OTTAWA - Newly declassified documents show an RCMP source passed information to Mountie spies about talks between politician Tommy Douglas and actress Jane Fonda on efforts to stop the Vietnam War.
The long-secret records say the "reliable source" of the RCMP Security Service learned from a prominent Montreal activist that Fonda and Douglas conversed in September 1970 about smoothing the way for Vietnamese to attend a citizen's inquiry on the war to be held in Quebec.
Fonda also said Douglas told her that Dennis McDermott, then Canadian director of the United Auto Workers, could "help out a lot" on peace campaigns.
The records are among the latest disclosures from a file amassed by RCMP intelligence officers over a period of more than 40 years.
The material was released by Library and Archives Canada in response to a Federal Court challenge launched by The Canadian Press in October 2009 to obtain portions of the Douglas file withheld by the government.
Following a closed-door hearing in the case last year, the government promised to review the remaining secret pages with an eye to disclosing more information.
