PODCAST

Secret Agent Nelson Cloud: A Cold War story with lots of laughs

Spies, traitors, Cold War politics: a young Nelson Cloud unwittingly opened those doors in 1974, when he sat in on a couple of meetings hosted by Marxist-Leninists in Saint John.

Nelson Cloud recounts attempts by the RCMP Security Service to recruit him as an informer

CBC News ·
Nelson Cloud has fun telling the story by attempts by the RCMP to recruit him as an informer. (Submitted)

Listen to "Secret Agent Nelson Cloud," the fourth episode of The Hook, a podcast from CBC New Brunswick. You can listen to the full episode by clicking on the CBC Podcasts page or by subscribing in iTunes.

Spies, traitors, Cold War politics: a young Nelson Cloud unwittingly opened those doors in 1974 when he sat in on a couple of meetings hosted by Marxist-Leninists in Saint John.

That curiosity put him on the radar of the RCMP Security Service, Canada's spy agency at the time and a precursor to CSIS.

Soon agents were watching him, had his phone number, knew where he lived.

Cloud got on the RCMP Security Service radar when he attended a couple meetings hosted by the Marxist-Leninist Party. (Submitted)

It was all part of a plan to turn the 21-year-old janitor into an informer.

"Do you love Canada?" was the question a plainclothes officer asked him one Saturday morning.

It's the start of a roller-coaster story the 65-year-old Cloud describes with great humour in CBC New Brunswick's original podcast, The Hook.

Spies, intrigue, Cold War politics: It all came to Saint John in 1974 when some well-meaning people tried Marxist Leninist politics on for size. But a young Nelson Cloud finds he's in a little too deep when the RCMP Security Service tried to turn him into an informer. 23:44

Cloud, who now lives on Metepenagiag First Nation, recalls that first conversation ending this way: "Don't say no, you can't say no."

And while he did say "no" he soon learned the agency doesn't much like being dismissed.

And Cloud wasn't the only one, according to Steve Hewitt, senior lecturer in the history department at University of Birmingham. Hewitt wrote two books about the agency's spying on thousands of Canadian individuals and groups in the 1960s and '70s.

'Comrade' Hardial Bains, leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) spoke in Saint John in 1974. Cloud was there. (Communist Party of Canada (Marxist Leninist))

The RCMP Security Service "saw the Marxist-Leninists as well-organized, as very disciplined, as holding very extreme views, as individuals that wouldn't necessarily hesitate from engaging in violence," said Hewitt.

He said there's no question Marxist-Leninist meetings, even in Saint John, were being monitored. And police needed informers to do that.

Cloud, now 65, has fun sharing his story of brushes with Marxists and security service agents as a young man in Cold War-era Saint John. (Submitted)

You can listen to "Secret Agent Nelson Cloud," the fourth episode of The Hook, a podcast from CBC New Brunswick. Just click on the CBC Podcasts page or by subscribing in iTunes.