NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. UMI® u Ottawa L'Universitt4 canadienne Canada's university rrm FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES [.'University canadienne Canada's university Mark Bourrie AUTEUR DE LA THESE / AUTHOR OF THESIS Ph.D. (History) GRADE/DEGREE Department of History FACULTE, ECOLE, DEPARTEMENT / FACULTY, SCHOOL, DEPARTMENT Between Friends: Censorship of Canada's Media in World War II TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Jeffrey Keshen DIRECTEUR (DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS SUPERVISOR CO-DIRECTEUR (CO-DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS CO-SUPERVISOR EXAMINATEURS (EXAMINATRICES) DE LA THESE/THESIS EXAMINERS Damien-Claude Belanger Eda Kranakis Serge Durflinger Roger Sarty GarxW1_Slater_ Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Between Friends: Censorship of Canada's Media in World War II Mark Bourrie Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Ph.D degree in History Department of History Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Mark Bourrie, Ottawa, Canada, 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-59534-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-59534-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada 2 Abstract On paper, Canada's World War II censorship system was among the toughest of those imposed by any Allied countries. In reality, it was a very Canadian endeavor. The censorship system usually respected the liberty of the media. It was, however, inconsistent in the application of media control rules laid out in the Defence of Canada Regulations of the War Measures Act, which was the censorship system's enabling legislation. This was partly because of the vague regulations; partly, especially in the early years of the war, because of ineffective management and inconsistent decisions at the national and local level. It is difficult to know whether press censorship was an effective counter­ intelligence apparatus, which was the main justification for the system, or whether censorship was an important tool for maintaining morale. In Quebec, it appears to have failed on both counts. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's government was reticent to further antagonize the nationalist press by stifling coverage of anti-participationist dissent and reporting of naval action in the St. Lawrence River. The value of censorship was, in fact, unclear to some of the managers of the system. The censors, however, did their work system with a surprising level of deference to the needs of the press. They also played an important role in information dissemination and even protected a Japanese-Canadian newspaper from suppression. In the end, the Canadian public was well-served by the very small group of former journalists who worked as press censors during the war. 3 Acknowledgements This thesis would not exist without the help of the late Fulgence Charpentier, Canada's last Director of Censorship. He encouraged this project, and, equally important, carefully packed away the voluminous records of the Directorate of Censorship in 1946. I have had amazing luck since starting this project. Maj. James McKillip of the Department of National Defence's Historical Section, a life-long friend, introduced me to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Jeffrey Keshen of the University of Ottawa, who read this thesis several times with varying degrees of frustration, especially when it was considerably longer. Prof. Keshen is the author of the definitive history of Canada's World War I censorship and propaganda system. He is a skilled editor whose patience and encouragement saved me from my own rather low tolerance for bureaucratic stupidity and frustration with mediocrity. My good fortune continued when I found myself sitting across a National Archives desk from Dr. Roger Sarty, one of the country's foremost naval historians, at a time when I was researching the censorship of stories about U- boat attacks in the St. Lawrence. Mr. Sarty was asked to be external advisor on the thesis and contributed very productive edits to it. A few months later, Mike Gasher, my department head at Concordia, introduced me to Prof. Mary Vipond, who is a scholar of the history of Canada's broadcast system. Profs. G. Stuart Adam and Joe Scanlon of Carleton University gave me valuable insight into the personality of Wilfrid Eggleston, who had taught both of these distinguished professors when they were undergraduates. Senator Joyce 4 Fairbarn was also helpful with insights on Eggleston, who was one of her professors at Carleton, and on Tommy Shoyama, whom she knew through her years working in Pierre Trudeau's Prime Minister's Office. The thesis was, in parts, greatly improved by the internal examiners at the University of Ottawa. I am especially indebted to Prof. Eda Kranakis for her very positive remarks. Friends in the media were also extremely helpful. Steve Maher of the Halifax Herald lent me material on the history of his newspaper and contacted the Dennis family, owners of the paper, to ask for information on Eric Dennis, the journalist who dominated coverage of the Battle of the Atlantic. Terry Guillon of the Parliamentary Press Gallery was very helpful with information on the workings of that organization and supplied me with booklets issued to Press Gallery members and guest journalists in the 1930s. E. Kaye Fulton was a constant support and worked hard to track down information on the Vancouver censors. This project was encouraged by my wife, Marion van de Wetering. She and our children took up the slack in our household while I was chained to the keyboard. I also got wonderful support from my friend and book editor Janice Zawerbny of Thomas Allen in Toronto and her publisher, Patrick Crean, whose father had an interesting career in Canadian espionage and intelligence. I had very valuable help from Library and Archives Canada and the Library of Parliament. Staff at both institutions tracked down books and files with a level of skill and determination that was impressive. 5 I am also very grateful to the University of Ottawa for the generous financial assistance provided to me during my years as a doctoral student. 6 Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Prelude: The World War I Censorship System 29 2. Theory and Planning in the Interwar Years 40 3. The Establishment Men: Mid-Century Canadian Journalism 53 4. Legal and Political Foundation of the Press Censorship System 84 5. Organizational Structure, Resources and Methods of Action 114 6. Censorship and Military Intelligence 164 7. Naval War Censorship 194 8. Censoring the Media in Quebec 235 9. The Globe and Mail, George Drew and Censorship 288 10. Censorship and the Japanese Canadian Press 406 11. Balloon Bombs and Atomic Bombs 359 Chapter 12: Censorship and the Zombies 378 Conclusion 405 Appendixes Bibliography 7 Introduction In times of total war, governments can easily justify using their latent powers to shut down newspapers, magazines and book publishers, ban articles and prosecute journalists. In both World Wars, the Canadian government imposed a rigid set of censorship rules, showed its fangs enough to remind journalists who was in charge, then largely left journalists to censor themselves. English-Canadian journalists and most of their colleagues on French-language publications were willing - sometimes even eager - to be guided by the strong hand of government. They were so pliant, in fact, that penalties for real resistance are difficult to determine because, in English Canada, so few writers and editors tried to knowingly evade the censorship rules, especially on important issues. In Quebec, Le Devoir, Le Soleil, L'Evenement Journal and a few less important publications consistently broke censorship rules but the government refused to charge them, fearing further splintering of the fagade of wartime national unity. On paper, the system was one of the most draconian among the Allies. In reality, during World War II only the fringe Communist, Fascist and ethnic press suffered serious penalties. In the winter of 1998,1 visited the Ottawa home of a 100-year-old semi- retired political columnist, Fulgence Charpentier.