An Arrow Through the Heart: The Life and Times of Crawford Gordon and the Avro Arrow

A.A. den Otter is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the author of The Philosophy of Railways.

The cancellation of the A.V. Roe Arrow is one of the most contentious
issues in 20th-century Canadian history. Greig Stewart contributed to
that debate with his book Shutting Down the National Dream (1997). With
An Arrow Through the Heart, which focuses on Crawford Gordon, the chief
executive at A.V. Roe Canada, he adds a new perspective on the issue.

Stewart outlines the meteoric career of Crawford Gordon, beginning with
his comparatively unhappy childhood, his education, and his starting job
at Canadian General Electric. At age 28, Gordon left his position as
comptroller of finance at that company to become one of several of C.D.
Howe’s wartime assistants. Four years later, he was appointed head of
the Department of Defence Production and simultaneously began collecting
directorships in several of Canada’s leading corporations. At age 42,
he took over as chief executive officer at A.V. Roe, with the mandate to
revitalize a stagnating company. Ten years later he died a lonely,
broken man.

While Stewart does not advance a startling new interpretation of the
Arrow cancellation, he does provide an interesting, lively look at the
man in charge of the company. Based largely on interviews with
Gordon’s associates and family, the account portrays both the
brilliance of a driving executive and his deeply flawed character.
Gordon was a bull-headed man who often used sheer power politics to get
his way and who eventually succumbed to his weakness for alcohol and
women. While Diefenbaker and his cabinet had already made up their minds
to axe the Arrow program, Gordon’s last-ditch, drunken attempt to
bully Diefenbaker into changing his mind became the Arrow’s deathblow
rather than its reprieve.