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Frye\u2019s Spies:\u00a0Documents in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Files on Northrop Frye<\/em><\/p>\n Jim Bronskill\u2019s uncovering the security files that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police kept on Frye for a dozen years has been reported in the blog, a story that was picked up by numerous news organizations.\u00a0 The entire episode seemed so unlikely that I felt obliged to get a copy of the files, which I requested from the Library and Archives of Canada and which were kindly provided me.\u00a0 Reading the files is like watching a Beckett play where nameless bureaucrats with not enough serious work to do write memos and shuffle papers around as if their trivial actions were of great moment.\u00a0 One finds oneself laughing at the absurdity of it all.<\/p>\n Still, we do learn something from the security files that we didn\u2019t previously know: the extent of Frye\u2019s involvement with a number of left\u2011wing committees and organizations precisely at the time he was writing all those critiques of the student protest movement.\u00a0 From the files we discover that Frye was involved, as a sponsor or signatory, with the following:<\/p>\n Many of the security files are heavily redacted and some 40 of the 142 pages have been withheld altogether, pursuant to the regulations of the Access to Information Act.\u00a0 But as I read the files, slogging through the deadening bureaucratic prose, there are 39 separate entries.\u00a0 What follows is a brief abstract of\u00a0 each of the 39 entries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Copy of an article by Robin Mathews, \u201cThe Americanization of Canada means precisely the takeover of Canadian Culture by U.S. Citizens,\u201d published in Saturday Night<\/em>, May 1971: 20\u201322.\u00a0 Mathews\u2019 article opens by quoting and then disagreeing with a statement by Frye in his \u201cConclusion\u201d to a Literary History of Canada<\/em> about the growing technological uniformity produced by American culture.<\/p>\n 2. Copy of a news article from the Globe and Mail<\/em> of 13 March 1971 about Frye having been named, along with Duncan Macpherson and Yves Theriault, as recipients of the Canada Council\u2019s Molson Prize.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Copy of an unidentified printed document entitled \u201cProfs petition against War Measures Act,\u201d dated 15 March 1971. \u00a0Frye is listed as one of the twenty prominent Torontonians who were signatories to the petition.\u00a0 The federal Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act on 16 October 1970 in response to the request of the Mayor of Montreal and the Quebec provincial government and in response to general threats and demands made by the Front de lib\u00e9ration du Qu\u00e9bec.\u00a0 465 people were arrested and held without charge.\u00a0 The petitioners saw the invoking of the act as a silencing of political dissent and therefore a threat to civil liberties.\u00a0 All three major Toronto newspapers refused to publish the petition.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Copy of a RCMP report on the seizing of documents at the residence of someone (the name is blacked out) in connection with the kidnapping of the British Trade Commissioner.\u00a0 The report has two attachments, one refers to the Hemispheric Conference and the other lists the contacts of the document owner.\u00a0 Frye is one of the contacts.\u00a0 The Hemispheric Conference is doubtless the Montreal Hemispheric Conference to End the Vietnam War, held in November 1968.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 Copy of an article from the Ukrainian Canadian (October 1970), entitled \u201cInternational Conference on Racism and War.\u201d\u00a0 Frye is listed as one of the sponsors of the conference.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 6\u20137\u201370, on the International Commission of Inquiry (Vietnam War Tribunal), Montreal, May 1970.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The documents lists various organizations and conferences, including Corporation des enseignants du Qu\u00e9bec (Teachers Corporation of Quebec), which later became a labor union four years later.\u00a0 Frye\u2019s name is listed as one of the \u201cparticipants and supporters\u201d\u2013\u2013along with John Lennon, Ren\u00e9 Lesveque, Henry Morganthaler, and Farley Mowat.\u00a0 The comments at the end of this report make clear that the ICI as a part of the peace movement is seen by the RCMP as a propaganda and antinationalist organization.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0 Copy of the translation from the French of a report, dated 14 May 1970, from the Vietnam Moratorium Committee in Montreal.\u00a0 Frye is listed as one of the proposed commissioners for the Comit\u00e9 Moratoire du Vietnam.<\/p>\n 8. \u00a0Copy of a letter, dated 4 December 1969, with an attached \u201cblind memorandum\u201d on the Faculty Committee on Vietnam\u201d at the University of Toronto.\u00a0 At the bottom of the letter Frye\u2019s name is penciled in.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0 Copy of an article by Frye, \u201cUtopia on the Campus,\u201d which appeared in the Globe and Mail Magazine<\/em>, 13 September 1969, 5\u20138.\u00a0 This was an abridged form of \u201cThe University and Personal Life: Student Anarchism and the Educational Contract,\u201d in Higher Education: Demand and Response<\/em> (The Quail Roost Seminar), ed. W.R. Niblett (London: Tavistock Publications, 1969), 35\u201359; (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1970), 35\u201351.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0 Copy of a RCMP report entitled \u201cDemonstrations and Protests re. U.S. Action in Vietnam,\u201d dated 5 August 1969.\u00a0 Has to do with various activities sponsored by the Vietnam Moratorium Committee.\u00a0 In the material that has not been blacked out, Frye\u2019s name does not appear.<\/p>\n 11.\u00a0 Copy of an article by Frye, appearing in the Toronto Star<\/em>, 9 June 1969, entitled \u201cStudent radicals and right\u2011wingers are all the same.\u201d\u00a0 The article reproduces seven paragraphs from the convocation address Frye gave at York University.<\/p>\n 12. Copy of a newspaper article from the Toronto<\/em> Star<\/em>, 7 May 1969, \u201cFull-time agitators blamed for unrest,\u201d reporting on the convocation address that Frye gave at Acadia University.<\/p>\n 13. \u00a0Copy of RCMP report, dated 1 May 1969, on the Alexander Defence Committee (ADC).\u00a0 An attachment contains 105 pages of \u201cnews bulletins and circulars\u201d regarding the committee.\u00a0 The ADC was formed in February 1965 in response to the persecution of Dr. Neville Alexander and ten of his comrades by the South African government. The eleven were arrested in July 1963 and held eight months in solitary confinement before being indicted and convicted of sabotage.\u00a0 The \u201csabotage\u201d they were guilty of consisted of having formed study groups to consider various methods of conducting the struggle against apartheid. \u00a0Frye is listed as one of the sponsors of the Canadian chapter of the ADC.<\/p>\n 14. \u00a0Copy of RCMP report, dated 16 January 1969, listing the members of the University of Toronto administration and faculty on whom the RCMP is maintaining a file.\u00a0 Frye is listed along with others in the English department.\u00a0 The list is said to contain \u201cthose persons who have displayed more than a casual interest in the field covered by key sector.\u201d\u00a0 An addendum to the list, dated 16 January 1969 and labeled \u201cSECRET,\u201d contains the chair of the German department, no doubt Barker Fairley, and a Professor of Social Work (both names blacked out).<\/p>\n 15.\u00a0 Copy of Frye\u2019s speech, \u201cOur Permanent Revolution,\u201d which appeared in the Vancouver Sun<\/em>, 14 December 1968.\u00a0 The article is an extract from Frye\u2019s \u201cThe Ethics of Change: The Role of the University.\u201d\u00a0 A Symposium: The Ethics of Change <\/em>(Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corp., 1969), 44\u201355.<\/p>\n 16.\u00a0 Copy of Frye\u2019s \u201cStudent protest . . . has shallow roots,\u201d which appeared in the Toronto Star<\/em>, 19 September 1968.\u00a0 This is an abridged form of \u201cThe Social Importance of Literature\u201d which was published in the Educational Courier<\/em> 39 (November\u2013December 1968): 19\u201323; rpt. in On Education<\/em>, 74\u201382, and in Northrop Frye Writings on Education<\/em>, 326\u201334.<\/p>\n 17.\u00a0 Copy of a news story, \u201cStudent protest \u2018like feminists,\u2019\u201d which appeared in the Toronto Telegram<\/em>, 17 September 1968.\u00a0 The story begins, \u201cUniversity of Toronto English Professor Northrop Frye today predicted a very short career for the student protest movement and compared it to the now defunct feminist movement at the turn of the century.\u00a0 Dr. Frye spoke to the convention of Association of School Superintendents and Inspectors at the Royal York.\u00a0 About 800 attended.\u201d<\/p>\n 18.\u00a0 Copy of \u201cSECRET\u201d memo, dated 12 September 1968, from C.S. Hogg, Officer in Charge of S.I.B. [Special Investigative Branch?].\u00a0 Para. 2: \u201cNo action to be taken which might compromise our source.\u201d<\/p>\n 19.\u00a0 Copy of a newspaper editorial from the London <\/em>[Ontario] Free Press<\/em>, 1 August 1968, entitled \u201cIntellectual dishonesty showing.\u201d\u00a0 The editorial is about Dr. James Endicott\u2019s heading up a rally in Montreal to protest the Vietnam War\u2013\u2013the Hemispheric Conference to End the Vietnam War, 11\u201314 October 1968. \u00a0\u00a0Frye is named one of the sponsors Endicott has lined up.<\/p>\n Par. 3. \u201cThere will be possibly useful contributions from such brilliant intellectuals as Dr. Frye and some of his colleagues, which may well be carefully studied by the American administration, but most of the verbal activity will come from the kooky, fuzzy confused pseudo\u2011intellectuals who hang around the fringes of those who are genuinely oriented to political philosophies well left of centre.\u201d<\/p>\n 20.\u00a0 Newspaper article from the Ottawa Citizen, <\/em>12 December 1967, entitled \u201cFour men honored for outstanding contributions to Canada.\u201d\u00a0 Frye is one of the four who received a medal and a $2500 cash award from the Canada Council.<\/p>\n 21.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 9 November 1967, on various activities at the University of Toronto: a tutorial class called \u201cAnatomy of Peace\u201d; a tutorial on civil liberties in Canada; an article in the Varsity<\/em> (student newspaper) on a teach\u2011in on \u201cReligion and International Affairs,\u201d sponsored by the International Forum Foundation, of which Frye is an honorary board member.<\/p>\n 22. Copy of a flyer from the University of Toronto\u2019s Centre for Russian and East European Studies and the University Extension Division announcing a Summer Russian Workshop, July 4 to August 25, 1968.<\/p>\n 23.\u00a0 Copy of a news story, apparently from the Varsity<\/em>, 11 September 1967, announcing the teach\u2011in on \u201cReligion and International Affairs,\u201d described in no. 21, above.\u00a0 The story notes that Frye, again, is a member of the honorary board of the International Forum Foundation.<\/p>\n 24.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 20 July 1967, about the Canadian Committee for Amnesty in Portugal, which argued for the release of political prisoners in the Salazar regime.\u00a0 Frye is listed on the Conference\u2019s letterhead as a sponsor.<\/p>\n 25.\u00a0 Copy of an article in French by Naim Kattan, \u201cNorthrop Frye\u201d 10 ans avant la n\u00e9o\u2011critique,\u201d which appeared in Le Devoir<\/em>, 3 June 1967.<\/p>\n 26.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP biographical file on Frye.\u00a0 Includes vital statistics.\u00a0 Under \u201cOrganizational Affiliation\u201d the report reads, \u201cParticipant in the International Teach\u2011in on China and the U. of T. protest activity in early 1966.\u201d\u00a0 The report contains a fairly complete professional curriculum vitae<\/em>.\u00a0 The investigator\u2019s comments include the following:<\/p>\n \u201cre Independent Mutual Benefit Federation\u2013\u2013Canada [blacked out section] a Stanley Heber [sic] F. KEMP (B.D. 5\u20135\u201384) of 205 Fulton Ave., Toronto, had terminated his policy with the Federation.\u00a0 It is believed that this person, which the 1956 Toronto City Directory shows as being a commercial artist, is identical to Stanley H.F. KEMP, father\u2011in\u2011law of the file subject.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToronto report dated 3\u201321\u201366, which identified FRYE as having circulated a letter, with others, to be sent to the Canadian Federal Government on the question of Canada\u2019s Complicity relative to the War in Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToronto reports dated 17 and 31 October 66, wherein subject was identified as being on the Honourary Board of the International Teach\u2011in on China.\u00a0 Our source felt his participation gave the Teach\u2011in a note of credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToronto report 27\u201310\u201366, which states that Frye delivered a lecture on \u2018The Educated Imagination\u2019 on the CBC lecture series.\u00a0 Other notables in this series included G.B. MACPHERSON, [name blacked out], <\/em>Frank UNDERHILL [name blacked out] and Paul GOODMAN [material blacked out] of the U.S.A. whose ideas appeal to the \u2018New Left.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The report concludes by saying \u201cAt the present time, we are unable to ascertain what the initial \u201cH\u201d stands for in FRYE\u2019S name.\u201d<\/p>\n 27. Copy of \u00a0RCMP transit slip, along with a \u201cSECRET\u201d memo, dated 2 November 1966, regarding Frye, saying that ten extracts are attached and asking for a report in due course.<\/p>\n 28.\u00a0 Copy of news article from the Varsity<\/em> of 19 October 1966, entitled \u201cFrye Studies New Role.\u201d\u00a0 The article, by Marlene Goldlist, is about Frye\u2019s having been appointed a University Professor.<\/p>\n 29.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 17 October 1966, attaching a number of leaflets and bulletins about the International Teach\u2011in on China, held at the University of Toronto, 8\u201316 October 1966.\u00a0 Frye is noted as being a member of the Honourary Board.\u00a0 The investigator remarks in par. 3 of his comments, \u201cIt is felt that a very forceful argument can be put forth as a result of this iTi [International Teach\u2011in] that efforts are being made by certain narrow elements within the academic community to exert influence on the Canadian Government for a change in our foreign policy: particularly respecting our relations with the U.S.A. and in direct reference to our complicity in the Vietnam War and toward our recognition of Red China.\u201d\u00a0 The investigator provides a long commentary on the International Teach\u2011in.<\/p>\n 30.\u00a0 Copy of the RCMP report on the Alexander Defence Committee, dated 1 September 1966.\u00a0 In an attachment entitled \u201cDefend the Victims of Apartheid,\u201d Frye is listed as a sponsor.<\/p>\n 31.\u00a0 Copy of a news story in the Varsity<\/em>, 1 September 1965, entitled \u201cNorthrop Frye becomes \u2018University Professor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n 32.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 13 July 1966, indicating that the \u201cfile subject,\u201d whose name is blacked out, had been employed as Frye\u2019s secretary.\u00a0 Par. 10 of the investigator\u2019s comments: \u201cThe subject\u2019s employment [material blacked out] has been confirmed and no doubt this position will afford [name blacked out] an excellent opportunity to observe persons in the University sphere.\u201d<\/p>\n 33.\u00a0 Copy of an article from Unity<\/em> (Jedinstvo), 4 March 1966, indicating that a group of Canadian teachers has \u201crequested Canada to dissociate herself from the U.S. policy of \u2018genocide\u2019 in Vietnam.\u201d\u00a0 Frye is listed as one of those who signed the letter.<\/p>\n 34.\u00a0 Copy of a RCMP report, dated 18 October 1965, on the Alexander Defence Committee\u2019s showing of a film at the Museum Theatre.\u00a0 Frye\u2019s name is listed as a sponsor in the leaflet advertising the event, a copy of which is attached.<\/p>\n 35.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 30 September 1965, about a meeting of the Toronto Branch of the League for Socialist Action.\u00a0 At the meeting, a report was given on the Alexander Defence Committee, and Frye is noted as one of the sponsors.\u00a0 The investigator gives a lengthy account of the meeting.\u00a0 A \u201cSECRET\u201d memo attach indicates that \u201cWe are not inclined to underestimate the potential for disruption and agitation the League possesses.\u201d<\/p>\n 36.\u00a0 Copy of an article by David Bryce in the Varsity<\/em>, 5 February 1964, about a visit to campus by Tom Morgan, who had been accused, along with two others, of violating the Indiana Anti\u2011subversion Act of 1951.\u00a0 They had organized a meeting in which one of the speakers had \u201cadvocated the use of violence by Southern Negroes in their struggle for civil rights.\u00a0 Frye is listed as one of the faculty members who supports the work of the committee established to aid the Indiana students.<\/p>\n 37.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 18 November 1963, on a journal called Co\u2011existence: A Quarterly for the Comparative Study of Economics, Sociology, and Politics in a Changing World.<\/em> An attachment indicates that Frye had promised to write an article for the journal.<\/p>\n 38.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP report, dated 28 September 1960, on S.O.S: Survival or Suicide: Bulletin of the Toronto Committee on Disarmament<\/em>.\u00a0 An attached copy of issue No. 1 lists Frye as a sponsor.<\/p>\n 39.\u00a0 Copy of RCMP \u201cCentral Registry Check Sheet\u201d on Frye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Frye\u2019s Spies:\u00a0Documents in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Files on Northrop Frye Jim Bronskill\u2019s uncovering the security files that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police kept on Frye for a dozen years has been reported in the blog, a story that was picked up by numerous news organizations.\u00a0 The entire episode seemed so unlikely that 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