his speech, Tretiak referenced his interactions with Zhou Enlai and included anti-Taiwan recommendations that may have originated from Zhou himself.

“Remarkably, it’s American government records—not Canadian ones—that offer the clearest glimpse into the influence of one of the group’s founding figures: Daniel Tretiak,” notes The Bureau.

Read the original report at the publisher’s website here.