The Truth Hurts

One of the reasons journalists grapple with the concept of truth is that they are never entirely sure what kind of truth they are dealing with, according to communications scholar John C. Merrill. Most daily reporting can’t aim for anything but a very low level of truth. Given a pressing deadline and a propensity to take most people at their word, reporters are usually content with presenting a variety of opinions on a subject, hoping that the truth might make an appearance in one or more of the comments. Those who have the luxury of two or three days on a story can attempt to find more facts and test some of the comments, reaching a slightly higher level of truth. And those who engage in long-term investigative journalism can go much further still. Merrill posits a useful concept called a ladder of truth. At the top he places “Truth with a Capital T,” something never entirely attainable. Beneath it is potential truth, or the complete truth theoretically available to the journalist, again usually unachievable. The next level, or selected truth, is the one most journalists achieve, and just how much of it they get generally depends on the time they take and the skill they bring to the job.

Harvey Cashore, one of Canada’s most capable investigative journalists, spent 15 years trying to unravel the secrets behind hidden commissions and payoffs surrounding the Airbus affair. With that kind of skill and effort, and the backing of the CBC’s flagship investigative program, you would think Cashore would have climbed most of the rungs on Merrill’s ladder of truth. And yet, despite countless documentaries, books, parliamentary questions and a commission of inquiry, the full truth remains elusive. As Cashore himself says, many of the key elements of the story may never be entirely revealed.

Even so, The Truth Shows Up: A Reporter’s Fifteen-Year Odyssey Tracking Down the Truth about Mulroney, Schreiber and the Airbus Scandal is an engaging and instructive roadmap for any aspiring reporter. Cashore takes the reader on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes journey of a complex journalistic investigation, and succeeds in revealing more of the truth behind the affair than anyone else has to date. The stakes are always high, because at the heart of the story is the suggestion that former prime minister Brian Mulroney may have benefited from commissions paid by Airbus to secure a sale of jets to Air Canada. The secrets held by prime ministers and presidents are rarely, if ever, fully revealed. Last year, at a speech to the annual conference of the Investigative Reporters and Editors, legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward described a dinner he recently had with former vice-president Al Gore. How much does the public know about what really went on in the Clinton White House, Woodward asked his dinner guest. Gore thought for a moment before replying: “About 1 percent.” Add to the equation potential illegal behaviour on the part of a prime minister, and the odds for revelation of the truth become far smaller.

The story might never have come to light without the testimony of a shady Swiss businessman by the name of Giorgio Pelossi, who served as an accountant to German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber. The two had a falling out, and Pelossi became a whistleblower. He told of Schreiber’s efforts to promote German business interests in Canada, which included lobbying Canadian politicians. It also involved setting up secret Swiss bank accounts and depositing commissions those companies paid to Schreiber for his success in securing contracts. When Air Canada decided to buy 34 jets from Airbus in 1988, Schreiber received about $500,000 in secret commissions per plane. Pelossi maintained that some of the bank accounts were intended for powerful Canadian politicians, including Mulroney.

Reporters with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine began chasing the story in 1994, and soon they were in partnership with CBC’s the fifth estate. Cashore was assigned to research the story for the program, and over the years his findings produced a number of important documentaries and books about the affair. Cashore brought with him a specific journalistic methodology he had learned from his mentor, former newspaper reporter and author John Sawatsky. In his groundbreaking investigation of the RCMP security service in the 1970s and ’80s, Sawatsky learned the importance of taping and transcribing all conversations. By studying his own questions and the answers they produced, and analyzing the questions posed by his colleagues and students, Sawatsky deduced that the quality of information was often directly related to the precise language employed in the questioning. He came up with a unique way of interviewing, and he stressed the value of maintaining a chronology of events in every story he worked on. Sawatsky also believed in maintaining a militant neutrality in his approach, always keeping an open mind and allowing for disconfirmatory evidence to be heard. As a researcher for Sawatsky’s Mulroney: The Politics of Ambition, Cashore learned the method well and adopted it for his own inquiries.

Much of the book’s rich detail comes in the transcripts of Cashore’s taped interviews. We can observe the choreography of his questions and see the intricate dance that takes place between journalist and interviewee. Sometimes, the Columbo like approach worked wonders in breaking the ice. “We are just really confused about a lot of things,” Cashore tells Schreiber in their first telephone conversation. Schreiber laughs and begins to open up, telling him about his children and grandchildren and his relationship with Mulroney. It was the beginning of a complex and lengthy relationship the two would have, both adversarial and friendly at the same time. But there would arguably have been no relationship at all if Cashore had not followed Sawatsky’s method: asking neutral questions, never offering comment or trigger words, and allowing the interviewee to be the person outputting information at all times.

One day, while scanning a stack of German documents, Cashore came across a prosecutor’s report that mentioned the existence of a bank account code-named Britan. Schreiber was in the habit of varying names slightly when entering them in his notes or diaries, so it was possible that Britain stood for Brian Mulroney. About a month after Mulroney stepped down as prime minister, $500,000 was deposited into the Britan account. Over the next 18 months there were cash withdrawals totalling $300,000. Schreiber eventually revealed that he had handed Mulroney $300,000 in three meetings during 1993 and 1994. Mulroney admitted that he received the money, although he disputed the amount and said it totalled $225,000. The exact purpose of the payments, or the need to make them in cash, has never been adequately explained. Mulroney also admitted he did not declare the money on his income tax returns until 1999, the same year Cashore was preparing to reveal the existence of the Britan account in a CBC documentary.

Cashore set himself the task of determining whether the Britan account was connected to the Airbus commissions, which would provide direct linkage between Airbus and the prime minister. It was a classic “follow the money” exercise that was critical to the story. Cashore describes how he and a CBC colleague tacked up recipe cards representing Schreiber’s accounts on a wall and connected money transfers between accounts with pieces of string.

The complexity of the investigation and the reporting often meant that Cashore’s documentaries did not have the impact he hoped they would. Most other media outlets ignored the story, while some took it upon themselves to try to discredit Cashore’s work. Some journalists and newspapers ridiculed the CBC for the stories and took up Mulroney’s suggestion that Cashore was on some kind of vendetta. This is hardly a unique phenomenon in the Canadian media landscape. A solid investigative piece will often be ignored or attacked by rival media for competitive reasons, and powerful interests can take advantage of the situation by disseminating spin that they know some journalists will repeat uncritically. The situation caused Cashore considerable grief. But ultimate vindication came with the irrefutable revelation that Mulroney had received cash from Schreiber. Some of his rivals actually apologized to Cashore for doubting his work.

But there was a less than happy ending to another aspect of Cashore’s investigation—his repeated absence from home life. Cashore readily admits he frequently missed important family events—including his son’s first day at school— because of the pressure of working on the Airbus story. He felt at the time he did not have a choice, but later realized he should have acted differently. His marriage eventually ended. But if the Airbus investigation contributed to the shattering of that relationship, it also led to the creation of another. Cashore is now married to a German woman he met in Zurich while shooting one of the Airbus documentaries.

Cashore’s story also reveals another common theme in investigative work. By holding powerful people and institutions to account, journalists place their personal safety and reputations at risk. During the course of his investigation, Cashore and the CBC were slapped with multi-million dollar lawsuits and other legal threats. At one point, Mulroney threatened to sue every individual board member of the CBC if a documentary revealing the Britan account went to air. Some accused Cashore of collaborating with the RCMP, although he did not. Luc Lavoie, Mulroney’s public relations spokesman, let the journalist know he had been investigating him and knew details about his family. In another incident, Cashore tells of meeting a source in Montreal who called two hookers over to their table and suggested they could resume their conversation after they enjoyed themselves. Finally, Cashore describes how he received anonymous calls from someone purporting to be a Swiss banker who promised to reveal Mulroney’s banking information in return for a bribe. Cashore ignored the calls, and he found out years later it was an attempt by Schreiber himself to compromise him. All the pressure tactics actually led Cashore to consider abandoning the story at one point. But sober reflection, together with support from his CBC colleagues, led him to continue the pursuit.

There is a final irony connected to the publication of this book. In 1981, six years after the fifth estate was founded, the CBC decided to commission a book that would describe how the show worked and discuss some of its investigations. CBC management hired Stephen Godfrey, an arts journalist for The Globe and Mail, to write the book. But the show’s hosts and senior producers had pre-publication review privileges, something the CBC steadfastly refuses to give to subjects in programs it produces. And they proceeded to trash Godfrey’s work. Show host Eric Malling did not like Godfrey’s revelation that it was often the program’s producers who wrote the initial scripts, not the hosts. And he also objected to the book’s discussion of clandestine filming and stakeouts as part of the program’s techniques. While there were also other major problems with Godfrey’s manuscript, it seemed the CBC’s main investigative program, which revelled in uncovering the secrets of others, wanted its own affairs kept quiet. Godfrey was paid his fee and promptly fired. No book on the fifth estate ever appeared.

Finally we have a book that goes into many of the techniques that some did not want mentioned 30 years ago. Cashore describes stakeouts, elaborate ambush-interview capers and many of the internal discussions between senior producers, hosts and CBC lawyers. He reveals how the CBC decided to collaborate with other media organizations in order to further the investigation at key stages. He talks about the strategy of using confidential sources, granting anonymity, and he reveals when the program felt justified in breaking a promise to keep comments off the record. It is fascinating insight into the workings of a program unit that is unique in Canada.

Since Cashore’s book was published, developments have continued on the Airbus story. After losing a lengthy extradition battle, Schreiber faced trial in Germany and was sentenced to eight years in jail for tax evasion. But even today, there is no “Capital T Truth” about whether Brian Mulroney received payments from Karlheinz Schreiber in return for helping Airbus sell planes to Air Canada. Some parts of the truth have shown up, but more chapters of the story still remain to be told.