Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada's Cold War Arsenal

Tim Cook is the transport archivist at the Government Archives and
Records Disposition Division, National Archives of Canada, and the
author of No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the
First World War.

There is a significant gap in the historiography regarding the
introduction into and implementation of nuclear weapons in the Canadian
military’s arsenal. John Clearwater attempts to fill that void with
this innovative monograph, based almost entirely on top-secret Canadian
and American archival documents that are now declassified. In the
process, he depicts the history of nuclear commitment in Canada, from
1963 to 1984.

The strength of the work is also its weakness. Clearwater has done a
remarkable job of uncovering significant documents, yet he relies too
closely on them. Throughout the book the documents are often printed in
full, and his work sometimes resembles a series of archival records
strung together with a little prose filling in the details.
Nevertheless, Canadian Nuclear Weapons is an important and
groundbreaking work that describes the technical and operational history
of Canada’s nuclear arsenal. Weapon systems are its focus, and
Clearwater examines the BOMARC missile, Honest John nuclear artillery
batteries, and the Starfighter, CF–101B VooDoo, and Genie Rocket jet
fighters.

Unfortunately, the author fails to adequately place these weapons of
mass destruction within the larger context of political decisionmaking
between Canada and the United States. In many instances, we are offered
some insight into the process, but it is never fully explored.
Clearwater suggests that Canada has very little control over nuclear
weapons, but that contention in itself is worth further examination. The
volume does offer valuable new information on Canada’s nuclear
arsenal, but there is important work still to be done on this subject.