US Nuclear Weapons in Canada

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom and The History of Fort St. Joseph, and the co-author of
Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American

John Clearwater has written a shocking book. In well-documented prose,
he clearly demonstrates that from 1950 to 1970, successive Canadian
governments permitted U.S. governments, from Truman’s to Nixon’s, to
base nuclear weapons for U.S. forces in Canada, to deploy them
temporarily within Canada, and to fly them over Canada. Diefenbaker’s
high-profile conflict with the Kennedy administration in 1962–63 was
but a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

Chapter 4 deals with “Crashes and Nuclear Weapons Accidents in
Canada.” Clearwater describes the bombing of Squally Channel in
British Columbia (1950); the bombing of Riviиre du Loup (1950); and
USAF crashes at Goose Bay (often), Vancouver Island (1950), Riviиre du
Loup (1950), Port-aux-Basques (around 1960), St. John’s (1965), and
elsewhere.

Nor did elected political authorities maintain exclusive control over
U.S. nuclear weapons within Canada. In the summer of 1967, when
President Lyndon Johnson and Prime Minister Lester Pearson were hardly
on speaking terms, they agreed to share their authority with the
commander-in-chief of NORAD. A signed memorandum indicates, “In the
case of imminent attack, it has been agreed that the PM and the
President will grant authority to [commander-in-chief] NORAD without
consultation.” To enhance his credibility, Clearwater reprints the
texts of successive Canadian–American agreements on nuclear weapons
from 1957 to 1967.

Canada’s role as an appendage to U.S. nuclear-warfare policy proved
possible for a number of reasons. Washington and Ottawa agreed that
violation of Canadian and international law was not nearly the problem
that disclosure would be, and secrecy prevailed. Prime Minister St.
Laurent and External Affairs Minister Pearson asked the Truman
administration not to send Afro-American soldiers to northern Quebec in
1950 for fear that racial controversy would ensue. RCMP operatives
maintained surveillance over the Voice of Women, a group of lobbyists
opposed to nuclear weapons within Canada. As Minister of External
Affairs from 1963 to 1968, Paul Martin did not lie, but he did not tell
the whole truth. As much as possible, activities relating to nuclear
weapons took place out of sight of most Canadians—high above Sault
Ste. Marie or in a location distant from population centres.

Clearwater has written a vital piece of Canadian diplomatic/military
history, as well as a warning. Canadians must closely monitor the
actions of even their most respectable politicians.