University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository

Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations

2018-04-10 Making Sense of the Arctic: U.S.-Canadian Foreign and Defense Relations and the Establishment of JAWS and the DEW Line, 1944-1957

Woitkowitz, John

Woitkowitz, J. (2018). Making Sense of the Arctic: U.S.-Canadian Foreign and Defense Relations and the Establishment of JAWS and the DEW Line, 1944-1957 (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/31798 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/106511 doctoral thesis

University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Making Sense of the Arctic:

U.S.-Canadian Foreign and Defense Relations and the Establishment of JAWS and the DEW

Line, 1944-1957

by

John Woitkowitz

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

April, 2018

© John Woitkowitz 2018 Abstract

This dissertation examines the diplomatic history of U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relations in the Arctic from 1944 to 1957. World War II and the emerging Cold War transformed the

Northern and Arctic regions of North America from a peripheral region of international politics to a frontline of military planning. The Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, the advent of the nuclear age, and the advancements in the field of long-range aviation fixed foreign policy and continental defense planners’ attention on Northern and Arctic

Canada, devising plans for the establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS) in

1947 and the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line in 1955. This study analyzes the origins, negotiations, and the construction of these Northern defense projects at the intersection of an emerging Cold War security crisis, an evolving legal landscape for Arctic sovereignty, and conceptions of the Arctic as a symbolic marker in the construction of Northern nationalisms.

Existing studies of the JAWS and DEW Line talks by historians Shelagh Grant, Whitney

Lackenbauer, Alexander Herd, and Peter Kikkert discuss these defense projects within the framework of sovereignty and security. More recent studies have adopted epistemological perspectives, exploring the construction of Arctic knowledge. This dissertation builds on this literature and contributes an analysis of the ideas and perceptions that guided key decision makers in Ottawa and Washington during the bilateral talks. By exploring unpublished personal papers and re-examining the ministerial records of Canada and the United States with a new research focus, this thesis explores how global and national conceptions of Arctic defense interacted with bureaucratic cultures within the Canadian and American foreign and defense establishments. Moreover, this study sheds new light on the relationship between non- governmental actors such as explorers, artists, novelists, and scientists and the realm of

ii diplomacy and foreign policy-making. At the intersection of security, sovereignty, and nationalism, this dissertation, therefore, provides a fresh perspective on the way foreign and defense officials in Ottawa and Washington made sense of a rapidly changing international security situation and managed a yet nascent defense relationship in Northern and Arctic Canada.

Keywords: International History, Northern and Arctic History, U.S. Foreign Policy, Canadian

Foreign Policy, World War II, Cold War

iii Acknowledgements

I owe a great debt to my supervisor Stephen Randall. His guidance, support, and trust were always at hand throughout the years of researching and writing this thesis. His constant probing and helpful advice, moreover, pushed me to sharpen my arguments and rethink seemingly established truths. I also would like to thank Rob Huebert and John Ferris for serving on my supervisory committee. Our conversations over Arctic affairs and the history of international relations has importantly stimulated my own thoughts about the history of American-Canadian relations in the Northern and Arctic reaches of the North American continent. I am, furthermore, grateful to Petra Dolata, James Keeley, Whitney Lackenbauer, and Frank Towers for serving on my examination committee and for reading this thesis.

I would like to acknowledge the financial support by the University of Calgary’s

Department of History, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the German Historical Institute in

Washington D.C., and the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries.

Their generous assistance enabled me to conduct archival work in Canada and the United States and to present portions of this research in Canada, England, Germany, and Italy.

Over the years, many friends and colleagues have become traveling companions in this project for portions of the way, some for the entire journey. I am particularly grateful to Erna

Kurbegovic, Stefanie Land-Hilbert, and Ryan McMahon for the innumerable conversations about our work, their generous assistance, and the endless ruminations about it all. Their time and perseverance were a great inspiration throughout and helped to sustain me throughout the solitary months of writing. I continue to be thankful for the enduring collegiality and friendship of fellow Ohio State alumni David Dennis, Robyn Rodriguez, Ryan Shaughnessy, Oscar Vargas-

Rodriguez, and Matt Yates. During my travels in the United States, their kind hospitality was a

iv wonderful reward after a long day in the archives. Beau Cleland, Mikkel Dack, David Gallant,

Glenn Iceton, and Shannon Murray have greatly helped me navigate my time at the Department of History in Calgary. Finally, I would like to thank Helen Gibson, Nadja Klopprogge, Thomas

Lindner, and Marvin Menniken of the Doctoral Lab in North American History at the Freie

Universität Berlin for their excellent comments on draft chapters of this thesis.

My wife, Anke, who has had a frontrow seat in this undertaking and who agreed to move halfway around the world from Berlin to Calgary, for me to pursue this journey, to her I owe the greatest debt and gratitude.

I gratefully acknowledge permission by the Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien to use material from my article “The Northern Education of Lester B. Pearson” (Vol. 37, no. 1, 2017) in this thesis.

v Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Acknowledgements ...... iv Table of Contents ...... vi List of Figures and Illustrations ...... viii Abbreviations ...... ix

INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Historiography and Contribution ...... 13 Concepts and Terminology ...... 36 Overview of Chapters ...... 41

CHAPTER I: U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic Relations, 1867-1945...... 45 Introduction ...... 45 Ideas ...... 46 Claims ...... 57 War ...... 71 Conclusion ...... 82

CHAPTER II: The Joint Arctic Weather Stations and the Cold War, 1944-1950 ....85 Introduction ...... 85 The Expansion of Northern Defense Research and Operations, 1944-1950 ...... 93 Canadian Northern Nationalism and the Cold War ...... 102 The Origins of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1944-1946 ...... 107 Negotiating Nationalism, Defense, and Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1947 ...... 115 The Implementation of JAWS, 1947-1950 ...... 157 Conclusion ...... 162

CHAPTER III: The Distant Early Warning Line: 1950-1955 ...... 168 Introduction ...... 168 U.S. Anti-Communism, Northern Nationalism, and Sovereignty, 1950-55 ...... 179 The Origins of Continental Air Defense, 1950-52 ...... 190 New Proposals, Old Attitudes: The early DEW Line Talks, 1953 ...... 201 The New Look and the New North ...... 223 Negotiating Participation and the DEW Line Agreement, 1954-55 ...... 244 Conclusion ...... 264

CHAPTER IV: The Distant Early Warning Line, 1955-1957 ...... 269 Introduction ...... 269 The Struggle over Canada’s Role and Pearson’s Quest for ‘Effective Participation’ 273 “A Preponderant American Operation”: Ottawa’s Strategies for Public Hegemony .292 Flags, Visitations, and the Politics of Arctic Sovereignty ...... 301

vi The Operation of the DEW Line, the Sputnik Shock, and the Canadian Federal Election of 1957 ...... 312 Conclusion ...... 318

EPILOGUE ...... 322

Bibliography ...... 350

Appendix ...... 367

vii List of Figures and Illustrations

Figure 1: Map of Exercise Musk Ox, Source: “Route of 3,000-Mile Trek into Arctic,” Washington Post, February 16, 1946, 2...... 99

Figure 2: The map indicates the “Blind Spot” in surveillance and scientific data in the North American Arctic Archipelago. It was produced by the U.S. Weather Bureau and provided to the Canadian government by Lewis Clark of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. “Station Density—North of 66° N. LAT.,” November 22, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40...... 108

Figure 3: “This is on Us!” Maclean’s, March 1,1950...... 160

Figure 4: “Radar Networks—Arctic Defense Lines,” New York Times, November 28, 1954. .. 190

viii Abbreviations

ACND Advisory Committee on Northern Development AWPPA Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act BMEW Ballistic Missile Early Warning CWC Cabinet War Committee CDC Cabinet Defence Committee DAC John G. Diefenbaker Archival Collections DCER Documents on Canadian External Relations DDE Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library DEA Department of External Affairs DEW Line Distant Early Warning Line FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States GOC Government of Canada GRU Foreign Intelligence Division of the Soviet Union HBC Hudson’s Bay Company HST Harry S. Truman Presidential Library ICC International Circumpolar Council IGY International Geophysical Year IJC International Joint Commission JAWS Joint Arctic Weather Stations JCS U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff LAC Library and Archives Canada MCC Military Cooperation Committee MSG Military Study Group MSTS Military Sea Transportation Service NARA National Archives and Records Administration NFB National Film Board NORAD North American Air Defense Command NSRB National Security Resources Board NWMP North West Mounted Police PCSP Polar Continental Shelf Program PJBD Permanent Joint Board on Defense RCAF Royal Canadian Air Force RCN Royal Canadian Navy USAAF United States Army Air Force USAF United States Air Force USG United States Government USN United States Navy

ix

INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 1938, a young and aspiring Foreign Service officer on his first posting abroad at Canada House in London, England, presented a lecture about the history of Canada to a British audience. Betraying an earlier pursuit in the profession of academic history, the diplomat took his listeners on a tour-de-force of the Canadian past, crafting a far-flung narrative beginning with the arrival of the first French settlers to North America in the sixteenth century, through the period of settlement, the creation of the Dominion of Canada in the mid-nineteenth century, and, finally, up to the present years of the 1930s. Conscious of the rudimentary knowledge about

Canadian affairs among his audience, he was intent on conveying those moments and characteristics of the country he represented that he felt fundamentally shaped its defining features as an independent nation, one that was not to be conflated with its southern neighbor, the

United States. One theme, in particular, had caught the diplomat’s attention when relating his story of Canada: the history and the allure of Northern and Arctic Canada.1 True, for most of the past, Canadian governments had treated the regions as little more than an empty wasteland with little economic or strategic value. The dawn of the air age and technological advancements in mining, he boasted, now began to open up this once isolated and inaccessible part of the country, carrying with it the promise of prosperity, resource riches, and the completion of Canada’s nation-building efforts. Beyond the material potential, however, Ottawa’s representative impressed upon his audience a profound fascination with the Northern and Arctic regions and the meaning and the ideas they embodied in his view:

1 Throughout this thesis, I use ‘Northern and Arctic Canada’ in the context of U.S.-Canadian defense relations to 1

Canadians, like Russians, are looking to the North as a land of the future. [...] the Canadian Arctic to-day provides an example of the happy union of modern science and traditional adventure. The spirit of the pioneer still lives in these parts. That spirit is contributing vigour and vitality, both physical and psychological, to our national development. [...] We still have a frontier, then, in Canada, with all that this implies in the life of a nation.2

The message for his British audience was clear: Canada was a distinct and independent nation and its future was in the North. If history and geography had created Canada as a North

American country with British kinship, Pearson declared, Canadian nationhood was deeply rooted in a Northern identity and the promise of a Northern destiny.

Over the course of the next twenty years, Lester B. Pearson, the author of these lines, assumed a central role in shaping that future as World War II and the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union transformed Northern and Arctic Canada from a peripheral region into a frontline of international conflict. No longer a diplomatic novice,

Pearson took an active role in shaping Canadian policy and in directing negotiations with the

United States over the construction and operation of defense installations across Northern

Canada and the Arctic Archipelago, most prominently the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS) and the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line). Yet Pearson was not alone in his fascination with the Northern mythologies and the stories of frontier heroism. A “small band of Canadian arcticians,” as diplomat and historian John W. Holmes described them,3 frequently tapped into a rich repertoire of tropes, mythologies, and narratives about Northern and Arctic Canada as a key ingredient in the construction of a Canadian national identity and a common history. Many of

2 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada,” August 2-3, 1938, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 1, File: 30 Nov. 1930 to 3 Aug. 1941. 3 Shelagh Grant subsequently labeled this group the “northern nationalists.” John W. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943-1957, vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 172; Shelagh D. Grant, “The Northern Nationalists: Crusaders and Supporters of a New North 1940-1950” (Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Ottawa, 1982). 2

them sharing attendance at Oxford University, that “greatest of all schools of English Canadian nationalism,”4 these senior politicians and officials, among them Lester Pearson, Escott M. Reid,

A. D. P. Heeney, and Gordon Robertson but also Hugh L. Keenleyside, Louis St. Laurent, Jean

Lesage, R. A. J. Phillips, and Trevor Lloyd, conceived of the Northern and Arctic regions as a symbolic space for the projection of predominantly English-Canadian national project. When confronted with American requests for the construction of defense installations across Northern and Arctic Canada during the early Cold War, Pearson and his fellow Arcticians assessed these proposals in light of their ramifications for the security of the continent, the legal impact on its sovereignty claims, and a vibrant Northern nationalism.

Historians of Canadian-American relations frame the period of the early Cold War as a time of shared interests and continental integration. As the organization of peace in Europe and in Asia and the establishment of a postwar order revealed ever more tensions between the United

States and the Soviet Union, the issue of the security of the Northern reaches of the North

American continent, first forced onto Ottawa and Washington with World War II, quickly resurfaced on the bilateral agenda. The emergence of the nuclear age and long-range aviation ensured that the Arctic assumed a strategic role in the superpower struggle between Washington and Moscow. If the protection of North America and the fight against the totalitarian regimes in

Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo provided the overriding interest during World War II, a broadly common appreciation of the political and ideological challenges posed by the Soviet Union now became the shared focal point of continental defense. Diplomatic historians debate whether this

4 Jack Pickersgill quoted in J. L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins 1935-1957, New Edition (Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2015), 164. 3

common appreciation was the result of a “politics of fear,”5 a practical recognition of the economic and military realities of co-existing under a “New American Empire”6 or the result of a new cohort of continentalists, bent on breaking the British bond and delivering the Canadian nation into the purported colonial fangs of the United States.7 Resistance to this gravitational pull of continentalism manifested itself, above all, in the realm of trade relations and a resurging

Canadian cultural nationalism.8 “Converging destinies” and “converging policies,” however,

Robert Bothwell has argued, led to a Cold War defense relationship that was based on “a sense of common purpose and shared objectives.”9

Canadian-American foreign and defense relations in the Northern and Arctic region do not easily lend themselves to this narrative of converging destinies. There is no doubt that

Canadian governments, in general, were reliable and steadfast American allies in the early Cold

War. A new internationalism predicated the independence and security of Canada on a system of multilateral institutions, managing the global political, economic, and security order after the war. Ottawa agreed to continue the wartime defense relationship with Washington, joined the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and fought alongside U.S. forces in the Korean

War. Canadian politicians and diplomats, albeit less rigid in their assessment of the Soviet Union than their American counterparts,10 were anti-communist and in agreement with U.S. views

5 Denis Smith, Diplomacy of Fear: Canada and the Cold War, 1941-1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). 6 John Herd Thompson and Stephen J. Randall, Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). 7 Donald G. Creighton, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939-1957 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976). 8 Norman Hillmer and J. L. Granatstein, For Better or for Worse: Canada and the United States into the Twenty- First Century (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 2007), 163–91; Thompson and Randall, Canada and the United States, 186–95; Robert Bothwell, Your Country, My Country: A Unified History of the United States and Canada (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 247–50. 9 Bothwell, Your Country, My Country, 210–22. 10 Thompson and Randall, Canada and the United States, 175. 4

about Moscow’s intentions and threats to the North American continent. Indeed, the Canadian

Secretary of State for External Affairs and later Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent stipulated in

1947 that it was a basic principle of Canadian foreign policy to “accept our responsibility as a

North American nation in enterprises which are for the welfare of this continent.” The United

States, St. Laurent declared, was a “a state with purposes and ambitions parallel to ours.”11

Yet for all these shared perspectives, the question of defense cooperation across Northern and Arctic Canada was fraught with political, economic, legal, and cultural baggage. Defense cooperation during World War II, historians have shown, already had given rise to resentment and suspicion in Ottawa once the Canadian government turned its attention to American activities across Northern and Arctic Canada.12 The scale of projects such as the Alaska

Highway, the Canol Pipeline or the Crimson Route posed questions over Canada’s sovereignty and the eventual price tag once the projects were turned over to Ottawa. Concerns about the presence of U.S. military personnel and the potential impact on sovereignty, therefore, resulted in the policy of a ‘re-Canadianization’ of the North. Advocating for a distinctly Northern destiny and identity of Canadian nationhood, the new cohort of Arcticians inserted a particular Northern brand of nationalism into the debate about defense cooperation and the protection of sovereignty in Northern and Arctic Canada. In doing so, they complicated the narrative of those who charged

11 Louis St. Laurent, “The Foundation of Canadian Policy in World Affairs,” January 13, 1947, LAC, Louis St. Laurent Fonds, MG 26-L, Vol. 253, File: PM-1947-2, Gray Memorial Lecture University of Toronto, Jan. 13/47. 12 Shelagh D. Grant, Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), 103–28; Ibid., Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010), 247–84; Morris Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988), 203–33; Ken Coates and William R. Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II: The U.S. Army of Occupation in Canada’s Northwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); Whitney Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable: Mackenzie King, Canadian-American Bilateral Relations, and Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest, 1943-1948,” in Mackenzie King: Citizenship and Community: Essays Marking the 125th Anniversary of the Birth of William Lyon Mackenzie King, ed. John English, K. M. McLaughlin, and Whitney Lackenbauer (Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2002), 151–68; Ken Coates et al., Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North (Toronto: T. Allen Publishers, 2008), 55–63. 5

that this new cohort “thought instinctively in American continental terms.”13 Lester Pearson, the ringleader of these Arcticians, most prominently embodied this tension between the new internationalism, Canadian-American defense relations, and a Northern nationalism. With new requests for U.S. projects in Northern and Arctic Canada crowding External Affairs’ agenda, these Northern nationalists were not easily reconciled with Canada’s otherwise solid commitment to a junior role in a U.S.-led Cold War consensus. Continentalism led through the

Arctic and U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relations could experience cold snaps along the way.

The negotiations over the establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations during the late 1940s and the Distant Early Warning Line during the mid-1950s threw these opposing impulses into sharp relief. Long before Moscow had detonated its first atomic device in August

1949, American defense planners had identified “the gap between Alaska and Greenland,” as

U.S. Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson noted,14 as the most urgent continental security vulnerability in the North American air defense architecture against the perceived threat by the

Soviet Union. As a result, the U.S. administrations of Harry S. Truman and Dwight D.

Eisenhower pressed Canadian governments to agree to an expansion of Northern and Arctic scientific and defense programs. In addition to training centers, surveillance programs, and joint field exercises, Washington urged the governments of William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis

St. Laurent to agree to the construction of weather stations in the Arctic Archipelago and radar stations along the Canadian Arctic coastline. JAWS constituted the first large-scale joint project

13 Creighton, The Forked Road, 240f. 14 Dean G. Acheson, “Memorandum for the President,” October 1, 1946, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library (HST), Papers of Harry S. Truman, President’s Secretary’s File, Subject File: Foreign Affairs, Box 151, File: Canada, General. 6

in the Arctic Archipelago during the immediate postwar years. The network of five weather stations, build between 1947 and 1950, was designed to provide scientific data, to gain experience in Arctic operations, and to improve aerial navigation for polar aviation. The weather stations constituted “the main continuing activities in the Arctic and in them our relations with the United States [came] sharply into focus,” Canadian Arctic official R. A. J. Phillips observed.15 The establishment of the DEW Line, however, eclipses all U.S.-Canadian Cold War defense projects in the Arctic. The purpose of the early warning system was to detect hostile incursions across the Arctic Ocean to provide sufficient time for the U.S. Strategic Air Command to secure its nuclear retaliatory bombers and to assist civil defense measures in urban centers. It took a massive technological and logistical effort, involving naval convoys along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well as airdrops by the commercial carriers and the U.S. Air Force. The

DEW Line, hence, was a vital element in Eisenhower’s New Look deterrence strategy. The combination of technological advances and external threats transformed Northern and Arctic

Canada into a frontline of the Cold War.

While the Truman and Eisenhower administrations conceived of the Arctic as a critical element in its global national security strategy, senior foreign and defense officials in Ottawa debated the JAWS and DEW Line projects not only in the context of their responsibilities for the security of North America. Prime ministers, External Affairs, and National Defence, assessed the

American requests in terms of their impact on the de jure and de facto status of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic and the political implications for the nationalist project of an independent and distinctly Northern Canada. As the group of Arcticians moved into the nerve

15 Elizabeth B. Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy: Canada and the United States in the Northwest Passage (New York: P. Lang, 1998), 85. 7

centers of Canada’s foreign policy apparatus, the tension between Ottawa’s commitment to continental defense cooperation with the United States and a well-established narrative, linking

Canadian nationhood and a Northern destiny, shaped the talks and internal debates over Ottawa’s policy. If Washington had hoped a common strategic appreciation would translate into placid negotiations and prompt action with Ottawa over JAWS and the DEW Line, they soon had to realize that Arctic defense cooperation with Canada was far more complex than that.

* * *

This dissertation examines the talks and negotiations between the United States and Canada over the conception, construction, and operation of JAWS from 1944 to 1950 and the DEW Line from

1950 to 1957. By analyzing the official records of the American and Canadian governments in combination with the personal papers of key decision makers and the public statements of non- governmental actors, I locate the history of the weather and radar stations program at the intersection of security, sovereignty, and a Northern nationalism as the principal themes of U.S.-

Canadian Arctic defense relations during the early Cold War. In doing so, I investigate the internal discussions among senior policymakers within the national security establishments of both governments and trace how Ottawa and Washington conceived of JAWS and the DEW Line within their domestic and international contexts. How have key decision makers in Washington and Ottawa determined the necessity for Arctic defense cooperation? What role did the Northern and Arctic regions play as a place sui generis in the conception of these projects? How have

American and Canadian foreign and defense officials defined their nation’s interest and role in the establishment of JAWS and the DEW Line? How have questions over Arctic sovereignty affected the bilateral talks? What impact did non-governmental actors have on the perceptions of senior decision makers? And, finally, to what extent have foreign and defense officials of both

8

countries enlisted such actors and their ideas during state visits, official statements or public campaigns to cast themselves as legitimate and authentic stewards of the Northern and Arctic regions? This thesis, as a result, is a diplomatic history of U.S.-Canadian defense relations in the

Arctic bringing into conversation the history of continental defense, Arctic sovereignty, and the role of perceptions during the early Cold War.

This study explores the origins, the construction, and the debates over operation of the

U.S.-Canadian weather stations program and the early warning system in the Arctic in light of an evolving security environment. The emerging Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States resulted in the reassessment of the strategic significance of the Arctic approaches to the North American continent. Variations of military appreciations about the urgency of a Soviet threat notwithstanding, a fundamental agreement about the hostility of the

Soviet regime and the potential military threat across the Arctic Ocean existed among the

Canadian and American foreign and defense policy establishments. The establishment of JAWS and the DEW Line were critical elements in the expansion of the Northern and Arctic defense architecture at the end of World War II and during the early Cold War. I, therefore, examine how a global national security conception in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations related to a predominantly national conception of Northern and Arctic defense among Canadian foreign and defense officials. I explore how Washington and Ottawa developed distinct approaches to evaluating the rationale for the expansion of Arctic capabilities and the nature of Canada’s involvement and participation in U.S.-Canadian Arctic projects. Moreover, I trace how the

Canadian departments of External Affairs, National Defence, and the Royal Canadian Air Force

(RCAF) drew on diverging bureaucratic cultures to advocate for conflicting visions of Canada’s role in continental defense with the United States.

9

This study also touches upon the extent to which questions over Canada’s sovereignty intersected with the talks over the establishment of the weather stations and the radar stations in the Arctic. The Canadian and American governments championed conflicting interpretations of the legal requirements for the attainment of a valid claim to terrestrial sovereignty in remote regions. In light of an evolving legal landscape, Ottawa had developed a claim based on the sector principle and the concept of effective occupation.16 Washington’s perception of Canada’s claims focused on the sector dimension and, with the Hughes Doctrine, the State Department advanced an interpretation for polar sovereignty that stipulated stringent requirements of settlement and occupation that conflicted with the Canadian position. As a result, I trace how concerns over Canada’s de jure and de facto sovereignty in the Arctic informed the views and actions of decision makers in Ottawa and Washington. Moreover, I examine how the urgency of sovereignty concerns evolved over time in the appraisals of Canadian and American Arctic sovereignty studies and policies. In doing so, I explored how Canadian and U.S. governments managed diverging legal policies, how they responded to concerns, and how sovereignty was enlisted as a political issue throughout parliamentary and public debates in Canada towards the end of the construction phase of the DEW Line.

In addition to the security and the sovereignty dimensions, this dissertation takes seriously the ideas and cultural tropes surrounding the Northern and Arctic regions as a significant variable in the political and diplomatic equation of U.S.-Canadian Arctic foreign and defense relations during the early Cold War. The bilateral talks and the internal deliberations among Canadian and American decicisionmakers took place within the context of well-

16 Chapter I provides a brief survey of the historical evolution of the U.S. and Canadian sovereignty concepts for the acquisition of territories in remote regions. 10

established mythologies, national narratives, and Arctic utopias dating back to the nineteenth century. A diverse array of actors and groups, ranging from explorers, visual artists, writers to public intellectuals, among others, had established a collective repertoire of Northern and Arctic imaginations by the end of World War II that appealed particularly to Canadian diplomats. These representations provided them with a vocabulary to articulate a Northern vision that linked

Canadian nationhood with an independent international voice and an assertive stewardship of

Northern and Arctic Canada. These ideas were real and they require in-depth analysis lest a key aspect in the U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic defense relationship is to remain insufficiently explored. This thesis, therefore, relates ideas about the North expressed in speeches, diaries, articles, policy memoranda, meeting minutes, and governmental studies to the security and sovereignty dimensions of defense cooperation during the JAWS and DEW Line talks between

Ottawa and Washington in the Arctic.

As a consequence, this thesis brings the history of JAWS and the DEW Line in conversation with the work by scholars of literature and culture such as Carl Berger, Sherrill E.

Grace, Renée Hulan, Daniel Francis, Michael Robinson, Russell A. Potter, and Peter Davidson.17

By unveiling the intimate entanglement of diplomacy, politics, and culture, this thesis makes the case that decision makers carried into debates about U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation a set of assumptions and perceptions about the Canadian Arctic as a political and cultural space.

17 Carl Berger, “The True North Strong and Free,” in Nationalism in Canada, by Peter H. Russell (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1966); Carl Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971); Sherrill Grace, Canada and the Idea of North (Montreal: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2001); Ibid., On the Art of Being Canadian (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010); Renée Hulan, Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002); Daniel Francis, National Dreams: Myth, Memory, and Canadian History (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1997); Michael F. Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2006); Russell A. Potter, Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007); Peter Davidson, The Idea of North (London: Reaktion Books, 2016). 11

Where Farish’s scientists and strategists engaged in geographical engineering to construct the

Arctic as a Cold War space amenable to security solutions based on physics and electronics, a broad set of cultural actors engaged in practices of cultural imagining, creating a canon of

Northern and Arctic utopias, mythologies, and national narratives. These images equipped decision makers, especially in Canada, with the mental map and the vocabulary to link issues of

Arctic defense cooperation with questions of national identity and history. Calls to defend

Canadian Arctic sovereignty against the perceived imperialist tendencies of the United States, in turn, conflated a legal and practical issue with a broader quest for an independent Canadian voice in world affairs and a Northern national identity. In the absence of an official U.S. recognition of

Canada’s claim to the Arctic Islands, calls for the protection of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty took on a political significance in addition to its legal dimension. Precedents for this conflation existed long before the U.S.-Canadian talks over JAWS and the DEW Line as the nationalist outcries in the aftermath of the Alaska Boundary Dispute or Stefansson’s sovereignty scares during the 1920s indicate. It is on this conceptual plane then that this study provides an alternate reading of the Canadian-American talks over the establishment of weather stations and the early warning system in the Canadian Arctic.

Finally, this thesis raises questions over the role of Lester Pearson and the broader theme of Canadian-American convergence as a result of an ever-expanding defense relationship during the early Cold War. Holmes and Grant have both identified the group of Arcticians or Northern nationalists as important drivers of a vision of Canadian nationalism that singled out the development of Northern and Arctic Canada as a defining feature of the country. Pearson, however, proved himself a most ardent advocate of this Northern nationalism, at times at the cost of his own brand of pragmatic internationalist diplomacy, as Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and

12

Lackenbauer have noted. 18 This thesis further explores this theme, adding unpublished documents about the origins of Pearson fascination with the North and his deep conviction in the

Northern destiny of Canada. Placing these new insights in the context of his Arctic diplomacy, it appears conceivable that among Ottawa’s Northern nationalists, Pearson was a true Arctic exceptionalist, having his aggressive views on Canadian Arctic policy override an otherwise quiet, flexible, and internationalist foreign policy, particularly towards the United States. This raises the question to what extent Canadian External Affairs policy towards U.S.-Canadian

Northern and Arctic defense cooperation complicates the larger narrative of convergence in the diplomatic and political relationship of both countries during the early Cold War.

Historiography and Contribution

The existing scholarship on Canadian and American relations in the Northern and Arctic regions continues to expand, both in terms of the volume of individual studies as well as methodological approaches. The field is largely structured along thematic and disciplinary lines, bending towards diplomatic and military examinations of both countries’ activities and their import on questions of national sovereignty and security. Studies, for example, examining the history of Canada’s early twentieth-century turn towards the North,19 its wartime defense cooperation with the

United States,20 the emergence of the Canadian Rangers as a unique paramilitary force,21 the

18 Peter Kikkert, Adam Lajeunesse, and Whitney Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy,” in Mike’s World: Lester Pearson and Canadian External Relations, 1963-1968, ed. Asa McKercher and Galen R. Perras, 2016. 19 Morris Zaslow, The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870-1914 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971); Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967; Janice Cavell and Jeffrey David Noakes, Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918-25 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010). 20 Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II; Stanley W. Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959); Grant, 13

Arctic defense projects of the Cold War,22 and the reorientation towards questions of maritime security during the second half of the twentieth century23 continue to fill significant gaps in the scholarly literature. In addition to these studies, historiographical shifts with the ascendency of cultural studies and environmental history have produced works that offer new insights into the nature of knowledge production about the Arctic, the prevalence of modernist approaches to

Northern and Arctic scientific and defense projects, and the Arctic environment as a cultural construction.24 The works of Morris Zaslow, Shelagh Grant and the authors of Arctic Front

Sovereignty or Security?; James G. Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Appeasement and Rearmament. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967). 21 Whitney Lackenbauer, The Canadian Rangers: A Living History (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013). 22 David J. Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50: Solving the Canadian Dilemma,” in The Cold War and Defense, ed. Keith Nelson and Ronald G. Haycock (New York: Praeger, 1990), 153–70; P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Peter Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” in The National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009, ed. Greg Donaghy and Michael K. Carroll (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011), 101–20; Peter Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” in Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011), 55–68; Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy”; Alexander W. G. Herd, “As Practicable: Canada-United States Continental Air Defense Cooperation 1953-1954” (Kansas State University, 2005); Alexander W. G Herd, “A ‘Common Appreciation’: Eisenhower, Canada, and Continental Air Defense, 1953–1954,” Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 3 (2011): 4–26; Joseph T. Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defence, 1945-1958 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987); William R. Morrison, “Eagle Over the Arctic: Americans in the Canadian North, 1867-1985,” Canadian Review of American Studies Canadian Review of American Studies 18, no. 1 (1987): 63–76; Thomas M. Tynan, “Canadian- American Relations in the Arctic: The Effect of Environmental Influences Upon Territorial Claims,” The Review of Politics 41, no. 3 (1979): 402–27. 23 Adam Lajeunesse, “Lock, Stock, and Icebergs? Defining Canadian Sovereignty from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper,” CMSS Occasional Paper 1 (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2007); Adam Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs. A History of Canada’s Arctic Maritime Sovereignty (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016); Rob Huebert, “Polar Vision or Tunnel Vision: The Making of Canadian Arctic Waters Policy,” Marine Policy 19, no. 4 (1995): 343–63; Franklyn Griffiths, Politics of the Northwest Passage (McGill- Queen’s University Press, 1987); Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy, 1998. 24 A 2017 special issue of the Northern Review on “The North and the First World War” guest-edited by Brent Slobodin and Ken Coates indicates the growing historiographical diversity of approaches to Northern and Arctic history. The articles provide a kaleidoscope of perspectives on the war in the North, examining the military, diplomatic, economic, literary, and food aspects, among others. See Brent Slobodin and Ken S. Coates, eds., “The North and the First World War,” The Northern Review, no. 44 (2017): 3–464. Matthew Farish and Whitney Lackenbauer turned towards modernization theory to show the predominance of the modern administrative state and a conviction in the supremacy of modern science to dominate Northern and Arctic environments, see Matthew Farish and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “Western Electric Turns North: Technicians and the Transformation of the 14

notwithstanding,25 the scarcity of studies providing overarching syntheses—the hallmark of a field’s scholarly maturity—indicates the need for continued basic research in the history of U.S.-

Canadian relations in the Arctic,26 further expanding the depth and the scope of studies on

Ottawa and Washington’s defense activities in the North, including the role of indigenous peoples, scientific activity, technology as well as the growing agency of non-state actors, and the recent focus on aspects of empire.27

In the field of diplomatic history, more broadly, the role of ideas, narratives, and culture as an aspect in the performance of international relations has been prominently expanded over the past decades. While the subjects particularly of U.S. foreign relations historians are geographically far removed from the Northern and Arctic regions of North America, the interest in a greater exploration of the way principal decision makers in the foreign ministries across the globe made sense of their environments and their counterparts touches closely on the research interest of this study of U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relations in the Arctic. Since the

1970s, historians such as Akira Irye, Michael J. Hunt, Emily S. Rosenberg, and Frank

Cold War Arctic,” in Ice Blink: Navigating Northern Environmental History, ed. Stephen Bocking and Steve Martin (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2017), 261–92; P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Matthew Farish, “The Cold War on Canadian Soil: Militarizing a Northern Environment,” Environmental History 12, no. 4 (2007): 920–50; Matthew Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Adrian Howkins provided a brief survey through the lens of environmental history of Canadian and American activities in the North, see Adrian Howkins, The Polar Regions: An Environmental History (Cambridge: Polity, 2016). 25 Zaslow, The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870-1914; Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914- 1967; Grant, Polar Imperative; Coates et al., Arctic Front. 26 The publication of primary document collections in the Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security- series by the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies since 2014 further illustrates the foundational work in the study of Northern and Arctic history that remains to be done. Despite the series’ title, the collections serve as a valuable resource for research beyond questions of sovereignty and security. See Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security, 10 vols. (Calgary: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies), accessed August 28, 2017, http://cmss.ucalgary.ca/dcass; See also Janice Cavell (ed.), Documents on Canadian External Relations: The Arctic, 1874-1949. Ottawa: Global Affairs Canada, 2016. 27 In a state-of-the-field essay, David Meren has advocated for a greater focus on the concept of empire as an analytical lens in the examination of Canadian international history. See David Meren, “The Tragedies of Canadian International History,” Canadian Historical Review 96, no. 4 (December 2015): 534–66. 15

Costigliola, most prominently, turned to questions of ideas, perceptions, and identity enshrined in rituals, histories, and narratives. Together, they developed the study of those intangible aspects of diplomatic history as a veritable research program.28 In the context of the postmodern challenge to the profession’s claim to historical truth, a cohort of diplomatic historians incorporated theoretical concepts from the disciplines of literary criticism, anthropology, and cultural studies into their projects, looking beyond the records of foreign ministries and defense departments to account for foreign policy and decision-making.29

Of the growing body of cultural approaches to diplomatic history, Andrew J. Rotter, most effectively, demonstrated the versatility of analyzing U.S.-India relations through the lens of ideas, perceptions, and culture. Rotter’s analysis offers stimulating observations for the study of

Canadian and American foreign and defense officials’ ideas and perceptions of the Northern and

Arctic region and how they related these to questions over defense cooperation and sovereignty

28 Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981); Akira Iriye, “Culture,” The Journal of American History, no. 1 (1990): 99–107; Akira Iriye, “Culture and International History,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, ed. Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 241–56; Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982); Emily S. Rosenberg, A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003); Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919-1933 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Frank Costigliola, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012). 29 Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Emily S. Rosenberg, “Gender,” The Journal of American History 77, no. 1 (1990): 116–24; Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001); Andrew J. Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947-1964 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000); Petra Goedde, GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender and Foreign Relations, 1945-1949 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Jessica C. E Gienow-Hecht, Transmission Impossible American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945-1955 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999); Jessica C. E Gienow-Hecht, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Jessica C. E Gienow-Hecht and Schumacher, Frank, Culture and International History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003); Frank A. Ninkovich, Global Dawn: The Cultural Foundation of American Internationalism, 1865- 1890 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009); Stephen J. Randall, Colombia and the United States: Hegemony and Interdependence (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992).

16

during the early Cold War. Drawing on the work of Clifford Geertz’ symbolic culture and

Edward Said’s Orientalism,30 Rotter unveils the pervasiveness of cultural conceptions in the political, strategic, and economic relationship between Washington and New Delhi. Popular images of the other, gestures, and the style and theater of diplomacy, for example, importantly conditioned assumptions and expectations of foreign policy officials. Such subtle cues, Rotter demonstrates, shape diplomats’ perceptions of their counterparts’ intentions, interests, and behavior. Bringing to light these dimensions in the complex nexus of foreign policymaking, it is imperative to enrich diplomatic history’s focus on briefing books and policy memoranda with sources that provide a window into the ideas and perceptions that structure diplomats’ views:

Decision makers are creatures of culture, not just policy wonks who shed their images of others like raincoats at the office door. Even the sophisticated men and women at the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon, and their sophisticated counterparts in New Delhi (and in Pakistan) were affected by long-standing images of the others with whom they dealt.31

While the object of this study is the Northern and Arctic region of North America, not Southeast

Asia, Rotter’s work points to the key role of ideas and perceptions in the way senior decision makers attempt to define interests, develop policy, and make sense of their world. These investigations, therefore, serve as stimulating touchstones for a further exploration of the ideas and mythologies that informed Pearson and his fellow Arcticians in the Canadian government as well as those guiding conceptions that shaped U.S. continental defense planners.

For all the disciplinary interventions into the field of diplomatic history, the historiography of U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relations in the Arctic remains predominantly grouped around a discussion of sovereignty, security, and the way Canadian and

30 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). 31 Rotter, Comrades at Odds, xix–xx. 17

American governments have dealt with these imperatives. These historians have focused on issues of strategy, defense policy, alliance politics, and the legal and practical dimensions of

Arctic sovereignty. In this literature, three schools of thought can be distinguished. A first school of historians cast the Northern and Arctic policy of the Mackenzie King and St. Laurent governments during World War II and the early Cold War in a very critical light. In the tradition of Donald G. Creighton’s fierce attack on the continentalists and internationalist foreign policy of the 1940s and the 1950s,32 Jack L. Granatstein and Shelagh D. Grant argue that Canadian governments were cajoled by expansionist U.S. administrations into choosing between acquiescing to massive infrastructure and defense installations across Northern and Arctic

Canada and sacrificing its ability to exercise full sovereignty and control over American activities. As a result, Granatstein suggests, Canada “handed away part of its sovereignty.”33 In a similar fashion, Grant intimates U.S. designs to take advantage of wartime projects such as the

Alaska Highway or the Canol Pipeline and to challenge Canada’s legal claim to parts of the

Arctic islands during the JAWS talks in the immediate postwar years. The overbearing conduct of U.S. military personnel along defense installations and the expansion of scientific and commercial activities such as the development of energy and air travel, she argues, created a sovereignty crisis for the Canadian government, posing questions about Ottawa’s de facto governance over remote regions in the Northwest and in the Arctic. Canada’s quest to accommodate U.S. continental defense interests in the wake of the security crises of World War

II and the early Cold War, therefore, came at the expense of its practical, if not legal, sovereignty

32 Creighton, The Forked Road. 33 J. L. Granatstein, “A Fit of Absence of Mind: Canada’s National Interest in the North to 1968,” in The Arctic in Question, ed. E. J. Dosman (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976), 30. 18

across the Northern and Arctic region.34 By 1957, Creighton decried, the Liberal governments had condemned Canada to “a military dependency of the United States in the defence of North

America.”35

These alarmist interpretations were followed by more moderate appraisals of Ottawa and

Washington’s Northern and Arctic defense relationship during World War II and the early Cold

War. This “middle ground” school, as Whitney Lackenbauer has described them,36 cast aside the notion that Washington pursued a decided policy to challenge Canadian legal claims in the

Arctic. Tensions and suspicions between Ottawa and Washington emerged out of U.S. defense interests and the Canadian government’s belated efforts to secure its rights and supervision in these projects. Scholars such as Morris Zaslow and James Eayrs describe the excesses of U.S. military personnel and the flaunting of Canadian law. The fact that the expansion of infrastructure and military installations with the construction of airfields, weather stations, roads, and pipelines into the Northwest was predominantly carried out and financed by the United

States, however, also reflected a longer tradition of Canadian absenteeism in the North and a willingness among officials in Ottawa to accept American-sponsored Northern development.37 A mostly symbolic policy towards Northern development, hence, was rather to blame for sovereignty infractions than a U.S. defense interests in the North, William R. Morrison argued.38

The complexity of personal relationships, such as the one between Mackenzie King and Franklin

Roosevelt, and the Canadian government’s continuing struggle for consultation and participation

34 Grant, Sovereignty or Security; ibid., Polar Imperative. 35 Creighton, The Forked Road, 241. 36 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 153. 37 Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967, 203–33. 38 William R. Morrison, “Eagle over the Arctic: Americans in the Canadian North, 1867-1985,” in Interpreting Canada’s North. Selected Readings, eds. Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1989), 180. 19

in matters of defense cooperation during the war and thereafter, moreover, gave rise to suspicions, most, however, not born out by the historical record as Charles Stacey and Galen

Perras argue.39 Regardless, Canada acquiesced to its role as a junior partner in an ever-expanding defense relationship with the United States in the early Cold War, dealing with the impact of the

U.S. military presence on Canadian sovereignty. If these historians lacked the nationalist fervor of the first school, they continued to see Canada’s sovereignty threatened, if not diminished as a result of the growing number of American-led scientific and defense projects across Northern and Arctic Canada.

Most recently, the revisionist school has established a rebuttal of the early interpretations by Creighton, Granatstein, and Grant and offered a more generous reading of Canadian Arctic policy and U.S. intentions in the Northern and Arctic regions. These historians reaffirm the general thrust of the moderate school with respect to U.S. Arctic defense policy, but they argue that a gradual and pragmatic approach defined Ottawa’s position towards American Northern and Arctic defense cooperation most accurately. Instead of signing away Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, David J. Bercuson argued, Ottawa effectively balanced Cold War defense needs with its desire to obtain Washington’s recognition of Canadian ownership over the Northern lands. Moreover, Bercuson framed the policy pursued by Canadian governments as one of

‘defense-against-help’, a concept developed by Nils Orvik who argued that it is in the national interest of smaller powers to convince the larger power of their ability to mount defense

39 C. P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict: Volume 2: 1921-1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 363; Galen Roger Perras, Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933-1945 (Westport: Praeger, 1998), 123. 20

activities of their own to avoid unwanted military assistance.40 For Canada, Bercuson argued, this meant fending off American overbearance all the while defending against the threat of cross- polar attack by the Soviet Union.41

In the debate over balancing sovereignty and security interests, Whitney Lackenbauer,

Ken Coates, William Morrison, Peter Kikkert, Daniel Heidt, Adam Lajeunesse, and Alexander

Herd have expanded upon Bercuson’s intervention. Throughout their research into World War II and the postwar period, Lackenbauer and Kikkert argue that, over time, the Mackenzie King and

St. Laurent governments effectively aligned national resources and capabilities with the priorities of the war and U.S. security interests in the early Cold War, not passively green-lighting

American projects.42 In light of an evolving legal landscape and in the absence of official U.S. recognition of Canada’s claims based on the sector principle and effective occupation, furthermore, Ottawa and Washington successfully avoided open confrontation over their conflicting legal interpretations about Arctic sovereignty by way of gradual, defensive, and quiet diplomacy.43 More than that, Lackenbauer and others make the case that the expansion of transportation, communication, and energy infrastructure and the growing activity of Canadian scientific and military personnel as part of U.S.-Canadian defense projects strengthened

Canadian sovereignty claims. U.S. observance of bilateral agreements and extensive regulations that governed the projects, hence, afforded Ottawa implicit American recognition of its

40 Nils Orvik, “Defence Against Help--A Strategy for Small States?,” Survival 15, no. 5 (1973): 228–31; Nils Orvik, “The Basic Issue in Canadian National Security: Defence Against Help/Defence to Help Others,” Canadian Defence Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1981): 8–15. 41 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50.” 42 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable”; ibid. and Peter Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security in Canadian Diplomacy, The United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” in In the National Interest. Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011), 101–20; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic.” 43 Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs; Peter Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth: Framing and Contesting Polar Sovereignty, 1900-55” (University of Western Ontario, 2015). 21

stewardship over the Arctic Archipelago over time.44 This interpretation, Lackenbauer and

Kikkert have shown, dovetails the legal views of American polar experts at the State

Department.45 The impact U.S.-Canadian defense projects during World War II and the early

Cold War, therefore, had certainly more lasting developmental effects on the social, economic, and environmental landscape of Northern and Arctic Canada than Ottawa’s de jure sovereignty.

Military programs and projects, Coates, Morrison, and Kenneth C. Eyre argue, disrupted local communities and transformed regional economies and administrative structures.46 The revisionist school, as a result, revised the zero-sum interpretation of U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic defense relations during World War II and the early Cold War. Ottawa managed Washington’s security interests all the while preserving and solidifying its legal standing in the Arctic.

The history of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations has received only passing attention by scholars who examine the defense relationship between Canada and the United States in the early

Cold War period.47 The establishment of radar lines across the North American continent, which culminated in the construction of the DEW Line during the mid-1950s, drew most of the

44 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable”; ibid. in Coates et al., Arctic Front, 53–79; Daniel Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1972,” in Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011), 145–69; Herd, “A ‘Common Appreciation’”; ibid., “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” in Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011), 171–201. 45 Peter Kikkert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” in Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, ed. Peter Kikkert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security (Calgary and Waterloo, 2014), vi–xliv. 46 Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II; Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison, “‘The Army of Occupation’: Americans in the Canadian Northwest during World War II,” in Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011), 55–68; Kenneth Charles Eyre, “The Military and Nation-Building in the Arctic, 1945-1964,” in Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011), 201–32. 47 At the time of writing, historians Daniel Heidt and Whitney Lackenbauer were in the process of completing a monograph study on the practice of polar science at the JAWS project with the University of Manitoba Press. 22

scholarly attention when analyzing the Canadian-American defense partnership in the North.48

The scale and the strategic role of the DEW Line certainly dwarfed the dimension of JAWS yet, at the same time, the history of the joint weather stations in the High Arctic is a critical element in the larger evolution of the Canada-U.S. defense relationship at the intersection of the emerging security crisis of the Cold War, the persisting sovereignty concerns and the articulation of a

Northern nationalism. 49 The history of JAWS, moreover, demonstrates the legacy of scientific and strategic interest in Northern and Arctic defense by the U.S. military branches coming out of

World War II. If the year 1945 and the end of hostilities in Europe and Asia signified an hour zero for some parts of the world, the Canada-U.S. defense relationship in the Canadian North experienced only a brief hiatus. The weather stations program, hence, constituted an interregnum during which both countries placed their postwar relations on a new footing while they negotiated new facilities, activities, and programs for an expansion of Arctic knowledge.

Historians have examined the weather stations program as an episode in the larger narrative of Canada’s struggle to protect its sovereignty while balancing security requests from

48 Herd, “As Practicable: Canada-United States Continental Air Defense Cooperation 1953-1954”; Adam Lajeunesse, “The Distant Early Warning Line and the Canadian Battle for Public Perception,” Canadian Military Journal, 2007, 51–59; Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987; Kenneth Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1991); Matthew Paul Trudgen, “The Search for Continental Security: The Development of the North American Air Defence System, 1949 to 1956” (Queen’s University, 2011); John Woitkowitz, “Arctic Sovereignty and the Cold War: Canada-U.S. Relations and the Establishment of the DEW Line” (Ohio State University, 2009). 49 JAWS was a hybrid program combining scientific with military aspects in Arctic meteorology. For American and Canadian foreign and defense officials at the time, the weather stations program constituted an element in the expansion of defense capabilities in the Arctic. My treatment of JAWS as a defense program, therefore, follows contemporary perceptions but is not intended to minimize its scientific dimension. For a discussion of the entangled relationship between science and defense in the field of meteorology, see Kristine C. Harper, Weather by the Numbers: The Genesis of Modern Meteorology (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012); Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining, eds., Science in Uniform, Uniforms in Science: Historical Studies of American Military and Scientific Interactions (Washington: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, 2007). 23

the United States.50 One piece in the long quest for defining sovereignty over the Arctic and the

Northwest Passage, Elizabeth Elliot-Meisel squarely situated the talks over JAWS within the history of persistent Canadian sovereignty concerns, tracing the legacy of wartime experiences far into the 1950s in an otherwise effective U.S.-Canadian defense relationship in the Arctic.51

For Grant, JAWS illustrated once more the expansionist attitude in some quarters of the U.S. military and foreign policy establishment by way of an ever-deepening defense cooperation.

Although she is unable to marshal evidence in support of a decided American policy to undermine Canada’s independence, Grant points to the occasional statements and papers of lower-level officials in the military and diplomatic bureaucracies in Washington. 52 Adam

Lajeunesse’s early work stresses the lack of political will to mobilize the necessary resources to fully staff and operate JAWS as a purely Canadian project. He focuses on Ottawa’s inability to take a more assertive stance towards Washington.53

The revisionist school has pushed back against these critiques. Building on the pioneering work of Gordon W. Smith,54 they have parsed ministerial records to demonstrate that Canadian

50 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50”; Coates et al., Arctic Front; Grant, Polar Imperative; Grant, Sovereignty or Security?; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968”; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic”; Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1972”; Elizabeth B Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy: Canada and the United States in the Northwest Passage (New York: P. Lang, 1998); Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs; Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967. 51 Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy, 1998, 77–96. 52 Grant, Polar Imperative; ibid., Sovereignty or Security? 53 Lajeunesse, “Lock, Stock, and Icebergs? Defining Canadian Sovereignty from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper,” 3. 54 Gordon W. Smith, “Sovereignty in the North: The Canadian Aspect of an International Problem,” in The Arctic Frontier, ed. R. St. J. Macdonald (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), 195–256; ibid., “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 11, no. 3 (2009): 1–63; ibid., A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North: Volume 1: Terrestrial Sovereignty, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (University of Calgary Press, 2014). 24

personnel and material capacities demanded close cooperation with the United States.55 This relationship, however, had yet to be defined and, as Lackenbauer and Kikkert have shown,

Mackenzie King was not prepared to approve JAWS before the 1947 Joint Defense Agreement addressed the question of national sovereignty. 56 Instead of an example for squandering

Canadian sovereignty, they argue JAWS, ultimately, was a successful case study for the pragmatic and quiet approach to managing the sovereignty and security dimension of Arctic defense cooperation.57 Sovereignty concerns were channeled into agreements and regulations acceptable to the U.S. and Canadian governments. Minor episodes of discord never measured up to jeopardize the project, nor Canada’s claims to sovereignty in the Arctic. The weather stations program, Smith accordingly concluded, was a “clear-cut de facto recognition by the United

States of Canadian sovereignty over the islands of the archipelago.”58

While central aspects, security and sovereignty as the primary lenses for examining the negotiations and the establishment of the weather stations unduly narrow the analytical perspective for understanding those forces that guided Canadian and American diplomats and defense planners.59 The legal ramifications about hosting U.S. military personnel in the Arctic

Archipelago certainly continued to vex the Department of External Affairs and the Prime

Minister’s Office in Ottawa. Yet these discussions took place within the context of a resurgent

Northern nationalism in Canada. At External Affairs, the Permanent Joint Board on Defense

55 Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946- 1972,” 150ff. 56 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 162–63; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic.” 57 Ibid. and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security in Canadian Diplomacy, The United States, and the Arctic, 1943- 1968”; Lackenbauer in Coates et al., Arctic Front, 67f; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50.” 58 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 63. 59 In a presentation at Yukon College, Daniel Heidt proposed reframing the JAWS program in terms of its significance as a project of scientific modernism, placing the role of ideas about technology and planning in the center of his discussion. 25

(PJBD) and the Advisory Committee on Northern Development (ACND), and through public diplomacy diplomats and officials mobilized ideas about Canada’s North as an essential ingredient in the creation of a Canadian national identity and history. The band of Arcticians or

Northern nationalists, as Grant labeled them,60 advocated for a strong and public Canadian participation along the weather stations in the High Arctic. Lester Pearson, A. D. P. Heeney, R.

M. Macdonnell, and Hugh L. Keenleyside proposed an aggressive stance towards U.S. plans in the Arctic. Their calls for sole Canadian sponsorship of the weather station program reflected a deep conviction in the unique significance of visibly demonstrating Canadian stewardship in the

Arctic. If their proposals for full Canadian responsibility had not been based on a sober assessment of Ottawa’s personnel and material capacities, calls for openly pressing for U.S. recognition of Canada’s sector claim, more importantly, were not borne out of deep appreciation of the intricacies of American legal views on polar sovereignty.61

It is at this point that the dimension of ideas and perceptions needs to complement the existing debate about the relationship between sovereignty and security during the JAWS talks.

If Grant and the authors of Arctic Front acknowledge the existence of Northern mythologies in the Canadian national imagination, it is key to bring these ideas into the analysis of the statements and actions of Canadian and American decision makers during the negotiations. If

Pearson chose to invoke notions of the Arctic as a modernist epic in the evolution of Canadian nationhood in his discussions of the future of the Arctic in the immediate postwar period or if

American assessments of Canadian Arctic policy identify this Northern nationalism as a

60 Grant, “The Northern Nationalists.” 61 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50”; Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy.” 26

principal variable when considering U.S. Arctic policy, these are episodes that require in-depth analysis. The history of the establishment of the weather stations in the Canadian Arctic needs to take into account the broader historical and cultural forces at play to provide for a better understanding of U.S.-Canada foreign and defense relations in the Arctic during the early Cold

War period. This study, therefore, provides a re-assessment of the diplomatic record and contributes new documentation from personal papers about the extent to which ideas of a

Northern nationalism informed the discussions over the construction of the Joint Arctic Weather

Stations. If the expansion of Arctic capabilities meant for Washington adding one piece in a broader global security strategy, this study explores how political and cultural aspects intersected with sovereignty and security aspects in the Canadian debate.

The scholarly literature on the Distant Early Warning Line is characterized by a similar paucity of in-depth studies and approaches. Except for the chapter-length analysis by Jockel and the articles by Herd and Lajeunesse, 62 there does not exist a comprehensive scholarly examination of the history of the DEW Line. Despite the radar chain’s prominent place in the

North American air defense architecture and its lasting economic, social, and environmental impact on local communities, scholarly studies of the early warning system have not expanded beyond essay-length analyses and brief observations as part of larger narratives of U.S.-Canadian

Arctic relations during the Cold War.63 Some omit the early warning system entirely in their

62 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, chpt. 4; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line”; ibid., “A ‘Common Appreciation’”; Lajeunesse, “The Distant Early Warning Line and the Canadian Battle for Public Perception.” 63 The history of the DEW Line is treated as an episode in the larger history of Canada’s Northern and Arctic history in Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967, 326–30; Grant, Polar Imperative, 322; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 70–77; Tynan, “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic,” 12. 27

studies of U.S.-Canadian Arctic diplomacy.64 The larger community of American historians of

U.S. Cold War foreign relations devote cursory attention to questions of continental defense and focus instead on the U.S. policies in Europe, Asia, Latin America or Africa.65 Those who examine the establishment of the continental air defense relationship often devote only cursory attention to Canadian perspectives and pass over the actual negotiations over the early warning system in 1954 and 1955 in favor of the strategic discussions within the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.66 Canadian historians, by contrast, have taken a much greater interest in the history of continental defense relations—a reflection of both countries’ asymmetrical (academic) relationship.

Contemporary accounts of the origins, the construction, and the operation of the DEW

Line are largely descriptive and narrative portrayals. These expositions focus on the strategic aspects of the U.S.-Canadian continental defense relationship, the politics behind the American presence in the Far North, and the everyday life and practices along the remote radar stations, including exotic anecdotes of adventure, polar bear chases, and Canadian-American baseball games.67 Melvin Conant’s effort to educate his American audience about the Canadian politics

64 Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy, 1998. 65 For historiographical surveys of the recent trends in Cold War history and the relative absence of research by American historians on Canada, see the journals Diplomatic History, Cold War History, the Journal of Cold War History, and the roundtable review essays of H-Diplo in addition to Frank Costigliola and Michael J. Hogan, America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941, 2013; Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); ibid., America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Robert D. Schulzinger, A Companion to American Foreign Relations (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006). 66 Joseph T. Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defence, 1945-1958 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987); Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960; David F. Winkler, Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program (Langley AFB, VA: Headquarters Air Combat Command, 1997). 67 Melvin Conant, The Long Polar Watch: Canada and the Defense of North America. (New York: Harper, 1962); Joseph Barber, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Why the United States Provokes Canadians (Indianapolis: 28

of Arctic defense cooperation is particularly noteworthy for its wealth of comments about

“Canadianism,” or Canadian cultural nationalism. Writing in 1962, Conant deemed sovereignty not sufficiently important for his U.S. readers to spend much ink about the subject.68 While these accounts provide helpful insights into the contemporary perceptions and debates about the DEW

Line, their value is limited by their reliance on publicly available documentation from newspapers, magazines, and official sources. Finally, a collection of websites hosts stories, memories, and anecdotes about the life and work along the DEW Line by a variety of so-called

DEWliners, veteran operators who served at the stations in the Arctic over different periods of the line’s operation.69

Unsurpassed in its examination of American, less so Canadian, strategic thinking and continental defense policies during the 1950s, Joseph T. Jockel’s chapter-length analysis in his

1987 No Boundaries Upstairs continues as the authoritative account of the diplomatic and defense talks over the establishment of early warning networks across the North American continent. Jockel concluded that despite the occasional flare-up about perceived slights and a lack of consultation on the part of the United States, an increasingly interwoven continental defense architecture, national interests, and each country’s relative position guided foreign and defense officials in Ottawa and Washington during the DEW Line negotiations. In the absence of a full discussion of the internal debates in Ottawa throughout 1954 and 1955, Jockel’s account

Bobbs-Merrill, 1958); Richard Morenus, Dew Line: The Miracle of America’s First Line of Defense. (New York: Rand McNally, 1957). 68 Conant, The Long Polar Watch: Canada and the Defense of North America.; ibid., “Canada’s Role in Western Defense,” Foreign Affairs 40 (1962): 431–42. 69 “The DEWLine,” The DEWLine (blog), accessed May 25, 2017, http://lswilson.dewlineadventures.com/; “DEWLine Adventures,” DEWLine Adventures (blog), accessed May 25, 2017, http://www.dewlineadventures.com/; “Dew (Distant Early Warning) Line Project,” accessed May 25, 2017, http://www.beatriceco.com/bti/porticus/bell/dewline.html. 29

remains incomplete and suggests a more placid Canadian view than is merited by the record.70

Likewise, Kenneth Schaffel provides a detailed discussion of the competing strategic factions within the U.S. administrations, struggling over offensive and defensive doctrines of the U.S. Air

Force posture, and the place of the DEW Line in the New Look national security policy of the

Eisenhower Administration. His account provides no insight into Canadian thinking, strategic or otherwise.71 The political scientist James Eayrs, by contrast, provided an in-depth analysis of the diplomatic and defense policies, particularly the Canadian side, surrounding the DEW Line and, while acknowledging Canadian concerns over questions of sovereignty, makes the case that

Ottawa successfully protected Canada’s economic, political, and defense interests in the face of

American pressure for expanded early warning in the Arctic.72

Other studies have moved away from a focus on the broader Canadian-American Cold

War defense relationship to analyzing questions over the balancing of security and sovereignty interests in Canada. These interpretations treat the history of the DEW Line as an episode in a larger waltz between Ottawa and Washington, managing conflicting legal interpretations of

Arctic sovereignty. In this tradition, Grant emphasizes U.S. pressure for the construction of the radar system and a sense of exasperation with what U.S. officials perceived to be a lacking sense of urgency among their Canadian counterparts.73 As Ottawa deferred to the United States to assume responsibility for the construction and operation of the system Canadian sovereignty

70 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, chpt. 4. 71 Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, 175–93. 72 James G. Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). 73 Grant, Polar Imperative. 30

diminished.74 Granatstein also portrayed the construction of the early warning system as a

“mixed bag of blessings and disasters.” While the project contributed to the security of the continent, even though its technology was quickly superseded, Ottawa was less successful in fending off the sovereignty threat from its neighbor to the south, trading de facto control for security.75 The DEW Line, these historians argue, once more raised “a sense of uneasiness”76 about Washington’s motifs and weakened Canada’s sovereignty claims to effective occupation in the Arctic.

More recently, the revisionist school has emphasized the argument that the DEW Line does not lend itself for criticizing the United States for expansionist policies towards the Arctic, nor to intimate a loss of sovereignty on the part of Canada. Much like the agreement for JAWS and the 1947 Joint Defense Agreement, 77 the 1955 DEW Line agreement stipulated a comprehensive set of regulations for the construction and operation of the radar system. The agreement left no doubt about the legal title to the land on which the stations were erected.

Moreover, the Canadian construction and electronics industry as well as local Inuit were engaged in the establishment of the DEW Line before Canadian personnel began to take over the stations in the 1960s. Ottawa, hence, found a compromise that addressed its political as well as military interests, defining its role within the continental air defense architecture in relation to its financial and material capacities.78 As a result, the early warning system, Lackenbauer, Kikkert, and Lajeunesse argue, weakened Canadian claims neither on the basis of the contested sector

74 Lajeunesse, “Lock, Stock, and Icebergs? Defining Canadian Sovereignty from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper.” 75 Granatstein, “A Fit of Absence of Mind,” 26f. 76 Tynan, “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic,” 422. 77 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50,” 166. 78 Trudgen, “The Search for Continental Security,” 4. 31

principle, nor on the grounds of effective occupation. To the contrary, the presence of Canadian companies, Inuit, and ultimately Canadian personnel along the stations solidified Canadian claims as did the American practice of requesting approval from the Canadian government for defense projects dating back to the inception of the U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic defense relationship in the early years of World War II.79 Finally, for Washington, the radar system served a specific security interest. There did not exist a need to station U.S. military forces in the

Canadian Arctic for “reasons of alliance solidarity,” as Matthew Trudgen has pointed out.80

Canada was a solid ally in the Cold War war consensus.

Efforts to broaden the historical perspective on the history of the DEW Line and the role of the Canadian and American governments have emerged from studies that draw on approaches from environmental history and modernization theory. Following W. L. Morton’s call to place the North front and center in the writing of Canadian history,81 Morris Zaslow provided a comprehensive history of the social, environmental, and political impact of government activities across the Canadian North, situating the DEW Line within a larger pattern of state intervention and the expansion of administrative power by the Canadian government.82 Matthew Farish and

Whitney Lackenbauer further expanded on this work and convincingly argue that the DEW Line was a project of high modernism, in which the hegemony of scientific theories, a confidence in technology, the power of the administrative state, and the overcoming of northern nature

79 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 68–75; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security in Canadian Diplomacy, The United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 107–9; Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs, 60–65; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line”; Herd, “A ‘Common Appreciation.’” 80 Trudgen, “The Search for Continental Security,” 23. 81 W. L. Morton, “The ‘North’ in Canadian Historiography,” in Contexts of Canada’s Past: Selected Essays of W. L. Morton, ed. A. B McKillop (Toronto: Macmillan, 1980), 229–39. 82 Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967. 32

constituted the defining features of defense planners’ and technicians’ perceptions in the

Canadian and American capitals as well as on site in the Arctic.83 Drawing on the work of

Michel Foucault and Edward Said, Farish cast the DEW Line as the product of “interdisciplinary intellectual practices” at Cold War research institutes such as AINA and RAND that enlisted the social and natural sciences in the service of constructing the Arctic as a strategic and scientific space. Farish argues that the DEW Line ultimately was a manifestation of the power of the

“military-industrial-academic complex,” creating the Arctic as an ‘imaginative geography’ amenable to defense solutions through modern technology.84 Such approaches that combine cultural theory and environmental theory have been further explored by the environmental historian Adrian Howkins in his comparative study of the Arctic and Antarctic.85

While the existence of a well-established canon of Northern mythologies and narratives has been acknowledged by historians, they have not incorporated these into their analysis of the negotiations between Ottawa and Washington over the establishment of the DEW Line. Where

Herd argues that “Canadian concern for territorial sovereignty” was a key characteristic of the

DEW Line negotiations but concluded that sovereignty ultimately meant “respect,” he involuntarily hints at the entanglement of security, sovereignty, and culture as categories in the analysis of the bilateral talks.86 When Trudgen notes the role of “Canadian nationalism” in the

St. Laurent government but falls short to engage the literature, historical and scholarly, on the subject of Northern nationalism and to parse Canadian and American documents for such ideas,

83 Farish and Lackenbauer, “Western Electric Turns North”; ibid., “The Cold War on Canadian Soil.” 84 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 147–93. 85 Howkins, The Polar Regions. 86 Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 171; 193. 33

this dimension remains insufficiently explored.87 Grant’s work on the emergence of a cohort of

Northern nationalists during World War II notwithstanding,88 her discussions of the DEW Line negotiations exclude this aspect and, in fact, revert to the sovereignty and security framework.89

By the same token, the authors of Arctic Front acknowledge the existence of the cultural significance of the Northern and Arctic regions in the Canadian national imagination. Their discussion of the DEW Line, however, makes no reference to the role of these ideas.90 While these studies, therefore, recognize the prevalence of a Canadian Northern nationalism, these ideas have yet to be placed in relation to the existing discussion over the radar system’s role in the continental defense architecture and its impact on Canadian sovereignty claims.

This study seeks to fill this gap. It builds upon the findings of the revisionist school and picks up the constructivist impulse of Rotter and Farish for a more comprehensive discussion of the Canadian-American negotiations over the establishment of the DEW Line. In addition to studies of the strategic aspects of the early warning system and discussions of the implications for Canadian sovereignty claims in the Arctic, this thesis relates ideas about Canada as a distinct

Northern nation to the deliberations by the Canadian government over approving the U.S. request for the construction of the early warning system in the Canadian Arctic. I examine the distinct conception of continental air defense between Canadian and American foreign and defense officials. In doing so, I discuss how senior officials at External Affairs and other civilian departments of the Canadian government invoked ideas of a distinct Northern destiny for

87 Trudgen, “The Search for Continental Security,” 8–13. 88 Grant, “The Northern Nationalists”; ibid., Sovereignty or Security? 89 Ibid., Polar Imperative, 318–24. 90 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 68–75. 34

Canada, “the Stefansson syndrome,” as John W. Holmes called it,91 and pressed for a most aggressive policy towards U.S. defense plans in the Canadian Arctic, suggesting to renegotiate previous defense agreements and to withdraw Canadian forces overseas. Moreover, I analyze how the internal deliberations, specifically among the civilian departments, on the one hand, and

National Defence and the RCAF, on the other, resulted in conflicting views as to the role the

Canadian government was to assume throughout the construction and the operation of the DEW

Line. Finally, I take the analysis beyond the 1955 DEW Line Agreement, a dimension most studies of the radar system have left unexplored. Yet it was in the months following the agreement that the internal clash between the Northern nationalists and the military agencies of the Canadian government came to a head. As a result, this study contributes a fresh reading of the history of the DEW Line negotiations and fills significant gaps in the literature on the

Canadian struggle to define its role within the U.S.-led defense project.

This thesis, therefore, demonstrates the necessity of casting a broader net when examining the history of Canadian-American Northern and Arctic foreign and defense relations during the early Cold War. The discussions concerning the construction of weather stations on remote islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago revolved around the need for expanding and improving knowledge about Arctic meteorology and aviation, a lesson learned during the operations along the Crimson Route during World War II and made even more urgent with the emerging Cold War confrontation. By the same token, the American request for radar early warning ever farther north from the strategic bases and the industrial heartland in the United

States was designed to respond to the security crisis of a potential Soviet nuclear attack and to

91 Holmes cited in Ronald St. J. Macdonald, The Arctic Frontier (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), vi. 35

ensure the survival of the United States’ strategic deterrence force. Reliable allies in this Cold

War consensus, the Canadian and U.S. governments, however, adhered to conflicting interpretations of the standards necessary to achieve a valid claim to sovereignty of the Arctic

Archipelago. The Hughes Doctrine of 1924, the basis of U.S. polar sovereignty policy, stipulated stringent requirements for effective occupation of remote territories that conflicted with the broader and more symbolic approach championed by Canadian governments. Yet while Ottawa and Washington managed these sovereignty disagreements and agreed on the fundamental threat posed by the Soviet Union, security and sovereignty were not the only categories within which decision makers, especially in Ottawa, conceived of these projects. To fully understand the debate over Canada’s role in Cold War Arctic defense cooperation with the United States and to make sense of the forceful actions proposed by senior diplomats it is imperative to bring categories of ideas and mythologies in the creation of a distinct Canadian Northern nationalism into the scholarly analysis.

Concepts and Terminology

The concept of Northern nationalism constitutes a key theme throughout this study. In the first chapter of this thesis, I provide a selective survey of cultural representations of the Northern and

Arctic regions of North American in Canada and the United States. I use the concept as a broad category to capture a diverse canon of influential ideas for how to understand the significance of these regions to the narration of a national history and a national identity. I draw on the constructivist readings of such concepts as ‘nation’, ‘nationalism’ or ‘identity’ employed by scholars of cultural studies and literature such as Sherrill Grace, Renée Hulan, Daniel Francis,

36

Michael Robinson, Russell A. Potter, and Peter Davidson.92 Instead of stable categories, these terms are subject to constant acts of creation and re-recreation. The Northern narratives, for example, crafted by mid-nineteenth century intellectuals differed not only in the ideas they associated with a Northern geography, the space itself they referred to as North also differed from their twentieth century successors in the fields of literature and art. The invocation of Arctic

‘heroes’ such as Charles Francis Hall, Sir John Franklin or Vilhjalmur Stefansson in the service of constructing national narratives is subject to cultural and political contexts. They could emphasize an American, British or Canadian/North American Arctic heritage.93 These contexts are particularly pertinent as invocations of Northern nationalism dovetail moments of intense national introspection, such as the period following Confederation, the Alaska Boundary

Dispute, World War I or the early Cold War.94 When I examine the conceptions of senior decision makers in the Canadian and U.S. governments, I consider this Northern nationalism as an expression of southern English-Canadian and American ideas about the Northern and Arctic regions and their importance to the development of Canada and the United States. Rather than testing their relationship to a real North or a real Arctic, I analyze how they reflected the biases and assumptions of their authors and how such ideas intersected with debates over U.S.-

Canadian Arctic defense cooperation.

92 Grace, Canada and the Idea of North; ibid., On the Art of Being Canadian; Hulan, Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture; Francis, National Dreams; Robinson, The Coldest Crucible; Potter, Arctic Spectacles; Davidson, The Idea of North. 93 Janice Cavell, “Comparing Mythologies: Twentieth-Century Canadian Constructions of Sir John Franklin,” in Canadas of the Mind: The Making and Unmaking of Canadian Nationalisms in the Twentieth Century, ed. Norman Hillmer and Adam Chapnick (Montreal: McGill-Queens’s University Press, 2007), 15–45. 94 Hulan, Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture, 11; Janice Cavell, “The Second Frontier: The North in English-Canadian Historical Writing,” The Canadian Historical Review. 83, no. 3 (2002): 364–89. 37

For the Canadian context, I should specify that I predominantly discuss English-Canadian ideas and perceptions as they permeated the ranks of senior foreign and defense officials throughout the Canadian government. This is not to imply a dearth of francophone discourses about Northern and Arctic Canada, and the role of Northern Quebec in particular.95 It is an editorial decision to limit the vast repertoire of textual, visual, and performance representations and to focus on those advocates of Northern and Arctic visions whose ideas are detectable in the personal papers of key decision makers and the ministerial records of the Canadian and U.S. government.

The quest for a definition of what is ‘the North’ or what constitutes ‘the Arctic’ has been an elusive one with diverging propositions competing for hegemony. As interest in Northern and

Arctic questions waxed and waned over the course of the nineteenth and the twentieth century, so did delineations of the region, real and imagined. During these periods, actors and institutions from a variety of backgrounds defined the North or failed to define the North according to their individual perspectives and political interests.96 The North of the Canada First Movement, for instance, was modeled after the mythology of Scandinavian and Icelandic Norseman, Britain had only the vaguest understanding of the exact expanse of the Northern and Arctic lands and waters it transferred to Canada in 1870 and 1880, the Alaska-Yukon border region of the Klondike served as the stage for the Northern frontier literature of Jack London and Robert Service, and the Group of Seven’s ‘North’ rarely extended north of Algonquin Park. Geologists look to

95 For a discussion of French Canadian Northern and Arctic representations, see Louis-Edmond Hamelin, “Images of the North,” in Interpreting Canada’s North. Selected Readings, ed. Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1989), 7–18. 96 Historian Janice Cavell demonstrates how interest in and conceptions of Northern and Arctic Canada were closely related to episodes of nationalism throughout Canadian history. See Cavell, “The Second Frontier.” 38

topographical indicators, meteorologists use isotherms, and Louis-Edmond Hamelin,97 drawing on the social sciences as well, developed a so-called ‘nordicity index’ to distinguish between regions of the North.98 These various approaches illustrate the shifting nature of conceptions about who and what defines the North or Northerness. Yet, for all the competing attempts to define the North, Northern indigenous peoples have only gained political agency in the 1960s and 1970s. Their voices, hence, remain largely silent in the debate over the location and the meaning of the Northern and Arctic regions throughout the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.99

Scholars have also struggled to produce a working definition of the Northern and Arctic regions. Sherrill Grace, in keeping with her constructivist approach, refrained from delineating a set of geographical descriptors to capture the diverse sections of the Canadian North and the

Arctic. Instead, she discussed the very instability of such categories and emphasized the multifaceted nature of mapping the region, both figuratively and literally.100 For Daniel Francis,

Northern and Arctic Canada is, first and foremost, a region of the mind, one that is malleable and whose boundaries are not identical with legal and political taxonomies. 101 Shelagh Grant provides a brief panorama of the possible definitions of the Northern and Arctic regions in terms of the polar night, treelines, permafrost, seasonal temperatures, and political boundaries to settle on political geography to map the North American Arctic. She notes the instability of definitions

97 Louis-Edmond Hamelin, The Canadian North and Its Conceptual Referents (Ottawa: Dept. of the Secretary of State of Canada, 1988). 98 For a discussion of the divergent definitions of the Northern and Arctic regions, see Grant, Polar Imperative, 5–6; Lackenbauer, The Canadian Rangers, 12; Francis, National Dreams, 152–53; Grace, Canada and the Idea of North. 99 Grant, Polar Imperative, chpt. 11. 100 Grace, Canada and the Idea of North, xii. 101 Francis, National Dreams, 152f. 39

based on environmental aspects in view of a changing climate.102 Whitney Lackenbauer, finally, defines ‘the Arctic’ in terms of topography but also function. Geographically it describes the area above the treeline including the territory and permanent ice. In the context of its political and military dimension, however, he also includes “Canada’s Territorial North” in his definition of

‘the Arctic’. The terminology of ‘the North’, he adds, has a broader meaning, encompassing the

Canadian territories but also the northern regions of the provinces.103

Throughout this thesis, I use ‘Northern and Arctic regions’ in the context of U.S.-

Canadian defense relations to refer to Alaska, the Arctic Archipelago, and Nunavut, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The phrase ‘Northern and Arctic Canada’ refers to the Canadian territories and the Arctic islands. ‘Northern and Arctic North America’ is most inclusive and refers to Alaska, Northern and Arctic Canada, and Greenland. The term ‘polar’ describes the

Arctic and Antarctic region. Beyond these definitions, however, the contemporary understandings of the North and the ideas and meanings associated with them constitute the focus of the analysis. It is what senior U.S. and Canadian decision makers determined constituted the North and the Arctic that provides insight into questions of boundary delineations and the formulation of territorial sovereignty claims. More than that, however, it also speaks to the operating ideas at the time about a Northern and Arctic destiny for the United States and Canada.

Situating the historical contingency of these conceptions of ‘the North’ and ‘the Arctic’ as a strategic, legal, and cultural space within the U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic defense relationship, therefore, promises to yield greater insights about their authors than measuring them against fixed definitions of the region.

102 Grant, Polar Imperative, 6. 103 Lackenbauer, The Canadian Rangers, 24f. 40

Overview of Chapters

Chapter I situates the U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense relationship during the early Cold War period within the history of both countries’ Northern and Arctic dimensions. Tracing

Washington and Ottawa’s engagement with the regions back to the mid-nineteenth century, this chapter develops three themes that formed the principal dimension of their Northern and Arctic foreign policies. First, the chapter establishes the ideas, narratives, and mythologies that have characterized cultural representations of the regions in the United States and Canada since the acquisition of Alaska in 1867 and the formation of the Dominion of Canada that same year.

Second, I provide a brief survey of the evolution of American and Canadian sovereignty disputes and the emergence of official claims to the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, presenting foreign and defense officials in Ottawa and Washington with a history of boundary and territorial disputes as well as conflicting sovereignty interpretations during the negotiations over Arctic weather stations and early warning lines during the 1940s and 1950s. Finally, this chapter argues that the security crisis of World War II transformed Northern and Arctic Canada from a region once sheltered from global conflict to a frontline of strategic planning, a process that injected a

Northern brand of Canadian nationalism into the bilateral defense relationship at the end of the war. Chapter I, therefore, establishes the major themes and introduces the principal cast of actors for the U.S.-Canadian talks over the construction and operation of JAWS and the DEW Line during the early Cold War.

Chapter II explores the conception, the negotiations, and the establishment of the Joint

Arctic Weather Stations in the Canadian Arctic from 1944 to 1950. It situates the U.S.-Canadian project within the context of both countries’ efforts to expand their knowledge of Arctic

41

operations, to define their postwar defense relationship, and to manage Canadian uncertainties over sovereignty claims to the Arctic Archipelago. The chapter argues that JAWS constitutes an interregnum of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense relations, transitioning the wartime experiences of

American defense planners and Canadian diplomats into a rapidly evolving security environment in the immediate postwar period. If existing studies have examined the JAWS talks for their role in the evolution of Canadian sovereignty policy, this chapter recalibrates this emphasis to bring ideas and perceptions of Northern and Arctic Canada into conversation with the emerging security dimension and the persisting sovereignty concerns as integral elements in the U.S.-

Canadian Arctic defense relationship. Based on new archival material and a new appreciation of the diplomatic record, I argue that the Canadian government struggled to accommodate the U.S. request as the Northern nationalism of a group of Arctic enthusiasts complicated the U.S.-

Canadian Cold War consensus and the quest for an independent Canadian voice in world affairs.

Senior officials such as Lester Pearson, Hugh Keenleyside, A. D. P. Heeney and R. M.

Macdonnell pressed for Canadian leadership in the JAWS project and a U.S. recognition of

Ottawa’s ownership of the Arctic Islands, an assertive dimension of Canada’s Arctic foreign policy American officials only slowly began to fully appreciate. At the dawn of the Cold War, the JAWS talks, therefore, illustrate that the continentalist pull of the United States exerted ever- growing vigor and rapidly extended to the Arctic, a space that was rich with symbolic significance and a history of sovereignty disputes.

Chapter III examines the origins and the bilateral negotiations over the U.S.-Canadian establishment of the DEW Line. The chapter situates the discussions between Ottawa and

Washington within the larger context of a vibrant Canadian Northern nationalism, a receding sovereignty concern, and the intensifying U.S. preoccupation with the Soviet nuclear threat to the

42

strategic retaliatory forces in the continental United States. As U.S. civilian and military agencies struggled over the primacy of offensive and defensive doctrines in Washington’s first ever formulation of a national security policy for continental defense, this chapter argues that bureaucratic cultures in the Canadian government produced diverging policies for Canada’s role in the early warning system, pitting civilian departments, External Affairs most vocally, against the RCAF and the Department of National Defence. By introducing unpublished documents from the personal papers of Lester B. Pearson and re-assessing the ministerial records of the diplomatic talks between Ottawa and Washington, this study closely traces how External Affairs and the Prime Minister, time and again, stressed the symbolic significance of Northern and

Arctic Canada to their American counterparts in bilateral meetings and via public channels.

Particularly Pearson’s most aggressive Arctic diplomacy, his unwavering advocacy for Canadian participation in the construction of the early warning system, and the St. Laurent government’s public campaign for Northern development of 1954 provide a fresh reading of Ottawa’s efforts to manage the gravitational pull of continental defense integration and the Northern nationalist impulses during the early Cold War.

Chapter IV explores the period following the completion of the DEW Line Agreement in

May 1955 to the official inauguration of the radar system in July 1957. The chapter discusses in detail the inevitable climax between External Affairs, on the one hand, and the National Defence and the RCAF, on the other, over the question of Canada’s participation in the operation of the

DEW Line, a critical episode in the history of the Canadian struggle to make sense of its role in

Arctic defense most historians have ignored. The analysis demonstrates how Pearson sought to translate his fascination with the Arctic into tangible policy and action in the form of a meaningful Canadian military presence along the DEW Line stations. Following this internal

43

battle, the chapter examines the St. Laurent government’s campaign to respond to parliamentary and public attacks over alleged sovereignty losses and an abdication of Ottawa’s responsibilities in the North. Most prominently captured by the government’s dispatch of Governor General

Vincent Massey to the North Pole, Ottawa used a variety of instruments, including the National

Film Board, press tours, speeches, and articles, to deflect public criticism of a lack of Canadian participation in the DEW Line and to assert its role as an active contributor to continental defense projects with the United States. This chapter, hence, argues that the internal and the public battles between 1955 and 1957 form integral elements in the history of the DEW Line and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation at the intersection of security, sovereignty, and a Canadian Northern nationalism.

An epilogue provides a concluding discussion of the arguments and findings of the preceding chapters. A brief study of Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision- campaign of 1958, the 1958 International Geophysical Year, and the American proposal for an

Arctic Inspection Zone of the same year serves to illustrate the continued salience of cultural representations of Northern and Arctic Canada as a key ingredient in the construction of a

Canadian national history and identity in the realm of foreign and defense policy. Finally, I sketch avenues for future research and additional approaches to further illuminate our understanding of the historical forces that help explain the impact of a Northern nationalism foreign and defense officials in Ottawa as a key variable in addition to security and sovereignty in the U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relationship.

44

CHAPTER I

U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic Relations, 1867-1945

Introduction

By the end of World War II, a cast of Northern nationalists in the Canadian government stood ready to bring a new Canada into being. The security crisis of the war had refocused attention to the nation’s Northern and Arctic regions and ushered in an unprecedented military cooperation between Canada and the United States. As this cohort of officials navigated the recalibration of this rapidly changing American-Canadian relationship, they embraced the idea of a distinctly

Northern vision of Canadian nationhood. This Northern nationalism drew upon a well- established history of mythologies and tropes about the regions. Indeed, the Northern and Arctic regions had figured in the national imagination of Americans and Canadians since the second half of the nineteenth century. A diverse set of public intellectuals, explorers, landscape painters, poets, and novelists contributed with their ideas and visions of the continent’s most Northern reaches to distinct national narratives in the United States and Canada.104 Meanwhile, the governments of both countries attempted to define the exact boundaries of what constituted the

American and the Canadian North and Arctic. Diverging approaches to define terrestrial sovereignty, the international politics of the Anglo-American relationship, and the actions of intrepid explorers resulted in conflicting interpretations of each government’s claims to the

Arctic that extended into the Cold War. These Northern visions, sovereignty crises, and security

104 Berger, “The True North Strong and Free”; ibid., The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914; Francis, National Dreams; Grace, Canada and the Idea of North; ibid., On the Art of Being Canadian; Hulan, Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture; Potter, Arctic Spectacles; Robinson, The Coldest Crucible; Davidson, The Idea of North. 45

concerns constituted the principal themes that shaped the U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic relationship through World War II. Together, they set the stage for the negotiations between

Ottawa and Washington over the establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations and the

Distant Early Warning Line during the 1940s and 1950s.

Ideas

On July 2, 1868, the U.S. House of Representatives debated The Alaska Bill to appropriate the funds for the acquisition of Alaska. A year earlier, the U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward had successfully led the effort to purchase the territory. The Russian-America Trading Company had administered Alaska as a charter company of Czarist Russia since 1799. Despite a lackluster if not hostile response to Seward’s plans, a conviction in the United States’ Manifest Destiny ensured the support of a majority of legislators in the U.S. Senate of the acquisition’s inevitability. 105 Whereas some ridiculed Alaska as worthless, Representative Ignatius L.

Donnelly of Minnesota saw great value in Seward’s decision. In the House, he argued:

[The purchase] is one of the necessary steps in the expansion of our nation over the whole of the North American continent. [...] Soon we will open communication by the Pacific Railroad with the 400,000,000 of China and with the vast populations of India and Japan. [...] The entire Pacific coast [...] must be under the flag of our nation, whose destiny is to grasp the commerce of the seas and the sceptre of the world.106

Beyond hemispheric ambitions, the significance of the Alaska purchase rested not so much in the intrinsic worth of the territory itself rather than in the imperial project its acquisition appeared to

105 Norman Graebner defines the central tenets that constitute the notion of a Manifest Destiny as the deep conviction in the divinely-ordained mission bestowed upon the United States to extend the virtues and qualities of American ‘civilization’ to purportedly inferior society by way of territorial and political expansion. For a further discussion of the concept of Manifest Destiny, see Norman A. Graebner, ed., Manifest Destiny (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1968). 106 “Fortieth Congress: Senate Second Session, House of Representatives,” New York Times, July 2, 1868, 2. 46

validate. On July 14, 1868, the House approved the bill with 113 votes in favor and 43 opposed.107

Polar ambitions as a token of a nation’s membership in the exclusive club of great powers had been a growing business since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The British Admiralty had shifted its gaze to facilitating expeditions in search of a Northwest Passage to Asia, setting the stage for almost half a century of British Arctic exploration.108 The Arctic’s symbolic power as a badge of national prowess and imperial ambition exerted great appeal in the United States as the debates surrounding the Alaska Purchase indicate. By mid-century, American geographers, explorers, and artists had joined the race for the storied waterway and set out to explore the reportedly extreme reaches of the top of the world. In this economy of exploration and science, visual representations of the Arctic were an integral element to secure the support of geographical societies, scientific organizations, and the goodwill of the moneyed class.109 More than fundraising props, however, these representations transported ideas and conceptions of a region few people would ever visit themselves.110 As a result, these ideas were closely related to nationalist sentiments and the imperial project of the United States.

The American explorer Charles Francis Hall, for example, portrayed the Arctic as a primitive, hostile yet exotic region. At public events and lectures to geographical societies, Hall displayed relics of earlier expeditions, confirming the veracity of Inuit oral testimony about the sixteenth-century British explorer Martin Frobisher, and an Inuit family who had served as guides and interpreters throughout his journey. Hoping to underline his legitimacy and

107 Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alaska.html, last accessed on March 11, 2018. 108 Robert G. David, The Arctic in the British Imagination 1818-1914. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), xvi–xvii. 109 Robinson, The Coldest Crucible, 55–82. 110 Potter, Arctic Spectacles, 3. 47

worthiness of additional funds for his next Arctic venture, Hall approached P. T. Barnum to have the family displayed in his American Museum. This human exhibition of Inuit as objects of exoticism and curiosity not only lent exposure to Hall’s expeditions. They also solidified notions of the Northern and Arctic regions as an exotic place of purportedly uncivilized people, speaking foreign languages, wearing unfamiliar clothes, and performing alien rituals. The display of Inuit wax figures and the exhibition of an “Esquimaux Village” at city exhibitions across the United

States as well as the 1892 World’s Columbia Exhibition, moreover, underline the popularity and pervasiveness of Arctic representations as a primitive but exotic object.111

Landscape painting was another avenue for raising attention and appealing to the inclinations of willing sponsors. Frederic Edwin Church combined what some described as the

‘Arctic Sublime’ with a deep conviction in the power of American nationalism.112 Working from watercolor sketches from explorer Isaac Israel Hayes for his 1865 Aurora Borealis, Church composed a monumental juxtaposition of human agency with the awesome power of nature, situating Hayes’ schooner against a backdrop of intimidating mountain ranges, ice-infested waters, and a quasi-religious halo of the northern lights. Church’s most influential Arctic panorama had been his 1861 The Icebergs with its carefully accentuated coloring of submerged floats, icebergs, and a sense of the sublime of an otherworldly place. Art historian Russell A.

Potter wrote that Church assembled with ease “the clouds and stars of an earthly sky to the stars and stripes of the American flag.”113 The explorer-artist William Bradford, moreover, not only used large-scale panorama paintings but also novel forms of visual representations, such as

111 Potter, 168–78. 112 Franklyn Griffiths, “Where Visions and Illusions Meet,” in Politics of the Northwest Passage, ed. Franklyn Griffiths (Monteal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987), 3–24; Potter, Arctic Spectacles, 3. 113 Potter, Arctic Spectacles, 181. 48

magic lanterns, illustrated newspapers, and eventually photography.114 As these technological innovations made Arctic representations available to an ever growing audience, the underlying economy of Arctic exploration, polar imperialism, and visual representation remained unchanged.

Notions of the Arctic as an exotic and foreign venue for the performance of nationalist and imperial gestures was complemented by ideas of the Northern regions as a frontier space at the turn of the nineteenth century. The U.S. historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis and the theories of Social Darwinism, Anglo-Saxon Supremacy, and the deterministic power of nature appealed to public intellectuals and writers, among them Jack London.115 The self- educated London had traveled to the Klondike region of the gold rush years and published his

Klondike stories in U.S. magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, Cosmopolitan, and Century and his novels The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). In his stories, he contrasted the brute force of the Northwest with the cultural vanities and material pleasantries of city life in the continental United States. The wilderness of Alaska and the Yukon acted as a natural selector, reactivating people’s basic instincts and a primordial memory of the struggle for existence against the forces of nature.116 London’s frontier northland cast the region as an extreme yet alluring place, a portrayal that rather illuminates the assumptions of turn-of-the-century writers and their audiences than the realities of Alaska and the Canadian Northwest and its inhabitants.

114 Ibid., 4. 115 Jeanne Campbell Reesman, Jack London’s Racial Lives: A Critical Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 40. In addition to London, naturalist writers such as Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Robert Service became fascinated with regions they perceived as exotic and primordial in, for example, India, the Belgian Congo, Alaska or the Yukon. 116 Ibid., “The Call of Jack London: Earle Labor on Jack London Studies,” Studies in American Naturalism 5, no. 1 (2010): 30. 49

The Northern and Arctic dimension of the United States remained one element in a larger

American national narrative. For all of Turner’s reorganization of the history of the young republic along the lines of continental expansion, Alaska and the Northern and Arctic regions of the continent received no mention in his frontier thesis.117 The visual and literary representations of the Arctic and Northern regions, nonetheless, provided a growing audience with a vocabulary to imagine these region’s through lectures, exhibits, paintings, and stories as prestigious and foreign places worthy of exploration in the service of national prestige.

Ideas about the cultural significance of the Northern and Arctic regions as an element in the construction of a national identity and history was much more pronounced among the English

Canadian intellectual and political establishment. In the wake of the creation of the Dominion of

Canada in 1867, a group of intellectuals from publishing, the arts, and government gathered under the name of Canada First around Robert G. Haliburton, William Forster, and George

Parkin to popularize their Northern vision for the new dominion. Giving lectures entitled “The

Men of the North and Their Place in History” across Ontario and Quebec, they embedded the creation of Canada in a larger tradition of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and a Norse mythology. An ill-defined North became a canvas for linking climate, nature, and race with the national character and political future of Canada.118 This environmental determinism also defined the

Klondike poetry of Robert Service. Much like Canada First’s Anglo-Saxon supremacy and Jack

London’s Hobbesian northland, Service’s Klondike universe envisioned the Northwest as a racial testing-ground but also one for proving purported masculine traits such as vigor, hardiness, and

117 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, 1953). 118 “The Men of the North and Their Place in History,” Ottawa Times, March 20, 1869; Berger, “The True North Strong and Free”; Grace, Canada and the Idea of North, 58f; Francis, National Dreams, 153f. 50

resilience. Dubbed “the Canadian Kipling” by Saturday Night,119 Service gained wide popularity with his poems and ballads published in his 1907 Songs of a Sourdough, painting a vivid portrait of frontier experience and an unforgiving life in the Canadian Northwest. Senior politicians, cabinet ministers, and prime ministers such as George Drew, Lester B. Pearson or John G.

Diefenbaker were fascinated with his writings. Already in his student days, Diefenbaker, for example, saw in Service a voice for “distinctly Canadian subjects with a real infusion of our national vernacular” and an authentic witness of “the majestic grandeur and the grim tragedy of the Arctic regions,” as an unpublished 1918 long-form essay indicates.120 The idea of Canada as a distinctly Northern nation exerted appeal to the highest echelons of power in Ottawa.

The representations of the Northern and Arctic regions as foreign, hostile, and exotic places were revised with the writings and lectures of the Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

The son of Icelandic immigrants to Canada and without citizenship for the better part of twenty years before becoming a U.S. citizen in the late 1930s,121 Stefansson defies easy categorization.

His ambition and enthusiasm for Arctic exploration became the subject of numerous conflicts involving governments from Ottawa, Washington, London, Copenhagen, and Moscow, as I discuss below. In his 1921 The Friendly Arctic and his 1922 The Northward Course of

119 Francis, National Dreams, 158. On Service and Kipling, see Hulan, Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture, 116. 120 John G. Diefenbaker, “Robert Service,” February 1918, Diefenbaker Archival Collection, MG 01/II/251, Row 1, Vol. 19. 121 Although born a Canadian, Stefansson automatically assumed U.S. citizenship in 1887 when his father became an American citizen. In 1913, Vilhjalmur swore allegiance to King George V, an oath that voided his U.S. citizenship. Yet Stefansson failed to complete the process of reinstating his Canadian citizenship and it was not before 1937 that, once again, became an American citizen. See Janice Cavell and Jeffrey David Noakes, “Explorer Without a Country: The Question of Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s Citizenship,” Polar Record 45, no. 234 (2009): 237– 41. 51

Empire,122 Stefansson recast the Arctic as an amenable environment and a storage of natural resources that soon would transform the region into a modern commercial hub akin to the

Mediterranean Sea of ancient times. Far from the barren and hostile portrayals of Church,

London, Haliburton or Service, the Arctic afforded visitors the basic necessities to ‘live off the land’ if they were prepared to adopt the practices of the local Inuit. Beyond the importance of indigenous knowledge, however, the exploitation of mineral and oil deposits in addition to the emergence of commercial airlines soon would transform the Arctic into a circumpolar center of modern development and social progress. Indeed, Stefansson was convinced that the history of human progress operated along a northward trajectory. Had the ancient empires existed close to the equator, the power centers of the world have moved closer to the Arctic ever since, social- scientific studies of the time suggested. Thus, a deep conviction in the relationship between climate, nature, and national development remained a key aspect of Stefansson’s Arctic vision as it was of earlier representations.123 His notion of a Polar Mediterranean, however, shaped the perceptions of decision makers in Washington and Ottawa far into the 1950s and 1960s.124

At the same time of Stefansson’s Arctic re-imagination, the Group of Seven, a Toronto- based circle of artists and painters, turned to Northern and Arctic Canada for its potential as a subject in the group’s articulation of a Canadian Northern nationalism. With World War I giving rise to a sense of national accomplishment, a yearning for international recognition, and calls for greater independence from the British Empire, the group declared itself the first genuine

122 Vilhjalmur Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921); Vilhjalmur Stefansson, The Northward Course of Empire (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922). 123 Richard J. Diubaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978), 11; Grace, Canada and the Idea of North, 6–8. 124 R. J. Sutherland, “The Strategic Significance of the Arctic,” in The Arctic Frontier, ed. R. St. J. Macdonald (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), 257. 52

Canadian art movement, adopting motifs located in Canada and employing new modes of landscape painting to express a distinct Canadian national identity and experience.125 According to Lawren Harris, the group’s intellectual voice, Northern and Arctic Canada imbued the collective character of the nation with moral and spiritual qualities, setting it apart from southern societies, most importantly the United States. The Pearsons became avid collectors of the group’s work, using them as diplomatic gifts and to decorate the Canadian Embassy in

Washington D.C. The U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower took note of this during a 1954 visit, commenting on the “Canadian pictures we had on the embassy walls,” A. D. P. Heeney recorded in his memoirs.126 By the same token, the future Minister of National Defence Brooke

Claxton hosted the Group of Seven’s inaugural show in Montreal and advocated for a nationalist school of painting, an interest he shared with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, beyond his political career.127 Although the group interpreted the descriptor ‘North’ quite liberally, Harris and A. Y. Jackson joined the Eastern Arctic Patrol in 1927 on its trip to Baffin Island, Lancaster

Sound, and Ellesmere Island. Their works soon thereafter were exhibited in galleries and museums in Ontario and published in the inaugural issue of the Canadian Geographical Journal in May 1930. Art historians John O’Brian and Peter White conclude that the group “played a

125 Mary Vipond, “Nationalism in the 1920s,” in Interpreting Canada’s Past. Volume Two. Post-Confederation, ed. J.M. Bumsted (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993), 448; F. B Housser, A Canadian Art Movement, the Story of the Group of Seven, (Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1926); Hulan, Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture, 139–42. 126 Lester B. Pearson, “October 11 (Tuesday),” October 11, 1955, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1955; A. D. P. Heeney, The Things That Are Caesar’s: Memoirs of a Canadian Public Servant, ed. Brian Heeney (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 130. 127 “Brooke Claxton to Dean Acheson,” February 24, 1958, Yale University Library and Archives (YULA), Dean G. Acheson Personal Papers, General Correspondence, Group No. 1087, Series No. 1, File: Correspondence with Brooke Claxton (Canadian Defence Minister); David J. Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898- 1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 57. 53

significant role in the nationalization of nature in Canada, particularly the development of foundational ideas about northerness and wilderness.”128

By the 1930s, a well-established repertoire of cultural representations of Northern and

Arctic Canada existed. The future Secretary of State and Prime Minister, Lester Pearson, delivered perhaps one of the earliest manifestos of this Northern nationalism. As a young diplomat at Canada House in London in 1937, he began to collect material about the significance of the North for the national development of Canada, as yet unpublished documents from

Pearson’s personal papers show.129 In a 43-page typewritten lecture he delivered the following year at Cambridge, Pearson penned his principal ideas about the history and the importance of the region in the evolution of a distinct Canadian identity and an independent Canada.

Technological progress in the field of aviation and the discovery of metals, minerals, and oil,

Pearson wrote, inevitably was going to transform the North into a twentieth-century El Dorado and a cross polar hub for international commerce, a modernist vision reminiscent of Stefansson’s

Polar Mediterranean. If the North had been a marginal region in the age of French and British colonialism, it was poised to become an engine of prosperity and national maturity in the decades to come.

Pearson’s Northern nationalism was based on stories he likely drew from newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and private reading, a close reading of his 1938 Cambridge Lecture suggests. Pearson used instructive anecdotes to compose a narrative of overcoming adversity,

128 John O’Brian and Peter White, Beyond Wilderness the Group of Seven, Canadian Identity and Contemporary Art (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), 4. 129 Pearson’s diary skips the year and his memoirs make no mention of his participation in a seminar, a conference or a meeting during the summer of 1938. Pearson biographers John English and Andrew Cohen are also silent on events or encounters that may have triggered Pearson’s interest in Northern affairs. See John English, Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume I: 1897-1948 (Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 1989); Andrew Cohen, Lester B. Pearson (Toronto: Penguin, 2008). 54

demonstrating moral integrity, and proving perseverance in the face of the North’s demanding and deceiving environs. In Pearson’s telling, conditions in the North encouraged a virtuous and incorruptible life. Beyond these purported moral qualities, the Cambridge Lecture illustrates

Pearson’s views of Northern and Arctic Canada as a new frontier and its role as a cultural marker in the national development of Canada:

Canada is one of the few countries which still possesses a physical frontier; which still lures the explorer into unknown lands. As Robert Service, the poet of the Yukon has put it, speaking of the Canadian north, ‘there is a land where the mountains are nameless, and the rivers run God knows where’. [...] That frontier, however, is no longer the West. ‘Go West’ has been replaced by ‘Go North’ as the call to adventure.130

Transplanting the frontier mythology to the 1930s, Pearson continued:

The spirit of the pioneer still lives in these parts. That spirit is contributing vigor and vitality, both physical and psychologically, to our national development. But the covered wagon has been replaced by the twin-engined monoplane and the gold-pan has given way to the diamond drill.131

Hints of Stefansson’s Polar Mediterranean also shone through when Pearson observed:

The shortest air route from London to Tokyo passes right over the North Pole; similarly the shortest air route from New York to Tokyo will be over the Canadian Arctic. [...] one can foresee the mails for China and Japan going down the Mackenzie River, and across the Canadian Arctic, which will then become one the of the great air highways of the world.132

Deeply grounded in the romanticized language of nineteenth century Western expansion and exploration, Pearson envisioned the North as a national project. He mobilized the images and stories of a settler mythology in which purportedly distinct Canadian qualities emerged out of the continuous conquest of so-called unclaimed and empty land. This experience, coupled with the irresistible force of science and modernity, formed the bond that tied present to past projects, endowing them with an aura of historical inevitability and legitimacy.

130 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada,” August 2-3, 1938, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 1, File: 30 Nov. 1930 to 3 Aug. 1941, 15. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid., 16. 55

The Cambridge Lecture of 1938 stands as a remarkable document in the history of

Canada’s Northern nationalism. Pearson’s conceptions of the North were neither new nor his own. When he invoked the poet Robert Service or the frontier trope, Pearson provided his audience with a window into the origins of his understanding of Northern and Arctic Canada.

Service’s environmental determinism and its impact on the development of the nation and the formation of individual human characteristics echoes throughout the writings of Pearson, most prominently in his images of the gold rush years and his nostalgia for a pioneer spirit and a sense of adventure, however romanticized. Not unlike Pearson’s nod to Service, his reference to the effect of the North on the “vigor and vitality, both physical and psychologically” is reminiscent of the Canada First Movement’s Northern mythology. Recalling Haliburton’s speeches about the

‘men of the north’, Pearson declared that the region “is no country for weaklings and its economic development will test the finest qualities of the men of the north. […] Fortunately, the men up there will be equal to the occasion.”133

For Pearson, the 1938 Cambridge Lecture constituted a touchstone in his Northern imagination, one he would revisit time and again over the course of his career at the Department of External Affairs. The document, therefore, is central to understanding Pearson’s Arctic diplomacy during the negotiations with Washington over the establishment of the Joint Arctic

Weather Stations and the Distant Early Warning Line. Yet he was not alone. Along with Pearson, the cohort of Northern nationalists including senior officials and key decision makers such as

Brooke Claxton, Louis St. Laurent, A. D. P. Heeney, Hugh L. Keenleyside, Escott M. Reid, R.

133 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada”, August 2-3, 1938, Library and Archives Canada, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 1, File: 30 Nov. 1930 to 3 Aug. 1941, 20f. 56

A. J. Phillips, and Gordon Robertson embraced this rich cache of ideas and mythologies of the

North’s and Arctic’s distinct impact on the national life and history of Canada.

Claims

If American and Canadian representations of the Northern and Arctic regions remained conspicuously vague about what exactly constituted the North or the Arctic, the state of international law on questions of national sovereignty and the acquisition of territory in remote regions offered little more clarity. In the absence of an accepted international legal framework for a definitive validation of sovereignty claims over the Arctic Archipelago, an array of principles and concepts—discovery, control, contiguity, prescription, and effective occupation— uneasily co-existed alongside each other.134 With an imperfect understanding of the exact expanse of the 1880 British transfer of the Arctic islands and an evolving legal landscape,

Canadian and U.S. governments developed distinct interpretations of their claims to the Arctic as they navigated a series of sovereignty crises throughout the first half of the twentieth century. At the time of the JAWS and DEW Line negotiations, Ottawa and Washington, as a result, subscribed to conflicting legal views, creating an unresolved bilateral issue whose seemingly ambivalent nature easily lent itself to the nationalist politics of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the Arctic.

Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Norman A. Robertson’s observation in

1943 that Canadian governments had treated the Northern territories in a “fit of absence of mind”

134 Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth,” 1–9. 57

echoes in historical studies on the evolution of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty position.135 Jack

Granatstein argued that Canadian inaction and U.S. sovereignty threats seriously weakened

Ottawa’s sovereignty over the North.136 Shelagh Grant likewise portrayed Ottawa’s policies to solidify its claims as an inconsistent response mostly to American challenges.137 William R.

Morrison made the case that Canadian governments were more inclined to stage symbolic acts of sovereignty rather than truly engaging in developing the Northern and Arctic regions, an approach he ascribed to a mostly benign United States.138 Gordon W. Smith and, more recently,

Janice Cavell, Jeffrey Noakes, Whitney Lackenbauer, and Peter Kikkert have offered a more generous reading of Canadian efforts to define its claims to the Arctic. As sovereignty crises arose and in the context of the unclear state of international law, diplomats and civil servants, they argue, acted on an ever growing understanding of Arctic sovereignty and managed to harmonize Canada’s legal interests with the politics of the time.139 U.S. polar sovereignty interpretations, by the same token, preserved Washington’s ability to accommodate its interest in effective relations with Canada and Britain without compromising its legal position over

Antarctica.140

The Canadian and U.S. governments had to consider the question of boundaries in the

Northern territories for the first time during the Alaska Boundary Dispute. As news of gold deposits in the Klondike regions along the Alaska-Yukon boundary spread, droves of

135 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 156. 136 Granatstein, “A Fit of Absence of Mind.” 137 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 239. 138 Morrison, “Eagle over the Arctic,” 170f. 139 Smith, A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North; Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010; Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905- 56.” 140 Ibid., “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” viii–ix. 58

prospectors, miners, and fortune hunters trekked across British Columbia or secured a passage by steamship to present day Juneau in Alaska. The rush for gold raised questions over Ottawa’s exercise of governance in the region.141 Most importantly, however, the activities drew attention to competing views about the exact delineation of the boundary between the Alaska and Yukon territories, a boundary that originally had been described in the Russian-British Treaty of

1825.142 When attempts to resolve the dispute had failed, it was agreed to set up an international tribunal. With nationalist rhetoric running high in Canada and the United States, the tribunal ultimately presented a compromise decision in 1903 that rejected the Canadian and the American claim yet granted the latter greater control over the Alaska Panhandle. The decision caused widespread outrage among the public and the government in Canada.143 If the Alaska Boundary

Dispute led Ottawa to press for greater authority in the conduct of its foreign affairs,144 the episode also drew the government’s attention to the legal status of its claims to the Arctic islands. In a letter to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, Senator William C. Edwards implored: “If the Americans are permitted to skirt our Western possessions, for Heaven’s sake do not allow them to skirt us all around.”145

In the aftermath of the dispute, the Canadian government decided to study the legal status of the Arctic islands, expand its efforts to obtain greater knowledge about the regions, and extend its presence into the remote archipelago. Within months of the tribunal’s decision, the Laurier

141141 For a survey of U.S. and Canadian legislative and law enforcement measures enacted in the wake of the Klondike Gold Rush, see Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 7f; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 21ff. 142 For a detailed discussion of the Alaska Boundary Dispute, see Smith, A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North, 71–118; Grant, Polar Imperative, 198–203; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 17ff. 143 Morrison, “Eagle over the Arctic,” 175. 144 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 19. 145 “Letter from Senator William C. Edwards to Prime Minister,” October 28, 1903, DCER. The Arctic, 1874-1949, ed. Janice Cavell, Global Affairs Canada, 2016, 152f. 59

government produced the first Canadian report on the status of its claims to the Arctic islands.146

The memorandum to Secretary of the Interior Clifford Sifton evaluated Ottawa’s title in light of the British transfer to Canada of 1880. The 1904 report concluded that the validity of Canada’s claims remained “imperfect” as a result of the vague language used in the British transfer and no effective occupation of the region.147 Although foreign powers had refrained from questioning the title, hence offering “tacit consent,” the memo recommended to expand efforts to extend

Ottawa’s administration into the archipelago.148 While historians have emphasized the reports’ skeptical findings of Canada’s title,149 Janice Cavell argues that the documents that accompanied the study fundamentally impacted the evolution of Canadian Arctic sovereignty policy. A map showing boundary lines extending up to the North Pole prepared by James White, a geographer at the Department of the Interior, constituted the first articulation of the sector principle in

Canadian governmental records.150

In the wake of the 1904 report and ongoing activities by American and European whalers and explorers, the Laurier government increased its presence in the Arctic. Joseph-Elzéar Bernier led expeditions and patrols to Hudson Bay and throughout the archipelago to assert Ottawa’s sovereignty, administering governmental functions such as issuing whaling licenses, collecting customs duties, conducting research, and raising the flag.151 In addition, a police post was

146 Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” xxiii–xxiv. 147 “W. F. King, Chief Astronomer, to Hon. Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior, Report upon the Title of Canada to the Islands North of the Mainland of Canada,” January 23, 1904, in: Peter Kikkert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds., Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security (Calgary and Waterloo, 2014), 7. 148 Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 75. 149 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 11; ibid., Polar Imperative, 204f; Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth,” 63f; Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” xxiv. 150 Janice Cavell, “Canada’s Arctic Sector Claim in Historical Perspective: A Response to Alan MacEachern,” Polar Record 53, no. 269 (2017): 186–91; Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 229. 151 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 28f; Grant, Polar Imperative, 207–10. 60

established on Herschel Island in the Beaufort Sea.152 The Canadian Senator Pascal Poirier, moreover, flanked Bernier’s efforts at sea with political action in Ottawa. In 1907, Poirier, alerted by the Alaska Boundary decision, raised concerns over American activities and their impact on Canadian claims. A pro-active and public assertion of Canada’s title to the Arctic

Archipelago on the basis of a sector claim, the senator explained, would forestall foreign challenges and unequivocally assert Canada’s sovereignty. Poirier’s proposal died on the spot in the Senate. As an idea and an organizing principle, however, the Senator had importantly popularized the principle. Indeed, in 1909, Bernier kept the idea alive when he cited the sector principle to assert Canada’s Arctic sovereignty on an expedition to Melville Island.153 If White had sown the seeds for the sector principle’s adoption later in the 1920s, Poirier and Bernier spread the message in the 1900s.

In the context of unclear international legal standards and a lack of knowledge about the

Arctic, Canadian governments sought to develop their claims on multiple fronts, including Arctic research, legal studies, and extending governance. This form of measured Arctic diplomacy was backed by the British government. In 1913, London advised against public declarations to avoid inadvertently drawing attention to weaknesses in the Canadian title.154 The decision by Prime

Minister Robert Borden to assume full Canadian sponsorship of an Arctic expedition led by

Vilhjalmur Stefansson that same year, however, undercut this approach and set the stage for a series of sovereignty scares throughout the following decade.

152 Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” xxiv; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 29; Morrison, “Eagle over the Arctic,” 175. 153 Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth,” 86–88. 154 “Despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Administrator,” May 10, 1913, DCER. The Arctic, 1874-1949, 311f. 61

Stefansson remains a fascinating character for historians of Canadian and American relations in the Arctic. With his re-imagination of the Arctic as a Polar Mediterranean,

Stefansson drove debates about the region for much of the first half of the twentieth century in fields as diverse as exploration, resource development, military operations, Northern identity, and legal claims. His fluctuating citizenship status reflects the transnational nature of his ideas and ambitions. A captive of the economy of exploration, science, and politics that had already driven previous generations of polar explorers, Stefansson owed his loyalties to those who were prepared to support and finance his Arctic projects, irrespective of national allegiance.

Biographer Richard J. Diubaldo and Cavell and Noakes have shown that he was, nonetheless, finely attuned to the nationalist sentiments the Northern and Arctic regions spurred in the

Canadian national imagination and the insecurities that lingered among government officials over the validity of Ottawa’s title to the Arctic islands.155 As a result, he understood to link his projects for exploration and the development of the Arctic to visions of a Northern destiny and to

Canadian interests to strengthen its claims to the archipelago. The quiet diplomacy of the Borden and Mackenzie King governments, however, proved incompatible with Stefansson’s Arctic evangelism and his proclivity to exceed his mandates.

For the Borden government, the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-18 served as an opportunity to forestall American explorations in the Arctic.156 The voyage into the Western

Arctic Archipelago resulted in the discovery of a series of islands, claimed for Canada, and the collection of geographical data. For Stefansson, the expedition and the lectures and publications

155 Diubaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic, 12–14; Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 48-50; 156- 59. 156 “Memorandum from President of Privy Council to Governor General,” February 22, 1913, DCER. The Arctic, 1874-1949, 306-8; See Borden’s foreword in Stefansson, The Friendly Arctic. 62

that came out of it helped to solidify his status as an Arctic authority. Buoyed by his success, he sought to demonstrate the validity of his Arctic vision through a variety of projects, among them the domestication of muskox on Ellesmere Island.157 In 1920, Ottawa queried Stefansson over communications from the Danish government and the explorer Knud Rasmussen about muskox hunting practices by Inuit from Greenland that seemed to question Canadian sovereignty over the island. In a shrewd move, Cavell and Noakes argue, Stefansson assigned devious motives to

Rasmussen and encouraged Ottawa in the perception that Copenhagen intended to use the

Greenlandic Inuit as a Trojan horse to undermine Canada’s title to Ellesmere Island. Convinced that a sovereignty threat existed, Ottawa cabled determined assertions of its claims to the Danish government.158

A year later, Stefansson was at the center of another sovereignty crisis. Without a mandate from the Borden government, he dispatched a crew to take possession of Wrangel

Island, an island in the Chukchi Sea off the Soviet Union’s northeastern coast. The undertaking turned into disaster when all but one of the party died, Moscow asserted ownership of the island, and it became clear that Stefansson had acted on his own.159 The episode not only had caused an international incident, it also cast doubts about the Canadian government’s reliance on the sector principle. Wrangel Island, in fact, was located far outside the area that was covered by the principle. After initial signals of support, Ottawa disavowed Stefansson’s attempt to claim the

157 Richard J. Diubaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978), 12–14; Janice Cavell and Jeffrey David Noakes, Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918-25 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010), 48-50; 156-59. 158 Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 46–50. 159 For a detailed discussion of the Wrangel Island episode, see Diubaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic, 161– 86; Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 139–82; Smith, A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North, 267–94. 63

island for Canada.160 The Arctic booster, Diubaldo writes, had “underestimated the political realities” and “overstepped himself” in his role as external adviser to the Canadian government.161 For all of Stefansson’s enthusiasm for the commercial potential of the Arctic, his overbearing conduct and his brazen actions resulted in his isolation among officials in Ottawa.

But national loyalties appealed to Stefansson only in the context of securing support for his

Arctic projects. The vision of a commercial penetration of the circumpolar world lent itself to the informal imperialism of U.S. administrations in the interwar period just as well,162 an irony given that Borden had hoped to stymie American Arctic activities with Stefansson’s expedition.

If Stefansson’s unilateral actions had caused the Canadian government embarrassment, they also refocused attention on Canada’s legal situation in the Arctic. Officials reviewed

Ottawa’s claims to the archipelago during the early 1920s and initiated a series of programs designed to strengthen the government’s title based on control and administration. The

Mackenzie King government established the annual Eastern Arctic Patrol, erected additional police posts on Baffin Island, Devon Island, and Ellesmere Island, and held criminal trials of

Inuit in remote communities.163 When an American expedition led by Donald MacMillan and

Richard Byrd and supported by the U.S. Navy set out to explore and claim new territories on the northern parts of Ellesmere Island, Ottawa set up the interdepartmental Northern Advisory

Board. The purpose of the board was to study sovereignty questions and its members included O.

S. Finnie, J. B. Harkin, James White, and O. D. Skelton. A May 1925 in-depth survey of

160 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 41f; Grant, Polar Imperative, 223f. 161 Diubaldo, Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic, 209. 162 Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream; Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919-1933 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Frank A. Ninkovich, The United States and Imperialism (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007). 163 Grant, Polar Imperative, 225–27. 64

Canada’s claim and the current international jurisprudence prepared by White laid out the rationale for a comprehensive legal claim to the archipelago based on the sector principle and the concept of effective occupation.164 A week later, the Secretary of the Interior Charles Stewart rose in the House of Commons to declare that Canada needed to administer and control the territory it claimed “right up to the pole.”165 The public announcement by a member of the

Canadian cabinet had been the highest-ranking endorsement of the sector principle. At the same time, Stewart had stressed the importance of exercising governance in these remote regions, a dimension in which Canadian governments had made substantial progress during the first half of the 1920s. Thus Ottawa pursued what Lackenbauer and Kikkert describe as a “two-pronged sovereignty strategy” in the Arctic, relying on the sector claim as well as strengthening its title under the concept of effective occupation. To Washington, however, Ottawa’s position became predominantly linked with the sector principle.166

If the Arctic was a secondary idea in the American national imagination, the U.S. government likewise remained moderately interested in the region throughout the 1920s. In contrast to Ottawa, the U.S. administration did not devote many resources to the study and the formulation of its legal position in the Arctic. Stefansson’s unsuccessful lobbying to move

Washington to claim Wrangel Island following Ottawa’s refusal, nonetheless, kept the State

Department alert. When the Norwegian government informed Washington of the explorer Roald

Amundsen’s plans to explore the Arctic Ocean between Spitsbergen and Alaska and to claim any

164 The May 1925 study that preceded Stewart’s endorsement of the sector principle, Cavell notes, referenced neither Poirier’s 1907 statement nor Bernier’s invocation on Melville Island two years later, thus making James White “the author of the sector claim.” Cavell, “Canada’s Arctic Sector Claim in Historical Perspective: A Response to Alan MacEachern”; Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 228. 165 Ibid., Acts of Occupation, 2010, 229. 166 Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” xxx–xxxi. 65

territorial discoveries for the Norwegian crown, the American diplomats were forced to draft a response. The resulting note by U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evan Hughes in April 1924 articulated the American legal interpretation of territorial claims in Polar Regions and became the legal foundation for Washington’s policy towards the Arctic and Antarctic. The note to Oslo stated that Washington considered insufficient claims to sovereignty that were based on declarations, temporary activities or symbolic acts of administration. A complete title had to rest on settlement, colonization, and the use of polar territory, a taxonomy that resembled the standards for territorial acquisition in more temperate regions. The note, moreover, made clear that Washington had not yet issued a claim to Arctic territories itself.167 This strict interpretation of polar sovereignty stood in stark contrast to the Canadian position. The high bar for effective occupation and the rejection of broad declarations was not compatible with the Stewart’s invocation of the sector principle and the mere administration of governmental functions in the

Arctic Archipelago to achieve a complete title.

The Hughes Doctrine stood in line with key tenets that guided U.S. foreign policy throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Preserving American freedom of action and access not unlike the Open Door policy and preventing foreign annexation of territory in the

Western hemisphere in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine,168 the Hughes Doctrine carried forward the Polar Imperialism of the nineteenth century. At the same time, historian Peter

Kikkert argues that the doctrine represented “a cautious, defensive strategy.” Its principal objective was to situate U.S. claims within a clearer legal framework and to protect

167 Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth,” 142–45. 168 Adrian Howkins, “The Significance of the Frontier in Antarctic History: How the Us West Has Shaped the Geopolitics of the Far South,” The Polar Journal 3, no. 1 (2013): 9–30; H. Robert Hall, “The ‘Open Door’ into Antarctica: An Explanation of the Hughes Doctrine,” Polar Record 25, no. 153 (1989): 137–40. 66

Washington’s interests in the Arctic and the Antarctic. 169 Indeed, while Washington’s interpretation certainly contained the potential to confront and to question Ottawa’s title to the

Arctic Archipelago throughout the following decades, American administrations adopted a quiet and flexible approach, preserving its legal interest without sacrificing their political and strategic goals.170

The resolution of a dispute between Norway and Canada at the end of the 1920s perhaps most amply reflects the degree of legal expertise and diplomatic acumen that had developed in the Canadian government, more generally, and at External Affairs in particular. The legal studies prepared by James White had equipped Ottawa with the conceptual framework for navigating a constantly evolving legal landscape over the question of territorial acquisition in remote regions.

After White had died, Skelton charged Lester Pearson, a fresh recruit and “floater” in his first year at External Affairs in 1929,171 with studying a solution to an unresolved issue between

Norway and Canada over ownership of the Sverdrup Islands. By 1929, the Norwegian government no longer sought to press its claim and Pearson suggested to agree to a financial settlement with the explorer Otto Sverdrup to secure Oslo’s recognition, a recommendation

Skelton readily accepted. 172 In his brief, the young diplomat reviewed White’s legal commentary173 and in a nod to Stefansson displayed a sense of fascination with the region’s potential as a modern hub of air travel and cross-polar commerce:

169 Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth,” 149. 170 Cavell argues the American decision not to publicly confront the Canadian government possibly implied ‘tacit consent’ over time. See Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 239; Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” xxxi. 171 English, Shadow of Heaven, 150f. 172 Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 2010, 246; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 50f; Smith, A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North, 305f. 173 Cavell, “Introduction,” DCER. The Arctic, 1874-1949, xxx. 67

Up till recently the far Arctic region has had, on the whole, merely an academic, scientific, or sporting interest for the world in general. But with the tremendous development in air transportation now taking place, and with the shortest route from Tokyo to London across the Arctic wastes, these northern areas are gaining new significance. [...] The fabled North West Passage [sic] is becoming once again the goal of mariner[;] mariners, now, of another element.174

Thus, Pearson’s first recorded interaction with the Arctic not only revealed early signs of his enthusiasm for the region. It also concluded with the recognition of Canadian sovereignty over the Sverdrup Islands, if by settlement and not by recognition of the contested sector claim. 175

This important aspect notwithstanding, the sector principle became a fixture in Pearson’s Arctic diplomacy over the following decades.176 Indeed, in his 1938 Cambridge Lecture, he noted how

Canadian patrols and RCMP officers were “making good their claim to all the territory north of their coastline right up to the Pole.”177

By the early 1930s, the Canadian government had successfully managed a series of sovereignty scares and crises. In the context of a vague transfer by the British in 1880, an evolving legal landscape, and an imperfect understanding of the exact nature of the Arctic

Archipelago’s expanse Ottawa had embarked on a multifront effort to strengthen its claim to the

Arctic islands. Beginning in 1904, it periodically reviewed its legal status and the validity of its claims to sovereignty, developing a two-tiered approach on the basis of the sector principle and the concept of effective occupation. Moreover, Canadian governments dispatched expeditions to explore the archipelago, collecting geographical information and claiming new territories. Most importantly, Ottawa substantially expanded the administration of governmental functions to the

174 Lester B. Pearson, “Memorandum by First Secretary, Department of External Affairs,” September 23, 1929, DCER. The Arctic, 1874-1949, 703-12. 175 Kikkert and Lackenbauer, “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56,” xxxiii. 176 Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy.” 177 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada,” August 2-3, 1938, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 1, File: 30 Nov. 1930 to 3 Aug. 1941, 17. 68

Arctic islands during the 1920s. The Eastern Arctic Patrol, police posts, and criminal trials served to stress the presence of the Canadian government in these remote regions. If these efforts failed to match American requirements for effective occupation as spelled out in the Hughes

Doctrine of 1924, Ottawa felt its position was strengthened when an international court ruled in favor of Danish sovereignty over sparsely populated and administered Greenland. The Eastern

Greenland Case of 1933 seemed to weaken Washington’s strict interpretation of effective occupation in the Polar Regions, a view U.S. and Canadian legal experts maintained during the early Cold War.178

The evolution of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty claims and the emergence of the U.S. polar doctrine over the first half of the twentieth century can be described as the product of push and pull movements without a clear conception of the ultimate legitimacy and validity of each impulse. The Canadian government’s efforts, however, were more than disjointed responses to public embarrassments or sovereignty crises—real and manufactured ones. The Alaska boundary decision in 1903, above all, constitutes the principal vanishing point in the history of the U.S.-

Canadian Arctic sovereignty relations. The dispute served as an impetus for legal studies, expeditions, and Poirier’s failed initiative for official adoption of the sector principle over the following years. Moreover, a measured diplomacy characterized the efforts of the King government during the 1920s, an approach that specifically the Arctic booster Stefansson frequently sabotaged with his unilateral actions and controversial publications. Janice Cavell and

Jeffrey Noakes, however, point to a more important dynamic when they write that Stefansson’s

178 For a detailed discussion of the Eastern Greenland Case see Janice Cavell, “Historical Evidence and the Eastern Greenland Case,” Arctic 61, no. 4 (2008): 433–41; Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation, 246f; Smith, A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North, 313–20; Kikkert, “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth,” 273–85. 69

sovereignty scares eventually left Ottawa in better shape to confront the sovereignty crises of the following years and decades, particularly in view of conflicting interpretations advanced by the

United States. After all, at the end of World War II, the Canadian government had retained the

British transfer of 1880 and Washington refrained from challenges to Canada’s title.

By the 1930s, the fundamental themes that guided foreign and defense officials on legal matters over Arctic sovereignty during the negotiations over the establishment of JAWS and the

DEW Line during the 1940s and 1950s had been well-established.179 First, the opposing legal interpretations over the application of the sector principle and the concept of effective occupation between Canada and the United States had taken root. Although the approach advocated by the

Northern Advisory Board and the Secretary of the Interior Stewart had indicated a more nuanced understanding of the issue, American diplomats were sensitive to sector claims in view of U.S. claims to territory in Antarctica and linked Ottawa with the sector principle. Indeed, Lester

Pearson had taken his first foray into Arctic affairs during which he came upon the sector principle. Second, if Ottawa conceived of Arctic sovereignty as a national issue, Washington viewed the legal ramifications and the politics of Arctic claims through the lens of polar geopolitics. The Hughes Doctrine, albeit prompted by Arctic politics, was fundamentally informed by American interests on the opposite side of the world. Third, impulses for an overt, aggressive, and loud assertion of Canada’s claims competed with an approach that privileged measured and quiet actions to achieve a stronger title to the Arctic islands. The tension between

Poirier’s and Bernier’s staunch sovereignty assertions, for example, and a more deliberate approach designed to avoid public questions about Ottawa’s title had not vanished by the 1940s

179 Smith takes this view even further to argue that the sovereignty question had been settled in the early 1930s. See Smith, “Sovereignty in the North,” 212. 70

and 1950s. Finally, the Arctic evangelist Vilhjalmur Stefansson continued to transcend the 49° parallel, preaching the possibilities of the commercial development of the Arctic to the governments on both sides of the border. Once Prime Minister Borden’s favored vehicle to assert

Canada’s Arctic leadership in 1913, Stefansson reported “directly to the [U.S.] Army and also to the Office of Strategic Services” thirty years later.180 In doing so, Stefansson found himself time and again in the midst of controversy over U.S.-Canadian Arctic relations.

War

The Northern and Arctic regions of North America did not become involved in the First World

War. Soldiers from the regions, however, were deployed to Europe and Northern newspapers carried stories about the particular Northern qualities they brought to the battlefields on the other side of the globe.181 The outbreak of World War II and the entrance of the United States as a belligerent two years later, by contrast, marked the end for the region’s isolation from the grasps of global conflict. A series of military projects across the Canadian Northern and Arctic regions led to a massive influx of U.S. military personnel and the construction of transportation, communication, and energy infrastructure, particularly in the Canadian Northwest. If in the preceding decades, the regions had been the subject of legal concern over claims to Arctic territory and the source for nationalist imaginations, World War II placed questions over the defense of the continent squarely on the bilateral agenda. Security as a lens to make sense of

Northern and Arctic Canada now was a fixture next to issues of nationalism and sovereignty.

180 “Trevor Lloyd to Hugh L. Keenleyside,” April 21, 1943, LAC, RG 25, Box 3306, File: 9059-C-40 pt. 1. 181 For a discussion of the impact of the First World War on the Canadian North, see the edited collection of essays by Slobodin and Coates, “The North and the First World War.” 71

The history of U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic defense cooperation during World

War II has been the subject of much debate. Historians have examined the relationship, first and foremost, with respect to questions over the impact of defense projects on balancing security and sovereignty interests and the nature of U.S. motives. For some, the Mackenzie King government and its continentalist officials at External Affairs all but sacrificed the North to U.S. imperialism. 182 Jack Granatstein and Shelagh Grant have argued that Ottawa’s defense cooperation with Washington came at the expense of sovereignty throughout the North. The flaunting of Canadian law, rights of extraterritoriality, and a U.S. agenda to take advantage of wartime investments, they argue, weakened Ottawa’s claims. Washington may not have overtly challenged Canadian sovereignty, yet its scientific and military activities pointed to objectives that went beyond the imperatives of war. The American challenge, Grant suggests, was “dormant but alive.”183

This zero-sum interpretation of sovereignty and security interests has been criticized by revisionist studies. Comments by individual officials notwithstanding, Washington did not propose the series of defense projects across the North to obtain a postwar foothold in Northern

Canada, William Morrison has shown. 184 Galen Perras aptly adds that the Roosevelt administration “sought hemispheric security, not foreign adventure.”185 The overarching theme of U.S.-Canadian defense relations during the war then is located in Ottawa, not Washington.

The disinterest and inaction of the early Mackenzie King government towards what Ken Coates and Morrison called a “friendliest occupation” of the Canadian Northwest accounts for the

182 Creighton, The Forked Road, 72–74. 183 Granatstein, “A Fit of Absence of Mind,” 21; Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 134; Grant, Polar Imperative, 270–83. 184 Morrison, “Eagle over the Arctic.” 185 Perras, Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933-1945, 121. 72

emerging sovereignty concerns, not U.S. imperial designs. 186 Indeed, the impact of the construction of the Northwest Staging Route or the Alaska Highway on indigenous and non- indigenous communities and the environment was substantial. Yet Ottawa was “disinclined to look the gift horse in the mouth,” Morris Zaslow writes, and accepted U.S. money and manpower for the construction of airfields, roads, and pipelines.187 The result of this “willful neglect,” as Whitney Lackenbauer has shown, was not a sacrifice of Canadian rights in the

North. The expansion of infrastructure projects across the region and Mackenzie King’s attention to the Northwest towards the end of the war, in fact, resulted in “a gradual emergence of meaningful Canadian sovereignty.” The departure of U.S. military personnel with the end of the war, moreover, lessened concerns over Canadian de facto sovereignty.188 Defense cooperation with the United States, therefore, advanced both, Canadian security and sovereignty interests.

By the end of World War II, hence, the themes of nationalism, sovereignty, and security had been a well-established nexus shaping the U.S.-Canadian defense relationship in Northern and Arctic Canada. The war emergency produced a sovereignty scare by 1943 with two results.

Whereas the Mackenzie King government reverted from its initial laissez-faire attitude towards an activist policy in the Canadian Northwest, the idea of Northern and Arctic Canada on the cusp of American annexation remained a potent legacy into the postwar era, forming the context for talks over a new series of Arctic defense projects. The fact that Ottawa emerged with a stronger legal and practical position in the North and the Arctic at the end of the war, a position never officially challenged by Washington, did little to disentangle the issue of sovereignty from the

186 Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II, 233. 187 Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967, 210. 188 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 62; Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable.” 73

nationalist impulses of the Ottawa Arcticians. It remains a feature of World War II as much as the early Cold War that the gradual solidification of Canada’s Northern and Arctic sovereignty did not coincide with a diminishing Northern nationalism. While the Canadian and American governments successfully balanced security with sovereignty interests, the sense of urgency to defend Canada’s sovereignty in the Northern and Arctic regions lost none of its political potency in the rhetorical arsenal of Northern nationalists during the 1940s and 1950s.

When Ottawa laid the groundwork for the defense relationship with Washington with the

Ogdensburg Agreement during the summer of 1940, the “annexation bogey,” as C. P. Stacey put it, 189 did not preoccupy the Mackenzie King government. Prior to the agreement, both governments had not engaged in meaningful military cooperation, let alone had they considered the establishment of a joint architecture for the coordination of military activities.190 Against the backdrop of the fall of France and the possibility of a British defeat by Nazi Germany,

Mackenzie King and Roosevelt created the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (PJBD). The

PJBD was equally staffed by Canadian and American representatives of the military service branches, the diplomatic corps, and two civilian chairmen and its purpose was to devise plans for the defense of the northern half of the North American continent.191 With broad approval among the press, the parliamentary opposition in Canada, and among Congressional isolationists in the

United States,192 the Ogdensburg Agreement constituted a first step towards closer continental defense relations and a loosening of the imperial connection. Indeed, while the Globe and Mail

189 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, 1921-1948, 363. 190 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Appeasement and Rearmament., 176. 191 C.P. Stacey, “The Canadian-American Permanent Joint Board on Defence, 1940-1945,” International Journal 9, no. 2 (1954): 107–24; Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945., 36ff. 192 “Washington Hails New Defense Plan,” New York Times, August 19, 1940; Charles Hurd, “Roosevelt Puts Canada Pact First,” New York Times, August 21, 1940. 74

praised the declaration as a “modernized Monroe Doctrine,” the Washington Post hailed it as a

“companion piece to the Convention and Act of Havana,” placing it in the larger context of hemispheric defense. 193

Over the course of the war, the PJBD served as the principal conduit for U.S.-Canadian coordination of defense activities in Canada. The construction of the Northwest Staging Route, a network of airfields connecting Edmonton, Alberta, with Fairbanks, Alaska, was the first major defense project in Northern Canada the board recommended in November 1940. Initially, the purpose of the chain of airfields was to improve transportation of aircraft and communication between the continental United States and Alaska and to strengthen the defense of Western

Canada.194 The network’s role soon grew, however, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in 1941 as Washington began to provide Moscow with

Lend-Lease aircraft via Alaska.195 In 1942, therefore, the United States pressed Ottawa to expand the staging route, proposing to assume sole responsibility to accelerate construction. At External

Affairs, then Assistant Under-Secretary of State Hugh L. Keenleyside resisted this proposal, calling it “detrimental to Canadian prestige now and to Canadian national and commercial interest when peace returns.”196 As a result, Ottawa and Washington agreed to a compromise

193 R. A. Farquharson, “Modernized Monroe Doctrine Boost to National Pride,” The Globe and Mail, August 19, 1940; “Canada is Pleased: The Ogdensburg Accord is Hailed,” Washington Post, September 2, 1940. 194 “Permanent Joint Board on Defense Journal of Discussions and Decisions,” November 4, 1940, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Box: 14, File: PJBD Journals, Aug 26-Dec 17, 1940. 195 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 56. 196 Hugh L. Keenleyside, “Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, “ March 24, 1942, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1235. 75

formula with the Americans paying for any expansions and Canada retaining “full title and control” over the network.197

The construction of the Alaska Highway during the summer of 1942 most prominently shaped perceptions among Canadian officials of American defense activities in the Northwest.

The establishment of a road connecting Alaska with the continental United States via the Yukon and Alberta had been considered by both governments during the 1930s. Stefansson had lobbied the U.S. Army to use the highway to advance development of the Great Bear Lake region, a

“radical departure” from existing plans the Canadian Legation in Washington warned.198 It was the threat of the Japanese Navy harassing the Northwest Pacific coastline, however, that jolted

U.S. defense planners into action in early 1942. Roosevelt quickly approved the project and the

PJBD recommended that Washington pay, construct, and maintain the road as a U.S. project with all rights reverting to Canada after the war. Over the summer of 1942, 40,000 American civilians and soldiers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a two-lane gravel road over a distance of

2,400 kilometers, connecting the isolated airfields of the staging route from Edmonton, Alberta, to Fairbanks, Alaska.199 Completed in 1944, the highway had little impact on the course of the war, yet its legacy for Canadian officials was one of caution and skepticism. Unpersuaded by its military rationale, Keenleyside had seen the highway as a “most dubious egg.”200 Yet with little oversight from Ottawa, the road impacted indigenous communities, the natural environment, and

197 “Extract from Minutes of Cabinet War Committee,” April 22, 1942, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1239f; Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 154f. 198 Vilhjalmur Stefansson, “The American Far North,” Foreign Affairs 17, no. 3 (1939): 508–23; ibid., “What Is the Western Hemisphere?,” Foreign Affairs 19, no. 2 (1941): 343–46; ibid., “Routes to Alaska,” Foreign Affairs 10, no. 4 (1941): 861–69. “[Enclosure] AirAttaché, Legation in United States, to Minister in United States,” September 2, 1940, DCER, 1939-1941, Vol. 8, pt. II, 455. 199 Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 56–58; Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945., 218f. 200 Hugh L. Keenleyside, “Memorandum from Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Under- Secretary of State for External Affairs,” March 3, 1942, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1182ff. 76

resource stocks detrimentally. Indeed, “Canada had stood idly by,” Coates and Morrison conclude, “while the United States had defended and developed its northland.” Although local businesses welcomed the influx of U.S. dollars, the presence of the U.S. military in the Canadian

North raised concerns and resentments that persisted into the postwar years.201

In addition to aviation and highway infrastructure, securing access to energy was a principal concern for U.S. defense planners. At Great Bear Lake, a radium mine reopened in

1942 to provide the only secure source of uranium for Allied research on the atomic bomb.202

Moreover, U.S. defense planners conceived the Canol Pipeline, a 1,000-kilometer oil pipeline, financed and constructed by the United States, as a backup line for Alaska in the event Japan would interrupt naval access via the Pacific Northwest coast. The pipeline was also planned to service the Northwest Staging Route and, later, the Alaska Highway. Completed in 1944, the

Canol Pipeline operated irregularly and below expectations for barely a year. If Washington at times acted before securing official approval during the construction period, its lax attitude was matched by Ottawa’s laissez-faire approach to the project.203 As long as Washington provided for the pipeline with money and supplies, the Globe and Mail seconded, the project was “no especial concern of ours.”204

While most of the defense projects took place in the Canadian Northwest, the United

States pressed the Canadian government to expand its sparse network of airfields in the

Northeast and the Eastern Arctic. With German submarines harassing the sea-lanes in the North

201 Sutherland, “The Strategic Significance of the Arctic,” 262. 202 A second source existed in the Belgian Congo and was under threat of invasion. See Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 104f. 203 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 58; Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 156. 204 Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy, 1998, 41; Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II, 66.; “Canada an Observer,” The Globe and Mail, November 24, 1943. 77

Atlantic, the Crimson Route was designed to establish air routes to safely transport the escalating volume of aircraft produced by the American war industry after 1941 to Britain. The Under-

Secretary of State Norman A. Robertson wrote Mackenzie King that the Canadian Arctic had become “a theatre of military operations” and that “we should be grateful for all the aid our ally can give to the common cause.”205 In July 1942, the Canadian government approved the project.

While Ottawa improved facilities for the airfield at The Pas in Manitoba, Washington assumed responsibility for the construction of stations in the Eastern Arctic at Fort Chimo, Frobisher Bay, and Padloping Island. Much like the Alaska Highway, the Crimson Route never came to play a significance role in the war as increased aircraft range and more secure shipping lanes became available.206 The urgency and pressure with which U.S. officials had rushed the project, however, contrasted poorly with the ultimate necessity for such large-scale projects. The Crimson Route appeared to fit a pattern of “white elephants” across Northern and Arctic Canada.207

The series of Northern and Arctic defense projects increasingly became a political point of contention among senior politicians in Ottawa. If some officials had been early skeptics of granting too much authority to the U.S. military, these voices swelled to a chorus when more and more reports about the lack of Canadian supervision arrived in Ottawa.208 In March 1943, the

British High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald presented a dire picture of Canadian oversight and control along the defense projects in the Canadian Northwest to the Mackenzie King cabinet.

MacDonald warned that in the Northwest “American money, energy, and labour” operated with

205 “Extracts from Minutes of Cabinet War Committee,” July 1, 1942, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1246ff. 206 Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945., 192f. 207 Malcolm MacDonald, “Eastern Arctic Air Routes,” September 29, 1944, The National Archives Online, Records of the Cabinet Office, Reference: CAB 66/55/46, 1 208 For a Bank of Canada report on the situation in the Northwest, see “Memorandum by Deputy Chief of Research, Bank of Canada,” April 12, 1943, DCER. The Arctic, 1874-1949, 838-45. 78

impunity and a clear “view to the post-war situation.” A visit to the Crimson Route station at

Frobisher Bay a year later yielded a similar verdict, describing the base as “a colossal piece of overinsurance.” The U.S. aviation industry and American oil companies in addition to

Washington’s strategic interest in the region in view of a potential conflict with the Soviet Union lurked behind the massive constructions in Northern and Arctic Canada, MacDonald suggested.

To some in Canada, he ominously hinted, this indicated that their “destiny lies in incorporation with the United States of America.”209

Raising the specter of U.S. imperialism, the MacDonald report generated a sovereignty scare among the Prime Minister and the group of northern nationalists,210 including Hugh

Keenleyside, A. D. P. Heeney, Lester Pearson, Escott Reid, Vincent Massey, and Trevor Lloyd.

Although Mackenzie King had gladly welcomed the Ogdensburg Agreement as a means to achieve greater independence from London, the wartime experience and U.S. activities in the

North had sobered his friendly attitude towards the United States. By 1943, Mackenzie King griped, “Canadians were looked upon by Americans as a lot of Eskimos.” The Alaska Highway

“was less intended for protection against the Japanese,” he said, “than as one of the fingers of the hand which America is placing more or less over the whole of the Western hemisphere.”211

Keenleyside felt he had detected a “new mood of imperialism” and a return to the “tactics and

209 Malcolm MacDonald, “Eastern Arctic Air Routes,” September 29, 1944, The National Archives Online, Records of the Cabinet Office, Reference: CAB 66/55/46, 1; “Extract from Minutes of Cabinet War Committee,” March 31, 1943; “Memorandum by High Commissioner of Great Britain,” April 6, 1943, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1566; 1570. 210 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 157; Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 110–13. 211 Mackenzie King quoted in Robert D. Cuff and J. L. Granatstein, Ties That Bind: Canadian-American Relations in Wartime from the Great War to the Cold War (Toronto: A.M. Hakkert, 1977), 108. 79

philosophies of 1898,” a reference to U.S. imperialism at the turn of the nineteenth century.212

While Lloyd called for Ottawa to step up to the challenge in the 1943 Dominion Day edition of

Maclean’s,213 Canadian High Commissioner Massey decried “American encroachment” from

London. Although Pearson, now minister-counselor at the Legation in Washington, joined his colleagues, warning that Americans considered Canada as “one of themselves,”214 he also struck a more moderate note. Echoing the ‘functional’ approach put forward by his colleague Hume

Wrong,215 Pearson argued that Canadian diplomacy ought to be grounded in an appreciation of the relative positions of the United States and Canada. If Ottawa was not to “debase its coin” in

Washington, Pearson added, it was important to understand when to pick a fight.216

This cohort of northern nationalists had assumed key positions at External Affairs in

Ottawa at time of a fundamental recalibration of the Anglo-Canadian-American relationship. As they sought to assert a Canadian voice that stood independent from the colonial tutelage of the

British Commonwealth and the continental gravity of the United States, they embraced the mythologies and visions of Canada as a distinctly Northern and Arctic nation. As the threat of war to the North American continent began to fade, they sought to remedy their absenteeism along the defense projects throughout Northern and Arctic Canada. Although Robertson and

Keenleyside had noted that the agreements governing the U.S.-Canadian defense projects left no

212 “Report on Canadian Representation in & Relations with the United States of America,” March 31, 1942, Hugh L. Keenleyside Fonds, LAC, MG 31 E 102, Vol. 9, File: Canada at War (1 of 2)—n.d., 1939-1942, 40. 213 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 124. 214 Massey and Pearson quoted in Perras, Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933-1945, 117. 215 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, 1921-1948, 333. 216 “Minister in United States to First Secretary,” March 21, 1944, DCER, 1944-1945, Vol. 11, pt. II, 1405-8. 80

legal ambiguity for Washington to claim postwar rights,217 the Mackenzie King government responded to the MacDonald report by appointing a special commissioner in 1943, equipped with a broad set of supervisory and consultative powers to oversee U.S. defense activities in the

Northwest. The Americans operating in the Northwest welcomed the liaison and the Canadian government had an official representative in the region who reported back to Ottawa. The appointment was the first indication in Mackenzie King’s move towards a more engaged attitude towards the Northern and Arctic regions. “The days of sad neglect,” Lackenbauer argues, “were over.”218

The adoption of the policy to ‘re-Canadianize’ the U.S.-built and operated Northern and

Arctic defense installations was a far more significant development in the wake of the

MacDonald report. The Mackenzie King government decided to reimburse Washington for

American defense installations on Canadian soil in September 1944, resisted further expansion of airfields, and ensured the withdrawal of U.S. forces after the war.219 A year later, Ottawa, moreover, made it its policy to assume “full responsibility” for all future defense projects in

Canada. As a result, the Canadian government paid Washington for the construction of airfields, weather posts, accompanying facilities, and the Canol Pipeline. As stipulated, Washington turned over the Alaska Highway in 1946 to the Canadian Army, although the road required a substantial makeover before it could be opened to the public. Moreover, the RCAF and the Department of

217 Hugh L. Keenleyside, “Memorandum by Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs,” April 9, 1943, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1573-77; Norman Robertson, “Extracts from Minutes of Cabinet War Committee,” April 16, 1943, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1582. 218 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 157. 219 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 60. 81

Transport, over time, took control of airfields and meteorological stations and a crown company was created to control air routes in Canada.220

At the end of World War II, the Canadian government had replaced its laissez-faire attitude with an activist approach towards U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the North.

Despite the critiques of Creighton, Granatstein, and Grant, Canadian sovereignty “was more substantial at the end of the war than it was at the onset,” Lackenbauer concludes.221 The ‘re-

Canadianization’ policy and the experience of wartime cooperation with the United States by many of the northern nationalists, as Grant has shown, constituted important legacies. They shaped the way Canadian diplomats and officials perceived a new global security environment, the strategic significance of Northern and Arctic Canada, and U.S. requests for a new slate of

Arctic defense projects. Canada may have emerged from the war with a more solid claim to sovereignty in the North and the Arctic. Yet it also faced the new Cold War security environment with a heightened sense of national consciousness and a renewed urgency to assert the country’s connection to its Northern and Arctic regions. Strengthened sovereignty claims did little to placate the fervor of Ottawa’s Arcticians.

Conclusion

The history of U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic relations up until the end of World War II provides the historical context in which Canadian and American foreign and defense officials negotiated over the establishment of weather and radar stations across the Northern rim of the

220 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 58-63; Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada,, 225-27; Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II, 218-34. 221 Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable,” 159. 82

North American continent. For the cast of diplomatic and political actors, particularly in the

Canadian government, the renewed interest in the construction of Arctic research and defense facilities in the immediate postwar years played out against the backdrop of the most recent wartime experience of defense cooperation but also in the larger historical context of both countries’ relations in the Northern and Arctic regions. The nexus of northern nationalism, sovereignty scares and crises, and the new reality of the Northern and Arctic region as a military- strategic theater formed the frame of reference within which foreign and defense officials in

Washington and Ottawa debated the future of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the Arctic.

The Polar Imperialism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century that characterized

American activities throughout the Arctic had closely linked the representations of Northern and

Arctic people and landscapes with the nationalist politics of U.S. imperialism. Yet the national imagination of the United States reserved only a secondary place for Northern and Arctic narratives. Once the age of Arctic exploration began to fade after the First World War and the military-strategic significance of the region moved into the fore during World War II, notions of technological and scientific conquest replaced the images of Arctic discovery and flag-planting.

The idea of the Northern and Arctic region as a defining space, however, remained a potent aspect in the national imagination of many Canadian diplomats and officials. A kaleidoscope of cultural representations provided these northern nationalists with a rich tapestry to envision an independent and maturing Canadian nation as a distinctly Northern and Arctic nation.

The emergence of diverging views on the significance of the Northern and Arctic regions to the national development was also mirrored in the evolution of conflicting interpretations of the international legal landscape on questions of Arctic sovereignty. The strict interpretation of effective occupation to achieve a viable title to polar territory, as encapsulated in the Hughes

83

Doctrine, was incompatible with Canada’s invocation of the sector principle and a mostly symbolic extension of governance into the Arctic Archipelago. Over time, sovereignty scares and crises and a growing legal expertise prepared the Canadian government to confront future scenarios. Internal legal advice, however, not always was going to prevail over the personal inclinations of Ottawa’s northern nationalists.

Finally, World War II put to rest any notions that the Northern and Arctic regions could remain sheltered from a global war. Canadian and American relations in the North and the Arctic no longer were restricted to issues over national prestige and territorial claims. Security unalterably had become a key variable in the bilateral relationship, one that confronted the

Canadian government with U.S. requests for a series of defense projects in the Canadian

Northwest and the Eastern Arctic. Yet while the security crisis of the war generated a sovereignty scare with the MacDonald report in 1943, it did not amount to a sovereignty crisis.

No title had been challenged; no islands had been unilaterally claimed. Despite the overbearance of some U.S. personnel during the construction of the Northwest Staging Route or the Canol

Pipeline, bilateral agreements governed the defense relationship and External Affairs moderated

U.S. plans. Regardless, concerns about Ottawa’s laissez-faire attitude towards U.S. defense activities during the early years of the war produced a more activist stance in Ottawa after the

MacDonald report. As a result, the adoption of the ‘re-Canadianization’ policy emerged as the most significant legacy of defense cooperation during the war. Defending Northern and Arctic

Canada, the northern nationalists were resolved, was a Canadian responsibility.

84

CHAPTER II

The Joint Arctic Weather Stations and the Cold War, 1944-1950

After the emotional debauch of the war there is going to be a bad hangover in all the former belligerent countries. [...] The opening of a new frontier in the Canadian North can, I think, become a national objective of some importance to the Canadian People. Even if, from the point of view of securing the highest possible national income, the Canadian North is not worth a large expenditure of national energy and capital, a very large expenditure might nevertheless be justified in an effort to realize an inspiring and somewhat romantic national objective.

Escott M. Reid, Department of External Affairs, 1943222

Foremost among the determinants of Canadian policy toward the United States requests for installations in the Arctic Archipelago is the sentiment of national pride.

U.S. Army Air Force, ATC Intelligence Section, 1946223

Introduction

By the end of World War II, the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada had ceased to be an afterthought in the minds of the Canadian and American governments. The Canadian Northwest, the Northeast, and the Eastern Arctic which had seen the occasional visit of the Eastern Arctic

Patrol and the scattered presence of Royal Canadian Mounted Police posts during the years leading up to the war had been transformed into a “theatre of military operations” as the

Canadian Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Norman A. Robertson explained to

222 Richard J. Diubaldo, “The Alaska Highway in Canada-United States Relations,” in The Alaska Highway: Papers of the 40th Anniversary Symposium, ed. Ken S. Coates (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985), 106. 223 “Problems of Canadian-United States Cooperation in the Arctic,” U.S. Army Air Forces, Atlantic Division, Air Transport Command, October 29, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Correspondence File: January 1943-December 46, Box: 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S. Canada 1946-January-December, 1-13. 85

Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1942. 224 The unprecedented defense cooperation both countries had entered at the onset of the war spawned a series of American proposals for military installations across the North. These installations not only transformed local and regional economies, they also affected the overall relationship between the United States and Canada. The political significance of the Northern and Arctic reaches of Canada as a cultural marker of a distinct Canadian history and identity intersected with concerns over sovereignty and questions for the joint defense of North America.

Washington’s request to establish weather stations in the Canadian Arctic, along with a slate of additional Northern and Arctic scientific-military programs, refocused the attention of the Canadian government on the Arctic at a time of transition. By May 1946, when Washington submitted its official request, international tensions had intensified with the revelations of a

Soviet spy ring in Canada, conflict in the Middle East, and Stalin and Churchill’s rhetorical escalations, further solidifying the emerging superpower antagonism.225 As American officials made their first approaches to Ottawa to test the waters for Canadian interest in the expansion of meteorological research in the Arctic, the Mackenzie King government was determined to implement the ‘re-Canadianization’ policy to assume full responsibility for all defense installations constructed on Canadian soil. The Joint Arctic Weather Stations program, a project whose scientific value appealed to both governments, now tested this policy. With the warnings of the MacDonald report fresh in mind, the American proposal positioned the forces for a

224 Norman A. Robertson, “Memorandum from Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Prime Minister,” May 28, 1942, DCER, 1942-1943, Vol. 9, 1241. 225 Jonathan Haslam, Near and Distant Neighbours: A New History of Soviet Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 149–57; Melvyn P. Leffler, “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 67–89; Thompson and Randall, Canada and the United States, 169. 86

Northern vision of Canadian nationhood and an independent Canada against the gravitational pull of continental defense integration.

The history of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS) in the larger story of the

Canadian-American early Cold War defense relationship in Northern and Arctic Canada has received only little attention. Except for a series of article-length studies and the brief discussion of the program throughout survey texts,226 no monograph-length analysis of the origins, the negotiations, and the operation of the weather stations has been undertaken so far.227 The existing scholarship examined JAWS principally within the broader debate over Canada’s Arctic sovereignty and Ottawa’s response to U.S. efforts to expand the continental defense architecture into Northern and Arctic Canada. While the discussions of sovereignty and security undeniably are key elements in the course of the bilateral talks over the program, notions of a Northern nationalism constitute an underappreciated dimension that merits scrutiny when trying to account for the actions of External Affairs officers, sovereignty concerns, and the course of the negotiations. The discussions over the establishment of weather stations in the Arctic

Archipelago, this chapter argues, were not isolated from the broader debates over a Canadian national identity and the nation’s purported northern destiny. Instead, the advocates of a

Northern nationalism around Lester Pearson, A. D. P. Heeney, R. M. Macdonnell, Hugh

226 For article-length studies of JAWS see Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty”; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50”; Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1972”; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic.”; For brief discussions of JAWS in survey texts see Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 174–87; Grant, Polar Imperative, 293–302; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 67; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 104–6; Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 352; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, 1921-1948, 410. 227 At the time of writing, Daniel Heidt and Whitney Lackenbauer were in the process of completing a monograph manuscript of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations with the University of Manitoba Press. 87

Keenleyside, and Trevor Lloyd, most prominently, sought to translate their fascination with the region into action and press for Canadian construction and operation of the program.

Early commentators on the issue of Arctic sovereignty and the strategic role of the

Canadian Arctic in the postwar years initially gave only passing attention to JAWS. As part of a meeting organized by the Arctic Institute of North America and the Canadian Institute of

International Affairs in 1963, the Defence Research Board official R. J. Sutherland noted the weather station program only briefly in the context of his discussion of the driving forces behind the growing strategic interest in the Arctic. Global tensions, defense budgets, and innovation in aviation and missile technologies, Sutherland argued, constituted the premier determinants raising or lowering the region’s role in the strategic contest between the United States and the

Soviet Union.228 Whereas questions over sovereignty played only a marginal role in Sutherland’s assessment, the legal historian Gordon W. Smith gave an extensive analysis of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty claims at the time. During the 1940s and the 1950s, Smith argued, JAWS served as one example for the successful relationship between Canadian and American governments.

Washington showed itself amenable to accepting Ottawa’s efforts to affirm Canada’s sovereignty on the basis of international legal precedent, the 1933 Eastern Greenland Case most prominently,229 and Canadian regulations governing the weather stations program, not, however,

228 Sutherland, “The Strategic Significance of the Arctic.” 229 Between 1931-33, the Permanent Court of International Justice adjudicated Norway’s legal challenge to Danish sovereignty over Greenland in favor of Denmark. Among a variety of arguments based on historical evidence and diplomatic correspondence, the court argued that Copenhagen’s claim to sovereignty was sufficiently established despite the fact that Denmark did not occupy and administer large parts of Greenland. Over the course of the following decades, this ruling was widely interpreted to weaken the requirements for occupation as a legal claim to sovereignty in the remote Arctic regions. For a discussion of the case, see Cavell, “Historical Evidence and the Eastern Greenland Case.” 88

the contested sector principle.230 In the first detailed analysis of the history of JAWS, Smith later re-confirmed his earlier findings. The American request for the construction of the remote weather stations drew suspicions and concerns over Ottawa’s de facto control in the Arctic

Islands among some government officials and the press in Canada. An effective management of internal nationalist impulses, patient and firm diplomacy over the postwar defense relationship between both countries, and the willingness of Washington to submit to Ottawa’s rules and regulations for the weather stations, however, led to the successful conclusion of the talks in early 1947. For Smith, JAWS “clearly ranks as one of the most important and successful examples of U.S.-Canadian joint endeavor in northern regions.”231

Research by Shelagh Grant and Adam Lajeunesse’s early work cast the debate over balancing Canada’s security and sovereignty in a much more critical light. For Grant, the weather stations program illustrates Ottawa’s struggle over resisting an American military embrace in the far north. Grant emphasized the military character of JAWS and pointed to statements by its leading proponent Charles J. Hubbard and lower-level studies that seemed to reveal U.S. doubts of Canada’s legal position in the Arctic Archipelago. More than that, these statements were to show American plans for claiming uninhabited Arctic islands Canada considered its own. Although Grant fails to demonstrate that these views constituted American policy and were acted upon by senior officials at the State Department, the Permanent Joint

Board on Defense or by the White House, she insisted that it was only the 1947 Joint Statement on Defense Cooperation that protected Canadian Arctic sovereignty for the moment. 232

230 Smith, “Sovereignty in the North,” 212. 231 Ibid., “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 63. 232 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 174–87; ibid., Polar Imperative, 293–302. 89

Lajeunesse stressed the lack of political will to mobilize the necessary resources to fully staff and operate the weather stations as a purely Canadian project. Not American Arctic expansionism but the unwillingness of the Canadian government to act upon its concerns over the legal validity of its claims and to take a more assertive stance along the lines of Lester B. Pearson’s initiative to link approval of JAWS with American recognition of Canada’s Arctic claims based on the sector principle placed Ottawa’s sovereignty of the Arctic in jeopardy.233

Most recent studies continue to examine the weather stations program within the framework of sovereignty and defense cooperation with the United States but considers JAWS a successful program that helped strengthen Canada’s legal and security interests in the Arctic instead of weakening them. These revisionist historians reject Grant’s interpretation of U.S. motivations, contextualize the American Arctic legal interpretation, and provide nuance to the

Canadian debate over asserting sovereignty during the JAWS negotiations. An awareness among senior American policymakers of Canadian concerns over its claims to the Arctic Archipelago and a gradualist approach by Ottawa to U.S. defense requests, David J. Bercuson shows, allowed both governments to successfully manage conflicting legal positions and address the continent’s security needs. In doing so, the Mackenzie King government obtained implicit recognition of its claims by having the United States accept rules and regulations governing the construction and the operation of the weather stations while avoiding an open challenge of a claim some in Ottawa deemed incomplete. This two-pronged approach is encapsulated in the concept of ‘defense-

233 Lajeunesse, “Lock, Stock, and Icebergs? Defining Canadian Sovereignty from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper,” 3. 90

against-help’, an approach the Canadian government adopted to protect against Soviet security threats and U.S. sovereignty challenges to the Canadian Arctic.234

The contention that Ottawa missed opportunities to assert its claims through a linking of

JAWS to a recognition of the sector principle and operating the weather stations as purely

Canadian undertaking also has been refuted. Historians Whitney Lackenbauer and Peter Kikkert have shown that Pearson’s initiative to press Washington to accept Canadian claims based on the sector principle were rebuffed by his own department in order to avoid an overt challenge by the

United States. Pearson’s ‘activist’ approach, moreover, was doomed to fail in light of established

U.S. legal tradition to reject sovereignty claims on the basis of the sector principle as much as current American foreign policy interests in Antarctica.235 Kikkert also notes that the Mackenzie

King government did take a firm position when deferring decision on the initial U.S. JAWS request pending the results of talks over the U.S.-Canadian postwar defense relationship.236 The debate over Ottawa’s ability to exclusively staff the weather stations with Canadian technicians, furthermore, has been laid to rest by historian Daniel Heidt, who demonstrated that a shortage of personnel, requirements at bases on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and financial considerations made the decision for a 50/50 ratio in the Arctic a prudent one.237

For these revisionist historians, the weather stations program did not come at the expense of Ottawa’s sovereignty claims in the Arctic Archipelago. Instead, it ultimately helped to solidify them. They reject the notion that the United States pursued a hidden agenda of undermining

234 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50.” 235 Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 104–6; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 91; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50,” 157. 236 Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 75. 237 Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946- 1972,” 150–52. 91

Canada’s legal status and point to a general awareness of Ottawa’s sensitivities over Arctic sovereignty questions among U.S. foreign and defense officials. A patient and firm diplomacy, ultimately, produced an agreement that addressed Canadian sovereignty concerns and U.S. security interests. As such, these historians confirm Gordon W. Smith’s early assessment that

JAWS constituted “one of the most important and successful” U.S.-Canadian Arctic projects.238

This study supports the findings of the revisionist school and broadens the perspective on the bilateral talks over the establishment of the weather stations. While these recent works have parsed the ministerial records of the Canadian and American governments to lay to rest the debate over U.S. expansionism in the Arctic and an alleged Arctic-sellout by the Canadian government, they have sidelined the ideas and cultural tropes that formed part of the historical context and the statements of central officials at the time. It is true that Grant and the authors of

Arctic Front acknowledge the existence of a well-established Canadian Northern nationalism.239

Yet such notions are not incorporated into their analyses of central moments and documents throughout the JAWS negotiations. Others have passed over these aspects entirely.240 Images of

Canada as a Northern nation, however, form a recurring theme in speeches, statements, and internal assessments by Canadian officials such as Pearson, Heeney, and Keenleyside as well as in the larger public debate about the significance of the Northern and Arctic regions for the cultural and material prosperity of Canada. This chapter, therefore, adds to the themes of sovereignty and defense cooperation the aspect of the North as a defining ingredient in the construction of a Canadian national identity and a national story. It draws on the cultural context

238 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 63. 239 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 19-20; 243-45; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 6–7. 240 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty”; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50”; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic”; Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1972.” 92

in the immediate postwar period, adds new documents from the personal papers of then

Ambassador and Under-Secretary of State of External Affairs Lester B. Pearson, and re- examines the existing record with a view to the significance of Canada’s Northern nationalism.

In doing so, this study provides new context for the debate over American recognition of the sector principle and Pearson’s personal fascination with the North. It further adds to the notion that officials in the U.S. government displayed a historical and cultural appreciation of Canadian concerns. At the moment when the Canadian government sought to make sense of the emerging postwar situation and define its defense relationship with the United States, the negotiations over the establishment of JAWS shed light on the entanglement of security, sovereignty, and the

Northern nationalism. While the Arctic weather stations did not constitute a sovereignty crisis, the idea of a growing U.S. military presence in the Canadian Arctic within months after the conclusion of World War II seemed out of sync with the vision for Canada advanced by Pearson and his fellow Arcticians.

The Expansion of Northern Defense Research and Operations, 1944-1950

The U.S. foreign policy and military establishment’s conviction in the Soviet Union’s antagonistic trajectory had substantial implications for the Northern and Arctic regions of North

America. The rapid Stalinization of the political and economic systems throughout the Soviet- occupied countries of Eastern Europe and the installation of governments loyal to the Kremlin signaled the end of possible amiable relations between Washington and Moscow. 241 In

241 Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56 (New York: Anchor Books, 2012); Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 13–165; Robert J. McMahon, “U.S. National Security Policy, Eisenhower to Kennedy,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 288–311. 93

September 1945, revelations about a Soviet spy network in Canada and the United States infiltrating both countries’ foreign and military establishment to obtain information about the nuclear program shook the governments in Ottawa and Washington. The defection of Igor

Sergeievitch Gouzenko, a 27-year-old GRU cipher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, unveiled the identities of Soviet agents, their reporting, and helped cripple Moscow’s intelligence capabilities in North America for years to come.242 The Gouzenko affair also hardened attitudes towards the Soviet Union in Ottawa and Washington. Prime Minister Mackenzie King noted the day of Gouzenko’s defection that “if there is another war, it will come against America by way of Canada from Russia.”243 At a talk at the National Press Club in Washington on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the former Commander in Chief of the United

States Army Air Force (U.S.A.A.F.) and head of the Crimson Route during World War II, Gen.

Henry H. Arnold warned that the Arctic would be the “strategic center of the next war.”244

Within months of the end of World War II in Europe and in Asia, the Arctic had become enmeshed in a new global conflict.

The renewed focus on the strategic role of the Northern and Arctic approaches to North

America highlighted the lack of basic research, scientific data, and experience of operating in the diverse environment of the far north.245 World War II had demonstrated the need for scientific

242 Haslam, Near and Distant Neighbours, 149–52. 243 Mackenzie King quoted in Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 320. 244 “Arnold Calls North Pole Vital Center of Next War,” New York Times, December 7, 1945, 5. 245 The Director of the U.S. War Department’s Military Intelligence Service pointed to the absence of basic Arctic knowledge in a September 1946 memo to Major General Guy V. Henry of the PJBD’s American Section as a reason to draw up a comprehensive polar program: “[A] long-range, comprehensive, intelligence plan for the joint Canadian-American development of information and intelligence, concerning the geographic and environmental factors of the polar regions, and its natural resources, about which so little basic information is available today (but in and over which the next ‘atomic’ war may well be fought) must be undertaken. This plan will include an extensive mapping and photographic project; the establishment, equipping, and manning of an elaborate network of permanent observation stations for recording weather, magnetic, and other basic information; and a series of 94

information to support navigation and the operation of military installations in the remote areas of Canada’s Northwest and the Northeast. The coordination of research activities, the collection of scientific data, and the pooling of financial resources in the field of polar science, however, only took shape towards the end of the war. The Arctic Institute of North America (AINA), inspired by the Soviet Arctic Institute in Leningrad,246 was created in Montreal in 1944 with the mandate to “fill the North American gap in the world framework of such organizations.”247

Based at McGill University, AINA membership consisted of polar researchers from Canada and the United States, including Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Hugh L. Keenleyside, and A. D. P. Heeney.

In 1947, the American Geographical Society began to host a corresponding American office in

New York. As a genuine U.S.-Canadian institute, AINA facilitated the realization of Arctic and sub-Arctic research in the North American Polar Regions for the Canadian Defence Research

Board as well as private projects. It distributed current Arctic knowledge through its journal

Arctic to decision makers in Ottawa and Washington as well as diplomatic missions in the Soviet

Union.248 In the United States, the Arctic, Desert, and Tropic Information Center was resurrected in 1947 to conduct studies for the United States Air Force (U.S.A.F.). Early research projects, code-named Mint Julep and Ice Cube, included the examination of glaciers and sea ice as potential landing strips for the U.S. Air Force.249 These early Cold War research institutions,

expeditions and surveys throughout most of the Canadian Arctic and Alaska.” See “Maj. Gen. S. J. Chamberlin to Maj. Gen. Guy V. Henry,” September 6, 1946, NARA, RG 333, Records of International Military Agencies, Permanent Joint Board on Defense Canada-United States, United States Section, Top Secret General Correspondence, 1941-56, Box 1, Folder 1-6. See William J. Buxton, “Arctic Surveillance: Innis, the Arctic Survey, and Canadian State Agencies,” in Harold Innis and the North: Appraisals and Contestations, ed. William J. Buxton (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 227–45; Grant, Polar Imperative, 311. 246 Buxton, “Arctic Surveillance: Innis, the Arctic Survey, and Canadian State Agencies,” 235. 247 “Organization of the Arctic Institute of North America,” n.d., LAC, RG 25, File: 8845-40, Part I. 248 Ibid.; “Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Director of Arctic Institute of North America,” April 2, 1946, LAC, RG 25, File: 8845-40, Part I. 249 Grant, Polar Imperative, 306. 95

Matthew Farish has shown, helped re-imagine the Arctic as a geopolitical space amenable to scientific and technological solutions. The armies of these institutes consisted of scientific advisers, their weaponry were studies based on physics and electronics.250

Not an expert in the field of physics or electronics but an Arctic authority nonetheless,

Vilhjalmur Stefansson continued to entertain close relations with the Canadian government and

American agencies involved in the establishment of the stations. Stefansson’s wife Evelyn kept a detailed diary of their interactions in Ottawa and Washington, providing a window into the

Stefanssons broad network of contacts within both countries’ scientific, political, and military establishments. While the Stefanssons worked on a series of book projects, for example the unpublished Encyclopedia Arctica, members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers frequently solicited Vilhjalmur’s advice on questions of Arctic construction. Stefansson also became a regular speaker at functions of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Moreover, Evelyn

Stefansson recorded meetings with Howard C. Peterson, U.S. Secretary of War, Francis W.

Reichelderfer, Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, and with the head of the weather bureau’s

Arctic Operations Section, Charles J. Hubbard, in March 1947. Through Stefansson’s involvement at AINA, he also maintained access to the Canadian government. During a visit to

Ottawa in May 1947, Keenleyside acted as liaison for Stefansson and arranged for a series of conversations with high-level officials such as Minister of National Defence, Brooke Claxton, the Chairman of the Defense Research Board, O. M. Solandt, Commander C. P. Edwards of the

Department of Transport, and Graham W. Rowley, the head of the Arctic Section of Ottawa’s

250 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War. 96

Defence Scientific Service, an agency tasked to conduct defense research in the Arctic with a view to the potential military threat from the Soviet Union.251

The establishment of scientific institutions for the Northern and Arctic regions of North

America was dovetailed by the creation of military training centers in Alaska and northern

Canada and the expansion of military field exercises across the North. The same year that the

U.S. Navy erected the Arctic Research Laboratory on the Arctic coast of Alaska at Point Barrow in 1947, the U.S. Air Force formed the Arctic Polar Survival and Indoctrination School at Nome,

Alaska.252 In 1948, the Army Arctic Indoctrination School was established at Fort Greely,

Alaska, and began to offer month-long seminars in Arctic and sub-Arctic operations, ranging from instructions in defense against airborne attacks, Russian winter tactics, the interpretation of

Arctic areal photographs to what a syllabus labeled ‘Eskimo Life’.253 On the southwestern tip of

Hudson Bay in northern Manitoba, Fort Churchill was transformed into a Canadian and

American training center for Arctic warfare at the end of World War II. Ottawa had assumed control of the U.S.-run airbase and agreed to transform it into a joint facility for the Canadian and U.S. Army. The proximity to the population centers of the northeastern United States, the existing railway and port facilities, and its cold climate made Fort Churchill an ideal location for testing equipment and operations in cold weather conditions. When the U.S. War Department approached Ottawa in 1946 to expand the base to house additional U.S. military personnel and

251 See diary entries between February 19 and October 9, 1947, in “The Diaries and Notebooks of Evelyn Stefansson,” NARA, RG 401 National Archives Gift Collection of Materials Relating to Polar Regions, (30) Evelyn Stefansson Nef and Vilhjalmur Stefansson Papers, Diaries and Notebooks, 1941-1967, Box 18: Diary 1947-1948; “Graham Rowley,” The Telegraph, January 6, 2004, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1450976/Graham - Rowley.html, last accessed on April 30, 2017; Graham W. Rowley, Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the Arctic (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007). 252 Grant, Polar Imperative, 306. 253 An unspecified film was used for the session on indigenous people. In addition to reports from previous Arctic operations, the syllabus listed readings on German Winter Warfare: “Four Weeks Schedule for Arctic Indoctrination Field Exercise #2,” NARA, RG 338, Box 826, File: Army Arctic Indoctrination School – Fld Exercise 1950. 97

add new school and sanitary buildings, the Canadian government accepted a cost-sharing formula to finance the constructions. The prospect of hosting large American military contingents at Fort Churchill was not easily reconciled with Ottawa’s policy of ‘re-

Canadianizing’ the North.254

Finally, the Canadian and U.S. government conducted a series of military operations across Northern and Arctic Canada in view of their strategists’ reappraisals of the Arctic’s military significance. In the spring of 1946, the United States approached Ottawa to grant permission for areal reconnaissance and patrol flights across the Canadian Arctic with B-29 long-range bomber aircraft code-named Operation Polaris. The purpose of the patrol flights was for the U.S. Air Force to obtain operational experience navigating and testing aircraft equipment under Arctic conditions.255

254 Brooke Claxton, “Armed Forces in Churchill,” Address to the Rotary Club in Ottawa, June 14, 1948, LAC, MG 28 I 79, Vol. 224, File: Claxton, Brooke, Armed Forces in Churchill 1948; Grant, Polar Imperative, 306f; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 77. 255 Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 76. 98

Figure 1: Map of Exercise Musk Ox, Source: “Route of 3,000-Mile Trek into Arctic,” Washington Post, February 16, 1946, 2. In February 1946, the Canadian Army began a three-month long exercise across the

North and Northwestern reaches of the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic. Code-named Musk-Ox, the exercise attracted international attention and was designed to test equipment and clothing, and practice survival in the cold climate and the natural environment along a route from

Churchill, Manitoba, to the Arctic Ocean at Cambridge Bay, and leading the party south via

Great Slave Lake to Edmonton in Alberta. If Musk-Ox involved only a comparatively small number of personnel on the actual trek across the North, its political message, projecting a military presence and showing the flag across the North, was disseminated in magazine articles, 99

newspaper reports, and news reels in Canada, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union.256

By the same token, the establishment of the Canadian Rangers, units including indigenous peoples within the Canadian Forces Reserves, historian Whitney Lackenbauer writes, constituted

“a flexible, inexpensive, and culturally inclusive means of having ‘boots on the ground’ to demonstrate sovereignty and to conduct or support domestic operations.”257

Not to lag behind their service counterparts, the navies of the United States and Canada launched Arctic operations in the immediate postwar period. Two U.S. Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Midway sailed to Davis Strait in Canada’s Eastern Arctic in an operation code-named Frostbite. The USS Midway conducted tests for its planes and helicopters to operate under cold weather conditions and to conduct trials for operating carriers in Arctic waters. A few months later, a U.S. Navy task force sailed to the heart of the Arctic Archipelago as part of

Operation Nanook during the summer of 1946. In the waters of Viscount Melville Sound and

Lancaster Sound—the central artery of the various Northwest passages—the task force conducted personnel training missions and collected scientific data. A unit of 28 Marines, moreover, landed for a one-month mission at Dundas Harbour on North Devon Island.258 Under pressure to follow suit, the Royal Canadian Navy (R.C.N.) first considered attaching a Canadian section to a 1947 Nanook operation. When the U.S. Navy decided against a repeat operation, the

R.C.N. drew up plans for a purely Canadian trip to Hudson Strait in 1948, a scheme the Naval

256 Ronald A. Keith, “They Beat the Arctic,” Maclean’s, June 1, 1946; “Musk Ox Annoyed Soviet According to Pravda,” Globe and Mail, September 30, 1946, 17; Howard Cowan, “Canada’s Musk Ox Operation Strikes North,” Washington Post, February 16, 1946, 2; “Weasle Quites Expedition,” New York Times, February 18, 1946; “Operation Musk Ox—Exploring the Arctic region of Northern Canada,” British-Pathé, June 13, 1946, https://www.britishpathe.com/video/operation-musk-ox-in-arctic, last accessed on September 24, 2017; Grant, Polar Imperative, 298f. 257 Lackenbauer, The Canadian Rangers, 6–7. 258 Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 77. 100

Staff had preferred originally in any case. The aircraft carrier HMCS Magnificent along with two destroyers sailed from Halifax along the Labrador coast to the mouth of Hudson Bay and conducted a variety of naval missions, flight tests, and search and rescue operations.259 Not unlike Musk-Ox, the R.C.N. sought to demonstrate that Ottawa was not abdicating its duty to patrol and to monitor the Arctic waters to the U.S. Navy. A well-planned publicity campaign during a four-day visit to Churchill then allowed the public to tour the two destroyers, an event with the Governor General was arranged, and R.C.N. personnel mingled with the locals.

Moreover, Ottawa made photographs and statements by the commanders available to the press, which readily incorporated the material into their reporting. To ensure Ottawa’s activities did not go unnoticed by foreign governments, observers from the United States and the United Kingdom had also been invited.260

In light of these expansions of U.S.-Canadian defense activities in Northern and Arctic

Canada and the simultaneous growth in public interest in these projects in the aftermath of World

War II, the Canadian government decided that an interdepartmental organization was necessary to coordinate information and policy on the Northern and Arctic file. As a result, the Advisory

Committee on Northern Development (ACND) was established January 1948. The inaugural meeting on February 2, 1948, was attended by Hugh Keenleyside, Lester Pearson, A. D. P.

Heeney, C. P. Edwards of the Department of Transport, and the military chiefs Lieutenant-

General Foulkes, Air Marshal Curtis, and Vice Admiral Grant. The monitoring of U.S. activities in the Canadian Arctic and the distribution of information about ongoing joint projects, such as

259 Elizabeth B. Elliot-Meisel, “Arctic Focus: The Royal Canadian Navy in Arctic Waters, 1946-1949,” in Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, ed. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011), 132–34. 260 Elliot-Meisel, 132–34. 101

the weather stations program, took up a major portion of the ACND’s work. The committee sought to obtain an accurate picture of the nature and the extent of defense activities in the North, raised concerns over transgressions by American service personnel, and pressed for a rigorous implementation of the policy of ‘re-Canadianization’ to keep “the Canadian Arctic Canadian.”261

Pearson as chairman and Keenleyside, Heeney, and R. A. J. Phillips as regular attendees most actively stressed the importance of maintaining current information about U.S. defense projects in the Arctic and of assuming full responsibility for the operation and supply of JAWS. These efforts notwithstanding, the ACND broke off after December 1949. It would not be before

February 1953 that the committee reconvened in Ottawa, the very month the American Section of the PJBD submitted Washington’s request for initial test sites in the Canadian Arctic for what would become the Distant Early Warning Line.

Canadian Northern Nationalism and the Cold War

The politics of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation also continued to shape public debate in Canada. The growing presence of the Canadian government along the repatriated defense installations of World War II notwithstanding, Ottawa saw itself under pressure from domestic and foreign voices to re-affirm its stewardship over its Northern and Arctic territories. In June

1948 at a Rotary Club function in Ottawa, the Minister of National Defence, Brooke Claxton, sought to dispel Soviet press reports about massive American military operations and constructions across the Canadian Arctic. A November 1947 article entitled “Polar Fever in

261 “4th Meeting of the ACND,” March 9, 1949, The Advisory Committee on Northern Development: Context and Meeting Minutes, 1948-1966, 117, in: eds. P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Daniel Heidt, Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security, Number 4, 2015. 102

America” published in Zevezda, Claxton explained, told of “Uncle Sam’s flyers practice bombing walruses and polar bears … enormous military enterprises … No small parts of these funds ($12,000,000,000) will be spent for military construction in the Arctic […] From 1943-45 huge winter manoeuvres took place in the Arctic regions of Canada in which representatives of the Canadian, English and American armies, navies and air forces took part.”262 Refuting such propaganda and as an example for the effective cooperation between U.S. and Canadian forces,

Claxton cited the military training center at Fort Churchill, a “frontier settlement” as he referred to it. He lauded the spirit of cooperation that prevailed at the base and left no doubt in his audience’s mind about Canada’s broad engagement in the operation and maintenance of Arctic installations across the North. The political significance of the base, however, extended beyond its military dimension:

The old world of adventure and the new world of science meet in Churchill. Here also in the cosy companionship of Americans and Canadians we see a great demonstration of the partnership that will be necessary to bring about the still newer world of cooperation. The Canadian north is one of the last great frontiers of the world. It has the appeal and challenge of the still unknown, the still undeveloped, the still untamed.263

Not unlike Pearson’s modernist conception of Northern and Arctic Canada as an empty frontier confronted with the technological revolutions of aviation and resource development, Claxton relied on the rhetoric of nineteenth-century expansionist romance. The training and the research that was conducted at Fort Churchill, Claxton declared, “was a great show and it made me proud to be a Canadian.”264

262 Brooke Claxton, “Armed Forces in Churchill,” Address to the Rotary Club in Ottawa, June 14, 1948, LAC, MG 28 I 79, Vol. 224, File: Claxton, Brooke, Armed Forces in Churchill 1948. 263 Ibid. 264 Ibid. 103

The newly appointed Governor-General Vincent Massey joined Claxton in elevating the

Northern and Arctic regions to the status of a foundational element in the history and identity of

Canada. “We are a nation of the North rather than the West,” Massey declared and added: “We cannot afford to leave its development to others. The North will be a testing ground for Canada in the years that lie ahead.”265 The frontier mythology, the poetry of Robert Service, and the ideas of Northern Canada as an alluring yet mysterious and dangerous place received even greater publicity when, as a 27-year-old staff writer for Maclean’s, Pierre Berton began to publish a series of reportages on his travels to the Northwest in articles such as “Valley of

Mystery,” “Let’s Drive to Alaska,” “Monsters on the Klondike,” and “Dan McGrew Died

Here.”266 Whereas Massey celebrated the North as an intellectual challenge and a foundational ingredient in the cultural development of Canada, Berton became a most influential voice with his re-imagination of the Canadian Northwest, rekindling the imagery of Robert Service.

A most articulate and verbose advocate of this Northern nationalism was Hugh L.

Keenleyside. Since 1947 in his capacity as Commissioner of the Northwest Territories and

Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources, Keenleyside had been involved in the debates about the Alaska Highway and the presence of the U.S. military across the Canadian North.267 While he served as ambassador to Mexico during the JAWS talks, his fascination with the North and his fervent belief in the region’s foundational role in the history of Canada had not abated. In a speech at McMaster University in 1949, which was published in the Canadian Geographical

265 Vincent Massey, “Should Canada Joint the Pan-American Union,” Maclean’s, August 15, 1947; Excerpts from Massey’s 1948 On Being Canadian, LAC, MG 26 N1, Vol. 60, File: Pearson, L.B. – Speeches & Speech Material – Canada – 1947-1954. 266 These essays and others formed the basis for Berton’s 1956 The Mysterious North. See Pierre Berton, “Valley of Mystery,” Maclean’s, March 15, 1947; “Let’s Drive to Alaska,” Maclean’s, August 1, 1948; “Monsters on the Klondike,” Maclean’s, September 1, 1948; and “Dan McGrew Died Here,” Maclean’s, September 15, 1948. 267 See chapter II. 104

Journal that same year,268 Keenleyside surveyed recent activities in the North and the regions’ economic potential in the form of various staples, ranging from fur, timber, fish to agricultural products and mineral deposits, most importantly the uranium finds at Great Bear Lake. In doing so, he praised the work accomplished by “pioneer Canadians in the Arctic regions” and criticized the focus on military matters in the North. “In dealing with the North,” Keenleyside explained,

“we would like in the words of L. B. Pearson, our Minister of External Affairs, to place the

Canadian accent on ‘resources and research not on strategy and politics.’”269 Yet the economic and scientific dimensions would not measure up to the significance of Northern and Arctic

Canada as a cultural, if not a spiritual, staple in the growth of the nation. In a remarkable synthesis of the frontier mythology, Northern nationalism, and Cold War ideology, that merits extensive quotation, Keenleyside celebrated the purported virtues of a Northern frontier and its symbolic power as a stronghold of democracy, likening the region to a new Jerusalem in the national development of Canada:

The North has been referred to as the frontier. But the frontier is more than a geographical area; it is a way of life, a habit of mind. As such, it plays a most significant role in the national life. The influence of the frontier on the intellectual, social, economic and political history of the United States has been a major theme in the historical records of that country. But the frontier in the United States disappeared about the year 1890.

The climax has not yet occurred in Canada. But whereas the frontier in American territory was a phenomenon of the West and the last stand in that country was staged in the mountain states, in Canada the frontier has persisted longest in the North. Here indeed is a true frontier and one that will never be fully conquered.

This is a matter of vital importance to the future of Canada. The virtues peculiar to frontier conditions—social and political democracy, independence and self-reliance, freedom in co-

268 Hugh L. Keenleyside, “Recent Developments in the Canadian North,” Canadian Geographical Journal 39, no. 4 (1949): 156–76. 269 Hugh L. Keenleyside, “Recent Development in the Canadian North,” May 14, 1949, Hugh L. Keenleyside Fonds, LAC, MG 31 E 102, Vol. 27, File: Speeches and Articles—Recent Developments in the Canadian North—14 May 1949. 105

operation, hospitality and social responsibility—are virtues of particular importance in national life.

Perhaps it is here that the greatest contribution will be made by the Canadian North. Much as that area may contribute to the economic life of the country, this contribution may be of less significance than the fact that here will be a permanent source of energy from which Canada will draw strength in the never-ending fight to guard and maintain the personal and human rights of our people. As long as the frontier remains there will be Canadians who will never succumb to the dogmas of the totalitarian or the power of domestic tyranny. The frontier is a bastion of freedom and the North is a permanent frontier.

In this as in a multitude of ways we live in a favoured land. Surely the Psalmist, if he were alive to-day, would write of Canada as once he wrote of Jerusalem.270

Keenleyside effectively used Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis to assert a distinctive

Canadian identity instead of a shared history with the United States. Moreover, his portrayal of an ill-defined North as a “source of energy” for the protection of Canada’s freedom and independence echoed the sentiments of the Group of Seven’s Lawren Harris and his theosophist musing of the North as a spiritual influence in the creation of a Canadian national identity.

Keenleyside’s speech then illustrate the potency of Canada’s Northern nationalism as well as its adaptability to the politics of the Cold War. Through his participation in the newly created

Advisory Committee on Northern Development (ACND) and as chairman of the Defence

Research Board’s Arctic Research Advisory Committee, Keenleyside carried his Northern nationalism into the debates, among others, over the implementation of Ottawa’s

‘Canadianization’ policy and the operation and maintenance of the JAWS stations.271

The swell of renewed American activities in the Arctic placed Ottawa in an ambivalent position. As the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union took on an increasingly aggressive tone, diplomats and defense planners in Ottawa considered the basic nature of their

270 Ibid., 9-10. 271 Whitney Lackenbauer and Daniel Heidt, eds., The Advisory Committee on Northern Development: Context and Meeting Minutes, 1948-66 (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2015), 814. 106

country’s defense relationship with Washington. Increased integration and coordination with the

U.S. defense architecture touched on fundamental questions of national identity and history in

Canada. A reorientation away from the traditionally intimate defense relations with Britain to the

United States signified a continuation of the defense cooperation Ottawa and Washington had agreed on at Ogdensburg in August 1940. It also raised questions over the specific nature of both countries’ defense relationship and the unresolved status of Arctic sovereignty. This shift, however, also magnified the historic break with London. The rise of the Soviet specter from across the polar seas and the return of American defense plans for Northern and Arctic Canada thus faced the Canadian government at a moment of transition. At a time of international uncertainty about the postwar order, Ottawa sought to define its role in the international arena, a role that envisioned Canada as an independent actor integrated in a rules-based and multilateral international framework, not an appendix to another power, either British or American.272 The postwar years, the diplomat and scholar John W. Holmes writes, were characterized by “a mood of nationalist self-confidence.”273 In this period of reorientation, Northern and Arctic Canada became a central touchstone in the public and official self-representation of Canada as a distinct

Northern nation. The negotiations over the Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS) illustrate this complex interplay of history, diplomacy, and nationalism in the U.S.-Canada defense relationship.

The Origins of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1944-1946

272 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 345–47; Bercuson, True Patriot, 154. 273 John W. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943-1957, vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 253. 107

Figure 2: The map indicates the “Blind Spot” in surveillance and scientific data in the North American Arctic Archipelago. It was produced by the U.S. Weather Bureau and provided to the Canadian government by Lewis Clark of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. “Station Density—North of 66° N. LAT.,” November 22, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40.

On May 1, 1946, Lewis Clark, Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, submitted the U.S. request for the construction of two initial weather stations in the Canadian Arctic to the Canadian government. The inception of the program, however, dated back into the final years of World

108

War II. For the better part of two years, Lt. Col. Charles J. Hubbard had already prepared the groundwork for the official approach by the United States government in May 1946. Hubbard was the driving force behind the project and became a central figure in the U.S. effort to establish the weather stations program, occasionally, turning into a source of friction between

Canadian and American participants of the project. Prior to his entering the U.S. military,

Hubbard had obtained his Arctic credentials by participating in expeditions to Labrador as a representative of the American Geographical Society during the 1930s. During World War II,

General Henry H. Arnold picked Hubbard to assist him in establishing the Crimson Route and the Crystal stations in the Eastern Arctic. As part of his responsibilities under Arnold, Hubbard conducted surveys for the construction of airstrips and navigation facilities in the Canadian

Arctic and Greenland. When the U.S. Army Air Force looked for specialists in Arctic radio navigation and the U.S. Weather Bureau created its Arctic Operations Section, Hubbard eagerly offered his services.274

Already in early 1944, the records of the U.S. Weather Bureau’s Polar Operations Project indicate, Hubbard worked on plans to expand the network of meteorological coverage and improve navigational forecasting in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland.275 As part of the

Crimson Route operations across the North Atlantic, he studied low-frequency radio navigation

274 Charles J. Hubbard, “Qualifications and Experience of the Writer,” n.d., NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 275 “Approximate Schedule of Operations,” n.d., and “Letter to Mr. Otis F. Bryan,” July 17, 1944, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 109

and helped develop plans to advance Arctic aeronautics.276 That same year, he set out to obtain the political support for a program to construct a series of weather stations in the Canadian

Arctic. In doing so, Hubbard made sure to emphasize that he was lobbying for the weather stations “entirely as a personal matter,” not through his affiliation with the U.S. Army Air Force

Air Traffic Command.277 While working the floors on Capitol Hill, he also began work on a research program to jump start the planning and preparation for the meteorological operations along the stations. Finally, Hubbard drummed up support among the Arctic community to raise funds for his research program.

In the late summer of 1944, Hubbard started lobbying Alfred J. Bulwinkle,

Representative of North Carolina and an influential member on the House Committee on

Interstate and Foreign Commerce to support the establishment of “Arctic research stations” as part of what Hubbard called an “Arctic expansion.”278 In early 1945, Hubbard approached

Senator Owen Brewster, who also served on the Truman Committee which investigated defense spending such as the Canol Pipeline during the war, to sponsor a bill authorizing “the development of an international basic meteorological reporting network in the polar regions.”279

Hubbard, moreover, reached out to Canadian officials and established contacts with AINA, an

276 “Radio Navigation in the Arctic Polar Regions,” February 19, 1944, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 277 “Charles J. Hubbard to Alfred J. Bulwinkle,” September 14, 1944, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 278 Ibid. 279 “Charles J. Hubbard to Owen Brewster,” March 16, 1945, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 110

institute he considered a “high minded and energetic organization.” 280 Especially the involvement of Keenleyside, Charles Camsell, Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources, George

R. Parkin, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Hubbard commented, inspired in him much confidence in the workings of the institute. Before the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) agreed to fund Hubbard’s research program entitled ArcTops (Arctic Topography) in March 1945, he considered financing the project through private means. As a result, he sought to raise public awareness for the need for polar research and better weather forecasting in particular through newspaper articles and speaking engagements.281

For most of the year of 1945, the weather stations program remained under consideration in Congress and Hubbard continued to seek personnel, resources, and the final specifications for the logistical operation of establishing the stations in the Arctic. The Senate had submitted the bill to committee for review while delays seemed to emerge when the U.S. Army weather service unsuccessfully sought to claim leadership over the project, trying to sideline the U.S. Weather

Bureau, which, Hubbard noted, felt that “the Army is inclined to empire building.”282

While these turf wars continued among the U.S. agencies, Hubbard reached out to the

Canadians. After initial contacts in the fall of 1944, he approached Pearson and Canadian

280 The mandate of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce included oversight of the U.S. Weather Bureau; “Charles J. Hubbard to Louis Bisson,” October 1, 1944; and “Charles J. Hubbard to Alfred J. Bulwinkle,” October 7, 1944, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 281 Hubbard wrote for the Saturday Evening Post on the importance of meteorological stations in the Arctic and he gave a lecture at the Explorer’s Club in New York, hoping to spark the interest of wealthy donors by giving “them a story about getting into the arctic.” See “Charles J. Hubbard to Alfred J. Bulwinkle,” October 7, 1944; “Charles J. Hubbard to Louis Bisson,” February 16, 1945, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 282 “Charles J. Hubbard to Sen. Owen Brewster,” July 21, 1945, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 111

diplomat Escott Reid at the Canadian Embassy in an informal fashion in Washington in March

1945. For what Hubbard had to show in terms of organizational and scientific talent, however, he seemed to lack in diplomatic skills and an appreciation for the political dimension of a U.S. presence in the Canadian Arctic. In his conversation with Pearson and Reid, Hubbard emphatically stressed the importance of improving research in the Arctic and collecting meteorological data, suggesting that a weather stations program ought to be conducted on an international basis. When Pearson, however, demurred and explained that it would be hard to mobilize support in Ottawa for any such venture on Canadian territory without Canadian control,

Hubbard seemed to openly question Ottawa’s jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic

Archipelago.283 Charles Camsell, the Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources, pushed back against Hubbard’s suggestion, noting that “at least three publications issued by or with the consent of the United States War Department since 1940 refer repeatedly to the islands north of the Canadian mainland as ‘the Canadian archipelago’.”284 At External Affairs, R. M. Macdonnell commented that his sources in the United States suggested that Hubbard was “far from being persona grata to the Arctic experts” at the U.S.A.A.F.’s Arctic, Desert, and Tropic Information

Center.285 While that may have been the case, Hubbard certainly had sufficient political capital in

Washington to advance the weather stations program on multiple fronts virtually as a personal project. In Ottawa, his comments, nonetheless, fanned wartime suspicions over U.S. intentions, as the ensuing debate over the weather stations would show. Pearson and Reid’s reaction then led to Hubbard questioning his tactics. Soon after his meeting with the Canadian officials he

283 “Lester B. Pearson to Norman A. Robertson,” March 6, 1945, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 284 “Charles Camsell to Norman A. Robertson,” March 13, 1945, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 2. 285 “R. M. Macdonnell to Lester B. Pearson,” March 8, 1945, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 112

contacted the Assistant Secretary of Commerce William A. Burden and inquired what proper channel he should choose to communicate with Ottawa. “I know,” Hubbard wrote to Burden,

“they are sensitive on the matter.”286

Before the close of the year the Senate had passed Bill S. 765 and sent it to the House for consideration. Support for the bill not only came through the service branches and the

Department of Commerce’s Weather Bureau. After reading about the legislation in the papers,

Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote Senator Owen Brewster to expand the plans to house an even greater number of technical and scientific personnel along the Arctic weather stations. Pointing to the Soviet Union’s far greater meteorological program across the pole, Stefansson warned that

“there is no doubt that instead of curtailing their northern work they are going to expand it greatly under the fourth of their 5-year plans which, I believe, they think of as starting in

1946.”287 Not unlike during the interwar period and World War II, Stefansson did not miss an opportunity to advance his vision of the Northern and Arctic reaches as the region of the future.

His intervention during the drafting of the Senate bill once more illustrates his readiness to appeal to the politics of the day. Had he praised Soviet development of the Eurasian Northern and Arctic regions as a model for the North American Arctic—the use of forced labor camps notwithstanding—in 1943,288 he also understood to use Soviet research dominance in the Arctic at the onset of the Cold War to scare American legislators into action. Stefansson remained a

286 “Charles J. Hubbard to William A. Burden,” May 3, 1945, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 287 Stefansson quoted in “Arctic Weather Reporting Stations, U.S. Senate Report No. 656, 79th Congress, 1st Session,” October 24, 1945, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 288 “Newspaper Clipping of Toronto Daily Star of November 12, 1943,” NARA, RG 401 National Archives Gift Collections of Materials Relating to Polar Regions, (30) Evelyn Stefansson Nef and Vilhjalmur Stefansson Papers, Diaries and Notebooks, 1941-1967, Box 18, File: Diary 1942-44. 113

gifted opportunist, displaying an uncanny ability to link his Arctic agenda to current political interests, an ability he had already demonstrated with the Canadian government during the

1920s.

On February 12, 1946, the House passed the bill and President Truman signed it into law that same day. Public Law 296 now stipulated for the U.S. Weather Bureau and the State

Department to “take action as may be necessary in the development of an international basic meteorological reporting network in the Arctic region of the Western Hemisphere.”289 This included weather stations in the Danish Arctic on Greenland. Now as head of the Arctic

Operations Section of the U.S. Weather Bureau, Hubbard began to specify the plans for the weather stations, selecting sites in the Central and Western Canadian Arctic, transportation routes, and the time frame for the construction of the initial stations. It is at this point, that the

Canadian government officially became involved in the establishment of the Joint Arctic

Weather Stations program when its representatives were formally informed of an impending request at the meeting of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense in late April 1946. Counselor

Lewis Clark submitted Washington’s request to External Affairs shortly thereafter.290

The origins of the weather stations program in the final years of World War II illustrate the war’s impact on the perception of the significance of polar air travel in the postwar period.

Hubbard’s involvement along the Crimson Route made plain the rudimentary state of meteorological and navigational knowledge in the Arctic even prior to the threat of cross-polar long-range bombers by the Soviet Union. At the same time, Hubbard’s frank talk of unoccupied

289 “Public Law 296—79th Congress, Chapter 4—2nd Session,” February 12, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 290 “Memorandum,” May 1, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 4. 114

islands in the archipelago refreshed Canadian suspicions about American plans in light of recent experiences of wartime cooperation in the Northwest and Ottawa’s ‘re-Canadianization’ policy.

Negotiating Nationalism, Defense, and Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1947

With the prospects for a peaceful postwar order between the Soviet Union and the United States dimming, Canadian officials anticipated a renewed interest in the strategic role of the Arctic. A report by the Advisory Committee on Post-Hostilities Problems in early 1945 identified relations between Moscow and Washington as key Canadian defense policy and concluded that it was necessary to develop “adequate protection against airborne attack, especially from the North,

Northeast, and Northwest.”291 At public events and through discreet diplomacy they sought to shape perceptions in Washington and in Moscow about Northern and Arctic defense. Uneasy about the Northern and Arctic’s geopolitical role as a potential inroad for cross-polar incursions by Soviet long-range aircraft, they emphasized the value of collective security through multilateral organizations and international cooperation to create a stable international order.

In the United States, Ambassador Pearson assured American audiences of Canada’s steadfast commitment to the security of North America. The Canadian government, he explained, appreciated its responsibility as a close partner in the organization of the defense for the continent and its contributions during World War II should put to rest any doubts about

Ottawa’s preparedness to act. At the same time, Pearson cautioned, “co-ordination is not subordination or absorption.”292 The Canadian government’s policy to ‘re-Canadianize’ wartime

291 “Post-War Canadian Defence Relationship with the United States: General Considerations,” quoted in Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 378. 292 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada and the Post War World,” Address at the Calvin Bullock Forum, New York, November 26, 1945, LAC, MG 26 N9, Vol. 1, Feb. 1946-Sep. 1946. 115

installations on Canadian soil remained in place. U.S.-Canada defense cooperation, in general, but in the remote Northern and Arctic regions of Canada, in particular, had to be based on the understanding that Canada entered any such scheme on the basis of national equality, not as “an extension northward of the U.S.A. nor an extension westward of the U.K.”293 The Arctic weather stations exposed the tension between the continentalist imperatives of an ever-close defense relationship with Washington and the struggle to assert an independent Canadian voice on the world stage.

Beyond asserting Canada’s voice as an independent international actor, officials also sought to recast the Northern and Arctic reaches as a space for scientific exchange, economic prosperity, and national development. In February 1946, less than a week before Truman approved Hubbard’s weather stations project, Pearson spoke on the issue of U.S. defense programs in Canada’s North at a Rotary Club function in New York. Although the talk is one of

Pearson’s few extended comments on the significance of the Northern and Arctic regions, historians of JAWS have not incorporated the statement into their analyses. The purpose of the

Rotary Club speech was to raise American awareness of Canada’s contribution during World

War II, its status as a sovereign power in world affairs, and to reframe the debate over the role of

Northern and Arctic Canada. In a grand narrative of Northern development, Pearson composed a modernist epic, in which science, technological ingenuity, and a pioneer spirit transformed the

Canadian North from a “northern desert” into a bustling place of resource development, settlement, and a hub for cross polar commercial air traffic. Replete with references to the popular poetry of Robert Service and a language evocative of the frontier mythology of western

293 Ibid. 116

expansion, Pearson cited the North as an illustration of Canada’s resource riches and the nation’s future potential. “There is great wealth in the Land of the Midnight Sun,” Pearson explained, and

“whole mining plants are flown in and refined ore flown out. The northern skies are humming with activity; smoke is coming from northern chimneys; adventurous settlers are moving in […]

With the forced development of war and the possible profits of peace, the search for new wealth now goes on vigorously.” Northern and Arctic Canada was the “land of the future” and Pearson was adamant that the Canadian government “shall not default on it.”294

U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation during World War II and postwar military exercises in the North were also integrated into Pearson’s larger story about the civilian aspects of the

Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The establishment of the Northwest Staging Route, the Alaska

Highway, the Canol Pipeline, and the Crimson Route, Pearson explained, was characterized by a

“remarkable spirit of cooperation” and Washington had been promptly reimbursed for all permanent installations in Canada and Labrador.295 Cooperation in the Arctic, Pearson quickly pivoted, however, should not be limited to the United States. All circumpolar nations are invited to participate in scientific exchanges and share their knowledge of the North, not least the Soviet

Union. The Canadian Ambassador’s efforts to portray military exercises in Canada’s North as civilian research expeditions were inescapable when he cited Exercise Musk-Ox of 1946 as an example for Ottawa’s “peaceful economic development” of the North. Pearson highlighted the participation of “civilian officials, research workers and scientific personnel, […] and representatives of the North American Arctic Institute [AINA]” and elaborated on the mission’s

294 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada Moves North,” Address at the Rotary Club of New York, February 7, 1946, LAC, MG 26 N9, Vol. 1, Feb. 1946-Sep. 1946. 295 Ibid. 117

civilian benefits for polar aviation and obtaining work experience in Arctic conditions. For

Pearson, Musk-Ox’s military purpose of testing gear, equipment, and transportation capabilities in the North and the participation of the U.S. Air Force conflicted with his image of Northern and Arctic Canada as a place for international cooperation and a foundational element in the national development of Canada.296 A Maclean’s report on the exercise a few months later celebrated Musk-Ox as the “most spectacular peacetime adventure in Canadian Army history.”297

The Rotary Club Speech dovetailed the historical accounts and cultural representations of the North during World War II as well as more recent writings on the North. O. S. Finnie’s son,

Richard Finnie, author of the 1940 The Lure of the North and the 1942 Canada Moves North— credited by Vilhjalmur Stefansson as “the best general book about Northern Canada”—and filmmaker who had traveled to the eastern Arctic along with Captain Joseph E. Bernier in the early 1920s, wrote about Service’s Northern poetry in November 1945 in the pages of

Maclean’s.298 Pearson’s talk revived much of the material he had prepared for his first general statement on the significance of the Northern and Arctic regions for the development of Canada in Cambridge, England, in 1938. His speech in New York eight years later as Canada’s

Ambassador to the United States illustrates a remarkable consistency in his perception of the

North and the apparent formative influences on his thinking. The message for his New York audience was clear: While Canada was not going to shirk its defense responsibilities as a North

296 Ibid. 297 Ronald A. Keith, “They Beat the Arctic,” Maclean’s, June 1, 1946. 298 Other articles relied on the popular modernist tropes of human ingenuity and science defeating the brute forces of nature on expeditions to Northern and Arctic Canada. See Richard Finnie, “When the Ice-Worms Nest Again,” Maclean’s, November 1, 1945; Ronald A. Keith, “The Mine That Shook the World,” Maclean’s, November 15, 1945; Bruce McLeod, “Nor’west Passage,” Maclean’s, March 1, 1945. 118

American nation, its Northern and Arctic regions constituted a central element in the political, economic, and cultural development of an independent Canada.

In a brief summary of the talk the following day buried in the back pages of the New York

Times, the paper highlighted Pearson’s comments on the North’s resource riches, especially for atomic energy, international cooperation in the Arctic, and Canada’s appreciation of defense needs in the North.299 Canada’s Globe and Mail, by contrast, devoted a front-page article to

Pearson’s speech and heralded it as a “vivid picture” of the North’s potential for the national development of Canada.300 If the U.S. Senate had approved funding for Hubbard’s weather station program on the grounds of national security considerations,301 among others, Pearson was not prepared to let the emerging Cold War calculations dominate his vision for the North. The

Rotary Club speech then stands as a powerful reminder of the continued salience of Northern nationalist ideas and Pearson’s efforts to harmonize these with the emerging pressures of U.S. defense cooperation in the Arctic.

With the legislation for the establishment of weather stations in the Canadian Arctic signed into law by President Truman, the U.S. military and the State Department had received a mandate to act on Hubbard’s project. American diplomats had not pursued the issue after

Hubbard’s abortive attempt the year before to solicit Canadian support for an expansion of the wartime meteorological reporting stations in the Canadian Northeast. The State Department’s J.

G. Parsons, who also served as the Secretary for the American Section on the PJBD, the U.S.-

Canadian defense coordination body, first indicated to the Canadians on April 29, 1946, that a

299 “Envoy Tells Plans for Canadian Arctic,” New York Times, February 8, 1946, p. 19 300 “Canada to Share Arctic Facilities, Pearson States,” Globe and Mail, February 8, 1946, p. 1. 301 “Arctic Weather Reporting Stations, U.S. Senate Report No. 656, 79th Congress, 1st Session,” October 24, 1945, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 119

proposal for “the establishment of civil weather stations in the Western Arctic Archipelago” was to be expected “shortly” from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. Parsons added that although the proposal had not come out of the PJBD machinery, Washington considered it necessary for the

PJBD to “be kept informed of all developments and should be consulted on any defence [sic] aspect that might require consideration.”302 This corollary qualified Parsons’ initial statement that seemed to draw attention to the civilian aspects of the weather stations program, an early indication that the American authorities were cognizant of Canadian concerns. It also made plain that JAWS was considered an element in the larger defense architecture of North America and, equally important, that this understanding was communicated to the Canadian Section.303

On May 1, 1946, Lewis Clark, Counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, wired the official request for the establishment of weather stations in the Canadian Arctic to External

Affairs.304 In its telegram, the State Department outlined the American rationale for the weather stations, suggested a series of formulas for the sharing of personnel, material, and financial costs, and it proposed a preliminary plan for a construction phase of the program. Not unlike Parsons’ careful balancing of the civilian and military aspects of the project, the telegram invoked the scientific and commercial benefits of increased meteorological coverage in the Arctic as well as its dual-use capacity for the “requirements of the service departments of the two

Governments.”305 In fact, the note stressed the urgency of expanding defense-related knowledge in the Northern and Arctic regions. “In light of the significance of Arctic weather information for

302 “Draft Text of Permanent Joint Board on Defense – Journal of Discussions and Decisions,” April 30, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States-Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December. 303 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 20f. 304 “Memorandum,” May 1, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 305 Ibid., 4. 120

the security of the North American continent,” Clark added, “it is felt that this matter should be considered as one of primary concern to the United States and Canada.”306 As a result, the State

Department pressed for a prompt consideration to take advantage of the 1946 construction season in the Arctic and to establish two main weather stations in the western Canadian Arctic via sea and air supply. In addition, three auxiliary stations were envisioned to be erected in the western Arctic the following year.307

For all the urgency Washington attached to the program, it did not attempt to impose an operational scheme on Ottawa. Instead, the American request outlined scenarios in which the

United States solely conducted the program, one variant with Canadian participation, and one, in which the Canadian government assumed exclusive responsibility for the entire weather station project. Clark emphasized in the telegram that Washington was aware of Ottawa’s policy to maintain control over defense installations in Canada and pointed out that the State Department

“wished to work out a programme on a fully cooperative basis and had no thought of interfering in any way with Canadian sovereignty.”308 If the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had jumped the gun on defense construction throughout the Canadian Northwest during World War II,309 the

United States went out of its way not only to acknowledge Canadian sensitivities over Northern and Arctic projects. It also did not press the Canadian government to agree to a specific cost-

306 Ibid. 307 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 21f. 308 “Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Deputy Minister of Transport,” May 4, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 309 Coates and Morrison describe how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been dispatched to the Northwest before Ottawa had approved the construction of the Alaska Highway. See, Coates and Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II, 35. 121

sharing formula.310 At the same time, Washington made clear that a refusal would be considered detrimental to the continental security of North America.

The proposal for the Arctic weather stations was not met with enthusiasm in Ottawa.

Under-Secretary of State Norman A. Robertson distributed the request to the Department of

Transport and cautioned against sole American authority.311 Robertson did not comment on the merits of the weather stations, their civilian or military value for circumpolar navigation and the broader security of the North American continent. Neither did he question the underlying rationale or the necessity for the program. Instead, he advised that in his view “it would be unwise to allow these stations to be set up entirely under the control of the United States.”312 The logistical and financial demands implied in the proposal, at the same time, precluded any scheme, in which Ottawa could have assumed sole responsibility for the establishment of the weather stations. A compromise solution had to be negotiated, accordingly, one “under which

Canada would retain operational control and make a contribution to the programme, while the

United States would provide equipment, supplies and personnel.”313 Before Washington had submitted the JAWS proposal, Macdonnell argued that Ottawa’s ‘Canadianization’ policy should apply to the weather stations program as well.314 Having seen Clark’s note, Macdonnell felt reassured about Washington’s plans and wrote Camsell to assuage his concerns over Canada’s

310 Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 79. 311 “Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Deputy Minister of Transport,” May 4, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 2. 312 Ibid., 2. 313 Ibid. 314 In November 1945, Macdonnell wrote Heeney that External Affairs was closely monitoring Congress and the development of Brewster Bill. In this letter, Macdonnell argued that “if proposals are eventually made to us by the United States, my own view is that primary responsibility for any stations in the Arctic should be assumed by the Canadian Meteorological Service with the United States and the loaning of personnel by the United States Weather Bureau. I think that the policy followed by the Government in the last two years of assisting the United States to withdraw from establishments in Canada should be continued in the postwar period.” See “R. M. Macdonnell to A. D. P. Heeney,” November 3, 1945, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 122

sovereignty in the Arctic.315 In the United States, Parsons perceived the initial reaction by the

Canadians to be “friendly” yet he told Hubbard that External Affairs considered sole U.S. control of a network “was ‘quite inacceptable’.”316 Before these issues, however, could be taken up with the State Department, Robertson recommended to accept Clark’s suggestion to hold a meeting with those individuals closely involved with the implementation of the project in Ottawa.317

The meeting two weeks later brought together interdepartmental delegations from the

Canadian and American civil and military agencies to obtain a clearer understanding of the project’s objectives and the financial, logistical, and operational demands entailed in the running of an Arctic weather stations program. Lewis Clark of the U.S. Embassy and Hubbard of the

U.S. Weather Bureau led the American delegation, which also included representatives from the

U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Air Force. When R. M. Macdonnell of External Affairs asked

Clark and Hubbard to outline the American rationale for the necessity and the urgency of the proposal, the Canadians were presented with a list of civil, military, and budgetary motivations.

Clark stressed the need for improved forecasting and more scientific studies and pointed out that the United States and Canada lagged far behind the Soviet Union’s capabilities in the Arctic.

Hubbard argued that Congress made available $265,000 for the 1946 construction season and the

U.S. Weather Bureau was likely to add another $100,000 to pay personnel along the stations.

These funds were available for the project now and there was no telling what future budgets

315 In his letter, Macdonnell sought to allay Camsell concerns, explaining that “the United States Embassy made it clear that there was no question of interfering in any way with Canadian sovereignty. I think that heir approach to the problem should re-assure your Minister if he is troubled by any thought of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic being called into question by the United States.” See “R. M. Macdonnell to Charles Camsell,” May 11, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 316 “Diary re W.B. Arctic Program, April 29 – May 3,” NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 317 “Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Deputy Minister of Transport,” May 4, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 2. 123

could provide. At this point, Clark raised the specter of the Soviet threat: “Those on the other side of the Arctic are very active,” he warned and added: “Because of this we can get funds at the present time and later this may not be possible.”318

Over the remaining course of the meeting, the U.S. delegation assured the Canadians that the United States was prepared to begin reconnaissance flights, supply missions, and the construction for two stations, one at Winter Harbour, Melville Island, and the other at Thule,

Greenland, immediately. Hubbard and his colleagues explained that they had “many war-trained men available” to staff the stations and that the program could begin operations six weeks after constructions were completed.319 Indeed, job advertisements by the U.S. Weather Bureau soon called for applicants with an “adventurous spirit” to apply for jobs along the weather stations, using the slogan “Adventure—Science—High Earnings—Future Career.” 320 Macdonnell concluded the meeting by noting that Ottawa would need time to study and consider the proposal, pointing out that “this subject has come up very hurriedly.”321 With Truman’s approval and Congressional funding secured, the Americans were set to begin the sealift and start constructions of the stations.

The meeting between the Canadian and American delegations in mid-May 1946 was the first instance, in which both governments held direct discussions over the establishment of weather stations in the Arctic Archipelago. For all the emphasis on the civil and scientific merits of the program, the U.S. representatives did not obfuscate their views of a Soviet threat and the potential military implications of advanced forecasting and improved navigational capabilities

318 “Minutes of Meeting by J. G. Wright,” May 18, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 2. 319 Ibid., 3. 320 U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, “Circular Letter No. 49-46: Weather Bureau Arctic Project,” May 28, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 321 “Minutes of Meeting by J. G. Wright,” May 18, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 4. 124

for the security of the North American continent. Hubbard acknowledged that the Canadians remained non-committal and hoped that an agreement could be achieved soon. He recorded in his diary: “Ottawa conference. Preliminary only – no decisions made but friendly attitude prevailed.”322 Hubbard might be forgiven for his perception that Canadian friendliness may have signaled approval of the project in the not too distant future. Indeed, it was only in the one-hour meeting the Canadian delegation held after the Americans had left that concerns and frustrations emerged over the political and legal implications of an indefinite and sizable U.S. presence in the

Canadian Arctic. The representative of the Department of Mines and Resources raised serious concerns over the impact of a growing American presence in those remote areas of the Canadian

Arctic where he considered Canada’s legal claims weak. He also pointed out that sole U.S. control would contravene the government’s policy of ‘re-Canadianizing’ the North. Approval of the weather station program would have to be on the basis that the stations ought be “at least” staffed and operated by Canadian personnel.323 This would emphasize the joint nature of the venture despite the fact that the costs, supply, and construction would be provided by the United

States. R. A. Gibson, Deputy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, joined his colleague and added:

Canada should establish and operate any necessary stations even if U.S. official publications admit Canada’s sovereignty. This looks like one of these defence (?) [sic] projects that look as though we were getting everything for nothing at the beginning and then we wake up after a while to find that the U.S. Senate has turned everything upside down and that the U.S. diplomats are back again to ask us to pay for work we could have done better and more cheaply ourselves.324

322 “Diary re W.B. Arctic Program, May 13 – 18,” NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard, 1944-46. 323 “Minutes of Meeting by J. G. Wright,” May 18, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 5. 324 “Department of Mines and Resources to Head, Third Political Division,” May 20, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1549f. 125

Group Captain Bradshaw of the Royal Canadian Air Force (R.C.A.F.), by contrast, felt that concerns over sovereignty ought not to outweigh the benefits of the stations for the establishment of air operations given the “disturbing political situation at the present time.”325 Indeed, National

Defence later stressed that the program was one of “prime importance in relation to the air defence of the North American continent.” 326 At the meeting, the representative of the

Meteorological Division also expressed hope that the project would go forward yet doubted

Canada’s ability to fully staff and operate the weather stations.327 Clearly, Hubbard and Clark’s presentation had received mixed reviews among the Canadian representatives.

The frank exchange among the Canadian delegation reveals the controversial views on

U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation. The skeptical and even critical statements illustrate how the wartime experience of defense cooperation throughout the Canadian Northwest and the

Northeast continued to fuel suspicions in the assurances and motivations of the U.S. authorities.

While the RCAF, National Defence, and the Meteorological Division saw value in the American proposal, some civilian departments remained anxious to avoid entering into agreements that would grant the United States sweeping authority over Northern and Arctic installations.

External Affairs, in turn, was well aware of the strategic role of the Northern and Arctic regions in the larger North American defense architecture. Ambassador Pearson commented in the pages of the Montreal Gazette:

we are becoming increasingly aware in Canada of our significance as an arctic power and the effect of this on our relations with both the United States and the U.S.S.R. We are most anxious in Canada to develop to the fullest extent the economic and communications resources of our

325 “Minutes of Meeting by J. G. Wright,” May 18, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 5. 326 “H. F. Gordon, Deputy Minister of National Defence for Air, to Norman A. Robertson,” May 28, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 327 “Memorandum by the Department of Mines and Resources,” May 18, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1554. 126

north country … one of the great sources of uranium in the world is well within the Canadian Arctic circle.328

As much as diplomats such as Pearson sought to portray the development of the Northern and

Arctic regions as a civilian and commercial project, one that cast the North in terms of a second frontier in the national development of Canada, the swell of American requests for reconnaissance flights, naval operations, radio installations, and weather stations, among others, undermined his vision of the Arctic as a resource frontier.

In a telegram to Hume Wrong, the Acting Under-Secretary of State, Pearson sought to channel his vision into concrete action. He affirmed his conviction in the ‘Canadianization’ policy and insisted: “From every political point of view I should think it would be desirable that the Canadian Government construct, finance and maintain all meteorological stations on its territory.” But Pearson did not stop there. He proposed to use the JAWS talks to obtain from

Washington “public recognition of our sovereignty of the total area above our northern coasts, based on the sector principle.” Pearson felt such a recognition ought to be in the interest of the

United States as it would eliminate any legal questions over Canadian ownership and reduce the risk of rogue claims by the Soviet Union.329 R. M. Macdonnell had raised this issue in reaction to the American proposal and a critical sovereignty assessment produced by the Canadian Army a month earlier as well. In view of an ever-growing number of U.S. Arctic defense requests,

Macdonnell suggested that it was worth considering “to secure their agreement to our claims about Canadian sovereignty.”330

328 “Pearson Sees No Place Within UN For Veto Power or ‘Chosen People’,” The Montreal Gazette, May 14, 1946. 329 “Lester B. Pearson to Hume H. Wrong,” June 5, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 330 “Memorandum from Head, Third Political Division, to Legal Division, Sovereignty in the Arctic,” May 6-8, 1946; “Memorandum from Head, Third Political Division, to Associate Under-Secretary of State for External 127

In Ottawa, Wrong quickly deflated these proposals based on three arguments. First,

External Affairs was operating under the assumption that Canada’s legal standing in the Arctic

Archipelago was “unchallenged, but not unchallengeable.” 331 Any request for American recognition would suggest that Canada harbored doubts about this issue, one that “may in practice turn out to have been closed.” Second, it had been U.S. policy not to recognize territorial claims based on the sector principle. In the context of Washington’s claims to Antarctica where it rejected British sector claims, the United States was highly unlikely to accept a Canadian sector claim in the Arctic, External Affairs official R. A. J. Phillips advised Wrong. Finally, Wrong pointed out that any public recognition of Canada’s claim would draw the unwelcome attention of the Soviet Union to the joint defense projects across the Northern and Arctic regions.332

Wrong saw no benefit, neither legally nor politically, in using the weather stations talks to press for recognition of Canada’s Arctic claims based on the sector principle.

Historians have viewed Pearson’s proposal with bewilderment. Bercuson describes it as an “extraordinary lapse of judgment” while Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer call it “brash, ill-conceived, and doomed to fail.”333 By the same token, Smith had little understanding for why

Canadian officials “continued to trifle” with the sector principle, an idea that in his view lacked

“genuine legal foundation” and conflicted with what he describes as “the traditional Canadian image of responsibility in international affairs.”334 It is apparent that Pearson was not well-

Affairs, [c. 6-8 May 1946],” in: Kikkert and Lackenbauer, Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905- 56, 214–21. 331 “Hume Wrong to A. D. P. Heeney,” June 14, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File 9061-A-40. 332 “Hume Wrong to Douglas C. Abbott,” June 13, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40; R. A . J. Phillips, “United States Claims in the Antarctic,” June 12, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 333 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50,” 157; Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy,” 7. 334 Smith, “Sovereignty in the North,” 226. 128

informed on the legal intricacies of Arctic sovereignty questions. Moreover, he called for the construction, financing, and operation of JAWS as a purely Canadian undertaking without knowledge of the financial and personnel burdens this posed on Canada, both issues that Canada was unable to shoulder on its own as Heidt has shown.335

Yet if seen not only through the lens of sovereignty but in the context of Pearson’s previous statements on the broader significance of Northern and Arctic Canada as a central marker in the national development of the country, the explanatory gap between his apparent lack of expertise and his brash activism begins to diminish. Pearson’s fascination with the North as expressed in his 1938 Cambridge Lecture and re-iterated in his February 1946 Rotary Club speech point to a deep conviction in the Northern romanticism of Service and the modernist vision of Stefansson, linking the future development of Canada closely to its Northern and Arctic regions. Indeed, at the same time he approached Wrong about American recognition, he was in the process of preparing an article for Foreign Affairs, in which he referenced the sector theory and invoked the Northern and Arctic regions as constitutive elements in the future development of Canada.336 And Pearson was not alone. Heeney pitched the idea to jump-start the Arctic weather stations program “as a purely Canadian operation” to C. D. Howe, the Minister of

Reconstruction and Supply. Within hours of Heeney’s message, Howe rejected the trial balloon on the grounds of costs.337 Trevor Lloyd raised the specter of the United States surpassing

Canadian Arctic expertise if permitted to move ahead with the weather stations program on its own. Worse, Lloyd detected “definitely acquisitive” motifs driving U.S. plans, he warned

335 Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946- 1972,” 150–52. 336 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada Looks ‘Down North,’” Foreign Affairs 24 (1946): 638–47. 337 “A. D. P. Heeney to C. D. Howe,” June 28, 1946, and “C. D. Howe to A. D. P. Heeney,” June 28, 1946, LAC, Vol. 3347, File. 9061-A-40. 129

External Affairs without substantiating such views.338 Moreover, fellow Northern nationalist

Hugh Keenleyside later in his capacity as Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources and active member of the Advisory Committee on Northern Development extolled the virtues of the North for Canada and argued publicly for a sector claim.339

In this light, Pearson’s proposal, if ill-informed and unrealistic, is consistent with his

Northern nationalism and the views of his fellow Arcticians. Moreover, it helps to explain why he dismissed his own department’s guidance when he directly approached a U.S. delegation over the issue half a year later, now as newly appointed Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, only to be rebuffed by his American counterparts.340 These episodes illustrate that Northern and

Arctic defense cooperation was not easily reconciled with Pearson’s otherwise internationalist and continentalist proclivities. The questions of sovereignty, security, and a Northern nationalism were deeply intertwined.

These internal Canadian discussions in May and June of 1946 went largely unnoticed by the Americans. The tentative optimism about the meetings with the Canadians that can be gleaned from Hubbard’s diary is also evident in the U.S. Embassy’s reporting.341 As part of a series of newspaper articles and magazine features on talks about the organization of the U.S.-

Canadian postwar defense relationship, Arctic defense projects and the weather stations program

338 Trevor Lloyd, “Memorandum on Proposed United States Arctic Weather Stations,“ June 25, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 339 Hugh L. Keenleyside, “Recent Development in the Canadian North,” May 14, 1949, Hugh L. Keenleyside Fonds, LAC, MG 31 E 102, Vol. 27, File: Speeches and Articles—Recent Developments in the Canadian North—14 May 1949. 340 “Joint Defense Discussions,” November 21, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 4. 341 Charles J. Hubbard, “May 13-18,” 1946, NARA, RG 27, Records of Polar Operations Project, Records Relating to the Establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Station Program, 1944-48, Box 1, File: Polar Ops. Hubbard Program Diary. 130

became the subject of public debate in Canada and the United States. With generally favorable coverage of these plans, Clark informed Parsons in Washington of the positive views towards defense cooperation even among the “most Empire-minded and conservative of Canadian newspapers.” Parsons scribbled across the telegram that “it’s interesting to see […] how routine the idea of Joint Defense has become to Canadians.”342 When James Reston of the New York

Times wrote a front-page analysis of U.S.-Canadian Arctic plans the day after the weather stations meeting took place in Ottawa, Ambassador Atherton reported to U.S. Secretary of State

James F. Byrnes that two Canadian ministers intimated to him that “no logical criticism of the plans could be anticipated.”343 After all, it had been State Department policy to “secure the necessary cooperation and rights” for establishing military installations in the North American

Arctic from those governments “controlling those areas.”344

During these initial months of the JAWS talks, American diplomats exhibited a poor understanding of the controversial nature of Northern and Arctic defense politics within the

Canadian government. If their contacts and sources in the Canadian government accurately reported a general consensus on the necessity for increased Arctic weather reporting capabilities, they failed to convey the concerns over control and the nationalist impulses the discussion after the bilateral meeting had indicated. Above all, they failed to appreciate the importance the Prime

342 “Lewis Clark to J. G. Parsons,” May 29, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States- Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December. 343 “Ray Atherton to James F. Byrnes,” May 23, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States-Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December; James Reston, “Unified Arctic Defense Plan Proposed by U.S. to Canada, Joint Bases, Weather Stations in the Far North, Coordinated Training and Equipping of Forces in Scheme Put to Ottawa,” New York Times, May 18, 1946. 344 The U.S. Arctic Policy statement of July 1, 1946, makes clear that the United States recognized Canada’s control over the known lands of the Arctic Archipelago. Diverging views between Ottawa and Washington existed with respect to the status of undiscovered land. The locations of the weather stations, of course, were on known islands in the Arctic and, therefore, beyond the de jure dispute between both governments. “Department of State, Polar Regions, Policy and Information Statement,” July 1, 1946, in: Kikkert and Lackenbauer, Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, 243–46. 131

Minister attached to having a framework for U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in place before approving additional defense projects.

The decision by the Canadian government to withhold approval of the Joint Arctic

Weather Stations program for the 1946 season on June 27, 1946, thus caught Washington by surprise. Upon his return from a trip to England, Prime Minister Mackenzie King decided that the U.S. request should not be approved until the overall framework for U.S.-Canadian North

American defense had been worked out.345 King was not prepared to sign off on individual proposals without having a clear understanding of the specific nature of the postwar defense relationship between both countries. The JAWS proposal, King explained “should not be dealt with separately and the general problem would require the most careful consideration.”346 In his absence, the Cabinet Defence Committee (CDC) had deferred a decision on the matter, but it indicated that it preferred to postpone the proposal.347

The Prime Minister’s diary indicates that he viewed the decision against the backdrop of his conversations about the international situation in London. King recorded that “the only war that was likely to come in the future would be a war with Russia and would be a war for world conquest.”348 King acknowledged that this implied that “we had to re-orient all our ideas about protection.” At the same time, he insisted that he was “not to be rushed” into any premature decisions and that the question of defense cooperation between Ottawa and Washington “needed the fullest possible discussion.”349 As a result, little over a month after the two delegations had

345 “United States Request for Arctic Weather Station,” June 27, 1946, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A- 5-a, Volume 2638, Item: 7067. 346 Ibid. 347 “Secretary to the Cabinet to Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee,” June 14, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1567f. 348 “June 20, 1946,” The Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, LAC Online, Item: 29728. 349 Ibid. 132

discussed the details of the weather stations, Cabinet decided to withhold approval of the program. 350 “The United States request for authority to establish a weather station in the

Canadian Arctic,” Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Robertson noted, “could not be approved for the present season and the United States government be so informed.” 351

Mackenzie King had come to accept the strategic necessity for increased Northern defense cooperation with the United States, yet, for the moment, the American initiative had been placed on hold.

The decision to make the weather stations program conditional on the results of the parallel talks over a framework for the U.S.-Canadian defense relationship in the postwar period not only resulted from procedural considerations. The politics of Arctic defense cooperation lent support to those voices in the Canadian government who continued to view American intentions and motives with skepticism. At External Affairs, Arctic specialist R. A. J. Phillips cautioned that the Americans

were not lacking indications of developments not calculated to increase Canadian confidence in the intentions of some United States officials. Some irresponsible enthusiasts in lower levels in Washington were known to have made ill-considered remarks about the possibility of raising the Stars and Stripes in occupied Arctic territory.352

Never to miss an opportunity to sound the wrong note at the wrong time, Charles J. Hubbard had laid out his vision for the weather stations program at an American Meteorological Society dinner in June 1946. In his talk, he took his ideas far beyond the official talking points and painted a grand picture of an Arctic dotted with auxiliary meteorological stations. Hubbard’s

350 “United States Request for Arctic Weather Station,” June 27, 1946, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A- 5-a, Volume 2638, Item: 7067. 351 “Memorandum by Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs,” June 28, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1571. 352 R. A. J. Phillips, “Memorandum – United States Proposals for Weather Stations in the Arctic,” July 4, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 133

meteorological imperialism, obviously, was in conflict with the limited program requested by the

U.S. government and State Department policy to secure cooperation from relevant governments.

Yet his statements provided fodder to those skeptical of U.S. motifs. Canadian newspapers took the lead from a report about the event in the Washington Star and the State Department, to no avail, felt impelled to apologize to Ottawa. 353 A week before Mackenzie King deferred

Washington’s request, moreover, Ambassador Pearson had advised the U.S. government to slow the pace of defense Northern defense requests. “While developments in the north were perhaps relatively small items in the defence plans of this country,” he cautioned his American counterparts, “they were for us matters of great importance, strategically and politically.”354

Although a minor episode, the tensions underlying U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation were on full display.

When Pearson’s Foreign Affairs-article entitled “Canada Looks ‘Down North’” was published within days of Ottawa’s decision to withhold approval of JAWS in July 1946,355 the

Canadian ambassador used the opportunity to elaborate on the political and cultural aspects of large-scale defense projects in the North.356 Historians have parsed the article for its comments about Canada’s legal claims to the Arctic Archipelago and the region’s potential to serve as a space for international cooperation, not a new fortified frontline in the emerging U.S.-Soviet

353 Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946- 1972,” 154. 354 Pearson quoted in Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 94. 355 I have found no evidence of coordination at External Affairs in the publication of the article. Gordon W. Smith suggests that Pearson may have written and released the essay on his own volition, describing it as a “fairly typical, although not completely official, Canadian point of view.” See Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 34. 356 John Woitkowitz, “The Northern Education of Lester B. Pearson,” Zeitschrift Für Kanadastudien 37, no. 1 (2017): 77–98. 134

conflict.357 If the 1938 Cambridge Lecture and the Rotary Club speech half a year earlier have eluded scholarly attention, historians have equally passed over the cultural components of

Pearson’s Foreign Affairs statement. Yet his continued references to the North as a nationally defining aspect and its quintessential role in the maturity and future prosperity of the country help to make sense of his unwavering advocacy for an activist Canadian policy towards the

North. For Pearson, the debate over Canada’s legal status and the expansion of defense activities with the United States in the Arctic were not separate from questions over national identity.

At the time of publication, Pearson was two months shy of completing his tenure in

Washington and moving back to Ottawa to head the Department of External Affairs as Under-

Secretary of State for External Affairs. In his article, Pearson sought to impress upon his

American readership Canada’s views on the potential of the North as a space of cooperation for

Ottawa’s relationship with Washington but also for its relationship with Moscow, its circumpolar neighbor across the Arctic Ocean. In doing so, he sought to shape the debate about the North’s strategic importance in the United States’ global outlook in light of the emerging tensions over the postwar international order. Most importantly, he sought to direct attention away from what he perceived as “an unhealthy preoccupation with the strategic aspects of the North.”358

Beyond the strategic role of Northern and Arctic Canada, however, Pearson invoked the central tenets of the Northern nationalism he had developed earlier. There is a strong continuity in terms of the themes and the stories Pearson originally drew on for his 1938 lecture in

Cambridge, England, and the February 1946 Rotary Club speech in New York. Pearson, for

357 Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy,” 8; Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 34f; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 66; Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs; Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 348. 358 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada Looks ‘Down North,’” Foreign Affairs 24, no. 4 (1946): 644. 135

example, continued to stress the Arctic’s impact on the nation’s character and explained that the

North had an “inevitable effect on the life and habits of the Canadian people.”359 Not unlike his anecdote about the two prospectors at Great Bear Lake, Pearson presented a similar story to illustrate the North’s character-shaping features. With aviation, resources, and the scenery of frontier life, all ingredients at hand to tell his instructive tales, Pearson wrote:

Though the northern frontiersmen today are as sturdy and tough as those of earlier times, their habits are, shall we say, less picturesquely rough and crude. A few days ago a visitor at Fort Norman was interested to see a freight aeroplane land and discharge several cases. They were not, however, cases of rum or six shooters or ammunition. They were cases of lettuce! He reported that the sturdy miners and trappers who had been hanging about followed the lettuce in great excitement to the local supply post, and when the cases were opened, they indulged in a regular debauch.360

Anticipating ambivalent impressions of weak and effeminate Canadians, Pearson quickly assured his audience of the men’s hard-working attitudes and their commitment to the national cause:

In spite of this trend toward lettuce salads, there is no doubt that the settlers now in the Canadian Arctic and those who will follow them ‘down North’ will provide a solid and sturdy foundation for the growth and development of that increasingly important part of Canada.361

Once more, instead of moral decay and violence, images reminiscent of the days of the Klondike

Gold Rush and the American West, the North exerted its moral and virtuous powers over those who proved worthy enough to belong to the ‘men of the north’.

Pearson’s article appeared shortly after the Canadian government’s refusal to grant permission for JAWS. His vision for the Northern and Arctic regions as a space that was less concerned with its strategic importance than as a source for international cooperation and the national development of Canada signaled to Washington that a mere understanding over the military necessity for JAWS would not suffice to obtain Ottawa’s approval. Pearson’s article

359 Ibid., 638. 360 Ibid., 647. 361 Ibid. Emphasis added. 136

gave voice to part of Ottawa’s reluctance toward sending a U.S. contingent to be stationed in the remote reaches of the Canadian Arctic. His description of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago consistent with the parameters of the sector principle is noteworthy for two reasons: First, it indicates that the article is unlikely to have been coordinated with Ottawa given Wrong’s rejection of Pearson’s earlier proposal about U.S. recognition of the sector principle. In fact, it is a remarkable act of defiance by Pearson to ignore his superior’s decision and to disregard the legal guidance of his own department. Second, it hints at the notion that for Pearson the question of Northern nationalism and the legal aspect were connected. Although prepared before the

Canadian Cabinet decided to withhold approval of the program, the Foreign Affairs-essay gave

American diplomats a clue as to some of the ideas and perceptions behind the Canadians’ slow- walking of the Arctic weather stations program.

Had the United States been confident the weather stations request would receive a favorable consideration, the decision by Ottawa to deny permission to begin construction in 1946 caused consternation at the State Department. When R. M. Macdonnell delivered the news to the

U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, he noted that “as could be expected, the United States authorities are considerably upset.”362 American frustration over the Canadians refusal, however, not only resulted from the understanding that plans for the weather stations had been placed on hold.

Indeed, Hubbard’s conviction that permission for the project would be forthcoming was so strong he had already prepared for the construction material and equipment to be loaded in

Boston, ready to be shipped to the Canadian Arctic at a moment’s notice.363 When asked by

Lewis Clark if the material could be transported to the U.S. observation post at Thule in

362 R. M. Macdonnell, “Memorandum for File,” June 28, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 363 Ibid. 137

Greenland on the assumption that a favorable decision for a Canadian station could be expected for the 1947 season, R. M. Macdonnell demurred to make any predictions about future decisions on the matter.364 Baffled by the Canadian government’s refusal, Clark also raised the matter in an unrelated meeting with a Privy Council official in Ottawa in early July and inquired if the decision “had had an element of politics in it.” The official assured Clark that the decision merely was a function of the unusually high amount of government business that had been on hold while the Prime Minister was in Europe. “Our weather proposals,” Clark noted, “had gotten mixed up in this mess.”365 The internal debate in Ottawa after the U.S.-Canadian May planning session, the discussion over Pearson’s proposal, and King’s insistence on clarifying the overall defense relationship first, however, tell a different story.

In Washington, the State Department’s J. G. Parsons reached out to Vice Admiral

Howard E. Reid, Chief of the Naval Staff, RCN, and a former member of the Canadian Section of the PJBD, to obtain a clearer understanding of the political context of Ottawa’s refusal.

Parsons noted that Reid was “interested in discussing joint defense” and that he offered candid observations about the forces skeptical of an approval of the weather stations program.366

Parsons distributed his conversation to the American embassy in Ottawa, Major General Guy V.

Henry of the American Section of the PJBD, and John D. Hickerson at the State Department.

The politics of Northern defense cooperation with the United States, according to Reid, within

Cabinet posed the greatest challenges to current defense projects in the North. Reid volunteered

364 Ibid. 365 “Memorandum of Conversation between Lewis Clark and James Baldwin,” July 11, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States-Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December. 366 “Memorandum of Conversation between J. G. Parsons and Vice Admiral Howard E. Reid,” August 12, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States-Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December. 138

that he and Air Marshal Leckie, RCAF, had convinced their ministers to sidestep Cabinet to get approval for Operation Nanook, a U.S. Navy and Marines exercise in the Canadian Arctic, only to have it raised later in a Cabinet meeting when a minister asked: “What’s this – another

American request?” Accepting too heavy a U.S. financial stake in northern defense was another reason for opposition to American defense proposals, Reid suggested. Concerns about public reactions and “accusations of ‘Canadian Imperialism’” in the Soviet press, the Vice Admiral explained, further cautioned Ottawa about entering a close military association with the United

States. Most importantly, however, was the discrepancy with which both countries perceived the necessity for Arctic security installations. Parsons queried Reid to what extent the Canadian government appreciated “how relatively backward Canada and the United States were in Arctic experience and in the development and testing of equipment in the far north.”367 While the

Canadian military appreciated the situation, Reid suggested, the civilian agencies were generally oblivious to these matters. As a result, Parsons and Reid agreed that a nudge on the highest political level was needed perhaps sometime in October or November when the Canadian

Parliament had adjourned to move the subject of U.S.-Canada defense cooperation along.368

The postmortem of the United States’ initial attempt to secure Ottawa’s approval for the establishment of weather stations in the Canadian Arctic led Washington to adopt a two-pronged approach to win over support for the project. The fundamental rationale behind the necessity for improved meteorological data remained unchanged. The State Department, however, decided to emphasize the security aspects of the program through the PJBD to put the Canadian service

367 “Memorandum of Conversation between J. G. Parsons and Vice Admiral Howard E. Reid,” August 12, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States-Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December. 368 Ibid. 139

branches in a better position to make the case for the military necessity of the weather stations.

At the same time, the State Department decided to take the matter to the highest diplomatic channels and enlist Truman to assure Mackenzie King of the United States’ benign intentions.

The U.S. President was to press for an urgent consideration of the Northern and Arctic defense projects on Ottawa’s desk.369

Accordingly, on September 9, 1946, Major General Henry, representative of the

American Section on the PJBD, brought the issue of meteorological stations to the Board’s attention. Henry had coordinated his effort with the State Department, where Parsons encouraged him “to strengthen the hands of our Canadian military friends so that their recommendations to

Cabinet will carry increasing weight and greater urgency.”370 He, therefore, raised the matter in a broader discussion over renewed American activities at wartime radio and weather stations in the

Canadian North. Henry reiterated the strategic position of Northern and Arctic approaches for the defense of both Canada and the United States in the event of cross-polar incursions. An effective defense against this perceived threat, therefore, required “a comprehensive air warning, meteorological and communications system with air bases for interceptor aircraft, all placed at the maximum practical distance from vital strategic areas.” Both countries’ military branches would have to enter “a more intimate and complicated joint cooperation than has heretofore been achieved between the forces of two sovereign nations.” Henry assured his Canadian counterparts that the United States military had no desire “to infringe on Canadian sovereignty or Canadian

369 Ibid. 370 “J. G. Parsons to Major General Guy V. Henry,” September 4, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States-Canada, American Section, Box 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S.-Canada 1946 January-December. 140

rights, nor in any way interfere with Canadian ties or obligations to the British

Commonwealth.”371

While Henry continued to reiterate the United States’ plans to expand its capabilities for

Northern and Arctic defense to the Canadian service representatives, Dean Acheson, in his capacity as Acting Secretary of State, briefed Truman on the issues of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the Arctic. Acheson impressed upon the president that the talks over the security of the North American continent formed “the most active and important aspect” of Washington’s relations with Canada at the time. He invoked the U.S. military’s insistence on “closing the gap between Alaska and Greenland” and added: “For this we are dependent on the cooperation of the

Canadian Government.”372 Acheson urged Truman to take the initiative with Mackenzie King who was scheduled to visit the White House on October 28, 1946. “[T]he time has come now,”

Acheson pressed, “for the basic decisions in this field to be made by yourself and the Prime

Minister.”373 In a written Oral Message Truman was to present to Mackenzie King, Acheson laid out the United States’ position on the general question of continental defense and the necessity for Northern and Arctic capabilities in particular:

Two world wars have demonstrated that an aggressor must destroy the power of North America or be defeated. Due to post-1945 technological advances, North America is no longer adequately protected by geography. [U]nder conditions of modern technology, defenses must be as far out from Canadian and American industrial centers as possible. If within only five years another major power will be capable of jeopardizing North American security, action should be based on [the] realization that Canada and the United States lag in cold weather knowledge and experience [and] that to be efficient in an emergency affecting North American territory, the Canadian and

371 Henry quoted in Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 37. 372 Dean Acheson, “Memorandum for the President,” October 1, 1946, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library (HST), Papers of Harry S. Truman, President’s Secretary’s File, Subject File: Foreign Affairs, Box 151, File: Canada, General. 373 Ibid., “Memorandum for the President,” October 26, 1946, NARA, RG 333, Records of International Military Agencies, Permanent Joint Board on Defense Canada-United States Section, 1941-1956, Folders 1-6, Box 1, File: PJBD Minutes. 141

American forces should have the experience of working together, experience of the north, and increasing uniformity of equipment and methods.374

Finally, Acheson advised Truman to emphasize the support these views held among the “non- military authorities” within the U.S. government. Truman was to impress upon Mackenzie King that he and his civilian colleagues were “watching to prevent any over-extension of military plans.”375

The upsurge of activities at the State Department in the run-up to the Truman-King meeting was not lost on the Canadians. Pearson had barely arrived from Washington to take up his new duties as Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs in Ottawa when Ambassador Ray

Atherton informed him of the President’s intention to raise the matter of Arctic defense with

Mackenzie King in Washington to press ahead the northern defense agenda. Indeed, Pearson noted a sense of urgency in Atherton’s comments, leading him to believe that the ambassador

“had received a new mandate” from the State Department.376 In a letter to the Canadian Embassy in Washington, Macdonnell also noted the continued pressure for consideration of the weather stations program “through Permanent Joint Board channels.” 377 Hume Wrong, Pearson’s successor as Canada’s ambassador in the United States, by the same token, advised Mackenzie

King that for the meeting the State Department had briefed Truman only on the topic of continental defense. Wrong alerted the Prime Minister to the possibility that the scale of the

American proposals might jeopardize Ottawa’s policy to assume complete financial and

374 “Oral Message,” October 26, 1946, NARA, RG 333, Records of International Military Agencies, Permanent Joint Board on Defense Canada-United States Section, 1941-1956, Folders 1-6, Box 1, File: PJBD Minutes. 375 Acheson, “Memorandum for the President,” October 26, 1946, NARA, RG 333, Records of International Military Agencies, Permanent Joint Board on Defense Canada-United States Section, 1941-1956, Folders 1-6, Box 1, File: PJBD Minutes. 376 “Memorandum from Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Secretary of State for External Affairs,” October 23, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1653. 377 “R. M. Macdonnell to T. A. Stone,” October 17, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 142

maintenance responsibility for permanent installations in Canada. The swell of individual defense requests, moreover, had caused “embarrassment” and prevented the Canadian government from assessing individual proposals in relation to the larger Northern and Arctic defense plan. As a result, Wrong counseled against making any commitments on the matter of specific defense projects during the meeting.378

Mackenzie King’s reserved attitude notwithstanding, Washington judged its two-pronged strategy to nudge the Canadian government towards closer defense cooperation in Northern and

Arctic Canada as a moderate success. The State Department gauged Canadian reaction to the one-hour meeting between the President and the Prime Minister as generally positive although

Truman and Mackenzie King had not arrived at an official commitment to the American plans.

Truman affirmed the common responsibility for the defense of the North American continent to quickly raise the issue of expanding the number of U.S. soldiers in Newfoundland and stressed the urgency of weather stations for Northern and Arctic “civil aviation quite as much as military.”379 The protection of “national rights” and the publicity over defense projects had to be carefully organized, Mackenzie King confided to his diary, to prevent a political backlash to defense cooperation, both in Canada and the Soviet Union. Truman further proposed to sidestep questions over Arctic sovereignty and to proceed “without making any mention of boundaries,”

King recorded.380 The tangible result of the meeting, Parsons thus recorded, was “to clear the way for further talks on joint defense at a high level but leaving in United States hands the

378 “Memorandum from Ambassador in United States to Prime Minister [Enclosure],” October 26, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1654-57. 379 “October 28, 1946,” The Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, LAC Online, Item: 30151-54. 380 Ibid. 143

initiative as to timing and channel.”381 In a response to the Oral Message, Pearson explained that the Prime Minister was in agreement with most of the issues in the note. Mackenzie King suggested that the message “should be used as a basis for discussions between the two governments” and Pearson added these talks should be held on the “political and diplomatic level.”382

A week after the Truman-Mackenzie King meeting, the United States resubmitted its request for the establishment of weather stations in the Canadian Arctic. In a telegram on

November 6, 1946, U.S. Ambassador Atherton recapped the rationale for the construction of the stations and urged Ottawa to grant permission “without delay.”383 Atherton raised the successful establishment of the Thule station in Greenland as proof that such stations were “valuable and practical.” His reference to Thule, moreover, was intended to allay Canadian concerns over sovereignty and U.S. intentions since the Danish government had readily agreed to grant permission for the program.384 The American proposal envisioned the construction of two main meteorological stations at Eureka Sound on Ellesmere Island and at Winter Harbour on Melville

Island via airlift by the U.S. Army Air Force from Thule in Greenland during the spring and summer season of 1947. Aerial reconnaissance for two auxiliary stations on Banks Island and

Isachsen Island the next year would also be conducted during 1947. The proposal also outlined

381 Parsons’ assessment was based on conversations between Pearson and Hume Wrong, the incoming Canadian Ambassador to the United States, see “Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs,” October 29, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1661f; “Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of British Commonwealth Affairs (Parsons),” October 31, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. V, 61-63. 382 “The Canadian Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs (Pearson) to the Ambassador in Canada (Atherton),” November 1, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. V, 63. 383 “Ray Atherton to External Affairs,” November 6, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40, 3. 384 Ibid., 3. 144

the delivery of personnel and supplies by the U.S. Navy with the support of transport vessels and icebreakers.385

The increasing pressure on the Canadian Section of the PJBD, Acheson’s Oral Message to the Canadians, and Truman’s conversation with Mackenzie King injected new momentum into the weather stations talks. The State Department’s earlier misperception about a prompt approval of JAWS in May 1946, moreover, had given way to more nuanced assessments of the U.S.-

Canadian defense relationship in the Arctic by the end of the year. In late October, the State

Department’s Division of Foreign Activity Correlation distributed a U.S. Army Air Force intelligence paper among diplomats and officials.386 Among historians, the document has been the subject of debate. In her histories of Arctic sovereignty and U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation, Grant used portions of the analysis that argued for the existence of unclaimed islands in the Arctic and the U.S. right to occupy these in the event of a national security emergency as evidence to support her thesis about American expansionist motives.387 This reading, in turn, has been criticized by the revisionist school. These authors point to the document’s conclusions that advised against such an aggressive course of action in order to prevent potential political repercussions on the part of Ottawa, disrupting the bilateral relationship on a host of issues, including continental defense. They also cite the document’s view that on the basis of the 1933 East Greenland Case international law would likely have

385 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 39. 386 The Division of Foreign Activity Correlation was a holdover of the State Department’s first intelligence branches established in the early years of World War II. The division maintained liaison with the FBI and the OSS and circulated intelligence assessments throughout the department. See “Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment,” Office of the Historian, Department of State, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945-50Intel/intro2, last accessed on April 29, 1017. 387 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 185; idem, Polar Imperative, 299f. 145

upheld a Canadian claim.388 Bercuson, moreover, noted that the assessment did not amount to the level of a major statement of U.S. policy that Grant’s interpretation seemed to imply.389 As a result, the U.S. study confirms the argument that American officials were not pursuing a hidden agenda and were conscious of Canadian political sensitivity over the question of Arctic sovereignty.

Far beyond discussing the political and legal ramifications of Arctic defense cooperation with Canada, however, the U.S. intelligence assessment produced a historical and cultural analysis of the origins of Canadian skepticism towards Arctic defense cooperation with the

United States—a vital component in the paper that Grant and the historians of the revisionist school alike have left unexplored.390 The study identified a reluctant attitude among Canadian decision makers to approve U.S. requests to obtain knowledge of “the conditions of Arctic warfare” through the establishment of weather stations in the Canadian Arctic, a reluctance

“possibly with results fatal to hemispheric defense.” Tracing the origins of Canadian conduct as far back as the eighteenth century, the assessment observed that “frequent annexationist scares during the nineteenth century and the frontier adjustments,” a reference likely to the Alaska

Boundary Dispute, remained a potent historical force in the way Canadian officials conceived of defense cooperation with the United States. Although World War II ushered in a more friendly disposition towards continental defense, current Arctic projects had the potential to generate “a

388 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 52f; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic,” 90; Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs. 389 David J. Bercuson, “Book Review: Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-50 by Shelagh D. Grant,” Canadian Historical Review 70, no. 4 (1989): 578–88. 390 Ibid., Sovereignty or Security?; ibid., Polar Imperative; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50”; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic”; Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1972”; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968”; Lackenbauer, “Right and Honourable”; Coates et al., Arctic Front; Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty.” 146

renaissance of the annexationist fears.” The study concluded that “Foremost among the determinants of Canadian policy toward the United States requests for installations in the Arctic

Archipelago is the sentiment of national pride.” The “growth of a distinct Canadian nationalism,” as a result, conflated fears over a loss of territory, expressed in concerns over sovereignty, and the larger gravitational pull of the United States that might “void the Dominion’s independence as far as external affairs are concerned.” In light of these observations, the study recommended a series of steps Washington should consider to “neutralize this sensitiveness of Canadian national pride.” These proposals included official recognition of Canadian Arctic sovereignty, U.S. refusal to exclusively finance defense projects, and assurances that “the presence of American military forces will in no way interfere with the peaceful development of Arctic resources and industrial potential Canadian nationals.”391

The intelligence assessment was an exercise in cultural translation. The analysis made intelligible to American decision makers the historical and cultural forces bearing on Ottawa’s understanding of Northern defense. In doing so, it provided U.S. foreign and defense officials with what its authors understood to be Canadian perceptions of U.S. actions in the Arctic. The assessment classified the Canadian government’s concerns over sovereignty in the Arctic under the rubric of “the sentiment of national pride,” acknowledging the interplay of security interests, sovereignty concerns, and nationalism as part of the U.S.-Canadian Northern and Arctic defense relationship. The intelligence paper hence identified a critical element in the broader nexus that shaped the attitudes and rationale of Canadian foreign and defense officials in Ottawa. It

391 “Problems of Canadian-United States Cooperation in the Arctic,” U.S. Army Air Forces, Atlantic Division, Air Transport Command, October 29, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Correspondence File: January 1943-December 46, Box: 10, File: Correspondence of PJBD U.S. Canada 1946-January-December, 1-13. 147

demonstrated how the politics of Canada’s Northern nationalism manifested itself in the field of

U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the Arctic, a dimension historians have passed over in the past. While there is no evidence that links the State Department’s assessment with the publication of Pearson’s Foreign Affairs-essay three months earlier, the analysis unwittingly displays a well-attuned appreciation of the formative power of Canada’s Northern nationalism.

In the wake of the Truman-Mackenzie King meeting and progress in the U.S.-Canadian negotiations over a postwar defense agreement, Pearson and Atherton agreed to hold a high level diplomatic summit in Ottawa. The time seemed ripe to remove the final impediments in respect to the overall U.S.-Canadian postwar defense relationship and the implications for Northern and

Arctic defense installations in particular. Indeed, a well-sourced article by Maclean’s Blair

Fraser in early December 1946 surveyed current and prospective Arctic defense projects and cited a number of unnamed American military officials who painted a dispassionate picture of

Washington’s plans in the Arctic. Fraser presented a sympathetic case for improved Arctic capabilities, chronicled the initial irritations in Ottawa and Washington about the JAWS talks, and concluded, “today harmony is complete among all concerned.”392 Not all agreed. In a conversation with the State Department’s J. G. Parsons, the Canadian Air Vice Marshal W. A.

Curtis explained that, as opposed to the PJBD, some in the Canadian government felt

Washington was “undergoing a jittery stage” with respect to the Soviet threat. Curtis encouraged

Parsons to have one of the Americans’ “Russian experts” present to “selective Canadians here in

Ottawa” Washington’s “political analysis of Russian policy and long-term aims.”393 Curtis

392 Blair Fraser, “The Watch on the Arctic,” Maclean’s, December 1, 1946. 393 “Memorandum of conversation,” November 21, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 3. 148

“would get General McNaughton to sell that idea,” Parsons added.394 Three weeks later, the State

Department dispatched to Ottawa its principal Sovietologist, George F. Kennan.

The two-day meeting at the Chateau Laurier next to Parliament Hill in Ottawa on

December 16 and 17, 1946, was a frank exchange between both delegations. They compared notes about the nature of Soviet foreign policy, North American defense, and the implications for specific Northern and Arctic proposals currently under review, including the weather stations program. Pearson and Kennan agreed that Moscow did not pose an immediate threat to the North

American continent for the coming years. “[T]here was only a slight risk of aggression,” Pearson observed, “on the part of any potential enemy, such as the Soviet Union, in the near future.”395

Kennan stressed that it was important to understand the “basic aggressiveness” of Stalin’s ideology yet that it “was virtually certain that the Russians were not planning a direct attack.”396

A significant threat potential, however, existed in the Soviet Union rebuilding its industrial and economic base and continuing a policy of expansion. “The danger that Soviet policies may end in aggression,” the Canadian pre-circulated background memorandum concluded, “cannot safely be ignored and it becomes essential in self-protection to consider the defensive measures entailed by the possibility of Soviet aggression.”397 In the future, Kennan added, the potential for misperceptions and misjudgments would be the most pressing danger for conflict. Kennan laid out the United States’ policy of ‘containment’, which was designed to forestall Soviet

394 Ibid. 395 “Minutes of a Meeting between Representatives of Canada and the United States,” December 21, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1714. 396 “Memorandum of Canadian-United States Defense Conversations Held in Ottawa in Suite ‘E’ Chateau Laurier Hotel,” December 16 and 17, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 2. 397 “Political Appreciation of the Objectives of Soviet Foreign Policy,” November 30, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 5. 149

expansionism at strategic points throughout the world. This policy, he maintained, ought to be conducted in a non-provocative yet assertive fashion. Kennan’s gamble was to expect political change within the Kremlin as a result of the denying of its foreign policy objectives abroad. “A firm and patient policy of ‘containment’ pursued by us over a period of 10 or 15 years,” Kennan explained, “might well result in a frustration which would in itself lead to a period of peaceful policy on the part of Moscow.”398 Any global Cold War strategy, Atherton quickly pointed out, however, was predicated on the security of the economic and industrial heartland of North

America. “It would seem apparent” Atherton argued, “that Canada and the United States could not go to anyone’s assistance either in the Middle East or elsewhere unless the Arctic were secure.”399

The analyses of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy did not reveal significant discrepancies between the American and the Canadian delegation. The Canadian minutes of the meeting recorded that “no substantial difference” existed between Ottawa and Washington’s assessment with respect to the Kremlin’s foreign policy and the implications for the defense of the Northern and Arctic North America. The question of publicity for the announcement of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation and the public appearance of defense installations in Canada, by contrast, revealed significant disagreements. The Canadian delegation saw itself under pressure by growing public interest in northern defense projects to give some form of public statement on the continuation of both countries’ defense cooperation after the end of World War II. “[T]he entire problem,” Pearson pointed out, “was of far greater internal political importance in Canada than

398 “Memorandum of Canadian-United States Defense Conversations Held in Ottawa in Suite ‘E’ Chateau Laurier Hotel,” December 16 and 17, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 3. 399 Ibid., 4. 150

in the United States.”400 For this reason, the Canadian Under-Secretary of State and A. D. P.

Heeney suggested providing “civilian ‘cover’” for mapping activities, research into early warning, and the weather stations program.401 In a pre-circulated paper, the Canadians had raised the importance of portraying Northern defense activities as much as possible in the light of

Northern development. Where possible he proposed to use civilian agencies and personnel to staff stations and to conduct maintenance and construction activities.402 If ‘Canadianization’ of

Northern defense projects was not possible, “civilianization” appeared to offer the next-best alternative.403 The U.S. delegation was unenthused but offered to make arrangements to meet the

Canadians’ request. Finally, both delegations agreed to release a joint statement to announce the continuation of their defense cooperation, outlining in general terms the nature of the defense relationship. In his memorandum for Mackenzie King, Pearson recorded that all present agreed to “avoid sensationalism or anything savouring of the provocative.”404

The high-level exchange between the Canadian and American diplomats and defense officials was perceived as a success, both in Ottawa and in Washington. The Canadians were given privileged insight into the current strategic and foreign policy thinking in Washington.405

What is more, Pearson managed to have the American representatives agree to minimize the

400 Ibid., 4. 401 Ibid., 3; 5. 402 “Civilian Operations in Support fo Defence Projects,” December 6, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47. 403 “Memorandum of Canadian-United States Defense Conversations Held in Ottawa in Suite ‘E’ Chateau Laurier Hotel,” December 16 and 17, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 5. 404 “Memorandum from Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Prime Minister,” December 23, 1946, DCER, 1946, Vol. 12, 1725. 405 Beyond Kennan’s comments on his ‘containment’ policy, the American delegation spoke about geographic and ethical red lines it considered inadmissible for the Soviet Union, see: ibid., 1722f. 151

visibility of U.S. forces in Canada while arranging for a joint declaration of defense cooperation that would highlight Canada’s role as an equal partner in the common defense of North America.

The American delegation, on the other side, rebuilt trust and secured the support of the civilian side of the Canadian government for the establishment of defense installations throughout

Northern and Arctic Canada. Indeed, the Canadian report of the meeting praised the frankness of the talks and the understanding the Americans displayed for Canada’s reluctance to enter a rapidly expanding defense partnership with the United States. Pearson wrote to Mackenzie King that

Happily, it is some years since there has been any table-pounding in defence discussion between the two countries. It would be fair to say that while the United States representatives were naturally anxious to see the principles of a joint defence programme agreed, and the programme itself initiated, they were fully aware of the political and practical difficulties for Canada in embarking on any such programme. They recognized that because we are a much smaller country than the United States and because most of whatever is done will take place on our own territory, it is harder for Canada to reach decisions in these matters than for the United States.406

Earlier in the year, Pearson had pressed for complete Canadian control of the weather stations program in the North and cautioned against the political implications of a large U.S. presence in the North. The exchange with the Americans in December 1946 contributed to addressing his concerns. The ‘civilianization’ of these installations promised to reduce the political risks of provoking the Soviet Union as well as offending nationalist voices in Canada all the while addressing the continental defense requirements of both countries. In addition to the military branches of both governments, which had concurred in their recommendation for closer defense cooperation and the need for an expanded weather station network in the Arctic, Pearson felt the meeting had accomplished a greater appreciation of Canada’s political dynamics surrounding defense cooperation with the United States.

406 Ibid., 1722. 152

After Kennan’s visit to Ottawa, the Canadian Cabinet approved the PJBD’s 35th

Recommendation for the organization of the defense of the North American continent on January

16, 1947.407 The document provided for the standardization of military equipment, the exchange of personnel and observers, the mutual availability of military facilities, and the inviolability of each country’s national sovereignty. With the approval of these principles, Ottawa committed

Canada to the continuation of the wartime defense partnership with the United States and reduced its historic reliance on Britain as the ultimate guarantor of its national defense. Whether this decision was an illustration of Canada’s maturity as an independent international actor or the replacement of its military dependence on one colonial power with another remained to be seen.

The assurances enshrined in the framework agreement, which became the Joint Statement on

Defense, however, paved the way for the Canadian Cabinet’s approval of the Joint Arctic

Weather Stations two weeks later.408 Writing from the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City at the same time, ambassador Hugh L. Keenleyside, who had kept himself informed on matters of

Northern affairs, pointed out that Washington had just struck deals with Mexico, Cuba, and the

Dominican Republic to establish weather stations along the Pacific Coast, the Gulf Coast, and the Caribbean.409 In addition to External Affairs’ frequent exchanges with the Danish Foreign

Ministry about American requests on Greenland, 410 Keenleyside’s telegram contextualizes

407 “Canada-U.S. PJBD; Proposals for Cooperation between Canadian and U.S. Forces,” January 16, 1947, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Volume 2639, Item: 8067; “Thirty-Fifth Recommendation,” n.d., NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, American Section, Recommendations, 1941- 53, 21st-53/1, Box 1, File: 35th Recommendation: Security Arrangements between Armed Forces. 408 “Canadian Meteorological Requirements; Report of Interdepartmental Committee,” January 28, 1947, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Volume 2639, Item: 8153. 409 “Hugh L. Keenleyside to External Affairs,” January 22, 1947, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 410 For a selection of exchanges between External Affairs and the Danish Foreign Ministry about Canadian and Danish policy regarding American requests for the establishment of weather stations and bases in the North American Arctic, see R. M. Macdonnell, “Conversation with Danish Minister on Northern Weather Stations,” November 16, 1946; ibid., “Danish Minister’s Enquiry About Cooperation between Canada and the United States in 153

Washington’s requests within the United States hemispheric, if not global, Cold War strategy.

On February 13, 1947, the day after Ottawa and Washington released their joint announcement about their decision to continue the wartime defense cooperation, Pearson informed Atherton of the Canadian government’s approval of the weather stations program in the Canadian Arctic.411

The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, and the Minister of

Reconstruction and Supply went out of their way to cast the project in a civilian light and portray the nature of the American contribution as minimal as possible. In the House of Commons,

Mackenzie King emphasized the scientific and potentially commercial benefits of expanding northern meteorological facilities when announcing the approval of the program.412 Louis St.

Laurent reiterated the Prime Minister’s emphasis on the civilian aspects of northern defense activities and highlighted the North’s potential for development shortly after Ottawa’s approval of JAWS. In New York, St. Laurent spoke of the “magical effect upon the imagination of many people” which had been generated by a growing awareness of the political and economic importance of Northern and Arctic Canada. Not unlike Pearson’s Northern vision, the Secretary of State promoted the North as a place of promise and national development. St. Laurent further rejected press reports, particularly in the Soviet Union, which suggested Canada had bowed to

American pressure and deferred to Washington the defense of its northern regions.413 By the same token, C. D. Howe stressed the economic value of improved weather forecasting for

Arctic Weather Reporting,” November 14, 1946; R. A. J. Phillips, “Exchange of Meteorological Information with Greenland and the United States,” November 6, 1946; R. M. Macdonnell, “Weather Stations,” July 22, 1946; “Royal Danish Legation in Ottawa to External Affairs,” July 6, 1946; “G. B. Holler to External Affairs,” May 6, 1946, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 411 “Lester B. Pearson to Ray Atherton,” February 13, 1947, LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File: 9061-A-40. 412 “Defence Cooperation. Security Relationship between Canada and United States in North America,” February 12, 1947, House of Commons Debates, 20th Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. I, 348f. 413 Louis St. Laurent, “Canadian Participation in International Affairs,” February 26, 1947, LAC, MG 26-L, Vol. 253, File: PM-1947-5 – Rotary Club – New York, Feb. 26/47. 154

agriculture, lumbering, and aviation. Anticipating Soviet criticism, he pointed to JAWS’ cooperative nature and reached out to the Kremlin, explaining that “it is hoped to be able to interchange Arctic weather information with the U.S.S.R. and other neighbouring countries in the north when possible.” Howe, furthermore, minimized the appearance of the United States’ participation to the extent it almost seemed incidental.414

As much as Mackenzie King, St. Laurent, and Howe sought to downplay the role of the

United States in the establishment of JAWS, the reality looked quite different. Between 1947 and

1950, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy exclusively lifted the construction material, supplies, equipment, and personnel to the weather station sites in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The

U.S. station at Thule in Greenland served as a major redistribution hub and the U.S. Weather

Bureau in cooperation with Canada’s Department of Transport oversaw the operations of the weather stations.415 The Canadian government’s efforts to create the impression that JAWS involved only minimal assistance by the United States did not mollify skeptical voices. As the newly appointed Chief of the Geographical Bureau in Ottawa and Head of the Geography

Department at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, Trevor Lloyd sounded the alarm bells in the pages of Ottawa’s premier foreign policy journal. The Canadian government’s assurances notwithstanding, Lloyd raised grave concerns over U.S. defense proposals, citing projects such as Hubbard’s weather program as potential evidence “for further [U.S.] penetration of the north.” At the same time, he was dubious about Canada’s ability to protect Canadian interests in light of its history of neglect towards its Northern and Arctic regions. Should Ottawa

414 “Weather Forecasting. Proposed Establishment of Stations in the Arctic,” March 4, 1946, House of Commons Debates, 20th Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. II, 990. 415 Grant, Polar Imperative, 303–4; Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 41–44. 155

fail to apply the terms of the February 1947 Joint Statement, Lloyd warned, “the territory will be lost.”416 Despite the joint public announcement of the inviolability of each country’s sovereignty, doubts about Washington’s intentions in the North persisted.

After two years of Hubbard’s lobbying the U.S. Congress and the better part of a year of

U.S.-Canadian talks, Ottawa had approved Washington’s request to establish a network of weather stations in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago as a joint project. Lawmakers in

Washington and State Department officials proposed the project as an effort to collect scientific data as much as a means to improve navigational capabilities in the High Arctic for national security reasons. As Keenleyside’s January 1947 note hinted, the weather stations program constituted one element in a global Cold War strategy, not a targeted effort to expand the United

States’ presence in the Canadian Arctic. Yet concerns over Canadian sovereignty and pressure to apply the ‘Canadianization’ policy to the program by External Affairs and other civilian agencies characterized the internal debates over the decision to grant approval. The unresolved status of

Ottawa and Washington’s postwar defense relationship, moreover, froze the project in its tracks.

Pearson’s frequent statements on the cultural dimension of the North and Heeney’s trial balloon to jump-start JAWS as an exclusively Canadian program illustrate the potency of the North as a vehicle for the expression of a vibrant Canadian Northern nationalism. Ultimately, Canadian and

American diplomats, therefore, successfully navigated these nationalist impulses and sovereignty

416 Lloyd had served on the Canadian Wartime Information Board during World War II and provided Ottawa with detailed information about the nature and the development of Arctic research institutions in the United States. His article was partially motivated by a surge in Soviet propaganda about U.S.-Canada defense cooperation in the North in the wake of the February 1947 Joint Statement. A series of press reports had claimed Canada had acquiesced to American demands for large-scale bases in the Arctic. Trevor Lloyd, “Canada’s Strategic North,” International Journal 2, no. 2 (Spring 1947): 144–49. 156

concerns within the broader process of transitioning the U.S.-Canadian defense relationship into the early Cold War era.

The Implementation of JAWS, 1947-1950

In April 1947, Charles J. Hubbard of the U.S. Weather Bureau was able to send out a U.S. Navy convoy to the Canadian Arctic to begin the establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations. A technical meeting in Ottawa in late February 1947 had finalized the sites and the regulations governing the staffing and operation of the weather stations. The first two stations were to be built at Winter Harbour on Melville Island and at Eureka Sound on the west coast of Ellesmere

Island. Additional sites for future stations also were discussed at the meeting and reconnaissance flights were scheduled. The specific arrangements along the stations also were worked out: stations were to be staffed equally with Canadian and American personnel with a Canadian in charge at each station; Canada retained control of customs, radio communications, and publicity.

In harmony with its wartime policy, the Canadian government paid for all permanent installations and furnished half of the staff’s salaries. All other costs, including equipment, transportation, fuel, and supplies, were born by the United States. Both governments agreed to review this arrangement on a regular basis.417

The first joint weather station was established at Eureka Sound on April 7, 1947. Via airlift from Thule station in Greenland, the U.S. Army Air Force transported supplies, equipment, and personnel to the site. Within a day, historian Shelagh Grant describes, “a

Jamesway hut had been erected and a rough airfield cleared, with radio and meteorological

417 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 41. 157

equipment fully operational.”418 When the frozen waters of Melville Sound prevented the U.S.

Navy from reaching Winter Harbour, Hubbard decided not to loose another construction season and settle for an alternate site. Instead of Winter Harbour, the second JAWS station was erected at Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island. Construction crews worked at a breakneck pace and build housing units, an airfield, and a 3,5km road to connect the airfield with the base. At the time,

Grant notes, all of three Canadian observers were send to Resolute to report on the construction progress at the site. They joined more than one hundred U.S. military personnel as well as construction workers.419

During the summer of 1948, Mould Bay on Prince Patrick Island and Isachsen on

Isachsen Island were established. Resupply missions of the existing stations took up most of the

U.S. Navy’s capacities during the year. A reconnaissance flight discovered a promising site for another station on the northernmost tip of Ellesmere Island. When the navy task force suffered ice damage it completed its supply runs and cached construction material at the new site. The convoy did not leave, however, before Hubbard caused a major embarrassment to the Canadian government. Hubbard had joined the supply voyages of the U.S. Navy since the summer of 1947.

On his 1948 trip to Ellesmere Island, he came upon a cairn, containing documents by the

American explorer Robert Peary. In violation of the Northwest Territories Archaeological Sites

Ordinance, Hubbard decided to remove the documents and take them to the United States.420

When the Canadian commander aboard the navy vessel informed Hubbard that he was breaking

Canadian law, Hubbard refused to return the documents and argued that he was repatriating

418 Grant, Polar Imperative, 303. 419 Ibid., 303. 420 Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946- 1972,” 156. 158

American property. The Canadian officer acquiesced, made copies of the documents, and permitted Hubbard to transport them to the United States. The episode took on a political dimension when a front-page story in the New York Times appeared and public demands emerged for Hubbard to make his find available to the public.421 When the Montreal Gazette joined the New York Times and accused Canadian diplomats of a “ruffled pride” for preventing the publication of the documents, Ottawa eventually consented to its release.422 In light of this episode, the Canadian government decided to minimize publicity for the supply activities to the weather stations. These missions were to be “left as inconspicuous as possible” and “to drop into obscurity.”423

421 Murray Schumach, “U.S. Vessels Find 1906 Peary Cache,” New York Times, September 28, 1948. 422 Ibid., “Peary Texts Make Red Tape Chowder,” New York Times, September 30, 1948, 29; ibid., “Canadians’ Sensibilities Blamed for Holding Up the Peary Letters,” Montreal Gazette, September 30, 1948. 423 Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946- 1972,” 157. 159

Figure 3: “This is on Us!” Maclean’s, March 1,1950.

In the spring of 1950, the fifth JAWS station, Alert, named after the eponymous ship of

Sir George Nares who wintered in the vicinity of the site from 1875 to 1876, was constructed.

The airlift was carried out by Royal Canadian Air Force as well as U.S. Air Force aircraft after the supplies that had been stowed on the island two years earlier were recuperated and found in excellent condition. In a massive logistical operation, housing units, airfields, fuel storage facilities, shelter for cargo aircraft, and technical installations were constructed and food for two years was stowed away. If not for the tragic events that followed at the end of July that year,

Grant concludes, “the exercise appeared to be an unqualified success, an extraordinary

160

achievement for science and man in his assault on the formidable High Arctic.”424 These accomplishments were overshadowed, however, when a Canadian cargo plane crashed during a parachute drop, killing all eight Canadians on board and the head of the Arctic Operations

Section at the U.S. Weather Bureau, Charles J. Hubbard. A second plane, sent to recover the remains, also crashed. As a result, the station crew at Alert set up nine crosses to commemorate the victims of the tragedy.425 The death of Hubbard coincided with the completion of the final

JAWS station. As talks between Ottawa and Washington moved to questions over the supply, maintenance, and staffing of the weather stations, Hubbard’s tireless advocacy, if at times irritating to some Canadian quarters, had secured his place in the history of the Canadian-

American talks over JAWS.

Beginning in 1950, the Canadian government sought to assume a greater role in the supply missions for the five stations. Although it had initially pledged to replace the American staff members at the stations it would take another twenty years for Ottawa to make good on its commitment. By the mid-1950s, the vast majority of the naval and air supply mission were conducted by the Royal Canadian Navy and the R.C.A.F. Alert remained the only station to be supplied by the U.S. Air Force via its station at Thule in Greenland. In the wake of the public outcry over the voyage of the American tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage and the Pierre-Elliot Trudeau government’s efforts to appease nationalist voices in Canada, Ottawa assumed complete responsibility for JAWS in 1972. Fully staffed by Canadian personnel, the

Joint Arctic Weather Stations continued now as HAWS, the High Arctic Weather Stations.

424 Grant, Polar Imperative, 310f; Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 47. 425 Bill Davidson, “Our Sub-Zero Heroes,” Colliers, n.d., LAC, RG 25, Vol. 3347, File 9061-A-40. 161

Conclusion

The history of the establishment of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations constitutes an interregnum in the larger history of U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relations in the Arctic, bridging the cooperation of World War II with the yet unfolding security environment of the early Cold War.

In this context, the talks shine a bright light on how Canadian and U.S. diplomats navigated the political, cultural, and legal dimensions of a project whose scientific and military value had not been disputed by both governments. The central question rather was how to harmonize a renewed Northern nationalism that envisioned a sovereign and activist international foreign policy for Canada with the integration and interdependency inherent in the continentalism of defense cooperation with the United States. As Ottawa staked out its role as an active participant in the organization of the postwar order, it sought to carve out a largest possible degree of independence within the renewed defense relationship with Washington. The Arctic weather stations project was deeply entangled in this larger process and refocused attention on the Arctic, conflating questions over security, sovereignty, and the growing voice of Northern nationalists in

Ottawa.

In the debate between the critics of the Mackenzie King government and the revisionist historians over balancing Canada’s sovereignty and security interests, this study supports the findings of the latter school. Hume Wrong in his capacity as head of External Affairs successfully prevented an inevitable legal confrontation between Ottawa and Washington over

Canada’s legal claims to the Arctic Archipelago in the early phase of the talks. The legal assessment presented by External Affairs official R. A. J. Phillips and Wrong’s political judgment to continue to officially consider Ottawa’s claim unchallenged in June 1946 relegated the political question of sovereignty to the overall discussion of U.S.-Canadian postwar defense

162

cooperation without linking it explicitly to the JAWS negotiations. By the same token,

Mackenzie King’s decision to withhold approval of the U.S. weather stations request until the negotiations over the nature of the defense relationship between both countries’ included a provision for the protection of sovereign rights demonstrates Ottawa’s successful commitment to a policy of firm and patient gradualism. In both instances, Canada’s legal position was solidified, not weakened. As a result, Washington’s request for the establishment of the Arctic weather stations did not constitute a sovereignty crisis for the Canadian government.

Shelagh Grant’s portrayal of U.S. motivations and potential ambitions for challenging

Canadian claims to unoccupied Arctic islands also remains incomplete. As Bercuson, Kikkert, and Lackenbauer have shown, statements by individual officials and lower-level studies did not reflect the policy of the U.S. Department of State or the White House. Authoritative guidance by

Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the comments by President Harry Truman to the Canadian

Prime Minister not only fail to imply any intentions of questioning the validity of the Canadian legal position. Particularly following King’s decision to delay approval of the project, they displayed a keen awareness of Ottawa’s sensitivity with respect to the legal and political implications of Northern and Arctic defense cooperation between both countries. Likewise, a full analysis of the assessments cited by Grant to support her interpretation of U.S. expansionist motives reveals a nuanced appreciation of the political repercussions and the detrimental international legal rulings likely to result from an aggressive American policy. Despite

Washington’s rejection of the sector principle as a legal basis to advance sovereignty claims, a principle repeatedly referenced by Canadian officials, American officials were not ambiguous about the inadvisability of unilateral U.S. occupation of uninhabited islands in the Arctic.

163

Instead, they sought to sideline the legal debates and to ensure Canadian cooperation in the realm of Northern and Arctic continental defense.

The Canadian government’s postwar efforts to address the emerging Soviet security threat from across the Arctic Ocean and the concerns over the political and legal dimension of ever increasing defense integration with the United States at the same time intersected with a resurging Northern nationalism. At a moment of transition, when the role of Canada in the international arena and its relationship to the United States had yet to be fully defined, the well- established tropes of a distinct connection between the Northern and Arctic regions and the nation’s history, identity, and future development were reaffirmed. Against the backdrop of a tradition that originated in the nineteenth century, individuals such as Pierre Berton, Vincent

Massey, Hugh Keenleyside, Brooke Claxton or Lester Pearson lent their voice to amplify the idea of Canada as a Northern nation. In doing so, they cast the Northern and Arctic regions of the country as a spiritual and material marker in the future development of Canada, one that made acknowledgment of being dependent upon the United States for carrying out defense and research activities politically difficult. As a result, Northern and Arctic defense cooperation with the United States, in addition to being a question of protecting sovereignty and responding to the

Soviet Union, was also one of asserting what public elites and government officials viewed as

Canada’s Northern identity and history.

Historians have noted the existence of such ideas and traditions. The recurring invocation of these tropes in the communications of senior foreign and defense officials as well as in

American assessments of Canadian Northern and Arctic policy, however, has been passed over.

Yet, these tropes represented well-established ideas, not mere ornamentation. References to

Western exploration and the invocation of the Arctic Ocean as a new Mediterranean constituted

164

potent frameworks among foreign and defense officials for making sense of current developments in the Northern and Arctic regions. As such, they were a staple in Pearson’s public speeches and articles in the United States when he sought to convey the importance of the region to his American audience, all the while unofficially advancing the contested sector claim. Along with fellow Arcticians Heeney, Macdonnell, and Lloyd, Pearson sought to translate his fascination with the Arctic into policy, pressing for the Arctic weather stations to be run as an exclusive Canadian operation, irrespective of Ottawa’s existing financial, logistical, and personnel capacities.

In the context of this Northern nationalism and the policy of ‘re-Canadianization’,

Mackenzie King’s decision to withhold permission for JAWS, furthermore, dovetails his skepticism of American activities across in the North. What is more, U.S. officials were not unaware of this cultural dimension of Canadian attitudes towards bilateral defense cooperation in the Arctic. Historical experience dating back to the Alaska Boundary Dispute at the turn of the twentieth century and a national pride connected to the Northern and Arctic regions were identified as key determinants of Canadian views. These ideas, R. J. Sutherland wrote, had

“captured the imagination of many Canadians including Canadian military men.”426 Despite initial misreadings of Canadian attitudes during the first half of 1946, Washington sought to accommodate Canadian wishes with respect to publicity and a largest possible civilian appearance of U.S. activities as possible.

The decision by the Canadian government to approve the construction of the weather stations in the Arctic Archipelago on the basis of the Joint Statement of Defense of 1947 and a

426 Sutherland, “The Strategic Significance of the Arctic,” 257. 165

set of rules and regulations designed to preserve Canada’s title to the land and the right to take over the operation of the program in the future needs to be seen in the context of negotiating the aspects of sovereignty, security, and nationalism. External Affairs and the Mackenzie King channeled the Northern nationalist impulse for an assertive diplomacy towards Washington into a policy without losers. It addressed Canadian and American interests in expanded Arctic security and research, preserved Ottawa’s legal position, and it afforded the ensuing governments the opportunity to assuage Northern nationalists by emphasizing cooperation on eye-level with the Americans, one that still took another decade to transpire before Ottawa assumed responsibility for the annual resupply missions and provided equal staffing along the stations.

By the time the last weather station in the JAWS network was established in the summer of 1950, the international environment had shifted dramatically. The tensions between the Soviet

Union and the United States of the immediate postwar period had hardened into military alliances. Diplomatic brinksmanship in Europe and in Asia led to tense confrontations and escalated into a shooting war in Korea. Canada had aligned itself closely with the United States, was a member of NATO, and deployed troops and naval forces to the Korean peninsula. The

Soviet Union’s successful detonation of a nuclear device in August 1949, however, eclipsed all other developments in their impact on the organization for the continental defense of North

America. For defense planners in Washington and Ottawa, the specter of a nuclear-armed long- range bomber crossing the Arctic Ocean to deliver a crippling attack on the industrial heartland of the United States had become a reality. The establishment of the Distant Early Warning Line in the mid-1950s, the most daunting and most costly defense project in the Canadian Arctic during the Cold War, would dwarf the scope of JAWS and push the air defenses of North

America far into the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada. If the negotiations over JAWS

166

touched upon questions of Canada’s place in the world and its identity as a distinct North

American society, these issues would return throughout the talks over the constructions of the

DEW Line with even greater fervor.

167

CHAPTER III

The Distant Early Warning Line: 1950-1955

The significant advances in mass destruction weapons and their carriers [...] by the Soviet Union constitute a growing threat to the United States. Without detracting from the necessity of continuing to build up retaliatory striking power, this developing threat lends increasing urgency to our efforts to strengthen our capabilities for continental defense.

“An Early Warning System,” National Security Council, 1952427

The history of Canada has been an exciting story—the heroic, peaceful conquest of a vast new land. It is the story of the explorer, the missionary, the trader and the settler—the great thrust westward to the Pacific and north to the Arctic. It is the story of the railroader and the bush pilot, the prospector and the engineer. […] Our vast northland has been called the last North American frontier. And we are still at a stage when great new discoveries are being made, for the fullness of our great natural wealth is as yet unknown.

A. D. P. Heeney, Ambassador to the United States, 1954428

Introduction

By the end of the 1940s, the international fissures and frictions among the United States and the

Soviet Union had become endemic to the international system. The formation of regional military pacts, the rapid expansion of nuclear capabilities, and a deepening ideological confrontation, among other developments, raised the specter of military conflict, most prominently in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Technological advancements in the fields of aviation and nuclear arms, however, put to rest any notions that North America would remain sheltered from the strategic reach of the Soviet Union’s long-range bomber fleet. Moscow’s successful detonation of a nuclear bomb in 1949 and its expanding air power lent unprecedented

427 “NSC-139: An Early Warning System,” December 31, 1952, NARA, RG 273 Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 126-139, Box 18, File: NSC 139. 428 A. D. P. Heeney, “WGAY – United Nations Broadcast,” June 27, 1954, LAC, A. D. P. Heeney Fonds, MG 30 E 144, Vol. 11, File: Speeches as Ambassador to U.S. Apr 1954 – Dec 1954. 168

urgency to the expansion of the continental air defense network ever further north. As defense planners in Canada and the United States had identified the Northern and Arctic approaches to the industrial centers of both countries as the principal avenue for potential incursions both countries expanded their military presence throughout the regions with scientific programs, training centers, field exercises, surveillance patrols, and the construction of the Joint Arctic

Weather Stations.429 By the early 1950s, U.S. scientists and politicians concluded that early warning by way of radar detection in the Arctic constituted a vital element in Washington’s global Cold War deterrence strategy. If the Canadian government had struggled to apply its ‘re-

Canadianization’ policy to JAWS, Arctic early warning cast these efforts into even greater doubt.

As the continentalist pull grew, Canadian diplomats and defense officials sought ways to manage this intricate nexus of security interests and the nationalist impulses

The establishment of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a network of radar stations flung across the North American Arctic coastline from Alaska, to Canada, and Greenland, during the mid-1950s became the Cold War’s most ambitious U.S.-Canadian defense project in

Northern and Arctic Canada. Conceived in the military research institutions of the United States, the DEW Line was designed to provide sufficient early warning in the event of an airborne attack across the Arctic to scramble interceptor aircrafts, deploy the U.S. Strategic Air Command’s nuclear retaliatory bomber fleet, and initiate basic civil defense measures.430 Beyond the radar line’s strategic purpose as an element in the larger continental air defense architecture, the DEW

Line raised fundamental questions about the role of Northern and Arctic Canada in the global

429 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 320ff; Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 60; Grant, Polar Imperative, 285f. 430 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 68; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 174f. 169

Cold War foreign policy of the United States. As scientists and strategists at research institutions and universities in the United States remade Arctic conceptions in light of technological advancements in radar, computation, and electronics, 431 the region continued to figure prominently in the national imagination of Canadian foreign and defense officials. The intensifying security crisis of the Cold War remained marred in the politics of U.S.-Canadian

Arctic defense cooperation.

The official talks between Canadian and American diplomatic and defense establishments coincided with intensifying nationalist activities and the Canadian government’s growing expansion into the Northern and Arctic territories. Had the public debates over the Canadian

Citizenship Act of 1947 and the introduction of a Canadian national flag fueled a sense of nationhood and national identity during the immediate postwar years, these discussions gained greater traction during the early 1950s. The report by the Royal Commission on National

Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences under the auspices of the cultural nationalist

Vincent Massey in 1951 catalyzed state intervention as a tool to strengthen Canada’s public, academic, and artistic institutions. The creation of the Department of Northern Affairs and

Natural Resources in 1953, by the same token, illustrated Ottawa’s decision to take greater ownership of the development and the activities across the Northern and Arctic regions of

Canada. These trends were reflected in debates throughout newspapers, magazines, radio programs, and documentary films. One contemporary commentator, in fact, subsumed these and other debates over the national development of Canada under the title The Search for Identity.432

431 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 147–92. 432 Blair Fraser, The Search for Identity: Canada, 1945-1967. (New York: Doubleday, 1967). 170

This search for an identity was also operative during the U.S.-Canadian negotiations over the establishment of the DEW Line.

Historians of the Distant Early Warning Line have examined the project for the most part within the analytical framework of the sovereignty and security debate. While no monograph- length study of the DEW Line has been published thus far, these works have parsed the bilateral talks between Ottawa and Washington for how the Canadian foreign and defense officials interpreted the legal and de facto status of Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. They have examined the question whether the St. Laurent government ultimately sacrificed control over parts of the country to accommodate the security demands of the United States. More recent studies have begun to move away from this framework and adopted environmental history and constructivist approaches to demonstrate the formative power of ideas about space, science, and technology as key aspects of the DEW Line project. This study builds on these works and contributes to a better understanding of the ideas and mythologies that informed Canadian foreign and defense officials throughout the DEW Line negotiations with the United States. In doing so, it expands upon the sovereignty and security framework to include cultural representations of Northern and Arctic Canada as a meaningful aspect in the bilateral talks between Ottawa and Washington.

Contemporary commentators were restricted to open source material in their discussions of continental defense, sovereignty, and the DEW Line. In their 1966 essays, Gordon W. Smith and R. J. Sutherland discussed the DEW Line only in a perfunctory manner. Smith argued that

Canadian legal title to the Arctic had been well-established in the early 1930s but added that continued administration and occupation of these islands was necessary to maintain this claim.

The DEW Line, in his view, was an example of American willingness to acquiesce to Canadian

171

sovereignty interests.433 By the same token, Sutherland concluded that the radar network, in effect, constituted a U.S. recognition of Canadian sovereignty in the region.434 Although these early commentators were unable to examine the DEW Line talks in detail, their works reflect the strategic debate over the U.S. deterrence posture and a simmering layer of political unease on the part of Canada. They also point to a generally effective and friendly cooperation between Ottawa and Washington in the Arctic.

American scholars of the history of U.S.-Canadian continental air defense continued to discuss the origins and the negotiations over the construction of the DEW Line in light of

Washington’s internal strategic debate. Joseph Jockel’s chapter-length account of the radar system focuses on the evolution of the project in the U.S. military-scientific establishment, pitting scientists and research institutions’ emphasis on early warning against the U.S. Air

Force’s proclivity for strengthening offensive capabilities and parts of the Eisenhower administration’s fiscal conservatism. Ottawa’s perspective is reduced to a minor role in Jockel’s telling. Canadian diplomats and defense officials responded to the U.S. plans mostly by enacting a cost-defense strategy, minimizing the Canadian government’s expenditures while preserving a limited contribution to continental defense, he argues.435 Kenneth Schaffel likewise portrays the

DEW Line through the lens of the larger U.S. debate over defensive and offensive deterrence strategy, devoting little attention to Canadian perspectives. Schaffel’s history of early warning constitutes one aspect in the larger American air defense strategy, less so of the bilateral defense relationship between Ottawa and Washington. 436 In fact, the negotiations of 1954 and 1955 that

433 Smith, “Sovereignty in the North.” 434 Sutherland, “The Strategic Significance of the Arctic.” 435 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, Chpt. 4. 436 Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, Chpt. 8. 172

led to the DEW Line agreement and the Canadian debate over participation in the network play only a marginal role both in Jockel’s and Schaffel’s works.

This soon changed. Most prominently, Shelagh Grant’s research into Northern and Arctic sovereignty and defense cooperation challenged the notion of benign relations between Ottawa and Washington during the early Cold War. Washington’s request for the construction of the

DEW Line was but one example in a long line of Northern and Arctic defense projects, she argued, that resulted in the expansion of the United States’ presence in the Canadian Arctic. The

American expansionism Grant had identified during the JAWS negotiations now was dovetailed by U.S. pressures and impatience over Ottawa’s efforts to preserve its sovereignty claims during the DEW Line talks. Ultimately, she insists, security came at the cost of sovereignty.437 James

Eayrs had also noted that despite the comprehensive catalogue of rules and regulations that the

St. Laurent government had Washington accept for the construction and operation of the radar system, de facto control in the Canadian North was slipping from Ottawa’s hands.438 For Thomas

M. Tynan likewise “the question of American intentions remains unsettled.” If the DEW Line had been designed to respond to the Soviet bomber threat, it also posed a “vague threat to

Canadian sovereignty.” The unresolved status of international law, the potential of the Arctic as a resource rich region, and its symbolic role in Canada’s cultural nationalism, Tynan concludes, contributed to the persistence of sovereignty concerns among Canadian diplomats during the second half of the twentieth century.439 As a result, for these historians Canadian defense

437 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, Chpt.7; ibid., Polar Imperative, Chpt. 10. 438 James G. Eayrs, Canada in World Affairs: October 1955 to June 1957 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1965). 439 Tynan, “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic.” 173

cooperation in the DEW Line entailed the potential of sacrificing sovereignty in the interest of security.

More recent studies of the DEW Line and U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation during the

1950s have repudiated the Grant School. Neither did Washington pursue a hidden agenda for

U.S. Arctic expansionism, nor did the St. Laurent government jeopardize or even sacrifice

Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. David J. Bercuson argues that the series of joint and U.S. activities in the Arctic in combination with the U.S.-Canadian defense agreement of February

1947 effectively secured Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic “on both de jure and de facto grounds.”440 Whitney Lackenbauer has taken the argument further to show that the DEW Line, in fact, strengthened Canada’s legal position in the Arctic. Together with Peter Kikkert,

Lackenbauer has shown that in addition to the broad set of regulations stipulated in the U.S.-

Canadian agreement for the radar system, it was Canadian companies and Inuit who were employed along the stations, thus lending greater credence to Ottawa’s legal position based on the principle of ‘effective occupation’. Moreover, the DEW Line turned out to be a boon for

Canadian companies as they received subcontracts and the region more broadly, as Kenneth Eyre has noted.441 These findings have been confirmed in more recent studies by Adam Lajeunesse and Alexander Herd,442 although the latter suggests that concerns over sovereignty continued to persist despite the DEW Line agreement. These historians, ultimately, interpret the establishment

440 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50,” 154. 441 Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 107–9; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 74f; Kenneth Eyre, “Forty Years of Military Activity in the Canadian North, 1947-87,” Arctic 40, no. 4 (1987): 294. 442 Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs, 61–65; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 193f. 174

of the DEW Line as an instrument—if unintentional—in undergirding Canada’s title to terrestrial sovereignty in the Arctic on the basis of the principle of ‘effective occupation’.

The revisionist school has received further support from research into civil-military relations and the struggle for command and control in the increasingly entangled U.S.-Canadian

North American defense architecture. Matthew P. Trudgen has shown that a ‘functional’ approach443 by the RCAF prevailed over the domestic politics and sovereignty concerns that guided St. Laurent and External Affairs.444 Personal and professional ties between the U.S. Air

Force and the RCAF through a plethora of bilateral committees and boards as well as the shared history of being relatively recent creations contributed to a common appreciation of continental air defense. The RCAF, in particular, defined its role in continental air defense arrangements in harmony with its capabilities and resources, one that was not always in line with the political views at External Affairs.445 This functional approach, moreover, served Ottawa well when negotiating specific air defense command and control arrangements with the United States for control over its military forces on Canadian territory. In doing so, the Canadian government participated in the air defense of the continent relative to its capabilities, ensuring effective defense cooperation with the United States and preserving what Lackenbauer described as “a piece of the action” to ultimately reaffirm Canadian sovereignty.446

443 Hume Wrong outlined the idea of functionalism during World War II to devise a framework for Canadian consultation and participation in the war effort relative to Ottawa’s resources and capabilities. See Holmes, The Shaping of Peace, 1979, 1:72f; Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, 86–125. 444 Trudgen notes that a Canadian nationalism also affected the St. Laurent government yet he does not engage the literature on Canadian Northern nationalism or nationalism in Canada more broadly. As such, his observation is apt yet underdeveloped. 445 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security: The Development of the North American Air Defence System, 1949-1956” (Queen’s University, 2011). 446 Richard E. Goette, “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Air Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957” (Queen’s University, 2009). 175

Others have looked to the realm of ideas and the production of knowledge in their examination of Cold War defense projects in the Arctic. Drawing on the epistemological work of

Michel Foucault, the historical geographer Matthew Farish privileges the intimate entanglement between American and Canadian scientists and research institutions, on the one hand, and the military-strategic establishment, on the other, in his portrayal of the origins of the DEW Line.

Higher-order discursive forces of the Arctic as a space to be made amenable to the strategic imperatives of the nuclear age, he explains, fundamentally shaped the imaginative framework within which decision makers in Ottawa and Washington made their choices. After all, the Arctic as a geographical space was not just there but had to be constructed as such. The DEW Line, therefore, was the brainchild of the military-industrial-scientific complex and an “extraordinary feat of geographical engineering.”447 According to environmental historian Adrian Howkins, the

DEW Line was another example of U.S. attempts for “mastery of the polar landscapes,” performing the “superiority of the capitalist system over communism in the conquest of nature.”448

This study builds on the findings of the revisionist school. It confirms the interpretation that U.S. continental defense policy was directed towards protecting Washington’s deterrence capabilities, not to challenge Canadian terrestrial sovereignty in the Arctic (questions over maritime sovereignty would become a more complex issue later). It further supports the findings of Trudgen and Goette that National Defence and the RCAF viewed continental defense through a functional lens, matching capabilities and resources with its role in the DEW Line. At the same time, this chapter explores the role of nationalism throughout the talks between Ottawa and

447 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 181–89. 448 Howkins, The Polar Regions, 132–35. 176

Washington in detail. Where Grant, Tynan, Herd, and Trudgen have noted the general existence of nationalist tendencies in the St. Laurent government, specifically External Affairs, they have passed over such ideas and statements during the DEW Line negotiations.449 By examining the prevalence of Northern nationalist ideas during the early 1950s and tracing these notions in the speeches, state visits, policy memoranda, cabinet decisions, and the bilateral talks with the

United States, this analysis contributes a new perspective on the history of the DEW Line. Next to the issues of protecting Canada’s sovereignty and addressing U.S. continental security needs, key decision makers considered Washington’s request for the establishment of a radar network in the Arctic in the context of protecting what Melvin Conant called in 1962 an “independent cultural identity,” one that drew on a well-established canon of Northern tropes and mythology.

Specifically, this analysis sheds new light on the initial meetings between the incoming

Eisenhower Administration and the St. Laurent government. Not unlike during the JAWS talks,

Pearson—now in his role as Secretary of State—acted unilaterally to pursue an aggressive Arctic diplomacy and sought to translate his Northern nationalism into concrete policy. The analysis illustrates how the central tropes of Canada’s Northern nationalism continued to inform Pearson and St. Laurent’s thinking about Northern and Arctic Canada when making official pronouncements on behalf of his government. The chapter also shows how the St. Laurent government used the notion of the North as a symbol and a projection space for a national

449 Grant’s 2010 treatment of the DEW Line makes no reference to the presence of nationalist ideas. See Grant, Polar Imperative, 319–22. Tynan notes the existence of a Northern mythology but does not explore the idea further. See Tynan, “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic.” Herd sought to demonstrate that the DEW Line negotiations were fraught with sovereignty concerns yet ultimately inconsistently concluded that the central aspect in the talks revolved around questions of “respect” and “national perspectives.” See Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 193f. As noted above, Trudgen’s use of nationalism is not further defined. He does not engage the work of Carl Berger, Daniel Francis, Sherrill Grace or Renee Hulan on Northern nationalism, for example, when discussing External Affair’s nationalist views on defense cooperation in Northern and Arctic Canada. See Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 9–13. 177

project during public appearances in Canada and in the United States. Finally, this study examines Pearson’s persistent advocacy for a substantial Canadian footprint in the construction of the DEW Line, a position he defended against the views of his colleagues at National

Defence. As a result, this chapter provides a close reading of new archival material as well as a re-examination of central diplomatic documents to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the intersection of sovereignty, security, and a Northern nationalism throughout the U.S.-

Canadian talks over the establishment of the DEW Line.

Before turning to the origins of continental air defense planning and the ensuing bilateral talks over the establishment of the DEW Line, this chapter situates the talks within the cultural context of the early 1950s. How did a persistent trend towards asserting Canadian cultural institutions and the search for a national story, national symbols, and national identity—cultural sovereignty—intersect with the body of Northern and Arctic representations? How have royal commissions, filmmakers, radio broadcasting, journalists, and Northern boosters dealt with the existing repertoire of Canada’s Northern nationalism and continued to shape the meaning of the

North for the Canadian nation as they saw it. In a next step, the chapter traces the origins of the

DEW Line throughout the U.S. military and scientific establishment. The organizing ideas that guided American foreign and defense officials are at the heart of this section. The following sections analyze the DEW Line talks between Ottawa and Washington over the course of 1953 to

1955. They examine how both governments sought to negotiate their distinct approaches to early warning in the Canadian Arctic throughout state visits, informal meetings, the Permanent Joint

Board on Defense, diplomatic communications, and public appearances.

178

U.S. Anti-Communism, Northern Nationalism, and Sovereignty, 1950-55

Decision makers in Canada and the United States found themselves in distinct political and cultural environments at the beginning of the 1950s. A persecutional strain of anti-Communism radicalized public debate about Washington’s posture towards destabilizing developments in

Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Whipped into a political frenzy by Joseph R. McCarthy, a

Senator from Wisconsin, scientists and diplomats—American and Canadian—among others, became the subject of a renewed wave of the ‘Red Scare’ in a mélange of denunciations, public attacks, and Congressional hearings.450 Communism in its international variants, for example, in the Soviet Union, China, Central Europe, and Central America, and the challenges foreign and defense officials perceived from these regimes and movements absorbed their diplomatic and strategic thinking. A global conception of national security, institutionalized in the reorganization of the American foreign and defense apparatus during the late 1940s, projected abroad with the creation of regional security organizations, and informally perpetuated with the economic and cultural penetration of key Cold War allies, dominated the conception of U.S. foreign and defense policy officials in Washington.451 Questions of national identity and the role of the United States as a hegemonic power in the emerging Cold War were negotiated against the backdrop of these international challenges, not its continental relationship with Canada nor its rapidly expanding involvement in the expansion of a continental defense architecture far into the northern latitudes, including the territory of Alaska. The Polar Imperialism of the nineteenth century, however, continued to find its counterparts in the application of the Monroe Doctrine to

450 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 40; David G. McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 765–70; Bothwell, Your Country, My Country, 246. 451 Leffler, “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952.” 179

the Arctic Archipelago and the refusal to officially recognize Canada’s legal claims.452 By the

1950s, scientific advisers and defense strategists, however, had replaced the explorer-artists of the past.453

If the United States looked abroad to make sense of its new role as a world power with military, economic, and cultural entanglements across the globe, Canada looked towards its cultural landscape and the Northern environment in search of an identity, to paraphrase Fraser. In an effort to define its place as an independent voice in international affairs and in its increasingly intimate relationship with the United States, national symbols, the importance of a cultural nationalism, and the special role of Northern and Arctic Canada became key elements in the public debate over the meaning of Canada and the future direction of the country. At the heart of public commentary and parliamentary debates were questions over Canada’s identity as a member of the British Commonwealth, as a North American nation, and the power public institutions should hold to encourage a Canadian national consciousness.454 Had the struggle over the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947, a Canadian national flag or a Canadian national anthem galvanized public attention during the 1940s, the early 1950s placed the role of the liberal arts and the intellectual foundation of a Canadian national identity front and center of local hearings and town halls across the country.455 Under the leadership of Vincent Massey, historian Hilda Neatby of the University of Saskatchewan, Norman Mackenzie of the University of British Columbia, Father George-Henri Lévesque of Laval University, and the Montreal civil

452 “James H. Brewster, Report on the Arctic, Atlantic Division Air Transport Command,” 1946, in: Kikkert and Lackenbauer, Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, 225–42. 453 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 147–92. 454 Bothwell, Your Country, My Country, 246–51. 455 Karen A. Finlay, The Force of Culture: Vincent Massey and Canadian Sovereignty (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 211. 180

engineer Arthur Surveyor, the publication of the report by the Royal Commission on National

Development of the Arts, Letters, and Sciences in 1951 served as a catalyst for the expansion of cultural institutions and programs in the service of what Massey biographer Karen A. Finlay calls ‘cultural sovereignty.’ Indeed, in a Dominion Day editorial of the same year, the Canadian historian A. R. M. Lower celebrated his recent return to Canada from the United States as motivated by the desire to participate in “the adventure of building a nation,” one that he described so far as “a cultural and spiritual desert.” Massey and Lower as well as St. Laurent,

Pearson, and Brooke Claxton who championed the creation of the commission,456 heeded the call for a Canadian cultural nationalism.457

Vincent Massey’s assertion of Canada’s cultural sovereignty was a most comprehensive effort with implications for Northern and Arctic Canada as well. A long-time collector of the works of the Group of Seven and a close friend of Lawren Harris, Massey shared many of the group’s philosophical conceptions of the North’s significance in the national development of

Canada. Harris and Massey were equally critical of the hegemony of American cultural influence on the imagination of Canadians as well as the impact on the economy of art production in

Canada. The group’s focus on the North as a vibrant source for a Canadian national identity resonated strongly with Massey. Canada’s climate and its geography were key forces, according to his 1948 On Being Canadian, that shaped Canadians temperament, mentality, and its

456 While Pearson had become involved with the National Film Board, Claxton took a special interest in the realm of radio broadcasting. Bercuson writes that Claxton played a key role in broadening the royal commission’s mandate beyond cultural matters. Bercuson, True Patriot, 200. 457 A. R. M. Lower, “I Came Back and I Am Content,” Maclean’s, July 1, 1951; “Canadian Citizenship: Nationality, Naturalization, and Status of Aliens,” House of Commons Debates, April 2, 1946, 502-17; Finlay, The Force of Culture. 181

demographic makeup.458 Evoking the era of nineteenth-century Western expansion, Massey portrayed contemporary interest in the Northern and Arctic regions as an effort in nation- building:

Our north country, for instance, as economists tell us, has immense latent resources, which call for a programme of development charged with imagination and that willingness to take risks, without which great undertakings are seldom possible. We are proud of our Canadian North. Countless speeches are made with this great natural frontier as their theme. We like to believe that it colours our thinking; keeps alive the spirit of adventure; serves as a standing challenge to Canadian enterprise. We cannot afford to leave its development to others. The North will be a testing ground for Canada in the years that lie ahead.459

Massey hence imbued the North with a national significance and elevated its regions to critical markers of Canada’s history and national identity. The combination of ideas about the power of nature as a formative force, the North as a land of promise and riches, and the spiritual impact of the region on the imagination of Canadians indicates a heavy intellectual debt to the rich repertoire of cultural representations of Northern and Arctic Canada. As a key ingredient in the construction of a Canadian national story, the North had to be guarded against the domineering presence of the United States, be it military, economic or cultural.

The pervasiveness of Massey’s conviction in the North as a defining element in the national growth of Canada also was reflected in the report on the Northwest Territories’ development plans of the Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects, headed by

Walter L. Gordon, the Minister of Finance under Pearson’s prime ministership. R. G. Robertson,

Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, submitted a survey of the territory’s potential for development. In doing so, he juxtaposed the integration of the Canadian provinces after

458 Massey introduced his chapter on those elements that bind the Canadian experience to a unifying theme with a quote by W.A. Foster, a member of the Canada First Movement, calling for an overarching narrative for the newly united provinces. This may indicate, especially with respect to Massey’s comments on the relationship between national characteristics, geography, and climate, a familiarity with the environmental determinism of the Canada First Movement; Vincent Massey, On Being Canadian (Toronto: Dent, 1948), 29f. 459 Ibid., 177f. 182

Confederation with the economic development of Canada’s North as a foundational moment in the evolution of the country:

In the first seventy-five years after Confederation a prime object of national policy was the linking together of our different regions from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Canada has now, as a nation, become increasingly conscious of its third dimension. This country is nearly as vast from north to south as it is from east to west. As we in Canada develop our northern areas and bind them, by our daily comings and goings, into the more settled areas of the south, I submit that we shall not only be insuring the realization of new wealth in a not very distant tomorrow. We shall also be writing the second of the major chapters in our development as a nation.460

At a luncheon in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, in late August 1955, Robertson added that “it is as much in the national interest to develop the Northwest as it was in the last century to open up the West by building a transcontinental railroad.”461 The commission’s report on the North’s economic outlook echoed elements of Massey’s Northern nationalism in departments that were not primarily concerned with matters of public education, cultural institutions, and the promotion of a Canadian imagined community. The presence of such references in the document then is a testament to the impact of Canada’s Northern nationalism, transcending government departments and territorial agencies.

During the 1950s, the Northern and Arctic regions continued to serve as a projection space for nationalist visions of a self-conscious Canada. As existing tropes of a Canadian

Northern nationalism remained powerful rhetorical figures, new forms and voices emerged as well. In addition to Massey’s endorsement of the Group of Seven and Lawren Harris’ Arctic theosophy, Vilhjalmur Stefansson continued to advocate for Northern and Arctic development and his vision of the Arctic as an amenable and resource-rich region. Not unlike his strategic

460 See R.G. Robertson, “The Northwest Territories. Its Economic Prospects,” 1955, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N2, Vol. 119, File: Northern Affairs-Northern Development, 34. 461 Raymond Daniell, “Canadians Close Northwest Study: Meet Leaders of Territories After 5,000-Mile Tour,” New York Times, August 31, 1955, 8. 183

appeal to Canadian national pride during his negotiations with the Borden government over the financial sponsorship of what became the Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1913, Stefansson raised the specter of American hegemony. Writing in the pages of Maclean’s, the Arctic booster declared:

Canada should be industrially as mighty as the United States, and could support at least as many people as the U.S. now has. It is only a question of getting the right point of view toward the north. Unlimited opportunity is waiting for Canadians in their own back yard [sic]. They have only to change their minds and go after it.462

Stefansson linked this preposterous claim about the North’s economic potential to his argument about the accessibility of the North, a view he had popularized in his 1921 The Friendly Arctic, and the pseudoscientific notion that there existed a naturally-ordained correlation between the progress of a society and its proximity to the North.463 Stefansson was another example that

Harris’ and Massey’s belief in nature as a formative force of national characteristics remained a powerful idea among the political and cultural elites.

Farley Mowat emerged as a new voice among the chorus of literary representations of the

North. In magazine articles and books Mowat drew on his travels and his time with Inuit tribes of the former Keewatin District, then the Northwest Territories and now part of the Territory of

Nunavut, to raise attention to the poor living conditions and the traditional ways of life of the

Inuit. The North and the Arctic, too, emerged as harsh environments and ready fodder for tales of heroism. Yet Mowat subtly undercut the authority of traditional Arctic experts, such as

462 Vilhjalmur Stefansson, “We’re Missing Our Future in the North,” Maclean’s, August 1, 1951, 46. 463 Stefansson explained that “through the ages the centres of human progress have been moving northward. From all indications, Canada’s great undeveloped northland would rank large in the history of the future—if Canadians hadn’t turned into a race of stay-at-homes or southward migrants.” In his 1922 The Northward Course of Empire, Stefansson had included a graphic that was to illustrate a historic relationship between the rise of empires and their northern latitude. If the earliest empires resided along the equator, the geographic location of the centers of great powers moved further north, from Cairo, Rome to London, for example. See Stefansson, The Northward Course of Empire.; Ibid., “We’re Missing Our Future in the North,” Maclean’s, August 1, 1951, 42. 184

Stefansson, through his personal accounts and his journalism on the impact of state policy on the

Inuit.464 His 1952 The People of the Deer, indeed, drew attention to food shortages among Inuit tribes and attacked Ottawa for its inaction, a charge Jean Lesage, then Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Finance and later Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, categorically rejected in a House of Commons exchange.465 In 1956, Mowat won the Governor-

General’s Award for his Lost in the Barrens, a young adult novel about a Cree and a white boy and their struggle for survival in the North.466

Beyond the world of literature, the National Film Board expanded its production of documentaries on the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada. Many of these films are a testament to the imposition of southern Canadian conceptions of northern development. The improvement of regional infrastructures, the exploitation of mineral and oil deposits, and the cultural uprooting of Inuit communities through the residential school system featured prominently throughout NFB-supported films. Documentaries by Douglas Wilkinson such as

“Land of the Long Day” in 1952 and others by Ronald Dick and John Howe also perpetuated the notion of the North as a land of promise, not unlike the nineteenth-century West, and as a place for mysterious legends and adventure when Northern nationalist such as Pierre Berton took their

Klondike stories from the page to the screen.467 Finally, the slow expansion of CBC radio

464 For Mowat’s fiction and non-fiction writings in the early 1950s, see “The Riddle of the Viking Bow,” Maclean’s, September 1, 1951; “Blizzard in the Banana Belt,” Maclean’s, Feburary 1, 1952; “They Sometimes Murder But Never Steal,” Maclean’s, March 1, 1952. 465 Farley Mowat, People of the Deer (Boston: Brown, 1952); Grace, On the Art of Being Canadian. For references to Lesage’s comments, see “Northwest Territories,” January 19, 1954, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 2, 1245; Kenneth Smith, “Farley Mowat—Rebel of the Swamp,” Globe and Mail, February 8, 1958, and Farley Mowat, Eastern Passage (McClelland & Stewart, 2010), 70–72. 466 Ibid., Lost in the Barrens (Toronto: Emblem, 1956). 467 Ronald Dick, “Canada’s Awakening North,” 1951; Douglas Wilkinson, “Land of the Long Day,” 1952; Douglas Wilkinson, “Angotee: Story of an Eskimo Boy,” 1953; John Howe, “Our Northern Citizen,” 1956; Wolf Koenig and Colin Low with narration by Pierre Berton, “City of Gold,” 1957, National Film Board, http://www.nfb.ca. 185

broadcasting into the North through the Northern Messenger Service and the use of American and Canadian military stations brought Northern communities into the imagined community of

Canada at a time when radio programs such as Arctic Adventures (1952), The Magic Kayak

(1953), and Death in the Barrens (1954) introduced southern Canadian audiences to a North of heroism, danger, and an unforgiving wilderness.468

During the early 1950s, Northern and Arctic Canada continued to be a projection space for southern Canadian self-representations of a Canadian national identity. At the time when the

Canadian government learned about American plans for the extension of radar early warning into the far north and entered into lengthy negotiations with Washington over the establishment of what became the Distant Early Warning Line, an eclectic collection of individuals and institutions across cultural categories, old and new ones, inscribed the Northern and Arctic regions with meaning and a national significance as a distinct marker of Canadian history and identity. The mountain ranges of the Yukon, the tundra of the Northwest Territories or the frozen sea surrounding the Arctic Archipelago had no inherent cultural significance in themselves.

Through the act of cultural performance, filmmakers, radio show producers, painters, writers, and academics, among others, provided a range of interpretive lenses to make sense of a region they deemed essential to the national experience of what it meant to be a Canadian, to paraphrase

Massey’s 1948 manifesto.469 Much like Farish’s geographical engineers,470 these individuals and groups performed a cultural imagining of the Canadian Arctic.

468 Mallory Schwartz, “Securing the North: Building the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Northern Service,” Canadian Journal of History 51, no. 1 (2016): 88. 469 Massey, On Being Canadian. 470 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 181–89. 186

For foreign and defense officials with little or no direct exposure to Northern and Arctic

Canada, these interpretive lenses shaped their perceptions of the region’s relationship to Canada.

At public talks, in communication guidelines, internal debates, and policy statements, Canadian diplomats drew upon the ideas and the underlying assumptions of these cultural representations throughout the DEW Line negotiations. In doing so, these representations added a cultural dimension to the internal and public deliberations of Canadian foreign and defense officials. As these officials sought to respond to U.S. requests for the expansion of the continental air defense architecture and manage the lack of clarity over the question of Canadian terrestrial sovereignty in the Arctic, senior decision makers such as St. Laurent, Pearson, Lesage, and Heeney also displayed a belief in a distinct Northern destiny of their country. Not unlike during the JAWS negotiations, the establishment of the DEW Line became a focal point for the converging forces of continentalism, internationalism, and nationalism.

If Northern visions and mythologies of Canadian nationhood continued to exert their appeal during the early 1950s, the question of Canada’s sovereignty over the Arctic islands had receded into the background. To be sure, Ottawa and Washington continued to hold conflicting legal interpretations about the requirements to perfect a title to land in remote regions. The public endorsements of the sector principle by Lester Pearson in his 1946 Foreign Affairs article and by

Hugh Keenleyside in his 1949 lecture and his subsequent essay in the Canadian Geographical

Journal also continued to sow confusion among U.S. perceptions of Canada’s more nuanced sovereignty interpretation. By 1950, however, legal experts in the Canadian and U.S. governments offered strong opinions to support Ottawa’s claims. In a study partially the result of inquiries by Vilhjalmur Stefansson and widely circulated among the members of the ACND, the

Defence Research Board, the Chief of the Naval Staff, and the RCMP, Vincent C. MacDonald,

187

the Dean of Dalhousie Law School, concluded that “Canada has made so many displays of sovereignty, in so many respects, in so many places, for so long a period, and with so little challenge, as to establish its title to the whole of the Canadian Arctic region by effective occupation in conformity with international law.”471 An assessment by External Affairs’ Legal

Division in February 1954 confirmed MacDonald’s conclusion, adding that Ottawa’s continued quiet display of governance throughout the region over time “will be sufficient to confer an absolute title in international law.”472 A State Department policy statement of 1951 mirrored these views. While Washington, in keeping with the 1924 Hughes Doctrine, did not recognize claims based on the sector principle and left open the status of yet to be discovered territory, U.S.

Arctic policy was unambiguous towards territory known to both governments. Indeed, the document affirmed that Washington had not been “inclined to challenge Canadian claims to jurisdiction” over the known Arctic islands such as those housing the Joint Arctic Weather

Stations. Moreover, the State Department concluded that current international jurisprudence was likely to “uphold the validity of [Canada’s] claims to certain areas, even without reference to the so-called ‘sector principle’.”473

By the time, the Truman Administration began to seriously consider the expansion of the

North American air defense network into the Arctic, questions over sovereignty over Northern and Arctic territory no longer constituted a pressing issue. As both governments continued their legal waltz avoiding an open confrontation over their conflicting interpretations, legal experts advised Ottawa and Washington of the strength of Canada’s claims. Although the United States

471 “Hugh L. Keenleyside to Norman A. Robertson,” February 25, 1950; Vincent C. MacDonald, “Canadian Sovereignty in the Arctic,” n.d., LAC, RG2, Vol. 243, File: A-25 1948-50, 21. 472 “K. J. Burbridge, Legal Division, to Acting Under-Secretary, External Affairs,” February 23, 1954, in: Kikkert and Lackenbauer, Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, 316f. 473 “Department of State, Policy Statement: Polar Regions,” July 1, 1951, in: ibid., 314f. 188

reserved its position with respect to the status of undiscovered land in the Arctic, these questions had little relevance to the construction of radar stations in well-known and, at times, administered regions along the Canadian Arctic coastline. In the absence of a public recognition of Canada’s sovereignty and the continued invocation of the sector principle, from the Prime

Minister Louis St. Laurent no less, the question of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty proved a potent vehicle in parliamentary and public debates. As a result, the issue never vanished entirely and remained entangled in the larger debate over Canada’s Northern nationalism and the establishment of continental air defense installations in the Arctic.

189

The Origins of Continental Air Defense, 1950-52

Figure 4: “Radar Networks—Arctic Defense Lines,” New York Times, November 28, 1954.

Long before the Eisenhower Administration approached Ottawa over the establishment of the

DEW Line in January 1953, plans to erect a comprehensive air defense system for the North

American continent had been outlined in the draft documents of the Canada-United States Basic

Security Plan of 1946.474 The “Air Interceptor and Air Warning Plan,” Appendix A of the joint security plan, proposed an elaborate network of air bases, radar lines, and the deployment of

474 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 381–88. 190

hundreds of interceptor fighter jets across the North American continent. Shrinking defense budgets, doubts about the urgency and effectiveness of the system, and the dominance of offensive strategic thinking, however, led to the shelving of the air defense scheme.475 Brooke

Claxton, Minister of National Defence, explained in November 1953 that early warning in the

Arctic had been considered ineffective and impractical in the absence of continuous radar coverage on the path from the Northern approaches to potential targets in southern Canada and the United States.476 Omar Bradley, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, likewise echoed the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he rejected the plan as “far too grandiose and incapable of implementation.” “In my opinion,” Bradley added, “it should not even have been accepted as a planning document.”477

By 1950, the appreciation of the Soviet Union’s capabilities and its intentions had changed dramatically and resulted in an unprecedented program for rearmament and a militarization of Truman’s containment doctrine, enshrined in the National Security Council document 68.478 The Kremlin’s successful detonation of a nuclear bomb in August 1949 in combination with the loss of the U.S.-supported forces of Chiang Kai Chek to the Communist

Mao Zedong in China encouraged the belief among American foreign and defense planners that the balance of power was shifting to the disadvantage of Washington. If the U.S. nuclear monopoly had deterred Soviet risk-taking in Iran, the Turkish Straits, and in Berlin, the loss of

475 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 68–69. 476 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 356–57. 477 Omar Bradley quoted in Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 29. 478 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” April 14, 1950, DDE, White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61, Disaster File, Box: 7, File: NSC 68 (1). 191

that monopoly, American strategists assessed, could embolden Stalin to expand the reach of communist regimes in Europe and Asia.479

What is more, Moscow not only now possessed the ability to construct a nuclear bomb, it also had developed the capabilities to deliver a nuclear attack via long-range aircraft to the North

American continent. In its assessment of Soviet military intentions and capabilities, NSC-68 warned that a nuclear attack by Moscow in 1950 would include “the likelihood of such attacks on targets in Alaska, Canada, and the United States.” Indeed, NSC-68 stated that the Soviet

Union had aircraft delivery capabilities “in excess of that needed to deliver available bombs.”480

The central military elements of NSC-68’s policy prescriptions hence stressed the importance of defending the military and industrial base in the Western hemisphere and that of allied nations to protect the ability to mobilize offensive forces. “An adequate defense against air attack on the

United States and Canada and an adequate defense against air and surface attack on […]

Alaska,” among other allied regions, was essential, the document declared, to maintaining an effective deterrent and protect the ability to amass military capabilities superior to those of the

Soviet Union.481

Paul H. Nitze, head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and lead author of

NSC-68, presented Truman with the document in April 1950. While the President agreed with the strategic arguments of the document, the absence of a detailed cost assessment, outlining the budgetary implications of the policy’s call for a massive arms build-up made the recently re-

479 Leffler, “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952,” 83; Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 292. 480 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” April 14, 1950, DDE, White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61, Disaster File, Box: 7, File: NSC 68 (2), 18; 20. 481 Ibid., 55. 192

elected Truman wary to immediately commit to the document. Truman’s campaign promises of a

Fair Deal had not envisioned a ballooning defense budget.482 Before an economic assessment of

NSC-68 had been conducted, however, the North Korean invasion of South Korea convinced

Truman of the document’s conclusions. Suspecting Stalin’s machinations behind Pyongyang’s decision to attack, the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 seemed to confirm Moscow’s expansionist intentions. The detonation of a nuclear bomb a year earlier had already dramatized its military capabilities. In September 1950, Truman approved NSC-68.483

The military recommendations of NSC-68 re-focused defense officials in United States on the threat potential of Soviet air attacks via the North American Arctic. For the defense of the industrial base in the United States and Canada as well as the retaliatory forces of the U.S.

Strategic Air Command (SAC), Washington pressed for radar warning installations across the

North American continent, roughly along the 50th parallel from Vancouver Island on the Pacific

Coast to Newfoundland on the Atlantic. In April 1951, the Canadian and American governments approved the PJBD’s Recommendation 51/1 to establish a joint network of thirty-three radar stations. The purpose of the so-called Pinetree Line was to provide warning of hostile incoming aircraft and help coordinate interceptor fighters.484 The construction of military installations and the stationing of U.S. service personnel also raised questions over Ottawa’s policy to

‘Canadianize’ defense projects on Canadian soil. Washington and Ottawa agreed on a cost- splitting formula according to which the United States assumed financial and operational

482 Ernest R. May, “NSC 68: The Theory and Politics of Strategy,” in American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68, ed. Ernest R. May (Boston: Bedford Books, 1993), 14; Hogan, A Cross of Iron, 266; Melvyn P Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992), 358. 483 Leffler, “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952,” 84f; Hogan, A Cross of Iron, 304f; May, “NSC 68: The Theory and Politics of Strategy,” 14f. 484 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 358. 193

responsibility for two-thirds of the Pinetree Line while Canada paid for and manned the remaining one-third.485 Despite this formula, which provided Canada with a reasonable financial burden and the benefits of air defense, historian Joseph T. Jockel demonstrates how concerns over publicity of an additional American military presence in Canada and the publication of the agreement caused friction between External Affairs and the State Department. While External

Affairs sought to balance Canada’s military commitments in Europe and Korea, the status of

U.S. forces on Canadian soil, and Ottawa’s responsibility to take care of defense matters, a State

Department report vented over exaggerated sensitivities that led to delays in projects that had long been agreed to by the PJBD. Publication of the Pinetree agreement eventually took place in

February 1953, the month the Canadian government approved test sites for what became the

Distant Early Warning Line.486 The establishment of the Pinetree Line not only was the first foray into radar early warning to implement the recommendations outlined in NSC-68.487 It also foreshadowed the political implications of the U.S.-Canadian defense relationship, implications that did not abate as scientists and defense planners at American military research institutions pushed the edge of continental air defense ever northward.

In light of the deterioration of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union by the early 1950s, Lester Pearson’s 1946 call for circumpolar cooperation and his warning against transforming the Northern and Arctic regions into a strategic space seemed little more than wishful thinking.488 Indeed, while Canadian nationalists drew upon the North as a symbol of

Canadian distinctiveness, American military scientists and defense planners placed the seeds for

485 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 46. 486 Ibid., 48. 487 Coates et al., Arctic Front, 69. 488 Pearson, “Canada Looks ‘Down North.’” 194

the Cold War’s largest defense project in the Canadian Arctic—unbeknownst of foreign and defense officials in Ottawa. In the wake of Truman’s approval of NSC-68 in September 1950, the U.S. Defense Department sought to implement the recommendations for continental air defense and tapped the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in late 1950 to devise technological solutions for early warning of incoming air attacks. A series of research groups produced reports about the feasibility of establishing a radar network in the far north and the effectiveness of such a warning system.489

By the summer of 1952, American scientists had formed the Lincoln Summer Study

Group under the leadership of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead-scientist of the Manhattan

Project. They wrote an assessment that outlined the estimated human toll of successful Soviet nuclear attack scenarios. The Group concluded that the construction of an Arctic radar line was possible, a warning time of additional three to six hours to the Pinetree Line achievable, and complete attrition of hostile bombers the objective. The Group estimated construction costs at

US$370 million and annual operational costs at US$160 million. 490 In addition to these projections, a tour of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, the Assistant Director of Project Lincoln at MIT, M. M. Hubbard, later revealed, served as a “major factor” to convince the Lincoln

Summer Study Group of the feasibility of a Distant Early Warning Line of radar stations in the far north. In a letter, Hubbard thanked F. W. Reichelderfer, the Chief of the U.S. Weather

489 Jockel provides a detailed discussion of Project Charles, Project Lincoln, and the East River Group. It was the reports coming out of the Charles group that questioned the feasibility of an Arctic radar line on the grounds of climate and physical conditions in the North. The East River Group, by contrast, rejected these findings and argued that civil defense measure were without futile if insufficient passive defense systems were in place to provide ample warning time. Those members of Charles, Lincoln, and the East River group who supported radar installations in the far north eventually joined to form the Lincoln Summer Study Group in 1952. See Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 61–64. 490 Ibid., 64–66. 195

Bureau, for his assistance in arranging visits to all five JAWS stations in the Canadian Arctic, adding that “without the evidence of safe and satisfactory operation of stations on an economic budget by a small staff […] we would have been forced to delay our tests for a much longer interval.”491 Hubbard also noted that initial plans for test sites in the Arctic had alerted him to the special significance Ottawa attached to U.S. defense projects in the Canadian Arctic. “Our own dealings with the Canadians on the COUNTER CHANGE project,” he observed, “had made us realize how very sensitive they are in regard to developments in this important area.”492 If not intended as such, the U.S.-Canadian Arctic weather stations served as a field test for the DEW

Line. Beyond the question of practicality, the visit to the remote stations, once more, drove home the political significance of the Arctic region to the Canadians.

The overriding concern among American defense officials during the discussions over the construction of the early warning system, however, was not about Canadian sensitivities but about air force doctrine and the Soviet threat. U.S. Air Force historian Kenneth Schaffel has shown that a debate over the adequate strategic balance between a defensive and an offensive posture engulfed the members of the study group and the defense establishment. The U.S. Air

Force rejected the radar lines as providing a false sense of security and shifting the focus away from what it considered its core purpose, defeating the enemy.493 Chief of Staff of the Air Force

Hoyt S. Vandenberg discounted the DEW Line’s “wizardry of electronics” as wishful thinking and argued that “it is not the state of our defense that has restrained our potential enemy in the

491 “M. M. Hubbard to F. W. Reichelderfer,” April 28, 1953, NARA, RG 27, Records of the Polar Operations Project, Formerly Classified Subject Files, 1942-63, Project—Research and Developments Bd., Box 11, File: Project Lincoln. 492 Ibid. 493 Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, 176. 196

recent past, and is continuing to restrain him—instead he fears the risk of a retaliatory attack.”494

The members of the Summer Study Group, by contrast, called for a more balanced approach.

MIT President James R. Killian admonished the U.S. Air Force for its “evangelical zeal” with which it clung to the doctrine of offensive primacy.495 Had the study group been attacked for suggesting to dig a ‘Maginot Line’ in the Arctic or advocate for a ‘Fortress America’ philosophy, they now reversed the argument. Instead of betting the United States’ security on the offensive power of the SAC’s nuclear strike force exclusively, they argued for augmenting the offensive posture with air defense installations on the continent. Indeed, early warning could be construed as an element of offense as it was critical to preventing the destruction of the U.S. retaliatory forces on the ground.496

The recommendations by the Lincoln Summer Study Group coincided with the Truman administration’s final national security revision in the NSC-135 series. In the closing weeks of the National Security Council wrestling over views and positions in the policy documents, the

Chairman of the National Security Resources Board, Jack Gorrie, raised what he saw as an ineffective relationship between civil defense measures and passive military defense against air attack. “The two major elements of the nation’s defense structure,” Gorrie insisted, “do not meet.”497 When the report by the Lincoln Summer Study Group made the case for the necessity and the feasibility of an Arctic radar system for continental air defense, the NSRB Chairman

494 Vandenberg quoted in Schaffel, 180. 495 Killian quoted in Melvin Conant, The Long Polar Watch: Canada and the Defense of North America. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1962), 36. 496 Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, 177f. 497 “Views of the Chairman, NSRB, on: ‘Reappraisal of United States Objectives and Strategy for National Security,” September 2, 1952, NARA, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Records Relating to National Security Council Papers, 1947-1979, Lot63D351 & 66D95, Box 10, File: NSC 135 Reappraisal of United States Objectives and Strategy for National Security (1 of 2). 197

brought it before the National Security Council. At the September 24 meeting, Gorrie explained that, based on the MIT studies, technological developments over the past months fundamentally changed the calculus for early warning and urged the NSC to “immediately” provide funding for the establishment of a radar network as a measure of “utmost urgency and with the highest priority.”498

Over the course of the waning months of the Truman Administration, the debate over an early warning system in the far north produced a split between the civilian and military agencies.

Gorrie had anticipated resistance from Robert A. Lovett, the Secretary of Defense, and explained that an expansion of the United States’ defense posture would not negatively affect offensive programs.499 Lovett and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), however, declined to take the bait.

Lovett’s Acting Secretary cast doubts over the cost estimates and the accuracy of the report’s research.500 A RAND analysis, furthermore, raised concerns over the effectiveness of an Arctic radar line. An aging fleet of interceptor fighters made defense in depth unreliable, a greater dispersal of SAC bombers could minimize the potential of destruction on the ground at little cost, and a northern line would not add sufficient warning to substantially improve the evacuation of urban and industrial centers, the report argued. An Arctic radar system should not be a priority and defense efforts, instead, ought to look to improving the Pacific and Atlantic flanks.501 On a more general plane, the JCS was opposed to the plans for doctrinal reasons and its potential

498 “Statement by the Chairman, National Security Resources Board, on Possibility of an Improved Continental Early Warning System,” September 24, 1952, (emphasis in original), NARA, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Records Relating to National Security Council Papers, 1947-1979, Lot63D351 & 66D95, Box 10, File: NSC 135 Reappraisal of United States Objectives and Strategy for National Security (2 of 2). 499 Ibid. 500 “Memorandum by Dean Acheson,” September 24, 1952, NARA, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Records Relating to National Security Council Papers, 1947-1979, Lot63D351 & 66D95, Box 10, File: NSC 135 Reappraisal of United States Objectives and Strategy for National Security (2 of 2). 501 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 68f. 198

signal to U.S. allies abroad. Reflecting the internal struggle over the primacy of offensive air power, the JCS argued that the strategic bomber fleet was the most potent deterrent to Soviet nuclear aggression, not a line of radar stations across the North American Arctic. They also pointed to the impression that the United States might retreat on its military commitments to its international partners that a stronger focus on continental defense could make.502 Acheson and

Nitze disagreed. The Secretary of State had expressed interest in the project already at the

September NSC meeting and Nitze pressed for a “crash implementation” of the program instead of underfunding it into insignificance. It did not make sense to them for the Pentagon to operate

“on the theory of a convoy’s speed being determined by the speed of its slowest ship.”503

Three weeks before the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President of the United

States, Truman made the establishment of the Distant Early Warning Line the policy of the

United States. NSC-139 cited the threat by the growing Soviet nuclear arsenal and its delivery capabilities as the justification for the creation of an elaborate air defense network to provide early warning of potential air attacks. In a nod to the internal split over military doctrine, the document insisted that air defense would not detrimentally affect the expansion of the American strategic air forces. Truman allocated US$20 million for the test phase and the construction of

“several test stations in the Far North.” The financial allocations, however, were not to be understood as a ceiling for the implementation of the early phases of the program. Money should be provided on the basis of the program’s requirements, not political decisions. Finally, the early warning system was to be erected “as a matter of high urgency” and begin operation no later than

502 Jockel, 68–70. 503 “Meeting of the National Security Council, Tuesday, October 14, 1952,” October 14, 1952, NARA, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Records Relating to National Security Council Papers, 1947-1979, Lot63D351 & 66D95, Box 10, File: NSC 139 Memoranda. 199

December 1954 with full completion in December 1955.504 By approving NSC-139, Truman had not prejudiced the incoming administration’s freedom of action on the matter of continental air defense. To the contrary, by jump-starting the planning and development of test sites, he enabled the foreign and defense officials around Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to make informed decision on the viability of early warning in the Arctic based on onsite experience and knowledge.

The discussions in the American national security establishment about the construction of a preliminary program for the establishment of an early warning line in the far north illustrates the differences between Canadian and American conceptions of the Northern and Arctic regions.

The debate over the primacy of offensive over defensive strategy, the impact of a larger

American focus on continental defense on Washington’s allies abroad, and the questions over the relationship between costs and effectiveness of an early warning system formed the frame of reference for Washington’s decision to erect a radar line in the Canadian Arctic. From

Washington’s porch, the Arctic was a military-strategic space. Moreover, it was one area of concern among a series of Cold War frontlines that emerged as a result of innovation in the fields of aviation and nuclear technology. No mention was made about the ambivalent history of U.S.-

Canadian defense projects in the Northern and Arctic regions. The diverging interpretations of claims to terrestrial sovereignty in the Arctic by way of the sector principle or the Hughes

Doctrine also were not raised in the American continental security discussions. In fact, the discussions did not consider the circumstance that the vast majority of DEW Line stations would have to be erected on Canadian territory worth mentioning. As Galen Perras concluded for

504 “NSC-139: An Early Warning System,” December 31, 1952, NARA, RG 273 Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 126-139, Box 18, File: NSC 139. 200

Canadian wartime consultations with the United States, Ottawa was “necessary, but not necessary enough.”505 NSC-68 and NSC-139 had placed U.S. Cold War strategy on a collision course with Canada’s Northern nationalism and its policy to ‘re-Canadianize’ defense projects in the North.

New Proposals, Old Attitudes: The early DEW Line Talks, 1953

No official consultations between the Canadian and American governments about the necessity and the viability of an early warning radar line in the Canadian Arctic had taken place before

January 1953. The participation of two Canadian scientists notwithstanding,506 Ottawa had not learned about the research and the planning underway at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory until the early fall of 1952 when American scientists requested to visit the JAWS stations in the Arctic

Archipelago. “This Department,” Deputy Under-Secretary of State C.S.A. Ritchie flatly stated,

“has no information regarding the nature of ‘Project Lincoln’.”507 Two weeks later, on a visit to

Washington shortly before his inauguration as President of the U.N. General Assembly in

October 1952, Secretary of State Pearson and Minister of National Defence Brooke Claxton met with, among others, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett and the Chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff Omar Bradley to discuss the Korean War and continental defense.508 Pearson and

Claxton were told about the results of the MIT studies and Project Lincoln and began to fully

505 Perras, Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933-1945, 123. 506 George R. Lindsay of the Defence Research Board and John S. Foster of McGill University participated in the Lincoln Summer Study Group. Lindsey and Foster, however, developed the so-called ‘McGill-Fence’, an automated radar detection system that made the presence of trained technical personnel obsolete, and were not primarily charged with the DEW Line program. 507 “Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs to Chair, Chiefs of Staff Committee,” September 15, 1952, DCER, 1952, Vol. 18, 1221. 508 “Extract from Memorandum from Secretary of State for External Affairs to Cabinet Defence Committee,” October 8, 1952, DCER, 1952, Vol. 18, 1223. 201

appreciate the scope and the advanced stage of the project. Discussions in Washington had progressed to the point that a decision on the establishment of an early warning system in the

Arctic was being “put before the President,” a decision that in Pearson’s mind contained “the most serious implications for this country.”509 Claxton was particularly taken aback by the

“enormous increases” of Washington’s nuclear capabilities and its assessment that Moscow was expected to achieve a similar arsenal.510 Frustrated by the lack of early consultations, Pearson instructed Ambassador Hume Wrong at the Canadian Embassy in Washington to convey to his

American counterparts the importance of “educating the Armed Forces of both countries as to the proper channels of communication.”511 The pattern of late consultation over projects the U.S. deemed urgent to its national security had not been broken. Clearly, the recognition of Canadian sensitivities about Northern and Arctic plans among U.S. officials not always translated into action to soften the unease over large-scale defense requests.

The official request for the establishment of test sites in the Western Canadian Arctic reached Ottawa in late January 1953 through the American Section of the PJBD and a few days later by way of a note from the State Department. The diplomatic note called for the construction of three experimental stations, two of which were planned in Canada, and surveys for additional stations on the grounds that existing early warning was insufficient to deploy effective military and civil defense measures. The United States offered to bear all costs relating to the test stations but invited Ottawa’s financial and technical participation. The note stressed that Washington attached the “utmost importance” to the project and to take advantage of the 1953 navigation

509 “Extract from Memorandum from Secretary of State for External Affairs to Cabinet Defence Committee,” October 8, 1952, DCER, 1952, Vol. 18, 1223. 510 Bercuson, True Patriot, 245. 511 “Defence Liaison (1) Division to Second Secretary, Embassy in United States,” October 28, 1952, DCER, 1952, Vol. 18, 1226. 202

season in the Arctic pressed for a “most prompt and favorable consideration.”512 Although the

U.S. Ambassador in Ottawa and other State Department officials in Washington had not been unaware of Canadian sensitivities to American defense requests,513 they nonetheless bungled their approach to the Canadian government. In his final report to the outgoing Secretary of State

Dean Acheson in January 1953, the departing U.S. Ambassador Stanley Woodward described negotiations with Ottawa over continental defense matters over the past two years as “arduous and painstaking” and “complicated by political problems arising out of Canada’s growing nationalism.”514 Regardless, the State Department confronted the Canadian government with a matter it considered of the highest urgency without a plan to obtain Canadian buy-in during the process that led up to the decision to establish an early warning system, most of which would be located along the Arctic coast of Canada. Once more, Washington confronted the Canadian government with advanced plans for a Northern defense project with little prior consultation via the PJBD or the diplomatic channels. If past experience did not serve as a guide to Washington, it certainly did for the Canadian government and its response to the American proposal.

After learning about the early warning plans, Pearson was determined to rouse the Prime

Minister and his colleagues to action. At a January Cabinet meeting he presented a disconcerting picture of the state of U.S.-Canadian defense activities in the Canadian Arctic. Since the establishment of JAWS in 1947, the Secretary of State pointed out, American military interest in the North continued to expand. Numerous projects led to the influx of U.S. service personnel at a

512 “[Enclosure] Acting Secretary of State of United States to Ambassador in United States,” January 30, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1054-55. 513 Grant, Polar Imperative, 318–19. 514 “Stanley Woodward to Dean Acheson,” January 13, 1953, HST, Papers of Stanley Woodward, Correspondence with Harry S. Truman, 1950-53 to White House Envelopes, Box 1, File: Correspondence with Harry S. Truman, 1950-53. 203

scale that outnumbered their Canadian counterparts.515 This trend was unlikely to change given the current slate of U.S. requests,516 which included plans for the construction of 40 radar stations across the Canadian Arctic. In light of the uneven record of U.S.-Canadian consultations and the seemingly off-hand comportment of some American service personnel during World

War II, Pearson raised the specter of a “de facto exercise of U.S. sovereignty” and “U.S. penetration of our Arctic.” At the very least, more U.S. personnel in the North meant more “risks of misunderstandings, incidents and infringements on the exercise of Canadian sovereignty.”517

Minister of National Defense Brooke Claxton resisted Pearson’s appeal to nationalist sentiments. He explained that “everything which could be done had, in fact, been done in respect of existing U.S. activities in Canada to ensure preservation of Canadian sovereignty.” Except for the Atlantic bases in Newfoundland and Labrador, Claxton pointed out, the number of American military personnel had been declining.518 Despite Claxton’s attempt to soften Pearson’s portrayal of the North as a region at the verge of U.S. occupation, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent embraced the Secretary of State’s sense of urgency. “[I]n years to come,” St. Laurent warned,

“U.S. developments might be just about the only form of human activity in the vast wastelands of the Canadian Arctic.”519 The presence of Inuit and other Northern indigenous peoples,520 it seems, failed to register in the Prime Minister’s mind. Pearson was content with his performance

515 “Draft Memorandum from Secretary of State for External Affairs to Cabinet,” January 21, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol 19, 1047f. 516 A list of anticipated U.S. requests for defense projects in Northern and Arctic Canada included Project Lincoln, the development of Arctic Air Strips, a Loran station on Baffin Island, radar stations in the Northeastern Arctic, and commerical air routes across the Arctic, see “List of Possible Development in the Arctic for the Coming Year Mainly as a Result of U.S. Requests,” n.d., DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1049f. 517 “Arctic; review of U.S. and Canadian developments,” January 22, 1953, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Volume 2652, Item: 12560, 13. 518 Ibid., 13. 519 Ibid., 14. 520 For a discussion of early migration to the North American continent, see Grant, Polar Imperative, chpt. 2. 204

and the reaction from Cabinet. “They were a receptive audience,” he noted and added: “It is about time.”521

Pearson’s sovereignty scare over American rule of the Canadian North was no offhand comment. In his diary, he noted that it was his intention to “frighten my colleagues at the possible loss of the Canadian north!”522 Northern and Arctic Canada, in Pearson’s conception, constituted a vital cause to rouse nationalist sentiments. The Secretary of State’s concern over

Canadian sovereignty in the North and the Arctic and the potential “loss” of the region to a friendly occupation is consistent with his understanding and his fascination with the region in the past. His advocacy for an activist approach to Washington over recognition of the sector principle and sole Canadian responsibility for JAWS throughout 1946 as well as his Northern vision as outlined in the 1938 Cambridge Lecture echo in his warnings of an American presence across Northern and Arctic Canada in early 1953. Had Pearson been a leading representative of the postwar internationalists at External Affairs, the Arctic seemed to fall outside that consensus.

The Secretary of State’s read on the mood in Cabinet, however, proved less accurate than he had assumed. At a Cabinet Defence Committee meeting in early February, Pearson realized that he was “almost alone” in his opposition to the American DEW Line plans and “other defence installations in Canada.” “The RCAF claim they haven’t money or the trained personnel,” he wrote in his diary, “but I can’t reconcile myself to American service personnel moving into Canada while ours move to Europe.”523 Regardless, the Secretary of State declared at the meeting that “the time has come to call a full-dress ministerial Canada-U.S. conference on

521 Lester B. Pearson, “Thursday, January 22, 1953,” January 22, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1953, 1954, 1955. 522 Ibid. 523 Ibid., “Tuesday, February 10, 1953,” February 10, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1953, 1954, 1955. 205

continental defence. We had better see where we stand in this matter in the light of additional

American plans and a new American Administration.” St. Laurent nodded along.524 Despite

Pearson’s vigorous presentation, his colleagues saw no alternative to approving the American request. Not unlike the assessments of earlier U.S. defense proposals during World War II and the immediate postwar period, the Cabinet considered it untenable to reject a project the United

States deemed essential to its national security and, moreover, for which it would assume the financial responsibility.525 As a result, Ambassador Wrong informed the State Department in late

February 1953 of Ottawa’s decision to approve the request for the establishment of two radar test stations in the Western Canadian Arctic, a project that been code-named Project Counterchange

(later renamed to Project Corrode and Project 572).526

If Pearson had failed to rally support for a stronger Canadian effort in the North, he succeeded in making the Canadian government’s approval conditional on two important elements. First, a detailed catalogue of rules and regulations, based on the 1951 Pinetree Line agreement, would govern the entire test phase and ensure American conduct in harmony with

Canadian law and customs. Title to lands, access to scientific data gathered throughout the test phase, the protection of game and wildlife, labor and wage regulations as well as tax and customs laws, among other aspects, not only protected Canadian interests along the radar stations. These regulations also wrested implicit acknowledgement of Ottawa’s ownership and control over these Northern territories from the U.S. government—in other words sovereignty.527

524 Ibid. 525 “Arctic defence; Canada-United States co-operation,” February 26, 1953, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Volume 2652, Item: 12633, 7. 526 “Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State of United States,” February 27, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1059-62. 527 Ibid. 206

Second, a bilateral committee was to be set up to examine the possibility of an early warning line in the Arctic. This Joint Military Study Group (MSG) joined a long history of bilateral bodies and committees created by Canada and the United States to deal with politically sensitive matters.528 Its purpose was to conscript Washington to engage in consultations and ensure early participation of Canadian foreign and defense officials in the event the preliminary stations proved an Arctic early warning line desirable.529 Constraining the American presence in the Western Arctic with a comprehensive set of regulations and securing timely consultation then constituted Ottawa’s response to its ambivalent experience of defense cooperation in the North, a history whose fraught record of diplomatic omissions and slights appeared to persist during the early planning of the DEW Line project. Yet despite Pearson’s opposition to additional U.S. military presence in Canada, Ottawa did not assume a financial, material or personnel stake in the experimental installations. The policy of ‘re-Canadianizing’ defense installations in Canadian territory had given way to a careful policy of managing and regulating the presence of U.S. military projects in the Canadian North.

Over the course of the following months, the Canadian government established relations with the incoming Republican administration under President Eisenhower and his Secretary of

State John Foster Dulles. With the Joint Statement on Defense of February 1947, the King and

Truman governments had devised the guiding principles for both countries’ defense relationship in the postwar period. The efforts by Mackenzie King, St. Laurent, and Pearson, among others, to impress Ottawa’s views on the importance of Northern and Arctic Canada in the development

528 For example: Joint International Commission (1909), International Boundary Commission (1908), Permanent Joint Board on Defense (1940), Military Cooperation Committee (1945). 529 “Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State of United States,” February 27, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1059-62. 207

of Canada as an independent international voice on the Truman Administration had to be renewed with the new leadership in Washington. The plans for the installation of the DEW Line across the Canadian Arctic and the impending national security policy review by the Eisenhower administration lent greater urgency to Canadian diplomats to register Ottawa’s position on

Northern and Arctic defense cooperation with their incoming American counterparts. As Bell

System’s Western Electric Company began to construct the test stations in Alaska and the

Western Canadian Arctic,530 Canada engaged the U.S. administration through state visits, high- level bilateral meetings, public talks, policy articles, and public events to establish the significance of Northern and Arctic Canada as key ingredient in the history and national identity of Canada. An analysis of these statements, in the following pages, demonstrates the persistent influence of cultural representations of Canada’s Northern and Arctic regions on the perceptions of Canadian diplomats, when making the case for substantial Canadian participation if not

Canadian leadership in joint defense projects in the remote regions of the Canadian Arctic.

The Canadian government sought to use the initial contacts with the Eisenhower

Administration to stress the guiding principles for defense cooperation, the importance of timely consultations, and the politics of an expanding American military presence on Canadian soil. In

May 1953, St. Laurent traveled to Washington for a first official state visit with the Eisenhower

Administration. Before the Prime Minister met with Eisenhower, however, Pearson and Claxton touched base with Dulles and Secretary of Defense Charles F. Wilson, respectively, in

Washington. At Hume Wrong’s Washington home, Pearson and Dulles held a first informal meeting in February to exchange their views about U.S. Cold War foreign policy in Asia and in

530 V. B. Bagnall, “Operation DEW Line,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 259, no. 6 (1955): 481–90. 208

Europe and the American strategic posture. 531 As Dulles highlighted the Eisenhower

Administration’s more aggressive approach to the Soviet Union and the importance for the

United States not to be constrained by formal channels of consultation, Pearson raised the matter of continental air defense. Against the backdrop of the most recent request for experimental radar stations in the Canadian Arctic, Pearson declared that at the upcoming May visit, St. Laurent intended to propose a renegotiation of the 1947 U.S.-Canadian Joint Statement on Defense.

Moreover, Pearson suggested that a broad re-examination of the bilateral defense relationship and “especially Arctic problems” should be taken up.532

When Claxton met with Wilson and a series of other U.S. military and defense officials, he conveyed no such intentions to his American counterparts. Instead, he relayed to Wilson that he was not convinced of the effectiveness of Project Counterchange and hence the wisdom to devote substantial financial and personnel resources to the project. During his talks with other

American military officials, Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Nash echoed Claxton’s skepticism and stressed that Project Counterchange had been pushed through by the American civil defense agencies and eager scientists, not the Pentagon.533 Not for the first time, National

Defence took sides with American defense officials in the debate over the air forces’ offensive versus defensive posture.534 In November 1946, during the JAWS talks, the Canadian Air Vice

Marshal W. A. Curtis had assured the State Department of the support of the Canadian military and made suggestions for how to persuade skeptical Cabinet members of the urgency of

531 “Memorandum of Conversation between Secretary of State of United States and Secretary of State for External Affairs,” February 15, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 988-89. 532 Ibid. 533 “Extract from memorandum by Minister of National Defence,” March 10, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1062-63. 534 Bercuson, True Patriot, 261; David F. Winkler, Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program (Langley AFB, VA: Headquarters Air Combat Command, 1997), 28. 209

continental defense plans.535 Claxton’s comments in early 1953 foreshadowed Pearson and

External Affairs’ clash with National Defence during the DEW Line negotiations and the

Canadian debate over participation in 1954 and 1955.

Historians have paid little attention to these early meetings. Yet they are instructive for a variety of reasons. For one, not for the first time Pearson had been engaging the United States over Arctic defense in an uncoordinated fashion. If Pearson had publicly advocated for the sector principle and had confronted a U.S. delegation over the issue during the JAWS talks in 1946, his initiative to reopen the 1947 defense cooperation agreement and review defense relations in the

Arctic, by the same token, was not flanked by similar representations by Defense Minister

Claxton. If these actions appear as aberrations when examined against the backdrop of a

Pearsonian continentalism of quiet and pragmatic diplomacy, as Kikkert, Lackenbauer, and

Lajeunesse have argued,536 they become intelligible if placed in the context of the Secretary of

State’s well-established Northern nationalism reaching back to the late 1930s. Finally, the fact that Pearson and Wilson were singing from different song sheets was an early indication of the intimate relationship between the Canadian and American military services. Matthew P. Trudgen and Richard E. Goette have shown how close professional but also personal ties helped produce a common appreciation of continental air defense problems.537 In contrast to External Affairs,

National Defence and the RCAF conceived of continental defense less in political or cultural

535 “Memorandum of conversation,” November 21, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 3. 536 Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy.” 537 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 16; Goette, “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Air Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957,” 17. 210

terms but through the lens of functionalism, relating Canadian resources to a junior role within the continental defense relationship with the United States.

American expectations for St. Laurent’s visit in May 1953 were low. Dulles considered the visit mostly an introductory affair and “partly for prestige purposes.”538 Indeed, the White

House released no information about the purpose of the meeting and, as the New York Times reported, the agenda was only known via a Canadian announcement.539 In preparation for the

President’s meeting with the Canadians, Dulles had briefed Eisenhower on the matter of continental defense, specifically the “threat from Air Attack [sic] from the North, and need for radar installations.”540 The Secretary of State explained that it was for “political reasons” that the

St. Laurent government “does not relish” the increase of U.S. activities in Canada. In a nod to

Claxton, he also cited concerns about financial commitments on the part of Ottawa. Dulles advised Eisenhower to reaffirm the United States’ acknowledgement of Canada’s sovereignty.

Pearson’s suggestion to reopen the 1947 defense cooperation agreement, however, was rejected:

“From our viewpoint,” Dulles unambiguously noted, “principles underlying our continental defense cooperation are satisfactory.”541

St. Laurent and Pearson’s agenda for the visit, by contrast, was substantial. In addition to items on the St. Lawrence Seaway and U.S. tariffs on Canadian agricultural products, they raised the issue about plans for a growing American military footprint in Canada, the need for

538 In fact, Dulles had not listed a single U.S. item for discussion in his briefing paper that Eisenhower was to bring up during the conversation with St. Laurent. “Memorandum for President,” May 6, 1953, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), Dulles-Herter Series, Box 1, File: Dulles, John F. May 1953. 539 “Canadians Due Thursday,” New York Times, May 5, 1953; The Globe and Mail reported the Canadian agenda for the visit the paper described as “not just courtesy talks.” See “Not Just Courtesy Talks: St. Laurent to Visit Eisenhower,” Globe and Mail, May 2, 1953. 540 “Memorandum for President,” May 6, 1953, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), Dulles- Herter Series, Box 1, File: Dulles, John F. May 1953. 541 Ibid. 211

consultations, and the Arctic radar line during their conversation with Eisenhower and Dulles.542

As Dulles had advised, Eisenhower reaffirmed the 1947 principles for defense cooperation and sought to assuage Canadian concerns over the financial dimension of construction of the DEW

Line, explaining that Washington would assume its “fair share.”543 St. Laurent and Pearson ensured the political dimension of deploying U.S. military personnel to American radar stations in the Arctic was not lost on Eisenhower and Dulles. The Prime Minister made clear that there was a “strong feeling” in Canada that viewed U.S. expansion into the Far North with great skepticism. He added that less costly schemes further to the south should be considered as well.544 Pearson also turned the discussion to the political dimension. The Secretary of State voiced his disapproval of a presence of U.S. military forces in the Canadian Arctic, a sentiment he had already recorded in his diary in February,545 and told Eisenhower and Dulles that

quite apart from any question of military need for installations in the Far North constructed by the US or jointly, the political question arose in Canada of why Canada should not construct, maintain and operate all such installations in Canadian territory instead of permitting the United States squadrons and technicians into Canada while Canadian squadrons and technicians were moving to Europe.546

The perception that Canada was handing over its defense responsibilities in the North to the

United States “by default” presented “serious problems of political consequence,” Pearson made clear.547

542 “Briefing Book for The Minister,” n.d., LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N1, Pre-1958 Open Series, Vol. 66, File: USA - St. Laurent-Eisenhower Meeting 1953. 543 “[Enclosure II] Report of First Meeting Between Prime Minister and President of United States,” May 7, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1005. 544 Ibid. 545 Lester B. Pearson, “Tuesday, February 10, 1953,” February 10, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1953, 1954, 1955. 546 “[Enclosure II] Report of First Meeting Between Prime Minister and President of United States,” May 7, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1005. Emphasis added. 547 “Briefing Book for The Minister,” n.d., LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N1, Pre-1958 Open Series, Vol. 66, File: USA - St. Laurent-Eisenhower Meeting 1953. 212

The historical analogy of Pearson’s proposal to his intervention during the JAWS talks in

May 1946 is striking. Just as Pearson had argued that Canada ought to construct, finance, and operate the weather stations program as a purely Canadian undertaking, he now proposed the same for the DEW Line. Yet just as he was uninformed about the logistical and personnel demands that JAWS would have placed on the Canadian government, Pearson made the suggestion for sole Canadian construction and operation of the DEW Line without any consideration of costs and personnel. The radicalism of that proposal becomes even clearer when put in the context of Canada’s Arctic operations. In fact, Ottawa was only able to assume responsibility for the annual resupply of the five JAWS stations by the mid-1950s. In light of this, it remains unclear how Pearson envisioned Canada to build, operate, and maintain a radar network across the Canadian Arctic many times over the number of stations involved in JAWS.

Clearly, the Canadian Secretary of State was not animated by the material restraints of the

Canadian government. As Dulles had anticipated in his briefing material for Eisenhower, the politics of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the Arctic constituted a main component in

Ottawa’s reluctance to agree to an expansion of U.S. military activities throughout Northern and

Arctic Canada.

In a speech to the National Press Club during the visit, St. Laurent further elaborated on that point. Praising the history of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation, the Prime Minister, however, warned:

we want that co-operation to remain, as it has been, co-operation between two distinct countries. Much as we like you Americans we want to remain Canadians. […] Canada’s decision to be a

213

distinct and independent nation was made many years ago and we can all take it as a fact now that we will continue to exist side by side as two separate nations.548

With a rather passive Eisenhower Administration during the visit, St. Laurent and Pearson made ample use of their opportunity to impress upon their audiences in the White House, the State

Department, and the American press Canada’s concerns and skepticism about the expansion of continental air defense installations into Northern and Arctic Canada. Within hours of his return to Ottawa, St. Laurent hailed the visit a success in Parliament.549 A report about the visit by the

U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, recorded that the Canadian delegation’s objectives were, first, to press the importance to “consult and inform” and, second, to highlight a “growing political sensitivity” in Canada about the presence of the U.S. military on Canadian soil.550 St. Laurent and Pearson’s message had been received.

The Canadian visit to Washington illustrates diverging perceptions of the implications of

U.S. military activities throughout Northern and Arctic Canada. St. Laurent and Pearson took the initiative to stress the political aspects that weighed on Ottawa when entering defense arrangements with the United States on Canadian territory, especially the Arctic. The experimental DEW Line stations in Western Canada presented a case in point, crystalizing the

Canadian government’s political quandary over limited resources and an ambitious international agenda when confronted with American pressure for ramped-up defense of North America.

Pearson’s threat to reopen the 1947 defense agreement was not taken up by the Prime Minister

548 “Address by the Prime Minister of Canada at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.,” May 8, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N1, Pre-1958 Open Series, Vol. 66, File: USA - St. Laurent-Eisenhower Meeting 1953. 549 Louis St. Laurent, “Visit to Washington by Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs—Text of Communique,” May 9, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 21st Parliament, 7th Session, Vol. 5, 5055. 550 “The Chargé in Canada (Willoughby) to the Department of State,” May 13, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, Vol. VI, 2095. 214

during the visit and, as Dulles’ position indicates, would have stood little chance of success.

Claxton’s talks with the U.S. military leaders also suggests that the Canadian Secretary of State had acted on his own, perhaps under the influence of the American request for Arctic test stations and his growing conviction that, as a result, Canada’s “future policy [in the North] should be pursued aggressively.”551 Eisenhower and Dulles, on their part, sought to assure the

Canadians of their commitment to bilateral consultations and U.S. recognition of Canada’s sovereignty. Sovereignty, in their view, was a political issue, not a legal one. If military, strategic, and civil defense considerations had dominated the U.S. discussions about the viability of Arctic early warning, St. Laurent and Pearson had taken the first step with the new American administration to drive home the political tensions of entrusting Northern defense to Washington.

The renewed importance of the Arctic as a strategic space and Pearson’s nationalist views on Northern matters were not lost on foreign policy observers in Washington. The Canadian

Secretary of State had articulated his conception of Northern and Arctic Canada and the region’s potential for development and international cooperation in a Foreign Affairs article in 1946.

Seven years later, the construction of early warning test stations in the Canadian Arctic imbued the region with an even greater significance in the strategic calculations of defense planners in the United States. As a result, Hamilton F. Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs, approached

Pearson in March 1953 “to carry the subject along from where you left off in 1946” and provide a “new look” on the recent developments and their implications for the Arctic. Armstrong made

551 “Draft Memorandum from Secretary of State for External Affairs to Cabinet,” January 21, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1047. 215

sure to leave no doubt in Pearson’s mind that there was interest in the Canadian view among the highest-ranking officials in Washington, “particularly Allen Dulles and George Kennan.”552

In July 1953, Pearson’s “Canada’s Northern Horizon” appeared in the American foreign policy magazine.553 The 1953-article has not received much scrutiny among historians of the

DEW Line.554 In the essay, Pearson does not repeat his advocacy for the sector principle, but it is instructive in terms of the continuities and changes in his understanding of the Arctic. Not unlike his 1946-article, the Canadian Secretary of State surveyed the historical and contemporary significance of the Arctic for Canada at a critical time for U.S.-Canadian defense relations. This time, the Eisenhower Administration was in the midst of its continental defense and national security policy review and conducting tests for an early warning network in the Arctic. Yet whereas Pearson wrote “Canada Looks ‘Down North’” at the height of the JAWS negotiations, likely without coordination with Ottawa,555 the 1953-essay in the context of the early DEW Line talks came as a result of the express interest by observers of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. In taking up Armstrong’s solicitation, Pearson composed his fourth major pronouncement on the significance of the Canadian Arctic throughout his career as a diplomat following his 1938 Cambridge Lecture in England, his 1946 Rotary Club speech in New York,

552 The brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Hamilton F. Armstrong to Lester B. Pearson,” March 9, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N1, Vol. 19, File: Pearson, L.B., Subject Files Pre-1958 Series Articles – Foreign Affairs 1951-1957. 553 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada’s Northern Horizon,” Foreign Affairs 31, no. 4 (1953): 581–91. 554 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line”; ibid., “A ‘Common Appreciation’”; Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy”; Grant, Polar Imperative; Coates et al., Arctic Front; Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968.” 555 Neither Pearson’s files nor the governmental record on JAWS show any indication that External Affairs or other agencies were involved in the composition of the essay. See also Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty,” 34. 216

and his 1946 statement in Foreign Affairs.556 After having spoken on the subject as a regular diplomat and as Ambassador to the United States, Pearson addressed his American audience now as Canada’s Secretary of State. By implication, his political office vested his statement with the authority of representing sentiments among External Affairs officials if not government policy in

Ottawa.

Two themes dominated the development of Northern and Arctic Canada in Pearson’s view. First, the international tensions transformed the North into a space of Cold War strategic confrontation. For all of Pearson’s visions for the Arctic to serve as a region of international cooperation, including the Soviet Union, and his warnings about an “unhealthy preoccupation with the strategic aspects of the North” in 1946,557 he now acknowledged that “our northern continental frontier […] is now a vital area of both defense and development.”558 The emergence of nuclear weapons, improved Soviet delivery capabilities, and the assessment that the Kremlin posed a military threat to North America’s security should, nonetheless, not lead to “gloomy speculations” about “imaginary battles waged in the polar ice.”559 They should, however, give rise to defense planning based on the principles announced in the 1947 U.S.-Canadian agreement and be considered an element in the collective security framework of NATO and the United

Nations.560 Beyond the principle that any defense activity on Canadian territory was not to violate Canadian sovereignty and the policy that Ottawa would not grant long-term leases to U.S. bases in Canada, Pearson drew his readers’ attention to Ottawa’s challenge to relate its

556 Lester B. Pearson, “Canada,” August 2-3, 1938, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol 1, File: 30 Nov. 1930 to 3 Aug. 1941; Ibid., “Canada Moves North,” Address at the Rotary Club of New York, February 7, 1946, LAC, MG 26 N9, Vol. 1, File: Feb. 1946-Sep. 1946. Pearson, “Canada Looks ‘Down North.’” 557 Ibid., 644. 558 Ibid., “Canada’s Northern Horizon,” 581. 559 Ibid., 582. 560 Ibid. 217

international commitments in Europe and in Korea to costly schemes for continental defense at home:

we would be inviting the very catastrophe we seek to avert, were we to exchange the collective defense strategy which we share with our friends and allies in NATO, and the commitments we have assumed as members of the United Nations, for a narrow continentalism. The problem for Canada is to maintain a balance in committing her limited manpower and defense resources; to weigh carefully the alternative risks of the overrunning of Western Europe by a potential enemy, and the risks of attack by the polar route; and to formulate plans and priorities accordingly.561

Suggesting that an overemphasis on Arctic defense might jeopardize security elsewhere in the global Cold War, Pearson repeated his 1946 warning against massive defense expenditures in the

Canadian Arctic. Balancing these demands, Pearson argued, called for neither ignoring the North nor for becoming obsessed with it.

A second theme in the article was the Northern and Arctic regions’ potential as a source for the national development of Canada. “In Canadian minds,” Pearson declared, “the Arctic is looming ever larger.” 562 The surge in exploration and scientific activity in recent years contributed to an increasing awareness in Canada about the future promise of the North. What had been considered little more than “undefined areas of ice and barren rock,” Pearson wrote, the

Canadian Arctic now emerged as a rich cache of energy, minerals, and metals. Oil and hydroelectric power, uranium, nickel, copper, zinc, iron ore, and silver, among other resources, existed in commercial quantities and were located in economically viable areas, waiting for development. In an effort to overcome “misconceptions,” Pearson described the geological and climatic diversity of Canada’s Northern and Arctic regions, detailing the multifaceted environments from the Arctic Islands, the tundra of the Northwest Territories to the Canadian

Shield and the coast of Labrador. True, communication and transportation infrastructure

561 Ibid., 584. 562 Ibid. 218

remained a challenge. “In summer, travel by boat is possible; in winter, the sledge is the family

Ford,” he noted.563 Yet the appeal of adventure and the purportedly inherent Canadian impulse to heed the call of the wilderness to expand further North the Canadian experience and the grasp of the Canadian government, Pearson was convinced, would transform Northern and Arctic Canada into an essential ingredient of Canada’s national identity. Indeed, the process of its acquisition and appropriation through exploration, commercial development, scientific assessment, and administrative rule was essential to the growth of Canada as a distinct North American nation.

Pearson’s portrayal of the North merits longer quotation for its effective incorporation of nineteenth-century tropes of frontier imagery and modernist convictions in the superiority of state planning and science:

Within very recent years […] the Canadian Arctic is being transformed from a vacuum to a frontier, and although it would be a bold man who would forecast the nature of its future development, of one thing we can be sure: if Horace Greeley were alive today, and if he were a Canadian, he would say, ‘Go North, young man!’

[…]

It takes the story of men with imagination, vision and devotion who have gone far, far ‘down north’ to explore the mysteries of another world which, curiously enough, shares many problems with our own. Some of the men are explorers, who painstakingly map, not just the coastlines and mountain ranges which the aerial camera has already registered, but the nature of the rocks, the glaciers, the structure of the ice, the salinity of the sea, the minerals under the earth. Some are policemen, young constables of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who alone or in pairs have responsibility for the administration of law and order in areas far broader than many European countries. Some are prospectors, traders, missionaries and doctors. Some are air strip mechanics who, 2,000 miles back of beyond, have built airfields of the gravel left by glaciers. Some are meteorological observers and radio operators who explore the weather from ground to upper atmosphere and send reports which will be recorded on every weather map in North America. Some are botanists, zoologists, seismologists; some cooks. They work in bitter cold under skies darkened half a year and on top of permafrost whose thickness man has just begun to measure. And some are members of our armed forces, learning to operate in this far northland. They have made camps to live and work in, aerial masts, roads and landing strips. Together they are opening a new land.564

563 Ibid., 589. 564 Ibid., 587–88. 219

The Secretary of State mobilized the well-established tropes of the North as an empty frontier space ready to be conquered by entrepreneurial and courageous explorers, missionaries, policemen, modern scientists, and the Canadian military. The development of the Arctic becomes part of the logical extension of Canada’s expansion across the continent, it is embedded in a grand narrative of nation-building, and as such a foundational experience of Canadian nationhood.

The Northern and Arctic Canada that emerges from Pearson’s “Canada’s Northern

Horizon” departed from his earlier statements in 1938 and 1946 in important ways. The explicit references to the Anglo-Saxon supremacist ideas of the Canada First Movement and the environmental determinism of Robert Service gave way to a predominantly dispassionate overview of the Canadian North’s geological, climatic, and natural resource features. Moral anecdotes about virtuous and courageous prospectors and explorers and the Arctic boosterism reminiscent of Vilhjalmur Stefansson were replaced with descriptions about the practical challenges of expanding communication and transportation infrastructure. Pearson’s penchant for using the interpretive frameworks of frontier adventure and the North’s formative powers for the national development of Canada, nonetheless, continued to appear throughout his essay. When placed in relation to his prewar and postwar statements, however, the scarcity of instructive anecdotes and appeals to the symbolic dimension of the North was a notable change. In other words, “science and data replaced narrative and mythology.”565

The reason for this departure from Pearson’s earlier writings and speeches about the

North is not the result of a shift in the Secretary of State’s understanding of the region’s cultural

565 Woitkowitz, “The Northern Education of Lester B. Pearson,” 92. 220

significance. Pearson’s involvement with the Arctic remained limited to specific questions of policy and politics in view of American defense requests. During 1952 and 1953, his position as

President of the U.N. General Assembly, moreover, drew Pearson’s attention to high-profile international crises in Korea and Europe.566 What accounts for the shift in style and substance of

“Canada’s Northern Horizon” is the fact that R. A. J. Phillips, not Pearson, was the primary author of the article. In addition to Keenleyside, Phillips was External Affairs’ Arctic hand in many ways. He had been involved with the JAWS negotiations, the Advisory Committee on

Northern Development (ACND), the PJBD, and, most importantly, he had first hand knowledge of the region through various trips to the Canadian Arctic.567 Phillips saw the Foreign Affairs article as an opportunity to stress the civilian and scientific aspects of U.S.-Canadian defense projects in the North, specifically the JAWS program. He also asked Pearson for guidance with respect to Project Counterchange “in view of the unwanted publicity recently,” referring to a series of well-sourced articles on U.S. air defense plans by Joseph and Stewart Alsop.568

For all of Phillip’s contributions to the article on the regions’ geography, geology, climate, and natural resources, he too saw great value in the North as a symbolic space for the projection of visions of national identity and history. In a Centennial Celebration publication in

1967, Phillips penned his thoughts and experiences as a civil servant, working on Northern

566 Cohen, Lester B. Pearson, 112f; John English, The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume II: 1949- 1972 (Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 1992), 75–77. 567 R. A. J. Phillips, Canada’s North (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967). 568 Ibid., “Memorandum for Mr. Rae,” March 25, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N1, Vol 19, File: Pearson, L.B. Subject Files Pre-1958 Series Articles – Foreign Affairs 1951-1957. The articles by the Alsop brothers traced bureaucratic evolution of the plans for the DEW Line in remarkable detail, indicating the lobbying efforts by DEW Line advocates for approval of the project within the American defense establishment. See “16-Billion-Dollar Addition to Air Defense Considered,” Washington Post, March 16, 1953; “Huge Air Defense Program Is Only a Beginning,” Washington Post, March 18, 1953; “Approval of Leading Parts of Air Defense Plant Seen,” Washington Post, March 19, 1953. 221

problems. He insisted that “part of the price of Canadian citizenship is acquaintance with the northern third of [the] country.” Phillips continued:

When men live in the North, their values change. They build new civilizations on a mud flat in the Klondike. They live a lifetime alone, and die when they emerge. They become citizens of a different kind of country, a country where nature is overwhelmingly stronger than man.569

Conceived as a primer on the North at a moment of national reflection, Phillips provided a window into the cultural works and ideas that had shaped his views on the North over the years, calling special attention to Vilhjalmur Stefansson but also Robert Service, Group of Seven artists

A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, and Frederic Varley, and more recently, the writings of Farley

Mowat, which he deemed “the modern North’s finest writing.”570 Phillips, hence, was just as conversant in the vernacular of cultural representations of Northern and Arctic Canada and the politics of Canada’s Northern nationalism as was Pearson. Endorsing the sections on the symbolic significance of the North for the national development of Canada from Pearson’s earlier statements, therefore, likely did not cause Phillips much difficulty.

In view of Phillip’s authorship, the article then can be interpreted in line with what the historical geographer Matthew Farish described as the geographical engineering of the Arctic through the ever-expanding relationship between science and strategy and the growing role of experts in the formulation of Arctic policy.571 Farish’s reading, however, falls short to account for the strong continuity of Pearson’s conceptions of the Arctic as a frontier space, views that, in fact, long predated the emergence of the Cold War alliance of science and strategy. Indeed,

Pearson’s Northern nationalism remained largely intact despite the fundamental transformation

569 Phillips, Canada’s North, xi–xii. 570 Ibid., 263–80. 571 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 177. 222

of World War II and the strategic role of the Arctic in the age of long-range aircraft and nuclear bombs. Continuity, not change, were the hallmarks of Pearson’s Arctic vision and diplomacy.

In the summer of 1953, at a moment when the Eisenhower administration reviewed its continental defense policy and its global Cold War foreign policy posture, Pearson reiterated his conviction that it would be a mistake to overemphasize Arctic defense. The region constituted a central space in the national imagination of Canadians, in his view, and, as he had indicated during his and St. Laurent’s visit in May, the expansion of U.S. military installations and service personnel posed a serious political problem. Pearson’s efforts to link continental defense planning with the principle of collective defense as enshrined in NATO and the United Nations appeared ill-fated and did not receive consideration by Washington. As Eisenhower and Dulles had indicated earlier in the year, however, they were aware of the political dimension of U.S.-

Canadian defense cooperation and prepared to give public assurances of Washington’s respect for Canada’s sovereignty based on the 1947 defense cooperation agreement.

The New Look and the New North

The Canadian Secretary of State’s reservations about early warning stations in the Arctic notwithstanding, Washington’s continental defense review throughout the summer of 1953 lent increasing weight to the expansion of radar networks in the far north. Based on the findings of defense consultant Robert C. Sprague and his July presentations at the National Security

Council,572 Robert C. Cutler, Special Assistant to the President, presented the conclusions of

NSC-159/4 that existing air defense systems were inadequate. The Soviet Union’s growing

572 “Continental Defense,” July 22, 1953, NARA, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 159-160, Box 23, File: NSC 159. 223

delivery capabilities and its detonation of a hydrogen bomb on August 12, 1953, had “placed a premium upon […] an early warning system.”573 At the NSC meeting on September 24, Dulles concluded from the recent tests that the Kremlin was in a position to build “air delivery hydrogen weapons.”574 The Soviet’s expanding capabilities notwithstanding, NSC 159/4 assessed that

Moscow’s intentions, despite Stalin’s death half a year earlier, remained unchanged. As Kennan had argued in 1946 in Ottawa,575 the risk of an immediate attack was considered “unlikely.”576

Regardless, war continued to pose a threat, NSC-159/4 stated, as a result of misperceptions and the Soviet Union’s “basic hostility to the free world and its ultimate objective of dominating the world.”577 Among other programs, Eisenhower’s continental defense policy prioritized the construction of a “Northern Canadian Detector Line” to a “high state of readiness over the next two years.”578 The cooperation and participation of Ottawa in this policy was considered

“essential” and efforts were recommended to engage the Canadian government “at the highest levels” to establish a strategic consensus and inquire about its intentions to “take leadership in developing parts of the system and in contributing to its expense.” 579 The Eisenhower

Administration approved NSC-159/4 on September 25, 1953, superseding Truman’s NSC-

573 “Continental Defense,” September 25, 1953, NARA, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 159-160, Box 23, File: NSC 159/4, 7 574 “Discussion at the 163rd Meeting of the National Security Council,” September 25, 1953, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 4, File: 163rd Meeting of NSC, September 24, 1953, 2. 575 “Memorandum of Canadian-United States Defense Conversations Held in Ottawa in Suite ‘E’ Chateau Laurier Hotel,” December 16 and 17, 1946, NARA, RG 59, Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section, Subject File, 1940-59, Alaska Highway to Industrial Defense Board, Box 2, File: Basic Papers PJBD 1946-47, 2. 576 “Continental Defense,” September 25, 1953, NARA, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 159-160, Box 23, File: NSC 159/4, 9. 577 Ibid., 10. 578 Ibid., 19; 15. 579 Ibid., 13f. 224

139.580 The expansion of the continental air defense architecture, as Schaffel has shown, now had been endorsed by the entire U.S. national security establishment.581

The continental defense policy was a fundamental element in the Eisenhower

Administration’s global national security strategy. “[O]ur existing commitments to help in creating outposts of indigenous strength in NATO countries and in the Orient,” NSC-159/4 noted, “contribute to the defense of the continental United States as well as does the development of an early warning system in the Western Hemisphere.”582 Approved a month after the continental defense policy review, the ‘New Look’ policy of NSC-162/2 shifted the focus from

Truman’s comprehensive build-up of conventional military forces to the nuclear deterrent.

Beyond strategic calculations, budgetary considerations dominated Washington’s discussions about an appropriate course of action. Eisenhower, a fiscal conservative and strong adherent of a balanced budget philosophy, resented Truman’s military Keynesianism as formulated in NSC-

68. If the United States was not to compromise its values and institutions, equilibrium between economic and national security needs had to be found.583 “The real problem,” Eisenhower warned, “was to devise methods of meeting the Soviet threat and of adopting controls, if necessary, that would not result in our transformation into a garrison state.”584 The shift to the nuclear deterrent sought to accomplish that objective and, as a result, placed the U.S. strategic air

580 “An Early Warning System,” December 31, 1952, NARA, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 126-139, Box 18, File: NSC 139. 581 Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, 193. 582 “Continental Defense,” September 25, 1953, NARA, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, Policy Papers 159-160, Box 23, File: NSC 159/4, 3. 583 For a full discussion of Project Solarium, the national security policy review of the Eisenhower Administration, and the origins of NSC-162/2, see Saki Dockrill, Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy: 1953-61 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), chpts. 3-4; McMahon, “U.S. National Security Policy, Eisenhower to Kennedy,” 293; John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), chpt. 5. 584 “Discussion at the 163rd Meeting of the National Security Council,” September 25, 1953, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 4, File: 163rd Meeting of NSC, September 24, 1953, 5. 225

forces front and center in strategy to deter and to contain Soviet aggression in North American as well as abroad. NSC-162/2 stipulated that “in the face of Soviet atomic power, defense of the continental United States becomes vital to effective security; to protect our striking force, our mobilization base, and our people.” In order to protect Washington’s retaliatory long-range bombers then “maximum prior warning of possible aggression” was essential for the U.S. Air

Force to have its strategic bombers take off before facing destruction on the ground.585 The establishment of early warning systems in the far North, therefore, had become a fundamental pillar in Washington’s continental defense and national security policy.586 Cold War ideology, a global containment strategy, and economic considerations, not ideas about the cultural significance of the Northern and Arctic regions in the history and national identity of the United

States, drove the Eisenhower Administration’s deliberations about the construction of the DEW

Line.

Eisenhower’s state visit to Ottawa in mid-November 1953, his first visit to a foreign capital since his inauguration as President, was a high-level effort to press ahead with the conclusions of NSC-159/4 and to assuage Canadian concerns over U.S. air defense plans. Under-

Secretary of State Walter B. Smith briefed Eisenhower before his trip. Ottawa had shown “a remarkable similarity of views” in terms of continental defense requirements, Smith observed.

Yet the Canadian government, he added, continued to be troubled by “the magnitude of U.S.

585 “Basic National Security Policy,” October 30, 1953, DDE, White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61, Disaster File, Box 11, File: NSC 162/2, 6-8. 586 Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, 193–94. 226

installations in Canada” and it did not subscribe to the same sense of urgency with which

Washington viewed the need for radar defense in the Arctic.587

During his two-day visit, the U.S. President addressed a joint session of the House of

Commons and the Senate on Parliament Hill. By way of introduction, Prime Minister St. Laurent welcomed Eisenhower with praise for the United States’ wartime efforts and its commitment to reconstruction in its aftermath. He spoke of the rise of a “distinct Canadian feeling and culture” that developed next to the powerful influence of American cultural life. Finally, St. Laurent commended both countries’ record for close consultations in matters of the common defense of

North America, at the same time inserting an implicit expectation for the intensification of this practice for the future.588

Eisenhower reciprocated St. Laurent’s celebration of the history of successful U.S.-

Canadian relations. After touching on the topics of trade and the protracted talks over the St.

Lawrence Seaway, the President made an emphatic pledge for prompt action on continental air defense measures:

Canada and the United States are equal partners and neither dares to waste time. There is a time to be alert and a time to rest. These days demand ceaseless vigilance. We must be ready and prepared. The threat is present. The measures of defence have been thoroughly studied by official bodies of both countries. The permanent joint board on defence [sic] has worked assiduously and effectively on mutual problems. Now is the time for action on all agreed measures.589

587 “Briefing Paper for President’s Visit to Ottawa, November 13-14, 1953,” November 11, 1953, DDE, Papers as President 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), Dulles-Herter Series, Box 2, File: Dulles, John F. Nov 1953. 588 An embassy report on Eisenhower’s visit to Ottawa indicates that St. Laurent’s comments were well-received, lauding them as a “piece of exceptionally fine writing.” See “The Counselor of Embassy in Canada (Bliss) to the Department of State,” November 17, 1953, FRUS, 1952-1954, Vol. VI, 2115. 589 Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Speech before Parliament of Canada,” November 13, 1953, DDE, Papers as President of the United States, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), Speech Series, A75-22, Box 5, File: Ottawa Speech [inc. notes and drafts] [11/14/53], 22-23; See also “Address by President Eisenhower,” November 14, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, 27. 227

The agreed measures Eisenhower mentioned in his speech referred to the construction of the

McGill-Fence or Mid-Canada Line, a chain of automated radar stations along the 55th parallel.590

The U.S. President’s comments in Ottawa then sought to maintain the pressure on those projects over which both governments had reached consensus and to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to the practice of consultations. If Eisenhower pressed for his Canadian audience to come to a similar appreciation of the urgency of defense measures in the face of the threat of Soviet nuclear air attacks, he did not pre-empt the MSG report on Project Corrode—formerly Project

Counterchange—and press for the construction of an Arctic radar system outright.

The public perception of Eisenhower’s visit was overwhelmingly positive. Editorial commentary in the United States commended the President for his efforts to engage the Canadian government and stressed the interdependence among Canada and the United States in the area of continental defense.591 Some reports looked past the declarations of harmonious relations to single out the area of air defense as a topic of substantive disagreement between both governments and emphasized Eisenhower’s urging for Ottawa not to waiver.592 Canada’s Globe and Mail effusively celebrated Eisenhower as “one of the great figures of this era” but also rejected a “platitudinous” harmonious narrative of the Canadian-American relationship.593 The

President’s emphatic statements on defense expansion of radar systems was also highlighted.594

In a private memorandum for St. Laurent, Pearson shared his views about his conversations with

590 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 81f. 591 “Visit to Canada,” Washington Post, November 14, 1953; “Visit to Canada,” New York Times, November 14, 1953. 592 “Ike Urges A-Defense with Canada,” Washington Post, November 15, 1953; “Ike Returns from 2-Day Trip to Canada,” Washington Post, November 16, 1953. 593 “Welcome to Mr. Eisenhower,” Globe and Mail, November 13, 1954; “Canadians Reject Isolationism,” Globe and Mail, November 16, 1953. 594 “Speed Joint Defense, Eisenhower Advises,” Globe and Mail, November 16, 1953. 228

Eisenhower, mostly based on his train ride with the U.S. President from the international border to Ottawa. Pearson thought that the visit “went off extremely well. […] There do not seem to have been any sour notes.” He added that the American President “did not say anything, at least in public, that was new or of immediate importance” before relating comments by Eisenhower that he would not run for a second term as President of the United States.595 Despite Pearson’s judgment that no immediate matters had arisen from Eisenhower’s visit, the Cabinet decided to respond to the President’s call for action and to dispatch Claxton to explain the state of military planning and Ottawa’s “intention to strengthen radar defences” in the House of Commons.596

The New York Times chalked up Claxton’s statement as the result of Eisenhower’s visit.597

The public reactions and the actions by the Canadian government illustrate that

Eisenhower’s visit to Ottawa had been a success for Washington. Eisenhower assured the

Canadians of the United States’ commitment to continued consultations. At the same time, he had been able to send a clear message to the Canadian government about the urgency of continental defense measures as had been laid out in NSC-159/4 and the ‘New Look’. Above all,

Eisenhower had been able to deliver a call to action avoiding impressions of overbearing demeanor that had, at times, characterized defense relations in the past. While the MSG’s studies

595 Pearson explained that in a conversation between his wife Maryon Pearson and the President, Eisenhower spoke freely about his political future and the role of Henry Cabot Lodge: “not only would he [Eisenhower] not run again, but that Henry Cabot Lodge was his favourite candidate to succeed him! He seemed very candid about this, and implied that one of the reasons he took Mr. Lodge along to Ottawa was to assist in the process of building him up as the next President. [Eisenhower] state[d] without qualification that if Foster Dulles had to drop out, how fortunate he, the President, was, to have Cabot Lodge to succeed him. This is interesting and important, and does not I think, reflect the best political judgement on the part of the President.” See “Memorandum for the Prime Minister,” November 16, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N1, Vol. 65, File: Pre-1958 Open Files USA-Canada Relations – 1953-57. 596 “Continental Defence,” November 19, 1953, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Volume 2653, Item: 13178, 4; “Address by Brooke Claxton,” November 26, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, 358-65. 597 “Ottawa Stresses Northern Defense,” New York Times, November 27, 1953. 229

about the experimental DEW Line stations in the Western Arctic to decide the viability of a radar system in the far north were ongoing, Ottawa’s commitment to construct the McGill Fence along the 55th parallel and its reaffirmation of its intention to work closely with Washington on defense projects was all Eisenhower sought to achieve on his trip. For Canada, the visit reaffirmed that the continental defense architecture in North America as an essential element in the United

States’ strategic Cold War posture continued to remain a high-priority item in the bilateral relationship. Northern and Arctic Canada, Claxton had vaguely indicated in his speech, was likely to assume an increased importance.598 This growing importance, however, also was to extend beyond questions of continental air defense as the following months were going to show.

Within weeks of Eisenhower’s public urging for continuing defense cooperation and

Claxton’s reaffirmation of Canada’s commitment to radar defense installations, the Prime

Minister issued an emphatic statement on the foundational significance of Northern and Arctic

Canada to the country’s national development. In response to Washington’s request for the DEW

Line test stations in the Western Arctic, the Prime Minister had already warned against the overwhelming presence of Americans across the North. If Northern and Arctic Canada was a key ingredient in the national development of Canada, as Pearson had insisted in his 1953 Foreign

Affairs-statement, its potential as a source for the economic, social, and cultural future of Canada had to be safeguarded from encroaching American interests.

In a speech in the House of Commons on the occasion of the creation of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources in December 1953, St. Laurent presented his vision of the national significance of Canada’s North. The “mere fact of geography” and the fact that

598 “Address by Brooke Claxton,” November 26, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, 358-65. 230

Canada was located between the shortest air routes between the United States and the Soviet

Union meant that “there will, no doubt, have to be joint measures taken for the security of the

North American continent.” The designation of a single department under the leadership of its inaugural minister Jean Lesage to the development of Northern and Arctic Canada, the Prime

Minister stressed, served as a “symbolic” act to signal that the North was Canadian.599

St. Laurent’s speech took the topic of Canada’s North beyond a regular announcement of an administrative makeover. The Prime Minister saw in the passing of the bill that authorized the establishment of the new department a moment of “national stocktaking,”600 a moment to reflect not on what the bill “contains or does, in precise terms, but […] what its passage will signify.”601

For the Prime Minister, this was an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the North and make a public declaration of the Northern and Arctic regions’ significance to the national development of Canada. Having reviewed the history of the Northwest Territories and the Arctic Archipelago beginning with the transfer of legal titles in the late nineteenth century, St. Laurent placed the creation of Northern Affairs and National Resources in line with recent landmark legislation passed in the Canadian Parliament. In his view, Ottawa’s decision to place Northern development front and center marked a moment of national introspection such as the debates over the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946, the United Nations treaties of the same year, and the public discussion over the admission of Newfoundland as Canada’s tenth province in 1949.

Indeed, these debates represented national reflections over identity, international affairs, and the idea of confederation. As Pearson and Keenleyside or Massey and Berton, among others, had

599 Louis St. Laurent, “Provision for Consitution of Department, Definition of Duties and Functions of Minister, etc.,” December 8, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, 700. 600 Ibid., 697. 601 Ibid., 696. 231

suggested earlier, St. Laurent intimated that the focus on the North was nothing less than a logical conclusion of the larger historical forces guiding the national evolution of Canada.602

The Prime Minister’s speech tapped into the repertoire of cultural representations of the

North. In a pattern similar to Pearson’s 1953 Foreign Affairs article, St. Laurent combined recent scientific and administrative knowledge, on the one hand, with images of the nineteenth-century exploration and settlement of the Western provinces as a process of nation-building, on the other.

In the absence of first-hand knowledge, the Prime Minister hinted at the sources that informed his views of the northern environment and its peoples. Based on “what I have read and seen in films,” St. Laurent volunteered, he was optimistic about the government’s ability to “integrate the native Eskimo population” into Ottawa’s plans for the North, illustrating the Canadian government’s paternalistic approach to Northern indigenous peoples.603

Beyond this moment of self-reflection, the speech is replete with geographical data, describing the vast expanses of the Northern territories and the Arctic Islands in relation to the southern Canadian provinces and Alaska. The publication of recent cartographical assessments of the Canadian North, which Pearson had cited in Foreign Affairs as well, the release of demographic data, and the statistics of gold, silver, and zinc deposits throughout the Northwest

Territories and the Yukon served to give an indication of both the potential and the increasing pace of activities in Canada’s northern regions. To convey the meaning of this potential and its implications for the country, St. Laurent likened the surge of activity of the 1940s and early

1950s to that of the late nineteenth-century Western settlement:

602 Ibid., 698; Pearson, “Canada Looks ‘Down North’”; Pearson, “Canada’s Northern Horizon”; Donald G. Creighton, Dominion of the North. A History of Canada (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944). 603 Louis St. Laurent, “Provision for Consitution of Department, Definition of Duties and Functions of Minister, etc.,” December 8, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, 700. 232

The growth and development of the territories is perhaps somewhat reminiscent of what took place in the Canadian west at the end of the last century. They have not yet reached the stage of full bloom which occurred when the west filled up in the early years of the century, but they have reached a stage where it is clear that the north, just as certainly as had the west fifty years ago, has a great future for the benefit of the Canadian nation.604

Just as European settlers had begun to take possession of the lands on the Prairies and demonstrated the virtues of frontier life, so would stories about prospectors and entrepreneurs incorporate the vast lands of the North into the imagined national community of Canada.605

Finally, St. Laurent briefly addressed the question of security and sovereignty. He re- emphasized the 1947 defense agreement and its provisions for the protection of national sovereignty as the basis for all U.S.-Canadian defense activities in the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada. If Pearson had avoided a comment on Canada’s sovereignty claims to the

Arctic islands in his 1953 Foreign Affairs essay, St. Laurent addressed the matter directly and stressed the concept of effective occupation of these territories. “We must leave no doubt about our active occupation and exercise of our sovereignty in these northern lands right up to the pole,” he said.606 The Prime Minister’s phrase “right up to the pole,” however, caught the attention of U.S. officials, as it seemed to keep alive Canadian sector claims.607

St. Laurent embedded the North in the grand narrative of a linear national development, pushing the European settler from the Atlantic and Central provinces across the continent to inevitably turn North. In doing so, he drew on a familiar and well-established representation of the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada as a land of riches and promise. The construction of

604 Ibid., 698. 605 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition (London and New York: Verso, 2006). 606 Louis St. Laurent, “Provision for Consitution of Department, Definition of Duties and Functions of Minister, etc.,” December 8, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, 700. 607 “Foreign Service Despatch, U.S. Embassy, Ottawa, to the Department of State, Washington, Canadian Sovereignty in the Arctic Archipelago,” March 10, 1955, in: Kikkert and Lackenbauer, Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, 329; Smith, “Sovereignty in the North,” 223. 233

air strips, roads, and waterways, the establishment of communication and broadcasting systems, and the exploitation of the North’s natural resources not only brought the North into the national community in a material way. These efforts, St. Laurent suggested, offered Canadians the collective opportunity to partake in the unfinished experience of nation-building, raising the country’s awareness of its history and identity as a Northern and Arctic nation. His brief references to U.S.-Canadian defense activities and the emphasis of ‘active occupation’ as a basis for Canadian claims in the Arctic Archipelago, once more, demonstrate the entanglement of the

North as a nationally defining idea, the security dimension, and questions of sovereignty.

The Prime Minister’s address received broad support from the opposition and in the press. Leader of the Opposition George A. Drew welcomed the government’s interest in the

North and in his official response drew heavily on the romantic representations of the North as a challenge and a testing space for those strong enough to partake in the Canadian experience:

Nothing will ever change the fact that the true north, the far north, is bound to be a land of ice and snow for a considerable part of the year, but it can also be a land of great beauty and great attractiveness. It is a land of great opportunity, a land that beckons to the able and the vigorous and to people of all ages who still seek adventure and are prepared to put effort into that adventure which pays great rewards.608

Drew concluded by reciting a verse of Robert Service’s “Song of the Yukon,” the poet who, in his view, “made the distant north a land of romance to many of us[,] a land that would be developed only by the hardy, the strong and the bold.”609 Newspaper reports highlighted those sections of St. Laurent’s speech that referred to the influx of Americans and the surge of U.S. military installations as a cause for a more assertive policy towards the North. Indeed, the

608 George A. Drew, “Provision for Consitution of Department, Definition of Duties and Functions of Minister, etc.,” December 8, 1953, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, 718. 609 Drew recited the following lines of Robert W. Service’s “Song of the Yukon”: “This is the law of the Yukon, / And ever she makes it plain: / Send not your foolish and feeble; / Send me your strong and your sane.” Ibid., 719-20. 234

proximity between recent statements on Northern defense and the Prime Minister’s declaration spurred suspicions among some. In an editorial entitled “Land of the North Are We,” the Globe and Mail raised questions about whether there had been undue American pressure on Ottawa. “If we are not going to let the United States take over our northern resources,” the paper advocated,

we are under so much greater obligation to develop them ourselves. The implications of this, in terms of population, enterprise, vision and courage, are not, we hope, lost on the Government. We believe the Canadian people themselves would welcome and support a most vigorous program of northern development. But there should not be the slightest doubt that the North belongs to Canada, and must remain Canada’s.610

Having accepted the premise of St. Laurent’s statement, the Globe and Mail pressed the government for tangible action beyond “speeches, maps, and flags.” Echoing the Prime

Minister’s conviction in the integral role of the North for the future development of Canada, the paper commented that

the exploration, development and conservation of our Northern resources should, in this newspaper’s view, be one of Ottawa’s prime concerns—ranking at least equal with defense, which those resources complement, and with social security, which they will some day have to underpin.611

Commenting in the pages of the Washington Post, George V. Ferguson, editor of the Montreal

Star, also linked St. Laurent’s speech with attitudes towards defense cooperation: “Canada proposes to keep its flag flying lest any of the other participants in joint defense forget that the soil they tread on is Canadian.”612

Pearson’s 1953 Foreign Affairs article and St. Laurent’s address to the House of

Commons illustrate the close entanglement of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation in the North and the powerful resonance of cultural representations of Northern and Arctic Canada as a

610 “Land of the North Are We,” Globe and Mail, December 21, 1953. 611 “A Job for This Generation,” Globe and Mail, December 12, 1953. 612 “George V. Ferguson, “Canada Grooming Its Rich Arctic Reaches,” Washington Post, December 20, 1953. 235

critical ingredient in the construction of a national identity and history. Their portrayals closely dovetailed the Northern nationalism by contemporaries such as Vincent Massey’s northern nation-building, Pierre Berton’s mythical north, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s Arctic commercial utopia. They also invoked earlier Northern and Arctic representations such as Robert Service’s adventurous and seductive North or Lawren Harris’ theosophical Arctic sublime. The potent force of Canadian nationalism in combination with the politics of a Canadian Northern nationalism constituted the social-cultural context for the concurrent bilateral talks over the expansion of continental air defense installations in the Canadian Arctic. The tropes of the North as a twentieth-century frontier, a land of resource riches underwriting the future development of

Canada, and a space for industrious and courageous prospectors and entrepreneurs to prove their worth and the supremacy of human ingenuity over nature remained a key frame of reference for

Canada’s leading politicians. As a decision by the Military Study Group, the bilateral body examining the feasibility of an early warning system in the Arctic, approached in June 1954,

Canadian officials in Ottawa and Washington ramped up their campaign to bolster the notion of

Canada as an Arctic nation.

In January 1954, the newly appointed Minister of Northern Affairs and National

Resources, Jean Lesage, made ample use of public speeches and parliamentary debates to press for greater efforts throughout the Canadian North. Over the course of the first half of 1954, he stressed the regions’ strategic role in the Cold War,613 its potential for economic development,614 the message of Canada’s active administration and occupation such activities would send to

613 Jean Lesage, “Les possibilités du nord du pays décrites par l’hon. Jean Lesage,” Le Soleil, January 19, 1954. 614 Ibid., “More Canadians Needed in North, Lesage Asserts,” Toronto Star, February 9, 1954. 236

Washington,615 and the use of government services to alleviate poverty and malnutrition among

Inuit communities.616 At talks across Canada and in the United States, Lesage raised the specter of American penetration of Northern and Arctic Canada, a region that he described to the

Canadian Club of Hamilton as “this storeroom of wealth, this bastion of defence.”617 Echoing St.

Laurent, Lesage used the notion of Ottawa’s renewed interest in the North as a marker of national development, a moment of “stock taking after 87 years of adolescence.” Prying the natural riches from the North, the Minister had declared earlier, posed a challenge to Canadians much like earlier efforts of nation-building. “Our exciting northern chapter,” Lesage boosted, “is only just the beginning.”618 “We have every confidence,” the Minister declared in the House of

Commons, “that we are on the threshold of a new age, if not of discovery, then of development of our Arctic lands and seas.”619

In the United States, A. D. P. Heeney, the successor to Hume Wrong as Canadian

Ambassador, employed the tropes of Northern adventure and heroism and the Laurentian paradigm of Canadian history at public appearances. For a brief radio broadcast on the occasion of Dominion Day in 1954, Heeney chose to foreground the history and the promise of the

Canadian North for the future development of Canada:

The history of Canada has been an exciting story—the heroic, peaceful conquest of a vast new land. It is the story of the explorer, the missionary, the trader and the settler—the great thrust westward to the Pacific and north to the Arctic. It is the story of the railroader and the bush pilot, the prospector and the engineer. […] Our vast northland has been called the last North American frontier. And we are

615 Ibid., “Sovereignty in Arctic Canada’s, Says Lesage,” Globe and Mail, February 10, 1954. 616 Ibid., “Indigenous Eskimos Described by Canadian Cabinet Minister,” Montreal Star, March 29, 1954. 617 Ibid., “Minister Stresses Need Northern Development,” Hamilton Spectator, April 27, 1954. 618 Ibid. 619 Ibid., “Queen Elizabeth Islands,” February 5, 1954, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 2, 1810. 237

still at a stage when great new discoveries are being made, for the fullness of our great natural wealth is as yet unknown.620

Heeney imbued Northern and Arctic Canada with the lure of riches, albeit “as yet unknown,” and a sense of adventure in the service of a greater cause. In his narrative, the presence of indigenous peoples prior to what he portrays as a “heroic, peaceful conquest” by European settlers have no place. Instead, he composes an uplifting, teleological mythology in which the settlement and development of Canada’s most northern reaches constitutes the inevitable conclusion of

Canada’s nationhood. At a function in Chicago later that year, Heeney elaborated on this theme.

In a Hegelian move, the ambassador invoked a larger force guiding the country to its “territorial destiny farther north:” The story of Canada’s northern promise

began before our Confederation in 1867 and has gone on ever since – the slow stretching-out north and west from the valley of the St. Lawrence across the Great Lakes and over the great plains; the breaching of the mighty barrier of the Rockies, the final break-through to the Pacific and to the Arctic. It is the story of explorers and missionaries, traders and homesteaders; of builders and prospectors. More recently it is the story of the bush pilot and the scientist. Many of these episodes have a peculiarly Canadian quality.621

Addressing American audiences, the Canadian ambassador composed a mural of Canadian history, in which the push towards Northern and Arctic Canada constituted the national coda to what the storied ‘closure of the American West’ represented at the end of the nineteenth century in the United States, a parallel, Heeney was convinced, “many of you will readily recognize.”622

The development of the North and the significance of the region in the history of Canada featured prominently throughout Pearson’s speeches at functions in the United States as well. In

Winter Park, Florida, the Canadian Secretary of State delivered a cursory overview of the

620 A. D. P. Heeney, “WGAY – United Nations Broadcast,” June 27, 1954, LAC, A. D. P. Heeney Fonds, MG 30 E 144, Vol. 11, File: Speeches as Ambassador to U.S. Apr 1954 – Dec 1954. 621 Ibid., “Canada’s Peace Insurance,” October 14, 1954, LAC, A. D. P. Heeney Fonds, MG 30 E 144, Vol. 11, File: Speeches as Ambassador to U.S. Apr 1954 – Dec 1954. 622 Ibid. 238

bilateral relationship and the impact of its asymmetrical nature on perceptions of each other on both sides of the border. For all that of which Pearson’s American audience had been oblivious, the most recent developments across Canada’s Northern and Arctic regions ranged on top of his items about which he informed his listeners:

This great land of Canada, including, as we are now learning, its Arctic areas, is rich in wealth and resources. It is also rich in the energy and initiative of its people who are developing these resources at a pace and with results that are worthy of comparison with the great days of expansion in this country. Our frontiers of settlement are being pushed steadily northward, and at a time when these northern marches are becoming of great strategic, as well as economic importance. I hate to say it in Florida, but for us, ‘Go North’ is now the summons to adventure and achievement.623

In a talk at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. a few weeks later, Pearson repeated his comments with slight variations. His reference to Horace Greeley, a staple of Pearson’s Northern nationalism ever since his first statement in 1937, and the portrayal of Northern development through the vocabulary of frontier imagery remained the organizing ideas of his comments.624 As commencement speaker at the University of Maine in June 1954, Pearson elaborated on his use of the term ‘frontier’:

To us a frontier is not a barrier, dividing two countries, but the advancing edge of man’s development. To us, the word ‘frontier’ means how far we have got to date. It means the points from which we are moving forward in furthering mankind’s advance into the unknown.625

If Pearson’s American audience conceived of the ‘frontier’ concept in the mold of Frederick

Jackson Turner, that is as a moving space in which the purportedly essential features of the

American experience continuously were recreated, the Canadian Secretary of State made clear that he subscribed to a different understanding of the term. Rather than a foundational reference

623 Lester B. Pearson, “Address by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. L.B. Pearson, made at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, “ February 21, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 8, File: 1954 Jan-Mar. 624 Ibid., “A Look at the ‘New Look’,” March 15, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 8, File: 1954 Jan-Mar. 625 Ibid., “University of Maine Commencement Address,” June 20, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol. 8, File: 1954 June-Aug. 239

point, Pearson proposed to conceive of Canada’s Northern frontier as an indicator of the country’s national development. Such distinctions notwithstanding, Pearson did not miss a beat to juxtapose current military and economic activities throughout the North and the Arctic

Archipelago with the era of western expansion as he went on with his address.626

The uneasy relationship between the cultural significance of the Northern and Arctic regions to the national development of Canada, the vexing questions over continental defense, and the uncertainties over the question of sovereignty in these areas was expressed by Pearson in

March 1954 at the National War College in Washington.627 In an off-the-record discussion, the

Canadian Secretary of State reviewed the most recent U.S.-Canadian radar defense projects in

Canada, explaining the general terms governing the Pinetree Line, the McGill Fence, and the areas of potential disagreements for an early warning system in the Canadian Arctic. In addition to finding an agreeable cost-sharing and staffing formula, protecting Canada’s electronics industry interests, and ensuring an effective and timely process for consultations, Pearson stressed the question of control, above all, at remote stations in the far north as a politically sensitive topic.628 With Canadian troops and squadrons serving in Europe, Pearson asked his audience if the Canadian government should “allow United States squadrons to move into our north land [sic] and take over that responsibility which really should be ours because it is

626 With slight variations to his earlier statements, Pearson continued to portray Northern development as a nation- building effort: “During the last 150 years, you Americans and we Canadians had our frontiers in the west. They were the avancing line of settlement, constantly being pushed forward. In this geographic sense, we in Canada still have a frontier in our vast northland, stretching from the Islands of the Queen Elizabeth Archipelago right down to the North Pole. Along this frontier, which is of increasing strategic importance to you, remarkable developments are now taking place. They are a challenge to the adventurous and the pioneer spirit which still exists on this continent.” See Ibid. 627 Lester B. Pearson, “Notes for Mr. Pearson’s Talk to National War College, Washington,” March 12, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol 8, File: 1954 Jan-Mar. 628 Ibid. 240

responsibility for our soil?”629 Doing so, would “mean that there would be significantly more

United States than Canadian citizens.”630 Not only would such a decision run counter to Ottawa’s policy since the end of World War II to ‘re-Canadianize’ defense installations on Canadian soil, it would also undermine the government’s position on the integral role of the Northern and

Arctic regions for the national development of Canada. “That is the kind of thing,” Pearson explained to his American audience, “I have been referring to as involving political problems with which we are faced in defense matters.”631 Continental defense in the far north was inextricably linked with perceptions of these regions as markers of Canadian identity and history.

The political problems of a large American military presence in the Canadian Arctic became the subject of government policy in Ottawa in May 1954. A month earlier, the Advisory

Committee on Northern Development (ACND), the interdepartmental body that sought to integrate Northern and Arctic policy, created a Sub-Committee on Public Information to coordinate Ottawa’s communication strategy for Northern activities. Representatives of the

Canadian foreign and military establishment, such as Chief of Staff Foulkes, PJBD Chairman of the Canadian Section McNaughton, Defence Research Board Chairman Solandt or R. A. Mackay for the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs attended the ACND meetings.632 R. A. J.

Phillips, the co-author of Pearson’s 1953 Foreign Affairs article, JAWS-hand, and now at

Northern Affairs and National Resources, was chairman of the Public Information Committee.

629 Ibid., “Canada in the World Today,” March 15, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol 8, File: 1954 Jan-Mar. 630 Ibid., “Notes for Mr. Pearson’s Talk to National War College, Washington,” March 12, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol 8, File: 1954 Jan-Mar. 631 Ibid., “Canada in the World Today,” March 15, 1954, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N9, Vol 8, File: 1954 Jan-Mar. 632 Graham R. Rowley, “Public Information on the North,” April 21, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S-87-3-1A Vol. 3. 241

His first initiative was to draft a Policy Guidance Paper and propose a series of programs for the government to take a proactive role in shaping public perceptions and responding to increasing requests from the press and writers to travel North. Among Phillips’ suggestions, which the

ACND readily approved in October 1954,633 were the sponsorship of writers and journalists to visit Northern and Arctic Canada, a library of northern photography, the use of the National Film

Board to produce and to distribute films on the North, and publicity for the Canadian-run JAWS resupply missions in 1954. The ACND unanimously agreed that it was imperative for the government to assume an active role in defining public perceptions of American and Canadian activities in the North, using a broad toolbox of representational instruments from scientific information, to documentaries, and art exhibitions, all designed to advance Ottawa’s portrayal of

Northern and Arctic Canada as an inherently Canadian space.634

If Phillips’ public relations programs were the tools for distributing Ottawa’s positions, his Policy Guidance Paper provided the message. The paper stated outright that its “first object” was to shape public perceptions to the effect that the Northern and Arctic parts of Canada were

“as much a part of Canada as any other area in the country.”635 All statements, “at home and abroad,” were to derive from this directive. Referring to the speeches by St. Laurent and other ministers, the paper explained that official statements should support the thrust of their comments on the importance of northern development. In doing so, they should stress that the growing focus on the North “is not, in the Government view, due primarily to defence requirements, but it is the logical extension of the development of Canadian nationhood.”636

633 ACND, “20th Meeting of the Committee,” October 12, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S-87-3-1A Vol. 3. 634 Ibid., “19th Meeting of the Committee,” May 31, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S-87-3-1A Vol. 3. 635 “Public Information on the North,” May 28, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S-87-3-1A Vol. 3. 636 Ibid. 242

Indeed, the rationale for diverting federal funds to the North, the paper stated, should be explained by invoking “the Federal [sic] contribution to the trans-continental railway system,” a reference to the nineteenth-century effort to integrate the national economy through improved railway infrastructure. With respect to U.S.-Canadian relations in the Northern and Arctic regions, the Policy Guidance Paper outlined a cooperative but firm approach. While joint projects were welcome, official statements should not fail to emphasize that “Northern development […] is never a joint responsibility; it is a Canadian responsibility which cannot be allowed to go by default or left to others to carry out.” Mention of American activities in the

Arctic always should be made in the context of Canada’s policy for the development of the North and avoid the impression that they were beyond Canadian oversight. Moreover, if possible, the civilian aspects of activities in Northern and Arctic Canada should dominate public perceptions of the North.637

The ACND’s Policy Guidance Paper has not enjoyed much attention in the historical examinations of the DEW Line. Yet it condensed into one document the Northern Nationalism, which St. Laurent, Pearson, Lesage, and Heeney had advocated over the past eighteen months.

The portrayal of the Northern and Arctic regions—“our northern frontier”—as a key ingredient in the construction of a Canadian national identity and a master narrative of national development underpinned the policy’s directive for shaping public perceptions. Invoking the era of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald’s National Policy, the paper made clear that recent activities in the North were to be represented as nation-building exercises and thus inextricably linked to the national sovereignty and independence of Canada. The policy to engage writers, the

637 Ibid. 243

National Film Board, and visual and material artists for advancing Ottawa’s public narrative dovetailed the use of cultural references about the importance of Canada’s Northern territories and the Arctic islands that so prominently defined the broadcasts, articles, and speeches by

Canadian officials of the past months. The collective body of statements and perceptions expressed by St. Laurent, Lesage, Heeney, Pearson, and Phillips over the course of the first half of 1954 provided a window into the interpretive framework that guided the Canadian government. Against this backdrop, the U.S.-Canadian Military Study Group presented its assessment of Project Corrode in June 1954 to the Canadian and American governments. The politics of Canada’s Northern nationalism and Arctic sovereignty was confronted with the global

Cold War imperatives of Washington’s national security policy.

Negotiating Participation and the DEW Line Agreement, 1954-55

On June 3, 1954, the MSG recommended the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line, extending from Alaska in the Western Arctic, across the Canadian Arctic, to northern Greenland in the Eastern North American Arctic. Eighteen months after the Canadian government had agreed to the establishment of test stations along the coast of the Beaufort Sea and following months during which the bilateral committee evaluated the results of Western Electric’s trial runs of the radar stations, the final recommendation to build the DEW Line set in motion talks between Ottawa and Washington. Over the course of the following months, the United States and

Canada negotiated a framework agreement for the construction and operation of the DEW Line.

In light of Ottawa’s commitment to place defense installations on Canadian soil under Canadian control and in view of the government’s most recent initiatives to emphasize the development of

244

Northern and Arctic Canada, the debate over the role of Canada in the construction and the operation of the DEW Line was of particular importance.

In Washington, the June 1954 MSG report provided the technical approval for a political decision, Eisenhower had already made in February 1954.638 In the months leading up to the

MSG report, the frequent assessments by Robert C. Sprague, a defense consultant for the U.S.

Senate Armed Services Committee and the Eisenhower administration,639 presented the President and his foreign and defense advisers with alarming scenarios about the Soviet Union’s nuclear stockpile and its delivery capabilities and the destruction a successful attack on the continental

United States would entail.640 On July 1, Sprague reiterated his warnings of cross polar attacks, explaining that

It is also believed entirely possible that by [mid-1957], if the Russians develop refueling techniques, and further develop their forward Arctic bases in the Chukotski [sic] and Kola Peninsulas, that they could launch a 500 to 700 bomber attack against key target areas – cities, SAC bases, and other military targets – located within the Continental United States. [The resulting damage would amount to] tens of millions of our people and destroy over 50% of our war industry. […] Most needed are […] 2-6 hours early warning for our U.S.-Canadian border and for our sea approaches.641

The Eisenhower administration endorsed Sprague’s report at an NSC meeting the same month and emphasized the importance of pressing ahead with the construction of the DEW Line.642

Defense cooperation with Ottawa, however, included certain areas of disagreement that would

638 “NSC 5408,” February 11, 1954, DDE, White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61, Disaster File, Box 21, File: Continental Defense 1954 (3); “185th Meeting of NSC,” February 17, 1954, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 5, File: 185th Meeting of NSC, February 17, 1954. 639 Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 176. 640 Robert C. Sprague, “Study of Continental Defense for the Interim Subcommittee on Preparedness of the Senate Armed Services Committee,” February 26, 1954, DDE, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Subject Subseries, Box: 2, File: Study of Continental Defense, By Robert C. Sprague [February 26, 1954]. 641 “A Report of Mr. Robert C. Sprague to the National Security Council,” July 1, 1954, DDE, White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61, Disaster File, Box 23, File: Continental Defense 1954 (8). 642 “Record of Actions by the National Security Council, 156th Meeting,” July 23, 1953, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 1, File: Record of Actions by NSC 1953 (2) Action nos. 792-917. 245

have to be addressed. Admiral Arthur W. Radford of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that

Canadian officials had voiced concerns over Soviet ‘spoofing’ of the line and thereby diminishing the value of early warning. Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson sought to raise his colleagues’ attention to the substantial financial burden Canada assumed with the participation in the Pinetree Line and the construction of the Mid-Canada Line. Wilson, however, also pointed out that Ottawa had little confidence in Washington’s understanding of the implications of constructing and operating a massive network of radar stations under Arctic conditions: “[T]he Canadians,” Wilson noted, “think we underestimate the difficulty of humans living for an extended period of time in the Far North.”643 Eisenhower brushed off such views.

“[F]or anyone to belittle or shrug off the situation which confronted us would be fatal,” the

President stressed. He was prepared to go to Congress to ask for additional funding for the expansion of the early warning system any time and informed Wilson to press ahead through established channels with the Canadians. Offering to weigh in himself, Eisenhower added that, if necessary, he “did not want to shirk his own responsibility in the matter.”644 With the continental defense and national security policy revisions long past and the MSG results finally in,

Washington felt it was high time to act.

Between June and November 1954, Ottawa was confronted with consistent pressure to agree to an agreement over the establishment of the DEW Line. Through the PJBD, the

Eisenhower administration pressed reluctant Canadians, first, to grant approval in principle and, second, to commit to the project in the form of a bilateral agreement. At first, however, the

643 “208th Meeting of NSC,” July 29, 1954, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 5, File: 208th Meeting of NSC, July 29, 1954. 644 Ibid. 246

MSG’s recommendation to approve the project in principle received a cool welcome in Ottawa.

External Affairs was concerned to maintain maximum freedom of action, particularly with respect to questions over the nature of Canada’s participation during the construction and operation of the DEW Line. More studies were necessary, the Deputy Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs R. A. Mackay observed, to obtain a full picture of the costs, the technical nature of the radar stations, and their role within the larger continental air defense architecture.645

The “political attractions” of a substantial Canadian footprint, for example in the construction phase in form of a “joint Canada-United States ‘task force’ under command of a Canadian officer,” had to be assessed.646 By the same token, the Canadian Chiefs of Staff agreed to refuse approval in principle before a comprehensive study of costs, technical requirements, and sites of the radar chain had been conducted.647

Ottawa’s initial reaction was not characterized by the sense of urgency that ruled

Washington’s foreign and defense officials. At the same time, neither the Canadian military nor its diplomats questioned the MSG’s recommendation to construct the DEW Line. Officials at

External Affairs, most prominently, were sensitive to the political implications of an American presence across Canada’s northern coastline. “The United States,” R. M. Mackay, Assistant

Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs insisted, “should not be given the impression that

Canada was disinterested.”648

645 “Memorandum for the Minister,” June 10, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 646 “Report by the External Affairs Observer on the Canada-United States Military Study Group,” June 4, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 647 “Extract from Chiefs of Staff Committee, 564th Meeting,” June 28, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 648 Ibid. 247

For all of Ottawa’s insistence on a full appreciation of the financial, technical, and logistical implications of establishing the DEW Line, the combined pressure of the U.S. Joint

Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, and the President left the Canadian government few options but to submit to Washington’s demands. In a lively exchange at the July 1954 PJBD meeting, the American Section yielded no ground to Canada’s chairman McNaughton who attempted to forestall pressure on Ottawa to agree to the project in principle.649 Early approval was imperative, the U.S. Section insisted, to obtain Congressional funding and ensure interagency coordination. If the St. Laurent government saw itself unable to finance and construct parts of the DEW Line, the Eisenhower administration was prepared to assume full responsibility for the construction and operation of the radar system, the U.S. chairman declared.650

At the White House, the Canadian government’s reluctance gave rise to ideas to circumvent the PJBD and have the State Department engage Ottawa directly.651 Pearson and

Ralph Campney, Brooke Claxton’s successor at National Defence, acquiesced to the realization that Washington’s insistence and the proposal to build and run the DEW Line on its own left the

Canadian government no viable course of action other than to approve the project, reserving a decision on the form and extent of Canada’s participation.652 As a result, the Canadian Cabinet

649 “Extract from PJBD Meeting,” July 12-15, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 650 Ibid. 651 Robert Cutler, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, wrote Walter Bedell Smith asking if his department should contact Ottawa to speed up the talks with Canada: “perhaps action should be taken by the Department of State directly with the Government of Canada. It seems to me that while the Canadians are certainly much more interested than they ever were before in the construction early warning lines, they do not have a full sense of urgency which we in the United States realize, and which these projects call for.” See “Memorandum for General Walter B. Smith, the Under Secretary of State”, July 28, 1954, DDE, White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61, Disaster File, Box 23, File: Continental Defense 1954 (8). 652 “Memorandum for the Minister,” July 17, 1954; “Memorandum for the Cabinet,” July 29, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A- 3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 248

approved the DEW Line project in principle in August 1954. In light of recent assessments on expanding Soviet nuclear capabilities and the Eisenhower administration “pressing hard,” as

Pearson put it at the meeting,653 the Cabinet instructed the Canadian Ambassador Heeney to convey to the State Department Canadian approval of the project and Ottawa’s intention to outline Canadian participation once studies on cost and personnel requirements had been completed.654

The events leading up to the official agreement on November 18, 1954, followed a similar pattern. While studies of the military features for the radar line were underway and the bilateral study group for determining specific sites for the DEW Line stations conducted its surveys, the Eisenhower administration urged Ottawa to fully commit to the project. If the DEW

Line was to become operational in the summer of 1957, Washington urged, construction would have to take place during the 1955 and 1956 construction seasons, an effort that required preparatory work to have adequate facilities along the construction sites and coordination of the transportation routes to the Arctic coastline.655 At the October meeting of the PJBD, the

American Section considered Western Electric Co.’s preliminary studies of the DEW Line system sufficient to move ahead with the project and pressed the Canadian Section to seek approval from Ottawa to enter into a binding agreement for the establishment of the radar line.656

As the Canadian government debated Washington’s request and its implications for

Ottawa’s role throughout the project, the American pressure revealed tensions among Canadian

653 “Continental defence; distant early warning line,” August 11, 1954, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A- 5-a, Vol. 2655, Item: 13736. 654 “Continental defence; distant early warning line,” August 18, 1954, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A- 5-a, Vol. 2655, Item: 13750. 655 “Extracts from Minutes of Meeting of PJBD, October 18-19, 1954,” October 25, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 656 Ibid. 249

foreign and defense officials. Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Jules Leger staked out early External Affairs’ view that Canadian participation was essential to demonstrating

Canada’s stewardship of Northern and Arctic affairs, generally, and to maintaining control over air defense installations in Canada, specifically. “The main argument in favour of Canadian participation,” Leger explained, “is political and relates to the fact that failing such participation the United States will be operating a continuous chain of radar stations and communications facilities […] across the Canadian Arctic.”657 Whereas the construction phase would likely include the sub-contracting of Canadian companies and its benefits for Canada were “transitory,” it was in the realm of operating the DEW Line that Canadian personnel should play a significant role. Without prejudice to Ottawa’s final decision on the nature and extent of Canadian participation during the operational phase and Washington’s acceptance of a comprehensive set of rules governing the DEW Line project, External Affairs recommended to consent to an agreement.658

General Foulkes, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was deeply dismayed with the briskness of the American approach. Foulkes complained about U.S. ignorance of proper communication channels and Western Electric’s financial interest in the radar system. Moreover, as Matthew Trudgen has shown, he became concerned about Canada’s “meagre fighter forces,” the implications of nuclear fallout, and the emerging threat by intercontinental ballistic missiles.659 As a result, he raised doubts about the effectiveness of the entire continental early warning concept and expressed frustration at the notion that the RCAF viewed the project as a

657 “Jules Leger to Charles Foulkes,” October 26, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 658 Ibid. 659 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 330f. 250

U.S. undertaking. “[T]he Mid-Canada Line,” Foulkes warned, “will be referred to as the

‘Canadian Line’, the DEW Line will be called the ‘American Line’, and Canadians and

American will get the impression that the U.S. was assuming responsibility for, and control of the Canadian Arctic.”660

A central aspect of the debate about Ottawa’s decision to respond to Washington’s urging for an early agreement of the DEW Line was the issue of Canada’s footprint in the project. The construction of the radar network was entrusted to Western Electric Co., the American company, which had built the experimental stations and had run the test phase for the project between 1953 and 1954. Canada’s shipping companies, construction businesses, and its electronics industry lobbied Ottawa to ensure equal consideration by Western Electric for sub-contracts, some appealing to the government’s nationalist proclivities for Northern development.661 Beyond the use of Canadian companies as sub-contractors, however, the Canadian Joint Chiefs of Staff early on advocated to forego involvement in the construction phase and instead looked into the possibility of stationing Canadian service personnel at the radar sites during the operation of the network. The RCAF’s resources, they argued, were bound up with the construction of the Mid-

Canada Line.662

660 “The Proposed Radar Chains,” November 5, 1954; “Extract from the Minutes of the 569th Meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee,” November 2 and 3, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 661 In a letter to D. A. Golden, the Deputy Minister of Defence Production, R. G. Johnson, the President of Defence Construction (1951) Limited lobbied for contracts along the DEW Line sites, arguing that “it is highly desirable that the interest of the Canadian Government in the development of the Canadian northland, as symbolized by the creation of the Department of Northern Affairs and Natural [sic] Resources, should be implemented by encouraging and affording facility for the Canadian construction industry to develop experience in this area, rather than run the risk that the Americans become more familiar with the problems of the Canadian northland than we ourselves.” See “R. G. Johnson to D. A. Golden,” November 4, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 662 “Extract from the Minutes of the 570th Meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee,” November 9, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 251

Pearson was not fully convinced of the military’s position to relegate responsibility for the construction of the DEW Line to the United States. In his presentation to the Cabinet

Defence Committee in early November 1954, the Secretary of State strengthened the final language of the draft agreement to include a declaration of Ottawa’s intent to participate at least in the operational phase. Defense Minister Campney did not object.663 The committee considered the project a “crash programme” and raised a series of doubts about the accuracy of costs and personnel estimates, the Eisenhower administration’s appreciation of the “magnitude” of the project, and the impression that Washington held “vested rights” in Northern Canada. It was agreed that it was “undesirable from the point of view of the general national interest” to permit the construction of “exclusively U.S. installations” in the Canadian Arctic.664

The politics of Canada’s Northern nationalism and persisting concerns over de facto control in the Arctic formed the context for the decisive DEW Line debate in Cabinet on

November 18, 1954. 665 Pearson led the discussion and highlighted the Eisenhower administration’s pressure to move forward with the project, assurances that Canadian companies would receive equal consideration, and the U.S. attitude that it would proceed with the DEW

Line as a sole American project but “would welcome Canadian participation.” Current estimates billed the DEW Line at a total cost of $200 million and projected a requirement for 700 to 1000 operators for the stations. Relating the conclusions of the CDC, the Secretary of State proposed

663 “Memorandum to Cabinet Defence Committee, Distant Early Warning System”; “Memorandum for the Minister,” November 10, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 664 “Continental Defence; Distant Early Warning Line,” n.d., LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 665 “Cabinet Defence Committee; Distant Early Warning Line; report by Secretary of State for External Affairs,” November 18, 1954, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Vol. 2656, Item: 13956. 252

to agree to the establishment of the DEW Line as a “joint project” and to include a statement of

Canada’s intention to participate in the radar system.666

In the course of the ensuing discussion, St. Laurent adamantly sounded the alarm over

Canada’s sovereignty. In conflict with the American assurances for Canadian participation and equal consideration Pearson had just recited, the Prime Minister insisted that Washington would not be permitted to construct military installations “without any regard to Canadian sovereignty.”

He continued that “it had to be made clear” that Washington was only contributing “its share” based on the 1947 agreement on joint defense and with the authorization of the Canadian government. Canada’s participation in the DEW Line was imperative not least to grant

Washington’s request for the construction of the line, but also to “protect Canadian interests in the north.”667 Cabinet agreed that the United States be permitted to construct the DEW Line as a

“joint Canada-United States project” on the understanding that the radar system constituted one component of a larger continental defense architecture. Moreover, Washington was to be informed of Ottawa’s intent to participate “in the project,”668 the precise nature of its role to be decided “in the near future.”669

The Canadian government’s decision to agree in mid-November 1954 to Washington’s request for an agreement to immediately begin preparations for the establishment of the DEW

Line resulted from continuous American pressure as well as Ottawa’s perception that it was unable to resist a U.S. request considered essential to American national security. St. Laurent’s

666 Ibid. 667 Ibid. 668 It is noteworthy that the Cabinet Conclusion of November 18, 1954, did not further specify whether Canada’s participation would occur during the construction phase or the operational phase of the DEW Line. 669 “Cabinet Defence Committee; Distant Early Warning Line; report by Secretary of State for External Affairs,” November 18, 1954, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Vol. 2656, Item: 13956. 253

warnings about the potential impact on sovereignty and Pearson’s pressure to ensure Canadian participation illustrate the delicate balancing act the Canadian government sought to strike between the imperatives of security, sovereignty, and nationalism. With the agreement, Ottawa preserved its ability to declare its participation in the project at a later date. Indications from

Washington had made clear that Eisenhower was prepared to proceed with the project as a fully

American undertaking, leaving little room for any Canadian role. Delaying action on the agreement, hence, would have aggravated Ottawa’s dilemma to acquiesce to Washington’s proposal all the while avoiding the impression of abdicating its responsibilities in the Arctic.

Indeed, by declaring the DEW Line a “joint project” and closely regulating “participation by the

United States,” as the title of the document detailing the conditions governing the project stated,670 the Canadian government retained a credible position to deny inviting another ‘U.S.

Army of Occupation’ into the North when pressed in public.

Matthew Trudgen argues that the decision by Cabinet to approve the construction of the

DEW Line while preserving the option to participate at a later stage amounted to a cost-defense strategy and a successful protection of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty. Cabinet’s inability to resolve the struggle between External Affairs and National Defence over Canadian participation, in this reading, is portrayed as the result of a deliberate policy. By keeping Ottawa’s decision over Canada’s participation pending it allowed the United States to proceed with the radar system without committing Canadian money and personnel to the project, all the while preserving Canada’s right to become involved.671 This interpretation misreads the intent and

670 “Memorandum to Cabinet Defence Committee, Distant Early Warning System”; “Draft Conditions to Govern participation by the United States in the establishment of a Distant Early Warning System in Canadian Territory,” November 10, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.2. 671 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 333. 254

motifs guiding particularly External Affairs position throughout the DEW Line negotiations. It is true that Ottawa had opted to assume full responsibility for the construction of the Mid-Canada

Line to avoid being obliged to take on a much larger burden in the establishment of the DEW

Line.672 At the same time, External Affairs’ campaign to secure a substantial Canadian footprint in the Arctic early warning system was not a tactic to, ultimately, avoid dispatching Canadian resources and personnel. Pearson’s advocacy for participation was sincere and not some form of reverse-psychology as his numerous declarations to Cabinet, the U.S. Administration, and in public demonstrate. The absence of a decision on Canada’s role in the early warning system, therefore, did not constitute evidence for a deliberate policy of sovereignty protection by registering Canadian intent with Washington without actually meaning to participate. Pearson’s course of action, moreover, was in line with Ottawa’s emphasis on Northern development as a national project and the decided effort to cast American military projects in the Canadian Arctic as part of a larger, bilateral program. The absence of any warnings by External Affairs’ legal adviser Max H. Wershof with respect to potential sovereignty infringements as a result of a potential U.S. presence along the radar stations, ultimately, betrayed External Affairs’ and the

Prime Minister’s Northern nationalism. The struggle for Canadian participation in November

1954, as a result, was real and it was rooted in a nationalist vision of a Northern future for

Canada.

The press response to the announcement of the DEW Line agreement was moderate. The

New York Times carried a write-up of the DEW Line project, briefly alluding to its origins at

672 In October 1953, Defense Minister Claxton explained that “our taking the initiative with regard to the McGill- Fence would put us in a better position to say: ‘Well, we think we have done what we thought was necessary for continental defence. If you want to go on and do more we are not going to stand in the way’ and keep our self- respect without having to put out too great an expenditure of materials, manpower and money.” See “Minister of National Defence to Prime Minister,” October 21, 1953, DCER, 1953, Vol. 19, 1093. 255

MIT, and related the agreement between Washington and Ottawa to the radar system’s Alaskan extensions.673 The Canadian newspapers focused their reporting on the nature of Canada’s financial and personnel contributions, the DEW Line’s relationship to the Pinetree Line and the

Mid-Canada Line, and the conditions guiding the bilateral effort. The Toronto Star invoked unnamed sources in Ottawa to explain that the Canadian government was “anxious that the personnel of the Dew line should be predominantly Canadian when it goes into operation.” The paper added that it was expected that Ottawa would undertake a “significant contribution” to the costs of the radar line, with the United States assuming the majority of the financial burden.674

The Montreal Star noted that Ottawa retained the rights to take over the radar stations as well as all rights to the land used for the line.675 Not unlike its Canadian counterparts, the Globe and

Mail stressed the DEW Line’s role within the larger continental air defense network.676 The immediate press reaction to the announcement of the DEW Line agreement articulated an expectation for Ottawa to take an active role throughout the project, yet without the alarmist tones of St. Laurent’s comments in Cabinet.

A blistering attack on the Canadian government came with the November 15 issue of

Maclean’s magazine.677 The publication of an all-North issue, edited by Pierre Berton, had been planned for over a year and, coincidentally, it arrived the week Ottawa announced the DEW Line agreement with the United States. The magazine featured a kaleidoscope of cultural representations of Northern and Arctic Canada. The Klondike Gold Rush was invoked throughout the department commentaries and canvases by Group of Seven artists A. Y. Jackson,

673 “U.S. to Finance and Build Radar Net in Arctic Canada,” New York Times, November 20, 1954. 674 “Canada, U.S. to Share Billion-Dollar Cost of Arctic Radar Line,” Toronto Star, November 19, 1954. 675 “Reveal Defence Project,” Montreal Star, November 19, 1954. 676 “Radar Line in Far North Undertaken,” Globe and Mail, November 20, 1954. 677 See the November 15-issue of Maclean’s magazine in 1954. 256

Lawren Harris, and F. H. Varley, among others, dominated the visual representation of the North featuring vignettes of the Alaska Highway, the uranium mines at Port Radium, the Northern tundra of the Northwest Territories, and the “austerity” of Baffin and Ellesmere islands.678 In a preview of his upcoming book, Pierre Berton took the reader along on his voyages to the Yukon of the Klondike and the Arctic Archipelago, all-together constituting “The Mysterious North.”679

In addition to articles on Inuit life and culture, travel reports, and the challenges of Northern development, the magazine’s editorial and a feature-article on Canada’s Arctic defense installations delivered a withering critique of Ottawa’s Northern policies. Ralph Allen,

Maclean’s editor, charged the St. Laurent government with “timidity, parsimony, indifference and sloth.” The Canol Pipeline and JAWS stations were cited to illustrate Ottawa’s inability or lack of political will to demonstrate that projects in Northern and Arctic Canada were “really our show again” and that the United States was a “privileged guest” at best.680 In a similar vein, Blair

Fraser’s visit to the JAWS stations, Fort Churchill, and the U.S. airbase at Thule in Greenland culminated in the assertion that “the Canadian Arctic has no defenses whatever.”681

Maclean’s aggressive critique stood apart from the overall press reaction to the DEW

Line agreement. It illustrated the continuing vitality of the representational elements that undergirded Canada’s Northern nationalism, a perception that defined the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada as essential markers in the national affirmation of a collective story and identity. Moreover, the magazine demonstrated that such perceptions held political clout when intersecting with questions over national development, continental defense policy, and concerns

678 “A Gallery of Northern Painting,” Maclean’s, November 15, 1954. 679 Pierre Berton, “The Mysterious North,” Maclean’s, November 15, 1954. 680 “We haven’t done right by our North,” Maclean’s, November 15, 1954. 681 Blair Fraser, “The Truth about our Arctic Defence,” Maclean’s, November 15, 1954. 257

over sovereignty in the Arctic. The appropriation of Northern and Arctic Canada as a key element in the national story of Canada by Ottawa’s political class transformed the regions into spaces for national contestation. When magazines and newspapers linked Ottawa’s Northern nationalism with U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense policy, notions of ‘cultural sovereignty’ and the idea of Canada as an Arctic nation interfered with strategic and economic realities of continental defense cooperation. While no immediate reactions to the issue have been recorded, the government had been well-aware of the general thrust of the issue. R. A. J. Phillips had informed the ACND in April of his briefing Blair Fraser for the trip682 and C. M. Drury, the Deputy

Minister of National Defence, wrote Jules Leger at External Affairs in September about Fraser’s piece, suggesting that the early publication of U.S.-Canadian agreements on defense matters in the North would contribute to deflating Fraser’s criticism.683 While Fraser included a brief reference to the DEW Line agreement in his article, it did little to soften the blow.

With the agreement to establish the DEW Line in place, the question of Canadian participation throughout the project and the finalization of the regulatory framework for the construction and operation of the radar system remained to be settled. Maclean’s nationalist attitude on protecting Northern and Arctic Canada from foreign interests had already been articulated by St. Laurent and Pearson, among others, throughout 1953 and 1954. During the process of drafting the conditions to govern the American presence in the Canadian North, R. G.

Robertson, Deputy Minister of the recently created Department of Northern Affairs and National

Resources, developed a series of regulations to oversee interactions with local Inuit communities, protect wildlife populations, and ensure that Ottawa’s rights to mineral resources did not fall to

682 “18th Meeting of the Committee,” April 26, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S-87-3-1A Vol. 3. 683 “C. M. Drury to Jules Leger,” September 2, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 1.1. 258

purportedly entrepreneurial Americans, causing a Klondike-style “bonanza” while stationed in the “land of milk and honey.”684 Robertson, moreover, insisted that all DEW Line stations fly the

Canadian flag and where the Stars and Stripes were on display, the Canadian flag was to be flown “with equal prominence.”685 Without Robertson’s rhetorical flourish, other departments such as Transport, Finance, and the RCMP submitted their conditions for the DEW Line framework over the course of the months following the November agreement to External Affairs, which in turn negotiated the language and the details with the State Department in Washington.

The question of participation remained a contentious one. Ottawa had indicated in the agreement that it intended to play an active role in the project but punted the decision about the exact nature of its involvement. The U.S.-Canadian press release had noted that the decision to vest responsibility for the construction of the line in the United States was based on the rationale that a single authority would be in a position to carry out the task most effectively.686 Deputy

Minister Drury acknowledged the political importance of a visible Canadian role throughout the

DEW Line project. “[T]he main purpose of Canadian participation,” Drury noted in a letter to

Under-Secretary of State Leger, “is to give an indication of joint responsibility and thus to make clear to the people of Canada that the United States is not being permitted to carry out large projects in Canada on its own.”687 Drury took the position that the RCAF, therefore, should study the problem of participation during the operation phase while suggesting a series of token

684 “DEW Line – Canada-U.S. Agreement,” February 17, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 3.1. 685 “R. G. Robertson to Jules Leger,” November 25, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.1. 686 “Press Release,” November 19, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.1. 687 “C.M. Drury to Jules Leger,” November 30, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.1. 259

contributions during the period of constructing the radar system.688 External Affairs agreed with the political rationale for Canadian participation, only it saw few serious proposals from National

Defence to take on a substantive role beyond acting as an observer on supply trips and providing land for the installations of the DEW Line. Pearson and Mackay discounted Drury’s token proposals for the construction phase outright and pressed for “maximum benefit” to the Canadian economy.689 “I am not prepared without further information,” the Secretary of State declared, “to agree that we should have nothing to do with construction of this line.”690

For all of Pearson’s enthusiasm for a visible and substantial Canadian presence during the construction and the operational phase of the DEW Line, his views found little support among the other departments involved in the project. The departments of National Defence, Defence

Production, and Finance saw insufficient political benefit from offering to contribute a comparatively small sum to the overall costs of the radar system. As a result, construction should remain vested in the United States, as indicated in the November 1954 agreement.691 Drury and

Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Foulkes declared that National Defence “had every intention of participating in the operation and manning of the line.”692 External Affairs’ expressed its

“disappointment” that no support existed for an active participation in the building of the DEW

Line693 and withdrew its reservations over the recommendation to forego a role during the construction phase. Pearson, however, insisted on the inclusion of the language that “there is a

688 Drury half-heartedly proposed Canadian financing of electronic equipment, transportation costs or providing a set sum of funds. Drury, however, was little enthused about these suggestions himself and noted a series of impracticalities that undercut his proposals. See ibid. 689 “Canadian Participation in the Distant Early Warning Line,” December 2, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.1. 690 “Memorandum for the Minister,” December 9, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.1. 691 “A. D. P. Heeney to John Foster Dulles,” November 16, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.1. 692 Ibid. 693 Ibid. 260

clear understanding that there will be effective Canadian participation in the operation and maintenance phase.” 694 In January 1955, the Canadian Cabinet agreed to limit Canada’s participation during the construction phase to logistical assistance and that “studies be made looking to effective participation in the operation and maintenance of the line.”695 Defence

Minister Campney’s last-minute weakening of Ottawa’s commitment by making participation conditional on the results of future studies illustrated Pearson’s limited clout.

The Cabinet’s decision to, once more, delay a decision on the nature and the extent of

Canada’s participation in the DEW Line project was a setback for Pearson and his department.

Since January 1953, when the Eisenhower administration first approached Ottawa, External

Affairs had continuously stressed the political importance of a substantial Canadian role in the

Arctic. Indeed, some had raised the disarray surrounding the construction of the Alaska Highway to make the case for a sizable Canadian participation along the DEW Line stations.696 Yet while

Pearson and his department did not tire to advocate for a Canadian presence during the construction and the operational phase, they failed to present plans of their own, outlining what

Canadian participation should look like and what it would entail. At meetings with other departments, External Affairs’ representatives rejected financial schemes that mostly amounted to symbolic contributions but remained silent when they had the opportunity to outline their visions for Canada’s role throughout the DEW Line project.

National Defence, by contrast, effectively slow-walked Pearson’s activism for greater involvement of Canada. While some were not disinclined towards the Secretary of State’s

694 “Max H. Wershof to C.M. Drury,” December 24, 1954, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.2. 695 “Cabinet Defence Committee; report of Minister of National Defence,” January 26, 1955, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Vol. 2657, Item: 14123. 696 “Max H. Wershof to C.M. Drury,” January 24, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.2. 261

nationalist views, the department and its minister had adopted a position that sought to protect the RCAF’s resources. The extent of the RCAF’s role was not to be based on politics but military need. This ‘functional’ approach as opposed to “political factors such as sovereignty,” as historian Matthew P. Trudgen has shown, guided its approach to continental air defense and the questions of Canada’s participation in the DEW Line.697 This disparity between External Affairs and National Defence was made plain most clearly in a letter from Drury to Leger two days after the Cabinet’s deferral of a decision on Canadian participation. Referring to External Affairs’ insistence on Canada’s participation in the DEW Line, Drury flatly pointed out that for the upcoming fiscal year at his department “no provision has been made for payment of any expense by Canada arising out of the DEW System.”698 Whatever Pearson’s vision for bold action in the

Arctic, National Defence ensured they remained just that. The emperor wore no clothes.

On May 5, 1955, the Canadian government initiated the exchange of diplomatic notes with the Eisenhower administration. The notes reflected Ottawa’s decision to have the United

States finance and construct the DEW Line as an American project. Canada’s participation remained the subject of studies, which Ottawa planned to carry out during the construction phase. In addition to the diplomatic notes, a comprehensive catalogue of conditions outlined the framework for the establishment of the radar system across the Canadian North, detailing regulations, among others, on Inuit communities, taxation, immigration and customs, scientific information, liaison arrangements, and the use of electronic equipment. On the initiative of

Washington, a separate agreement kept secret the arrangements for disposing material or entire

697 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 14–16; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 107. 698 “C. M. Drury to Jules Leger,” January 28, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5925, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 2.2. 262

DEW Line installations once they were found no longer useful to prevent other countries making similar demands on the United States, an arrangement that stirred controversy after the end of the

Cold War when the DEW Line sites were restored.699 The Canadian government, in turn, did not want public that it had granted permission for the United States to use U.S. Air Force aircraft during peacetime in Canada for the construction and operation of the DEW Line.700

With the DEW Line agreement secured, Washington had achieved its objective. For the

Arcticians around Pearson, however, the first round in the battle for a visible Canadian footprint in the radar system had been lost. With the announcement of the agreement, the debate over

Canada’s role in the defense of its Arctic approaches moved from the protected channels of diplomacy into the public realm. When Pearson tabled the diplomatic notes in the House of

Commons, John G. Diefenbaker, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, indicating his keen appreciation of the power of Northern and Arctic Canada’s cultural significance as a meaningful political vehicle to attack the Liberal government, pointedly asked: “What is Canada’s proportion of the expenditures being made, and in the construction work done by the United States to what degree is Canadian sovereignty maintained?”701 A Globe and Mail-editorial, entitled “Who Defends Canada?” followed suit a few days later, singling out the agreement’s reference to ‘effective participation’: “What is meant by ‘effectively’? More

Canadians than Americans? Half and half of each? Or what? […] Who actually is defending our

699 “The DEW Line’s Toxic Legacy,” CBC Digital Archives, October 12, 1997, http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/norad-the-dew-lines-toxic-legacy, last accessed on June 9, 2017. 700 For the diplomatic notes, conditions, and secret supplementary arrangements, see “Agreement between Canada and the United States of America to Govern the Establishment of the Distant Early Warning System in Canadian Territory” May 5, 1955; “Memorandum: Agreement Between Canada and the United States Concerning the Distant Early Warning System,” April 21, 1955, LAC, RG 24-E-1-c, Vol. 105, Acc. 1983-84/049, File: 096-100-80/9, pt. 3. 701 John G. Diefenbaker, “Radar Warning Lines-Cost-Canadian Sovereignty,” May 20, 1955, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 2nd Session, Volume IV, 3955. 263

North today, and who in the next ten years […] is going to defend it?”702 The official arrangements for the construction of the DEW Line may have been finalized with the May 1955 exchange of diplomatic notes. The debate over Canada’s role in the radar chain along the

Canadian Arctic coastline, by contrast, only had begun.

Conclusion

The intensifying security crisis of the early Cold War with the escalation of the nuclear threat to

North America threw a sharp light on the interplay of the United States’ global deterrence strategy and Canada’s national conception of Arctic defense cooperation. Throughout that period, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations looked for solutions to obtain more effective protection of its strategic bomber force in the continental United States and to enlist the

Canadian government in that undertaking. Yet Canada only registered in the discussions of

American defense planners once the decision to move ahead with the plans had been taken and it became necessary to approach the Canadian government to ensure its cooperation in the project.

Instead, battles over the overall posture of the U.S. Air Force among the military and civilian agencies and the quest for bringing national security imperatives in harmony with Eisenhower’s fiscal conservatism dominated debates in Washington. Eisenhower’s emphasis on the nuclear deterrent, as set forth in the ‘New Look’ of NSC-162/2 and the continental defense policy of

NSC 159/4, required effective defense of the U.S. strategic retaliatory forces in the continental

United States. For American Cold War strategists, as Jockel, Schaffel, and Farish have shown,703

702 “Who Defends Canada?” Globe and Mail, May 23, 1955. 703 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 60–90; Schaffel, The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960, Chpt. 8; Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War, 147–92. 264

the Canadian Arctic was a geopolitical space, one that was acutely vulnerable to Soviet incursions. Visions of an Arctic destiny or a Northern national narrative had no place in these discussions.

At the same time, the Canadian government viewed the plans for Arctic early warning through a decidedly national lens. While it was agreed among Ottawa’s civilian and military departments that Canada was not in a position to reject a defense project the United States deemed essential to its national security, the departments of External Affairs and National

Defence took different approaches to the Arctic radar system. Vocal in their emphasis on a substantial and visible role for Canada throughout the DEW Line, Prime Minister St. Laurent and

Secretary of State Lester Pearson, most prominently, were troubled by the prospect of abdicating stewardship of the Northern and Arctic regions to another American Army of occupation.

Ministers of National Defence Brooke Claxton and Ralph Campney and the RCAF, on the other hand, did not place much credit in such hyperbole. Instead, they aligned with their U.S. counterparts in the Pentagon and the U.S. Air Force in their initial skepticism of the project and the position to defer and delay commitments of Canadian money and personnel. The guiding principle for these defense officials had been a functionalist approach, bringing resources and capabilities in harmony with Canada’s potential role in the construction and operation of the

DEW Line. Despite affirmations by Deputy Minister Drury and Chief of Staff Foulkes to

External Affairs that there would be some form of Canadian participation, National Defence and the RCAF avoided hard commitments and deferred the matter to military study groups. As

265

Trudgen and Goette have shown,704 a shared skepticism of continental air defense between the

RCAF and the U.S. Air Force and an interest in preserving its resources characterized Canadian air force policy.

This ‘functionalist’ approach, a concept ironically first articulated by Canadian diplomat

Hume Wrong during World War II, stood in stark contrast to a brash and vigorous diplomacy by

External Affairs and a decided commitment by St. Laurent to make the development of Northern and Arctic Canada a central piece of his tenure. As was evident throughout cabinet meetings, state visits, public speeches, and diary entries, a vibrant Northern nationalism colored especially

Pearson’s attitude towards the plans for the establishment of the DEW Line. Overwhelmingly concerned with revising the critical accounts of Creighton, Granatstein, and Grant,705 historians have paid insufficient attention to the impact of these ideas on the Secretary of States views and how they informed his actions. Tynan, Trudgen, and Herd have noted the relevance of nationalism or questions of prestige in their studies.706 Grant and the authors of Arctic Front equally have acknowledged the existence of Canadian fascination with the North.707 Yet none have related these ideas in their analysis of the history of the DEW Line to the attitudes and actions of senior Canadian officials.

This chapter has shown that the views and actions by St. Laurent and Pearson, as well as other civilian government departments, must be understood within the context of a vibrant

704 Trudgen, “The Search for Continental Security”; Goette, “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Air Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957.” 705 Creighton, The Forked Road, 240–42; Granatstein, “A Fit of Absence of Mind”; Grant, Polar Imperative, 319– 22. 706 Tynan, “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic,” 425; Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 8–13; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 193f. 707 Grant, “The Northern Nationalists”; ibid., Sovereignty or Security?, 19f; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 6f. 266

Canadian Northern nationalism, not as “Canadian concern for territorial sovereignty,” as Herd suggests.708 Not only had legal studies of both governments confirmed the solidity of Canada’s claim to the Arctic Archipelago early in the 1950s, sovereignty also became inextricably entangled with the vernacular of Canadian Northern nationalists. Throughout the Northern

Campaign of 1954, senior government officials traveled across Canada and the United States to link questions of sovereignty with Northern development and a distinct Northern destiny of

Canada, one that purportedly resembled the nation-building efforts of Western expansion in the nineteenth century. Official communication guidelines by the ACND stressed the importance of talking about Arctic defense cooperation in terms of Northern development and displaying

Canadian stewardship across the Northern and Arctic regions. Gordon Robertson of Northern

Affairs and National Resources, by the same token, emphasized the close relationship between continental defense, Northern development, and showcasing Canadian leadership in the North.

More importantly, it is only by taking seriously this Northern nationalism that Pearson’s most aggressive Arctic diplomacy towards Washington becomes intelligible. The Secretary of

State’s sovereignty scare of January 1953 and his frustration that the RCAF declared itself unable to furnish the resources to take on the DEW Line as a Canadian project was an expression of his deep conviction in the symbolic and material promise of the North. Pearson’s unilateral move to threaten Dulles with a reopening of the 1947 agreement about bilateral defense cooperation in light of U.S. Arctic defense plans, by the same token, only make sense if seen in line with his brash actions at various instances in 1946, using the JAWS negotiations as leverage to obtain U.S. recognition of a Canadian sector claim to the Arctic. Much like Pearson had

708 Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 171. 267

advocated to finance, build, and operate the weather stations as a sole Canadian project without an appreciation of the costs and the logistical and personnel requirements involved, he charged ahead again, suggesting Canada should finance, build, and operate the DEW Line on its own— this time, however, he made the proposal during a meeting with Eisenhower and Dulles. Finally,

Pearson’s unwavering campaign to press for Canadian participation during the construction phase of the radar system, once Ottawa had approved the project, against the resistance of his colleagues at National Defence was entirely in keeping with his Northern nationalism. To ignore this ideational dimension of Pearson’s actions inevitably leads to an incomplete understanding of

Canada’s first diplomat during the DEW Line negotiations. It is only by including this Northern nationalism in the discussion of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation that Pearson’s Arctic diplomacy no longer is seen as an aberration. By the mid-1950s, rather, his views and actions were consistent with an abundant record of almost twenty years worth of writing, speaking, and acting upon his fascination with the Northern and Arctic regions of Canada.

The DEW Line agreement of May 1955 completed the negotiations over the construction of the radar network between Ottawa and Washington. The question over Canada’s role in the operation and maintenance of the early warning line, however, had not been resolved. Having received repreated assurances from the Canadian government of its intention to participate in the project, Washington was looking for a decision. The comments by Diefenbaker and the Globe and Mail then set the stage for the clash between External Affairs and National Defence over the following months.

268

CHAPTER IV

The Distant Early Warning Line, 1955-1957

Our position should be to take on the maximum effort possible in respect of all activities on our own soil—even if it may mean the reduction of our defence effort overseas.

Lester B. Pearson, Secretary of State for External Affairs, 1955709

Psychologically, the opening of the North though 4,000 miles from our southern border is more likely than any single conscious scheme to develop a sense of national entity and national purpose.

R. A. J. Phillips, Northern Affairs and National Resources, 1956710

Introduction

Two days before Ottawa and Washington exchanged the diplomatic notes that constituted the

DEW Line agreement on May 5, 1955, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa dispatched a cable to the

State Department on the question of “Canadian territorial claims in the Arctic.” The message contained an excerpt of an exchange between the Canadian Minister of Northern Affairs and

National Resources Jean Lesage, his Deputy Minister Gordon Robertson, and opposition politicians Ross Thatcher of the CCF and Douglas S. Harkness, the Progressive Conservative critic for northern affairs, from a committee hearing earlier in the year. In light of American plans for expanded military installations in the North, Lesage and Robertson were pressed over

Canadian efforts to assert sovereignty over the Arctic Archipelago and the use of the sector principle, in particular. Lesage insisted that Canada’s claim to the Arctic islands “has never been challenged.” Indeed, the Joint Arctic Weather Stations with Canadian personnel stationed and a

Canadian in charge at each installation, the Minister pointed out, demonstrated “effective

709 “Memorandum for the Minister,” May 27, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 710 “Canada Urged to Aid Labor in Far North,” Globe and Mail, August 11, 1956, 23. 269

occupation” of the northernmost parts of the archipelago. Robertson, moreover, deflected suggestions that the government used sector lines as the basis for its claim to the region. Asked whether Canada had asserted its sovereignty in the Arctic, Lesage responded: “We have not only asserted it, but we have exercised it.”711

With the negotiations over the DEW Line agreement complete, the dispatch by the U.S.

Embassy brought the sensitivity of Canadian politicians about the presence of American military personnel in the Arctic to the attention of officials in Washington. News of the construction of a radar network across the Canadian Arctic under U.S. leadership, the cable pointed out, had the potential to undermine the publicity Ottawa’s plans to “make some dramatic gesture to show its eagerness in expanding Canada’s northern frontiers.” The remote locations of the radar stations and the sparse population in these parts of the Arctic, furthermore, would raise questions about the effectiveness of Canadian claims on the basis of occupation. Yet the source of criticism about this “rather abstruse problem,” as the embassy noted, would not be Washington. Instead, questioning “emanates mostly from the parliamentary opposition, from certain daily journals and columnists, from a few individuals whose interests lie in the Arctic, and most loudly from the insignificant Communist press,” the cable explained. In other words, principally from Canada itself. Given Ottawa’s political sensitivity about the issue, the embassy cautioned that any

“unfortunate incident” that could be construed as Washington acting “heedless of Canadian sovereignty in the far north” might become an irritant.712

711 Jean R. Tartter, “Canadian Territorial Claims in the Arctic,” May 3, 1955, in: Peter Kikkert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds., Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty: Key Documents, 1905-56, Documents on Canadian Sovereignty and Security (DCASS), 332f. 712 Ibid. 270

The negotiations over the DEW Line agreement may have been completed. Yet the debate over Canadian participation in the operation of the early warning system and the public concerns for Canada’s Arctic sovereignty was far from over. The message by the U.S. Embassy, once more, illustrates an awareness of the political dimension of Canadian-American defense cooperation in the Arctic. While the message noted that Ottawa refrained from defining its claims in terms of the sector principle, a position External Affairs had advised against already in

1946 but individual Northern nationalist such as Pearson, St. Laurent, and Keenleyside had resuscitated intermittently, it quickly pointed to the political implications of an American-built and operated radar station in the Canadian Arctic. More importantly, the Canadian government had yet to advise Washington of its decision if it chose to become involved in the operation of the DEW Line and what form this involvement was going to take. As Lesage linked his response to the question about Arctic sovereignty to the staffing and operation of the weather stations, the opposition and the press in Canada were set to do the same with respect to Canadian participation in the DEW Line. Once more, the sovereignty question became inextricably entangled with the issue of defense cooperation and the politics of Canada’s Northern nationalism.

This chapter examines the Canadian debate over the question of Ottawa’s role in the staffing, operation, and maintenance of the DEW Line in the years leading up to the radar system’s official completion on July 31, 1957. Historians of Canada’s foreign and defense relations in the Arctic have mostly ignored the years following the DEW Line Agreement of

May 1955. James Eayrs, Shelagh Grant, Whitney Lackenbauer, Peter Kikkert, Alexander Herd,

Joseph Jockel, and the authors of Arctic Front have concentrated their studies on the period

271

leading up to the November 1954 decision to construct the DEW Line.713 In his study of the continental air defense system, Matthew Trudgen has not attached much importance to the months following the agreement. In his portrayal, the debate over Canada’s participation in the

DEW Line was resolved quickly and attention shifted to the construction of the radar system.714

Yet the months and years following the exchange of notes between Ottawa and

Washington in May 1955 are more than a postscript to the debates leading up to the agreement.

In fact, the Canadian government had not yet decided the question of its participation throughout the operation of the radar system. The diverging views about Canadian participation between

External Affairs, on the one hand, and National Defence and the RCAF, on the other, finally culminated in a clash in a July 1955 Cabinet meeting. With the publication of the DEW Line

Agreement in the House of Commons, moreover, the battle for public perceptions of the project jumped into high gear. The opposition in Parliament and the press raised questions about the government’s actions to protect Canadian sovereignty, an issue that had been conspicuously absent from the bilateral talks between Ottawa and Washington over the establishment of the early warning system. Ottawa’s strategies to shape public perceptions now were implemented in the form of a publicity campaign throughout 1956 aimed at strengthening perceptions of the

DEW Line as one element in the larger continental defense architecture and part of the Canadian government’s strategy for Northern development. As a result, the debate over the place of

Northern and Arctic Canada in the national imagination and the role of the Canadian government

713 Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence, 371f; Grant, Polar Imperative, 322; Kenneth Coates, Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North (Toronto: T. Allen Publishers, 2008), 68–72; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 107– 9; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 191; Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, chpt. 4. 714 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 347–51. 272

in the DEW Line continued with even greater fervor after the May 1955 DEW Line Agreement.

In light of the unresolved struggle over Canadian participation, Ottawa’s publicity campaign, and a controversial public discussion over a U.S. military presence along the DEW Line stations, the period between 1955 and 1957 is an important chapter in the history of the DEW Line and the

U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relationship in the Arctic.

The Struggle over Canada’s Role and Pearson’s Quest for ‘Effective Participation’

The question of obtaining a meaningful stake throughout the establishment and the operation of the DEW Line was a central concern for Pearson and the Department of External Affairs from the moment it learned about plans for the construction of an early warning line in the Far North in late 1952. Pearson had used the first Cabinet meeting in January 1953 at which the forthcoming American proposal for the erection of experimental radar stations in the Western

Canadian Arctic was discussed to rile up his colleagues over the potential loss of Canada’s

North. Raising the specter of American imperialism, he called for an aggressive policy in the

Arctic. Over the following year and a half, the Canadian Secretary of State reaffirmed the importance of Northern and Arctic Canada as a culturally constitutive region as well as a politically and economically valuable part of the country. During meetings with U.S. President

Eisenhower and his Secretary of State Dulles, in the pages of Foreign Affairs, and throughout public talks across the United States, Pearson invoked the formative power of the North and the region’s economic potential for the national development of Canada. During the DEW Line talks of the summer and fall of 1954, Pearson, accordingly, sought to translate these views into tangible policy by insisting on a visible and meaningful role for Canada in the construction and operation of the radar system. Despite tacit support from R.G. Robertson, the Deputy Minister of

273

Northern Affairs and National Resources, External Affairs was rebuffed by the departments of

National Defence, Defence Production, and others on the basis that the nature and extent of the

Canadian government’s participation had yet to be determined.715 This lack of enthusiasm among his colleagues notwithstanding, Pearson insisted on language in the initial approval of November

1954 as well as the final agreement with the United States half a year later that preserved

Ottawa’s ability to assume a significant role in the operation of the DEW Line. As a result, the

DEW Line Agreement of May 1955 explicitly referred to Ottawa’s intention to participate

“effectively” in the operation of the radar line.716 If the Northern and Arctic regions constituted a central element in the political, economic, and cultural development of Canada, Pearson was convinced, Ottawa could not stand on the sidelines in its largest military project in the North.

Just what exactly ‘effective participation’ would look like, however, remained unclear.

The debate in Canada over the country’s role in the DEW Line system was not reflected in the discussions about continental defense in the United States. As Eisenhower’s defense consultant Robert C. Sprague continued to advocate for expanded air defense capabilities at the

National Security Council in view of the emerging intercontinental ballistic missile threat,717 the early warning lines no longer captured the attention of foreign policy and defense decision

715 Defence Liaison (1) Division officer George Ignatieff explained to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Jules Leger in June 1955 that in November 1954, External Affairs “was put off by operating departments on the grounds that time was required to determine the form which this participation should take.” See “Operation and Maintenance of the DEW line,” June 21, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 716 “A. D. P. Heeney to John Foster Dulles,” May 5, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 717 For Sprague’s continental defense studies, see folders “Continental Defense, Study of – by Robert C. Sprague (1955),” “Continental Defense, Study of – by Robert C. Sprague (1956),” DDE, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-1961, NSC Series, Subject Subseries A67-60 & A67- 64, Box 2. 274

makers as it did throughout the fall of 1953 and the summer of 1954.718 Public interest, likewise, was marginal with little reporting about the formalization of Washington and Ottawa’s largest defense project in the North American Arctic. The New York Times published a brief report, buried in the paper’s back pages, noting the extensive regulations protecting Canadian labor, industry, and its right to assume responsibility for the radar system, when Pearson tabled the

DEW Line Agreement in the House of Commons on May 20, 1955.719 The dimensions of radar defense were discussed in another article against the backdrop of international disarmament talks and the nuclear threat, not the bilateral relationship.720 Echoing the Canadian debate for an

American readership, G. V. Ferguson, the editor of the Montreal Star, declared in the

Washington Post that “The DEW Line is ‘too American’.”721 If the agreement sought to give the impression that the radar system was a joint project, he argued, it was clear that it was “an

American project, owned and effectively controlled by the United States. This truth will in due course sink uncomfortably home in Canadian minds.”722 The fundamental question confronting the Canadian government was not one of finance or personnel, Ferguson concluded, but whether it considered it “reasonable” to deploy Canadian forces in Europe while “U.S. squadrons will be

718 The crises over offshore islands between Taiwan and China, Soviet nuclear tests, arms control, and the ballistic missile threat dominated debate at the National Security Council meetings in the months following the DEW Line Agreement. See “Discussion at the 233rd Meeting of the National Security Council,” June 30, 1955; “Discussion at the 257th Meeting of the National Security Council,” August 4, 1955; Discussion at the 259th Meeting of the National Security Council,” September 29, 1955, DDE, Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 7. 719 “U.S.-Canada Radar Pact: Agreement Made on Terms for North Warning System,” New York Times, May 21, 1955, 7. 720 “U.S. Vulnerable to Bomb Threat: The Danger of Foreign Attack Had Generated Interlocking Defense Measures,” New York Times, June 9, 1955, 22. 721 G. V. Ferguson, “U.S. Dominance Bothers Canada: The DEW Line is ‘too American’,” Washington Post, May 29, 1955, E2. 722 Ibid. 275

patrolling Canada’s own northern skies.”723 In the absence of American commentary, Ferguson amplified the voice of Ottawa’s Arcticians.

Meanwhile, Western Electric Company, the U.S. military with assistance of the RCAF, and Canadian construction and transportation companies continued to press ahead with the planning and organization of the early warning line. Site location teams surveyed the Arctic coastline, and construction equipment and supplies were loaded onto the sealift convoys departing from Seattle and Halifax for the Western and Eastern sections of the DEW Line.724 As

Washington considered vesting the operational responsibility for the radar system with a civilian contractor, most likely under the umbrella of the Western Electric Company,725 the American

Section of the PJBD reminded Ottawa of Canada’s intention to declare if and how it planned to participate in the operation and maintenance of the DEW Line. Assistant Under-Secretary of

State for External Affairs R. A. Mackay urged C. M. Drury, the Deputy Minister of National

Defence, to arrange for a prompt consideration of the question, noting that the U.S. Air Force was already submitting detailed schemes for allocating operational responsibility along the DEW

Line.726

At the May 1955 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Northern Development

(ACND), Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Max Wershof raised the matter with Charles Foulkes, the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, and O. M. Solandt, the Chairman of

723 Ibid. 724 “Progress Report No. 3, Distant Early Warning Co-Ordinating Committee,” May 19, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 725 “Memorandum for the Minister,” May 27, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 726 “R. A. Mackay to C. M. Drury,” May 17, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 276

the Defence Research Board.727 Wershof spelled out the implications of a Canadian decision to forego participation and the resulting issues over permitting a civilian contractor to operate the line, the questions of the nationality of such a contractor, and what requirements Canada would stipulate in terms of Canadian labor to be used if the DEW Line were to be run by a commercial company. Wershof explained that a DND assessment over Canadian participation, ordered in mid-November 1954, had yet to be presented. He noted that the Americans had requested a decision by July 1, no later than August 1. Instead of deferring to the DND study, Foulkes and

Solandt volunteered that they favored financial assistance at most and that the radar line should be run by the organization that constructed it—in other words, by the United States.728

The reluctance of the Canadian military establishment to discuss the role of Ottawa’s participation in the DEW Line contrasted clearly with the position adopted by External Affairs.

External Affairs, however, was unaware just how far this split had already advanced. While

Pearson was pressing for a visible role by Canada in the operation and maintenance of the radar system to be secured in the DEW Line Agreement in May, the RCAF had long concluded that it should not participate. Already in March 1955, the RCAF had completed its study into various scenarios of manning and operating the DEW Line.729 Air Marshal C. R. Slemon, Chief of the

Air Staff, advised Foulkes that the United States should fully operate the radar system through military or civilian personnel for an initial period. While Ottawa should indicate that it intended to take over the entire DEW Line some time in the future, the RCAF recommended that

Canada’s role during the first years of operation should be “only token participation” in the form

727 “The 26th Meeting of the Committee,” May 16, 1955, Lackenbauer and Heidt, The Advisory Committee on Northern Development, 337–38. 728 Ibid. 729 “Canadian Participation in the DEW System,” March 22, 1955, LAC, RG 24-E-1-c, Vol. 105, Acc. 1983-84/049, File: 096-10080/9, pt. 3. 277

of RCAF liaison officers at some stations. Canada might consider operation of the rearward communication system, connecting stations that linked the DEW Line with the Mid-Canada

Line.730 Slemon explained that funneling RCAF money and personnel to the DEW Line would divert important resources from other commitments the RCAF was engaged in. “[A]ny increases to the RCAF in personnel or funds,” the Air Marshal said, “should be applied to more dynamic functions, i.e. to effect an increase in our positive fighting capability.”731 Indeed, if only for reasons of “national pride” and to address sensibilities over sovereignty concerns, the RCAF saw its role in providing, for example, interception capabilities rather than administering surveillance in the Arctic. The RCAF concluded:

American manning of the DEW Line did not really challenge Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic and if it were a question of national pride in carrying a fair share of the total burden them [sic] perhaps this end could best be served by a larger Canadian contribution to the active Air Defence System.732

Not only did Slemon and the RCAF contend that sovereignty over Northern and Arctic Canada was not at stake, they also rejected External Affairs’ proposal to dispatch Canadian service personnel to the DEW Line stations and instead envisioned the air force to assume a more prestigious, more offensive role. External Affairs records show that it was not before late May that National Defence informed the department of these conclusions.733

Slemon’s argument that the RCAF had committed its personnel and resources elsewhere and that it preferred to devote its funds to more dynamic roles placed the service in greater harmony with the U.S. Air Force than with the Canadian Department of External Affairs. As

730 Ibid. 731 “Memorandum: RCAF Participation in the DEW System,” April 7, 1955, LAC, RG 24-E-1-c, Vol. 105, Acc. 1983-84/049, File: 096-10080/9, pt. 3. 732 “Supporting Data for Air Members Meeting: RCAF Participation in the DEW System,” April 7, 1955, LAC, RG 24-E-1-c, Vol. 105, Acc. 1983-84/049, File: 096-10080/9, pt. 3. 733 “Memorandum for the Minister,” May 27, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 278

Matthew Trudgen and Richard Goette have shown, this common appreciation among the air forces of both countries existed throughout the strategic debate over continental air defense.734

The close alignment was detectable during the early contacts between the St. Laurent government and the Eisenhower Administration in March 1953 as well as during the DEW Line negotiations in the summer and fall of 1954 when the RCAF and National Defence slow-walked

External Affairs’ push for a substantial Canadian footprint in terms of personnel in the construction and operation of the early warning system. Yet where political concerns drove

Pearson’s unwavering campaign for Canadian participation, a functional approach to continental defense cooperation guided the views of the RCAF and National Defence.

This stonewalling placed the St. Laurent government in a potentially embarrassing position. When Ottawa had concluded the DEW Line agreement with Washington and Pearson tabled the diplomatic notes in Parliament it contained the express intention of Canada to participate in the project. At international meetings, the Prime Minister already referred to the radar system to showcase Canada’s Arctic leadership and to stress “the magnitude of our own defense efforts” in the Arctic.735 At the same time, National Defence and the RCAF had long known this declaration of intent was unlikely to be acted on. For the May 30 Chiefs of Staff

Committee meeting, Slemon consequently recommended that no further study of the problem

734 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 14ff; Goette, “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Air Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957,” 15ff. 735 At the February 1955 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London, UK, St. Laurent used the DEW Line to underline Canada’s contribution to the North American continental defense system. In his diary, Pearson noted that “Our P.M. took advantage of the occasion to explain what we and the Americans had to do in the Arctic re continental defense; now for the first time a vital necessity in the general strategy.” See “February 1, 1955,” LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1953, 1954, 1955. 279

was necessary and the matter should proceed to the Cabinet Defence Committee immediately.736

In light of Washington’s request for an early decision, the matter now ought to be treated with urgency.737

National Defence’s slow-walking of the RCAF’s study on participation and the sudden rush to move ahead irked Pearson and External Affairs. Frustration over the lack of transparency and National Defence’s unwillingness to meet Pearson’s demands for a meaningful role of the

Canadian government in the operation of the DEW Line, however, stiffened the Secretary of

State’s resolve. The Minister of National Defence Ralph Campney’s statement in a Cabinet

Defence Committee memorandum of January 20, 1955, “to have the RCAF take as substantial a share as practicable in the operation and manning of the line” and Ottawa’s stated intention of

‘effective participation’—in an international agreement with the United States no less—were the guiding policy statements for Pearson.738 If Canada wanted to overcome its historic behavior of absenteeism in the North, moreover, at least it had to show up for the job in a visible and meaningful way. Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Jules Leger posed the central question: How far was Pearson prepared to take the fight over Canadian participation if DND was “determined to defer any decision on the matter for as long as possible, and then to do as little as possible”?739 The Secretary of State responded with an emphatic “Yes” to Leger’s question if he wished to take the matter to Cabinet. Pearson added: “Our position should be to take on the maximum effort possible in respect of all activities on our own soil—even if it may

736 “Canadian Participation in the Operation and Maintenance of the Early Warning Systems,” May 25, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 737 “C. R. Dunlap, Acting Chief of the Air Staff, to Charles Foulkes, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff,” May 11, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 738 Campney quoted in “Memorandum for the Minister,” May 27, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 739 Ibid. 280

mean the reduction of our defence effort overseas.” Canadian participation in Northern and

Arctic defense, moreover, enjoyed priority as long as it did not fundamentally deny Ottawa’s ability to participate in or to assume full responsibility for defense projects in the more populated areas in the provinces of Canada.740 The Secretary of State’s call for a “maximum effort” echoed his 1946 and early 1953 proposals to construct and operate the weather stations and the radar system as solely Canadian projects. It also, once more, refutes Trudgen’s suggestion that the

Cabinet’s declaration of intent to participate was a tactic in a cost-avoidance strategy. In fact,

Pearson was on a mission.

Before the recommendations of the RCAF were presented to the Cabinet Defence

Committee, Deputy Minister of National Defence Drury convened a meeting of all departments affected by the decision over Canada’s role in the DEW Line on June 15, 1955. In addition to the departments of National Defence and External Affairs, the deputy ministers of Finance, Labor,

Transport, Northern Affairs and National Resources, and Defence Production attended the meeting to discuss Canadian participation in the operation of the radar system as well as the annual resupply of the stations in the years ahead.741 For External Affairs, the meeting was an opportunity to gauge support among the other departments for a more assertive policy on

Canadian participation. Leger proposed to take up the suggestion by the RCAF for Ottawa to operate the rearward communication lines that connected the DEW Line with the Mid-Canada

Line as opposed to the entire DEW system. In addition, Pearson signed off on the position that any initial U.S. operation should not exceed two years, that Canadian companies and labor would

740 Ibid. 741 “Summary Record of Meeting Held in Office off the Deputy Minister D.N.D.,” June 15, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3- C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 281

be used, that “specific terms in the memorandum to Cabinet” be included on Canada’s intention to assume responsibility for the rearward communications, and finally that “specific information should be included in the memorandum to Cabinet” on Canadian studies on potential resupply of the DEW Line in the future.742 At External Affairs, there was little controversy surrounding the items about the use of Canadian contractors, Canadian labor, and the study for Canada to take over the resupply of the DEW Line. If the radar line was to be run by a U.S. company, External

Affairs was determined, however, to make Canada’s commitments to the operation of the rearward communications and the resupply as unambiguous as possible.

The meeting at National Defence brought the different positions within the Canadian government into sharp relief. Foulkes presented the conclusions of the Chiefs of Staff and argued that the DEW Line should be run by the U.S. Air Force, specifically via the Western Electric

Company, for a period of three years. The RCAF would provide liaison officers at the four main stations of the line and suggested to operate the rearward communication system.743 The Deputy

Minister of Defence Production took the categorical position that the Canadian government should not “operate, man, construct or pay for any part of the DEW Line” until American operation of the line had proven the line’s technical viability. By contrast, Wershof reminded his colleagues that Ottawa had publicly declared its intention to participate in the operation of the radar system. He explained that Pearson “strongly supports” the operation of the line by

Canadian personnel and that “as a minimum” Ottawa should provide the resources running the rearward communication lines. Gordon Robertson, Deputy Minister of Northern Affairs and

742 “Memorandum to the Minister,” June 13, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 743 “Summary Record of Meeting Held in Office off the Deputy Minister D.N.D.,” June 15, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3- C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 282

National Resources, echoed Wershof’s position and pointed out that the DEW Line should also benefit the development of the Canadian North more broadly, especially in the field of communications technology.744 The meeting concluded with Drury summarizing the preliminary

CDC draft recommendations. The United States would staff and operate the DEW Line by civilian companies for a period of two or three years while Ottawa would indicate a preference to operate the rearward communications system via a Canadian sub-contractor, a watered-down provision from Wershof’s original position. External Affairs’ suggestion to assume a financial stake in the DEW Line was roundly rebuffed by the other departments. On the question of the annual resupply of the radar stations, it was agreed to have the ACND conduct a study of the problem.745

If Pearson had hoped the meeting would persuade other departments to join External

Affairs’ call for a more substantial Canadian footprint throughout the operation and maintenance of the DEW Line, the meeting did little of the kind. Instead of specific language that would commit Ottawa to an unambiguous role in the running of the communications system and the annual resupply missions, a draft memorandum for the Cabinet Defence Committee emerged that relied on the vague terminology of ‘preference’ and punted a clear commitment on the question of resupply, pending the availability of additional data and studies.746

At External Affairs, a frustrated George Ignatieff recapped the history of the department’s unsuccessful advocacy for Canada’s participation in the project since the Military

744 “R. G. Robertson to J. R. Baldwin, Deputy Minister of the Department of Transport,” June 22, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 745 “Summary Record of Meeting Held in Office off the Deputy Minister D.N.D.,” June 15, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3- C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 746 “Memorandum for Cabinet Defence Committee: Manning and Operation of the DEW System,” June 17, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 283

Study Group had submitted its report on the feasibility of the radar system in June 1954.747 In a seven-page memorandum to Leger, Ignatieff presented a disillusioned, point-by-point assessment of the CDC draft memo going forward to the committee for consideration. The general opinion at the interdepartmental meeting had favored the watered-down provision for Canadian operation of the rearward communications system, one that, in effect, rendered the CDC memo’s recommendation for Ottawa to operate the system “meaningless” as these stations were part of the Mid-Canada Line, the radar line Ottawa operated on its own already. In addition, the CDC was to approve a period of three instead of two years for U.S. operation before Canada would potentially take over the DEW Line. “[T]here is no reason to believe,” Ignatieff commented,

“that National Defence will be any more prepared to take over responsibility for any of the line at that time than it is now.” Indeed, Ignatieff explained that National Defence’s and Defence

Production’s conception of Canada’s role in the DEW Line was best summed up by Defence

Production’s Deputy Minister himself: “Canadian participation should mean Canadian contractors working on U.S. dollars.” Pearson’s view that Ottawa should not only obtain a financial stake in the project but also staff portions of the line, by contrast, had elicited few supporters. “The effect of our representations,” Ignatieff concluded, “has so far been nil.”748

Ignatieff’s pessimism proved prescient. As July was approaching, the month by which the

United States had asked Canada to clarify its intention to participate in the DEW Line, and A. G.

L. McNaughton, the Chairman of the Canadian Section at the PJBD, was awaiting instructions, the struggle between Pearson and Campney came to a head. The Cabinet Defence Committee was unable to arrive at a consensus recommendation. Instead National Defence suggested a

747 “George Ignatieff to Jules Leger,” June 21, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 748 Ibid. 284

nebulous formulation about Canadian “special interest” in the operation of the rearward communication system.749 Leger informed Pearson that External Affairs was the only department pressing for an unequivocal commitment to Canadian participation. In light of DND’s insistence and the absence of support from other departments, Leger considered it “unreal” that a positive decision on a substantial Canadian role was possible. Moreover, Ottawa’s history of repeated declarations and assurances to assume a meaningful role throughout the DEW Line had become

“undesirable and undignified.”750 If Pearson wished to submit to the views of his colleagues,

Leger advised avoiding any reference to the rearward communications system in the statement to be sent to Washington. The only path to keep alive the debate over Canadian participation, on the other hand, was to defer a decision on the matter once more and have McNaughton inform the

American Section at the July meeting of the board accordingly.751

It would have been easy for Pearson to admit defeat and cease his department’s efforts to advocate for greater Canadian participation in the operation of the DEW Line. Leger and other officers had made plain that despite External Affairs’ efforts to raise awareness among other departments about the political and symbolic impact of participating in a meaningful way in the

Arctic radar system, they had come up short. Yet Pearson did nothing of the sort. On cue, James

M. Minifie, a nationalist columnist for the Ottawa Journal and CBC Washington correspondent, exhibited the kind of backlash Pearson had warned against, delivering a sharp critique of U.S. dominance in the Canadian Arctic. Minifie decried Ottawa and Washington’s secrecy surrounding the radar system and accused the St. Laurent government of selling out the Arctic to

749 “Memorandum for the Minister,” June 30, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2, 2. 750 Ibid., 3f. 751 “Memorandum for the Minister,” June 30, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2, 4. 285

the United States. “What happens,” Minifie asked, “if some of the American forces strike it rich in the North?” What precautions had Ottawa taken to ensure Canadian resources were protected from this “Arctic invasion?”752

The Secretary of State decided to stand firm and demanded for the CDC to revisit the question of participation, insisting on a full-fledged debate of the issue.753 When Defence

Minister Ralph Campney rejected Pearson’s course and declared that he was “unalterably opposed” to External Affairs’ demand to take over the rearward communications system during the initial phase, the confrontation between both ministers at Cabinet was unavoidable.754 Two and a half years after Pearson had called for an aggressive policy to curb the expansion of U.S. military installations across the Arctic and his admission that in this fight he was “almost alone,”755 he found himself in similar circumstances. Yet with no allies in Cabinet and RCAF opposition to his plans, he, nonetheless, continued to press for the stationing of Canadian personnel along the U.S.-Canadian early warning network in the Arctic.

On July 6, 1955, the Cabinet convened to consider a decision on the question of staffing and operating the DEW Line. It was agreed that McNaughton pass to the Americans Ottawa’s approval that Washington operate the radar system for the period of 1957 to 1960 through a civilian contractor of its choice. Before this period ended, Ottawa would approach Washington about its intentions with respect to taking over responsibility for the entire DEW Line system. As expected, the question of Canada’s participation in the operation of the rearward

752 James M. Minifie, “Arctic Invasion Kept from Public,” Ottawa Journal, June 25, 1955. 753 “Jules Leger to Charles Foulkes,” July 4, 1955; “Memorandum for Cabinet Defence Committee: Manning and Operation of the DEW System,” June 24, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 754 “Memorandum for the Minister,” July 5, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 755 Lester B. Pearson, “Tuesday, February 10, 1953,” February 10, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1953, 1954, 1955. 286

communications system proved contentious. Pearson made an emphatic case for Canada to take a sizable share in the operation of the Arctic’s largest U.S.-Canadian defense project. Not only would the United States be left to its own devices in running the remote chain of radar stations, covering a vast swath of Canadian territory. It also would take possession of “a series of military installations and communications extending in an unbroken line from the Alaska-Yukon border to Cape Race, Newfoundland,” the Secretary of State argued.756 Moreover, if Canada was to assume an active role in the commercial development of its Northern and Arctic regions, the operation of the communications link between the DEW Line and the Mid-Canada Line would generate synergies and contribute to the expansion of the Northern communications infrastructure.757 Campney, by contrast, argued that Canada should not spend resources on the operation of a radar system it had not constructed and, therefore, could not guarantee would work. Instead, Washington should bear the responsibility for bringing the line into operation and ensure the system’s feasibility all the while Ottawa participated in the Pinetree Line and operated the Mid-Canada Line as an all-Canadian radar network. 758 The ministers agreed to have

McNaughton inform the American Section that Ottawa would make known its decision about the staffing and operation of the rearward communication lines within the next three months— pending a study by the RCAF.759

In a final attempt, the Secretary of State had pulled all the stops to make the case for the importance of a significant Canadian footprint in the operation of the DEW Line. He invoked the specter of American de facto control of Northern and Arctic Canada. He raised the benefits of

756 “Memorandum for the Minister,” July 5, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.2. 757 Ibid.; “Distant Early Warning system; responsibility for manning and operation,” July 6, 1955, LAC, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Vol. 2658, Item: 14463, 4. 758 Ibid. 759 Ibid. 287

Canadian participation for the development of these remote regions. And he appealed to the conscience of his Cabinet colleagues to break with the much criticized tradition of Canadian absenteeism in the Northern and Arctic regions. None of these arguments, however, had an impact on Defense Minister Campney’s bottom line in terms of resources, personnel, and the practicalities of bringing the radar system into operation. Pearson’s Northern nationalism remained incompatible with Campney’s functionalism. Without either Pearson or Campney giving into the others’ views, however, Cabinet continued at an impasse over the question of

Canadian participation. As a result, the Cabinet passed the buck to a technical study.

McNaughton informed John Hannah, the Chairman of the American Section of the PJBD, at the July 11-14 meeting of the board about the Canadian government’s decision. External

Affairs had drafted McNaughton’s response and the chairman of the Canadian Section, accordingly, relayed to his colleagues that the United States was authorized to operate the DEW

Line for the first three years until it had been “thoroughly tested and proven to be operationally effective.” At the four main stations of the DEW Line an RCAF officer was to be stationed. With respect to the rearward communication system, McNaughton explained that a Canadian decision would be forthcoming “in about three months.”760

While the convoys of the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) delivered equipment, building material, and construction machinery to the DEW Line sites and the first structures of the stations were erected over the months of July and August 1955,761 Ottawa’s three-month extension by the end of which it was to determine its intention on the operation of

760 “Excerpt from P.J.B.D. Journal – July 11-14/55: Statement of General McNaughton,” n.d., LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1. 761 “Progress Report No. 4, Distant Early Warning Co-Ordinating Committee,” August 4, 1955, LAC, RG 24-F-1, Vol. 21422, File: 1855:5:1 pt. 1. 288

the rearward communications system neared its end. In early September, two months after the

Cabinet’s decision to delay informing Washington about Ottawa’s wishes, pending an RCAF study, External Affairs inquired with National Defence about the status of the assessment. When it became clear that the committee in charge had barely met and no conclusions had emerged,762

Leger reminded the new Deputy Minister of National Defence F. R. Miller of Pearson’s insistence and urged Miller to bring the matter before Cabinet before the end of September.763

The study, examining the entire communications infrastructure in Canada and the implications for U.S.-Canadian defense projects, was External Affairs last opportunity to make a case for

Canadian operation of the DEW Line’s communications lines. Before the results of the study had been submitted, however, Campney and Foulkes had indicated that their position had not changed. The United States, in their view, was to operate the entire radar system for the first three years to prove the technology’s effectiveness.764

When the study’s results failed to produce a rationale for External Affairs’ position,

Pearson conceded defeat. Leger informed his minister that the assessment concluded, “the system which it would be most desirable to take over immediately is not the DEW rearward communications.”765 Instead, another section running up Canada’s east coast from St. John’s to

Thule, Greenland, would be preferable for Canadian operation. By framing the question over

Canadian control of the DEW Line rearward communications systems in relation to other communication systems in Canada, the central argument no longer was whether Canada ought to obtain a sizable share in its largest Cold War Arctic defense project. Instead, the political

762 “George Ignatieff to Jules Leger,” September 8, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1. 763 “Jules Leger to F. R. Miller,” September 8, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1. 764 “George Ignatieff to Jules Leger,” September 20, 1955; “Cabinet Defence Memorandum: Manning and Operation of the DEW System,” September 19, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.2. 765 “Memorandum for the Minister,” September 26, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.2. 289

rationale Pearson had advanced was replaced by technical considerations. The symbolic significance of Canada’s Arctic defense politics did not figure in the ad-hoc committee’s technical assessment. The study inevitably gave an answer to a question External Affairs had not asked. As a result, on September 28, 1955, the Canadian Cabinet gave final approval for

Washington to staff and operate the entire DEW Line system, including the rearward communications system,766 for the period from 1957 to 1960.767 Three weeks later, McNaughton delivered the decision to the American Section at the October meeting of the PJBD.768 External

Affairs had lost.

Pearson’s stubborn insistence to demand that the Canadian government not abdicate its share in the operation of the DEW Line to the United States may have appeared futile. Warning signs that National Defence was not enthused about the prospect of deploying RCAF officers to remote outposts to monitor radar screens existed early on. U.S. Defense Secretary Wilson and then Minister of National Defence Brooke Claxton had pointed out already in March 1953 that it was the civilian agencies in the American national security establishment that pressed ahead the early warning project. The November 1954 decision by the St. Laurent government to approve the construction of the DEW Line as an American defense project successfully deflected

Pearson’s advocacy for a Canadian share throughout the building phase and made a decision on the question of Canada’s role in the operational phase conditional on the results of a study by the

RCAF. Throughout these months, External Affairs never garnered support beyond the occasional

766 The decision included one exception: Canada was to operate those communications lines that connected directly to the Mid-Canada Line. 767 “Record of Cabinet Decision,” September 28, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.2. 768 “Memorandum for the Canadian Section, PJBD: Distant Early Warning System – Land Segment,” October 17, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.2. 290

friendly yet ultimately insufficient signal from the Department of Northern Affairs and National

Resources.

At the same time, Pearson’s firm stance was entirely consistent with his previous actions and statements. Fluent in the language of Canadian Northern nationalism, Pearson had adopted some of the most influential views of Northern and Arctic Canada as a central ingredient in the national story of his country. His views remained remarkably consistent since his first comprehensive statement on the cultural significance of the North to a Canadian national story and identity. His persistent lobbying for full Canadian sponsorship and operation of the weather stations, the DEW Line, and his push for an aggressive policy towards American military installations in the North reflect Pearson’s fascination with the region. Throughout the Northern

Campaign of ’54, the Secretary of State was one of the most outspoken advocates of Northern development and did not tire to advertise to American audiences the cultural importance and the economic potential of the North for the growth of Canada as an independent and prosperous nation. In conversations with his department and in Cabinet meetings, time and again, Pearson had warned of the political implications inherent in giving the impression to cede control over

Northern and Arctic Canada.

Some describe Pearson’s understanding of Arctic issues as “naïve and archaic.”769 The

Secretary of State’s persistent advocacy for a robust Canadian posture in the North, however, was grounded in his long-standing conception of Canada as a Northern nation. If Herd concluded that it was a national perspective and questions of “respect” that drove Ottawa’s Arctic

769 Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy,” 17. 291

diplomacy is disconnected from his analysis, he is nonetheless correct.770 As this chapter has shown, the internal logic of Pearson’s statements and actions begins to fracture only if his

Northern nationalism is excluded from the equation. If placed within the context of a well- established mythology of Canada as a Northern nation and the long history of his fascination with the region, his views and actions, however, no longer appear perplexing.

Yet consistency did not make successful policy. The attraction that the symbolic power of

Canada as a Northern nation exerted over the Secretary of State and other northern nationalists did not extend to other departments, most importantly National Defence. If the political and cultural attractions of a substantial Canadian military presence in the Arctic overrode Pearson’s concerns over securing funds and even diverting Canadian personnel from Europe to the

Canadian North, Campney, Foulkes, and Slemon felt differently, questions of “national pride” notwithstanding. Defining Canada’s role within the continental air defense system relative to its financial, material, and personnel capacities instead of political visions or concerns over Arctic sovereignty dominated the rationales at National Defence and the RCAF. For Campney and

Slemon, for example, this meant calculating Canadian contributions to the Pinetree Line and the

Mid-Canada Line against the DEW Line. There was no special consideration for the DEW Line qua its location in the Canadian Arctic.

“A Preponderant American Operation”: Ottawa’s Strategies for Public Hegemony

By October 1955, the Northern nationalists at External Affairs had lost the struggle for a substantial role for the Canadian government in the operation of the DEW Line. The battle for

770 Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 193. 292

the public’s perception of the Arctic radar system, however, had yet to be fought. In the months leading up to the DEW Line’s official completion on July 31, 1957, the Canadian government sought to actively shape Canadians’ views of the early warning system. Drawing on the ACND guidelines developed in 1954, Ottawa attempted to portray the American-run defense project in terms of its overall role within the continental air defense architecture and the Canadian government’s efforts at northern development and nation-building. In speeches, articles, press tours, documentary films, and conspicuous visits to the Arctic, officials tapped into the repertoire of cultural representations of Canada as a northern nation. In doing so, the St. Laurent government took the struggle for the interpretive hegemony over the public’s perception of the

DEW Line from the newspaper page to the floor of the House of Commons and, eventually, to the North Pole itself.

The discrepancy between Ottawa’s assertion of its ‘effective participation’ and the perception of American leadership over the DEW Line project inevitably became more and more pronounced in the Canadian and American press as well as official announcements by the U.S. military. Ottawa had prohibited media access to the construction sites along the Canadian Arctic coastline.771 The combination of resourceful reporters and U.S. service departments, eager to advertise their activities in the Arctic, however, rendered this media blackout ineffective.

Evocative announcements by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army that cast the DEW Line sealift and the construction of the radar stations in dramatic stories of Arctic conquest and a heroic struggle against the forces of nature further added texture to Minifie’s imagery of an American

771 “W. H. Barton to A. D. P. Heeney,” May 6, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 293

“Arctic invasion.”772 “[I]n a dramatic race with the melting ice,” the U.S. Navy press release declared in late July 1955, the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), conducting the naval supply mission to the Arctic sites along the North American coastline, faced the “ice curtain, implacable, grim, forbidding.”773 The U.S. Army highlighted the deployment of “specially trained” forces, a new 60-ton amphibious vehicle, and the delivery of “37,000 tons of cranes, bulldozers, forklift trucks, landing craft and special cargo handling equipment […] along the almost unexplored Arctic coast line above the Arctic circle.”774 The Canadian Embassy was particularly alarmed at the statement that U.S. forces were operating in the “American Arctic,” as the U.S. Army press release had indicated. Yet when the Canadian media did not pick up on the slippage, the embassy cabled to Ottawa with a hue of comic relief: “Fortunately most of the

Canadian correspondents were away from Washington and the Americanization of Canada’s north was missed by The Canadian Press.”775

External Affairs, nonetheless, remained vigilant. When DEW Line Project Manager V. B.

Bagnall submitted a draft article of a lecture he had delivered earlier in the year at The Franklin

Institute, a radio engineering research facility in Philadelphia, Ignatieff suggested a greater emphasis on the cooperative element between American and Canadian authorities throughout the construction of the DEW Line. In the article, Bagnall described the DEW Line as a “modern electronic Paul Revere to warn America of impending danger in the event of attack upon us.”776

772 Minifie, “Arctic Invasion Kept from Public,” Ottawa Journal, June 25, 1955. 773 “U.S. Navy Press Release: 1955 Arctic Operations,” July 23, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210- C-40 pts. 5.1. 774 “U.S. Army Press Release: Specially Trained U.S. Army Troops Land Radar Fence Supplies in Arctic,” August 16, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1. 775 “Americanization of the Arctic,” August 17, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1. 776 “Memorandum for the Secretary of the Joint Security Committee,” August 11, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1; Bagnall, “Operation DEW Line,” 490. 294

Maclean’s Pierre Berton, recipient of the Governor General’s Award for his 1956 The

Mysterious North, and Leslie Roberts in the pages of Harper’s Magazine in addition to reports in

LIFE, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times managed to secure trips to DEW Line construction sites on Baffin Island or in Alaska via civilian contractors to report on the radar system, making Ottawa’s diplomats increasingly uneasy about controlling public perceptions over the Canadian government’s role in the defense of Northern and Arctic Canada.777

The publication of feature articles and press reports about the radar system rendered mute

Ottawa’s hopes to minimize coverage of U.S. military installations in Canadian territory. If it was not possible to prevent press access to the DEW Line sites, officials at National Defence,

External Affairs, and Northern Affairs and National Resources decided, it was imperative to ensure favorable coverage.778 The ACND’s Public Information Policy Guidelines, developed during the early DEW Line talks in mid-1954 by R. A. J. Phillips,779 provided the logistical and the interpretive framework when Washington and Ottawa began to outline plans for a press visit in the spring of 1956. In letters to Leger and McNaughton, Robertson defined the purpose of a press tour and stressed the importance of avoiding a “one-sided view” of U.S. defense programs in Canada and the perception that “our northern area is an administrative and civil vacuum.”780

Reports about the U.S. Navy’s perilous voyage through the ice-infested waters around Alaska to

777 Pierre Berton, “The Island that knows no Summer,” Maclean’s, July 23, 1955; Leslie Roberts, “The Great Assault on the Arctic: Building the DEW Line,” Harper’s Magazine, August 1955; Wayne Thomas, Chicago Tribune; Jim Nicol, LIFE; Anthony Leviere NYT; “R. A. Farquharson to William Dumsday,” August 5, 1955; “DEW Line Publicity,” August 11, 1955; “DEW Line Publicity Directive,” August 18, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.1; Pierre Berton, The Mysterious North (New York: Knopf, 1956); Francis, National Dreams, 164. 778 “28th Meeting,” October 25, 1955, Lackenbauer and Heidt, The Advisory Committee on Northern Development, 359. 779 “20th Meeting of the Committee on Northern Development,” October 12, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S- 87-3-1A Vol. 3. 780 “R. G. Robertson to Jules Leger,” October 24, 1955; “R. G. Robertson to A. G. L. McNaughton,” October 26, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.2. 295

supply the DEW Line sites or the U.S. Army’s latest Arctic-designed vehicle should be countered by pieces on Canada’s role in the radar system, its contribution to the overall continental defense effort, and its development of its Northern and Arctic regions. A briefing in

Ottawa or Churchill, Manitoba, should educate reporters about the indigenous peoples of the

North, wildlife protection, and the political administration of the Northwest Territories—“The

Little Parliament of the North,” as the New York Times dubbed the Northwest Territories

Council.781 Visits to the Canadian North should include stops at RCAF posts along the Mid-

Canada Line as well as Resolute, a Joint Arctic Weather Station on Cornwallis Island, for example, to contextualize the DEW Line project within the larger continental air defense program and to emphasize the fact that “Canadian military and civilian activities extend to the far northern islands.”782 The battle over public perceptions, Robertson added, was consequential and should not be taken lightly. “[T]he context in which the D.E.W. line is seen by the journalists,” the Deputy Minister stressed, “could have quite an influence on the type of publicity that may result, and this could be of real importance in keeping Canadian sovereignty and the

Canadian role in the forefront.”783

Phillips himself took to the pages of the Canadian Forum in January 1956 to help focus the public debate on the themes of development and nation-building. Entitled “No Cold War in the Arctic,”784 the article echoed the ideas advanced by Pearson in his Foreign Affairs essays about the Northern and Arctic reaches as a space for international cooperation and national development of Canada. Beyond the international politics of Arctic diplomacy, Phillips painted

781 “Special Mace for Canada’s Northwest,” New York Times, January 22, 1956, 64. 782 “R. G. Robertson to Jules Leger,” October 24, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 5.2. 783 Ibid. 784 R. A. J. Phillips, “No Cold War in the Arctic,” The Canadian Forum, Vol. 35, January 1956, 224. 296

the picture of a Northern resource bonanza. A wealth of metals, minerals, and energy resources rested in the Northern and Arctic grounds, waiting to be mined and developed by entrepreneurial captains of industry. The extraction of oil at Norman Wells and the mining of uranium at Port

Radium fueled what Phillips described as a postwar boom in the North, one not unlike the days of Western expansion:

A more likely signpost to the north of another generation is the growing frontier days of the Canadian west. The same wealth of resources, the same initiative, the same people will be making it. The face of the future north may not look much like the west – ever – but as in the west we shall be claiming our own heritage. We shall, too, be pushing to another sea: to the sea we share with the Russians.785

The conflation of the frontier mythology with the economic exploitation of Northern and Arctic

Canada invoked the narrative of nation-building. If the settlement of the Prairie provinces toward the end of the nineteenth century and Ottawa’s economic and infrastructure programs had tied the eastern and western sections of the country into a national whole, Phillips suggested, so would the development of Canada’s Northern regions complete what he had described in his government publicity guidelines as the “logical extension of Canadian nationhood.”786 The promise of Northern and Arctic Canada, not American-run radar screens, were to dominate newspaper and magazine headlines about activities throughout the Canadian North and instill a sense of national ownership in the development of these regions.

Robertson and Phillips’ press initiative was dovetailed by External Affairs’ own proposal to use the National Film Board (NFB) to advance the notion of the Canadian government as an active and responsible steward of the North. In February 1956, the Information Division in cooperation with the NFB considered dispatching a camera crew and a still photographer to

785 Ibid. 786 “20th Meeting of the Committee on Northern Development,” October 12, 1954, LAC, RG 22, Vol. 838, File: S- 87-3-1A Vol. 3. 297

document the construction phase of the DEW Line.787 Few official pictorial materials taken by

Canadian government officials existed at the time and in light of the growing public interest in the project, External Affairs felt it would be advantageous to have an official record of the line, ready for public distribution “at home and abroad.”788 The Western Electric Company was in the final stages of completing a corporate color documentary of the DEW Line construction and, if past experience was any guide, the U.S. Defense Department was producing a comprehensive pictorial record of the project for its own propaganda purposes.789 In a draft letter to Miller of

National Defence, Defence Liaison officer W. H. Barton cited the ample documentation of the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ construction of the Alaska Highway during World War II by the

NFB as an example for the coverage of the DEW Line. In harmony with Phillips’ publicity guidelines, the NFB was to contextualize the DEW Line within the broader continental air defense activities and include the Mid-Canada Line in its production.790

In an abrupt about-face, External Affairs rescinded its sponsorship of the initiative in early March 1956. In an unexpected move, the department explained that a documentary would

“create the impression that Canada was ‘Maginot’ minded and was concentrating on continental defence at the expense of the ‘forward’ defence of NATO in Europe. [W]e are not sure that this

Department has any real interest in the project.”791 Although the official record remains silent about the reasons for External Affairs’ reversal, the sudden nature and the rationale provided for this withdrawal, especially the Maginot-reference, suggest an intervention or signals from

787 “Jules Leger to F. R. Miller,” February 13, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 6.1. 788 Ibid. 789 “Official Pictorial Record of the Construction of the Dew Line,” February 13, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 6.1. 790 Ibid., February 24, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 6.1. 791 Ibid., March 2, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 6.1. 298

Defense or RCAF officials. Regardless of what motivated Barton to pull out of the project,

External Affairs’ consideration of the NFB documentary was consistent with the department’s and its minister’s efforts to portray Canada as a nation inextricably linked to its Northern and

Arctic reaches.

The Northern and Arctic tour of Governor General Vincent Massey of March and April

1956 perhaps was Ottawa’s most effective effort to focus public attention on Canada’s activities throughout the North. Massey was fascinated with the regions, its peoples, and the images of romance and adventure they inspired in his mind. The North, he felt, resembled the unfulfilled promise of Canada and its potential for national achievement.792 Organized by the ACND’s

Graham W. Rowley,793 the 17-day trip from March 20 to April 6, 1956, on a RCAF North Star took Massey and his entourage of reporters from Ottawa to Baffin Island in the Eastern Arctic, along the Arctic Archipelago with stops at Resolute, Cambridge Bay, one of the four main stations of the DEW Line in Canada, and Tuktoyaktuk, another DEW Line site on the Mackenzie

Delta, before visiting Norman Wells, the petroleum hub for Northwestern Canada, and

Whitehorse along the Alaska Highway. 794

Massey was keenly aware of the symbolism provided by this first ever vice-regal tour of the Arctic as Canada’s first Canadian-born Governor General. Accordingly, he pursued a clear and well-advertised objective with his trip. In addition to visiting Inuit communities and

792 In his memoirs, Massey recounts in great detail his participation in Inuit dances and meals, his visits to local hospitals, Hudson’s Bay posts, meteorological stations, and the Roman Catholic and Anglican missions where he celebrated Easter masses. The North and the North Pole, in particular, in Massey’s view, is a powerful source for inspiration and Canadians’ imagination: “it was more than one could resist.” Vincent Massey, What’s Past Is Prologue: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Vincent Massey (London: Macmillan & Co., 1963), 483–90. 793 Rowley, Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the Arctic, 281. 794 Already in December 1955, a press announcement made clear that Massey’s Northern journey was designed to highlight Canada’s activities across the Northern and Arctic regions, including the DEW Line and JAWS programs: “10,000-Mile Jaunt: Governor General Plans Arctic Tour,” Ottawa Journal, December 8, 1955. 299

missionary, RCMP, and HBC posts, he wanted Canadians to embrace what he saw as the promise of the North, including its economic potential for resource development as well as the necessity for the federal government to “improve the lot of the natives.”795 Above all, Massey was determined to leave no doubt about the fact that Northern and Arctic Canada was Canadian and not “part of the land of those from south of our border who were engaged in projects for

North American defence.”796 Staging an ‘act of occupation’,797 Massey circled the magnetic

North Pole at 9:49 a.m. on March 27, 1956, and dropped a canister, containing the royal flag of the Governor General, records documenting Massey’s journey, and a note for those happening upon the standard to contact the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs—if the oceanic currents had not already carried the tube to Greenland or Spitsbergen.798 The North Pole-visit and the reaffirmation of Canada’s sovereignty over its “last frontier,” as the Washington Post noted,799 featured prominently in the press reporting of the trip alongside stories about the

Governor General traveling by dog sled, eating caribou meat, attending Inuit drum dances as well as visiting the oil fields at Norman Wells in addition to DEW Line sites and JAWS stations—“fairy castles in a winter wonderland,” according to the Globe and Mail.800 Massey’s

795 Massey, What’s Past Is Prologue: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Vincent Massey, 484–85. 796 Ibid. 797 Janice Cavell and Jeffrey David Noakes, Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918-25 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010). 798 The message contained in the canister was written in English, French, and Danish and read: “Will you please report your discovery to the principal citizen of your community, who in turn, is requested to inform the secretary of state for external affairs, Ottawa, Canada, of the place and date. A reward to the finder is promised.” “Massey Leaves a Message to Future North Pole Visitors,” Globe and Mail, March 26, 1956, 1; “Massey off to Arctic: Canada’s Governor General to Fly over North Pole,” New York Times, March 20, 1956, 12; Massey, What’s Past Is Prologue: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Vincent Massey, 487. 799 The brief article misnamed Massey as a ‘Governor’ instead of his title of Governor-General of Canada. “Canadian Governor Touring Arctic Front,” Washington Post, March 21, 1956, 15. 800 “Massey Makes Flight Across Arctic Circle,” Globe and Mail, March 24, 1956, 3; Tanja Long, “Governor Tours Arctic Oil Field: Massey Visits Norman Wells on D.E.W. Radar Line—Town’s Capacities Taxed,” New York Times, April 2, 1956, 11; “Massey to tour Canadian Arctic: Governor-General Starting Tuesday on First Trip of a Viceroy to Region,” New York Times, March 18, 1956, 17. 300

tour of Sam McGee’s cabin in Whitehorse, the popular character of Robert Service’s “The

Cremation of Sam McGee” also did not go unnoticed by reporters.801 The visit was a well- orchestrated and widely publicized journey, rich in symbolic statements and cultural references to Canada’s Northern nationalism.

Flags, Visitations, and the Politics of Arctic Sovereignty

Governor General Vincent Massey’s reassertion of Canada’s Northern and Arctic identity and history coincided with the announcement of Federal Electric Company’s selection to operate the

DEW Line. In a brief statement in the House of Commons on March 20, 1956, the decision to have the United States run the radar system for the first three years by a civilian company was delivered by Defence Minister Campney’s Parliamentary Assistant.802 C. D. Howe, the Minister of Defence Production, had staged a last-minute intervention to move Washington “on political grounds” to consider choosing a Canadian company to operate the DEW Line only to be informed that the American bidders clearly outperformed their Canadian competitors.803 With no meaningful Canadian participation in the running of the radar system to show for, Pearson rebuffed Campney’s overtures to share in the announcement of U.S. operation of the DEW Line and left the matter with National Defence.804 Pearson may have been unable to secure a visible role for the Canadian government in the project. Yet following years of public advocacy for a vigorous Arctic policy, he was not going to become the public face associated with the decision to delegate responsibility for Arctic early warning to an American company. Campney and

801 “Elderly Pioneer Greets Massey at Whitehorse,” Globe and Mail, April 4, 1956, 10. 802 “Manning and Operation of Early Warning Lines,” March 20, 1956, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. 3, 2297. 803 “Memorandum for the Minister,” March 7, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 6.2. 804 Ibid. 301

Howe, likewise, understood the Canadian politics of Arctic defense. As a result, instead of a

U.S.-Canadian press release, a parliamentary aide made the announcement in the Commons.

The news, however, was lost neither on the opposition nor the press. Progressive

Conservative (PC) and future Minister of National Defence, George R. Pearkes demanded clarification if U.S. operation of the DEW Line extended to the Mid-Canada Line and whether the Visiting Forces Act would apply to the American contractor. Other PC members questioned whether Canada had any voice in the selection of the operating company of the DEW Line at all.

PC opposition leader John G. Diefenbaker confronted St. Laurent directly. “Can he say,”

Diefenbaker began in his persecutorial style,

whether or not there is full protection for Canada’s sovereignty in the erection and the manning of the D.E.W. line? Second, can he say whether the action of the Governor General in flying over that area and dropping his standard is a reassertion of Canada’s sovereignty and is designed as such?805

The Prime Minister, attempting to have both sides of the argument, declared that no such reassertion was necessary only to pronounce Massey’s Northern tour “a demonstration to the whole world” that Northern and Arctic Canada was an integral part of the nation in the same breath. St. Laurent went on to deflect any notions that Ottawa had abdicated its responsibility along the DEW Line and assured the public that the government was “very careful” to ensure

Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic while maintaining close and effective U.S.-Canadian defense relations.806

Yet the Prime Minister’s assurances failed to mollify his critics. The politics of Canada’s

Northern nationalism, as a result, kicked into full swing. In a scathing editorial, the Globe and

Mail attacked the St. Laurent government for what it described as an “ignominious reversal,”

805 “Manning and Operation of Early Warning Lines,” March 21, 1956, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. 3, 2464. 806 Ibid. 302

“dangerously insensitive,” and a “fumbling and lack of leadership.”807 Quoting Pearson’s May

1955 statement that Canada intended to “participate effectively in the operation and maintenance” of the DEW Line, the paper decried that this participation, in fact, “will be non- existent.” Instead “full American occupation of the line” had been agreed. What had changed

Ottawa’s policy? What was it doing about the apparent shortage in suitable Canadian technical personnel? And was the clause to preserve Canada’s right to take over the line upon advance notice more than “a sop to nationalism, to allay feelings that Americans are camped on our soil indefinitely?”808

For all of Pearson’s warnings, the St. Laurent government was caught wrong-footed by the sharp public backlash. Diefenbaker had identified the potency of Canada’s Northern nationalism as a vehicle for attacking the Liberal government for its close cooperation with the

United States, a relationship the imperial-minded conservative felt ought to be balanced by stronger ties with Britain.809 The DEW Line provided Diefenbaker with a potent avenue to portray U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation as a raw deal for Canada, one in which American companies took advantage of Canadian resources, coyly ignored Canadian laws and customs, and incrementally eroded Ottawa’s sovereignty over its Northern and Arctic territories.

Reminiscent of the nationalist debates surrounding the Alaska Boundary Dispute or the Alaska

Highway during the first half of the twentieth century, this mélange of anti-annexationist rhetoric entangled with the narrative of Canada as a Northern nation put the St. Laurent government on the defensive.

807 “The Ostrich Complex,” Globe and Mail, March 22, 1956, 6. 808 Ibid. 809 Denis Smith, Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker (MacFarlane Walter & Ross, 1995), 279ff. 303

After three long weeks, the Prime Minister sought to regain control of the debate and dispel any perceptions over American encroachment and a purported loss of Canadian sovereignty in the North. In a statement in the House of Commons on April 11, 1956, St. Laurent cast the DEW Line as one joint defense project with the United States among a series of defense initiatives, all of which fell under the principles enshrined in the 1947 Joint Statement on

Defense Cooperation.810 Canada’s rights were protected, the Prime Minister insisted, and it was only natural for the United States to assume a substantial share in a defense project designed to provide early warning for its territory. Moreover, Canadian companies had ample opportunity to benefit from the transportation of supplies, the construction of the stations, and the manufacturing of electronics equipment.811 With a line Pearson had suggested in the preparation of the statement,812 St. Laurent concluded his remarks: “In all these arrangements for the providing of facilities on our territory Canadian sovereignty is fully recognized by the United

States.”813

The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State who had warned of an American occupation of Northern and Arctic Canada since the inception of the DEW Line debate within the Canadian government in January 1953 now found themselves in the position to placate the nationalist voices in public. This situation was ironical not only because both had sympathized with such notions earlier. In terms of the discussion over Canada’s legal claims to the Arctic islands, they were right. As Defence Research Board official R. J. Sutherland argued a few years

810 St. Laurent, “Manning and Operation of the Distant Early Warning Line,” April 11, 1956, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. 3, 2817-19. 811 Ibid. 812 “Telegram by Lester B. Pearson to External Affairs,” March 24, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 6.2. 813 St. Laurent, “Manning and Operation of the Distant Early Warning Line,” April 11, 1956, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. 3, 2819. 304

later and the historians of the revisionist school have shown,814 St. Laurent correctly explained that on the basis of the 1947 defense agreement, the U.S. acceptance of regulations governing

Northern and Arctic defense projects, and the presence of Canadian personnel in the form of transportation and construction companies strengthened Ottawa’s claim over the Arctic islands based on the principle of effective occupation. Indeed, a State Department assessment of August

1956 stated that the question of Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic was “no longer a pressing political problem” in joint defense operations. Washington had granted “implicit recognition” to

Canadian claims of known Arctic islands on multiple occasions by means of requesting permission to conduct activities in these regions.815 In the absence of public recognition of

Canada’s claim, however, the issue of sovereignty remained a viable and potent vehicle for

Canadian Northern nationalists.

St. Laurent’s statement assuaged some critics. The Globe and Mail judged the Prime

Minister’s assurances as “generally satisfactory” but also warned that “sovereignty is fragile.”

Reflecting the increasing international discussions surrounding questions of maritime law,816 the paper’s editorial board pointed to a series of unresolved issues about the extent of national rights

814 Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968,” 107–9; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 74f; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945- 50,” 154; Eyre, “Forty Years of Military Activity in the Canadian North, 1947-87,” 294; Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs, 61–65; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 193f; Goette, “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Air Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957,” 2. 815 “Canadian Sovereignty in the Arctic,” August 15, 1956, in: Peter Kikkert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds., Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty: Key Documents, 1905-56, Documents on Canadian Sovereignty and Security (DCASS), 2014, 336f. 816 Throughout the early 1950s, the United Nations’ International Law Commission started to map out aspects affected by maritime law. This process resulted in the first of three conferences in 1958 in Geneva, which ultimately produced the U.N. Law of the Seas in 1982. For a comprehensive analysis of Canadian Arctic sovereignty claims and UNCLOS, see Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs, 84ff. 305

over international waterways.817 Opposition politicians, by contrast, were determined not to let this opportunity to raise the specter of American imperialism go to waste. The conservative

Social Credit Party attempted to stir controversy over the flying of the Stars and Stripes “above the Canadian flag” at military installations.818 Diefenbaker took aim at St. Laurent’s assurance over the use of Canadian companies and labor. He inquired what actions Ottawa had taken in response to reports over “derogatory actions on the part of United States contractors in derogation of Canadian sovereignty” and if representations had been made to Washington.819 An exasperated C. D. Howe called Diefenbaker’s questions “ridiculous.” Howe downplayed the incident over a U.S. transportation company ignoring Canadian regulations and recast the episode as an example of the practical cooperation among both countries.820 “That is not the record at all,” Diefenbaker retorted. 821 When Maclean’s editor Ralph Allen joined the sovereignty-bandwagon and decried the DEW Line as “the charter under which a tenth of

Canada may very well become the world’s most northerly banana republic”822 some External

Affairs officials wondered about the sensibility of having Canadian journalists visit Canada’s

DEW Line sites, “such a preponderantly American operation,” at all.823 Indeed, the ACND agreed in late May to restrict press tours to the Alaskan DEW sites to avoid publicity of the

817 “Sovereignty is Fragile,” Globe and Mail, April 14, 1956, 6. 818 Solon E. Low, “Flying of the ‘Stars and Stripes’ at U.S. Military Bases in Canada,” April 11, 1956, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. 3, 2819. 819 John G. Diefenbaker, “Alleged Derogatory Actions by United States Contractors,” April 11, 1956, House of Commons Debates, 22nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Vol. 3, 2820. 820 C. D. Howe, ibid. 821 John G. Diefenbaker, ibid. 822 Ralph Allen, “Will DEWline Cost Canada its Northland?” Maclean’s, May 26, 1956, 16-7, 68-72. 823 R. M. Macdonnell, “DEW Line Publicity,” May 28, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 7.1. 306

American sealift and construction operations across the Canadian Arctic.824 Moreover, instead of sending a press party to accompany the Eastern Arctic sealift voyage of the HMCS Labrador, now a RCN photographer was dispatched to document the trip.825

Public controversies surrounding the DEW Line—some real, some imagined—continued to concern External Affairs over the summer of 1956. The rabid anti-Communism of the

Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had reached Canada before in 1955 when Pearson became the object of the senator’s ire over Ottawa’s refusal to have Igor Gouzenko testify before the U.S. Senate.826 In September 1956, McCarthy used a false report by Newsweek Magazine about Canada inviting a Soviet delegation to tour secret DEW Line sites to attack the Eisenhower

Administration.827 The report was quickly picked up by Canadian papers and forced officials from National Defence and External Affairs to issue several denials.828 More disconcerting, however, were reports only two weeks later that painted the security procedures for a visit to

DEW Line sites by Northern Affairs Minister Lesage, his deputy Robertson, and RCMP

Commissioner L. H. Nicholson as a national “indignity.”829 Aiming his sharp pen at Ottawa,

James Minifie criticized the arrangement that clearances for trips to DEW Line sites had to be secured from Canadian and American authorities at the joint Project Office in New York as a

824 “34th Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Northern Development,” May 23, 1956, LAC, RG 24-E-1-c, Vol. 18171, File: 990-101-80/9. 825 “William H. Dumsday to C. Herschel Schooley,” May 25, 1956, LAC, RG 24-E-1-c, Vol. 18171, File: 990-101- 80/9. 826 Bothwell, Your Country, My Country, 246. 827 The brief item read: “Nothing has been printed about it, but sixteen Soviet experts have just been taken on a tour of the still secret DEW (distant early warning) line stations which stretch across Canada. The Russians, who are in Winnipeg, Man., to confer on fishery problems, visited the radar stations at the invitation of Canadian officials— with Pentagon approval.” See “Clipping from NEWSWEEK,” September 10, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.1. 828 “Red View of DEW is Denied,” Montreal Star, September 11, 1956; “Deny Reds Allowed DEW Line Look- See,” Ottawa Journal, September 12, 1956. 829 James M. Minifie, “Indignity in DEW Agreement,” Toronto Telegram, September 27, 1956. 307

“definite irritant to Canadian pride.” If American companies felt free to disregard Canadian law and customs, Minifie argued, conflating Diefenbaker’s inquiry earlier in the year with the visitation matter, why should Washington have a veto over Canadian citizens traveling to installations on Canadian soil?830

Minifie’s attack rippled through Ottawa. Under-Secretary of State Leger brought the piece to the attention of Pearson while the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C., External

Affairs, and National Defence fielded press inquiries and issued statements, affirming that no

Canadian had ever been denied access to installations in Canada and that Washington held no such power.831 At a press conference the day following Minifie’s article, the Prime Minister denounced the story and reasserted that “the U.S. cannot legally prevent a visit to the DEW Line by any Canadian authorized by the Canadian government.”832 The St. Laurent government was playing catch-up to the media and the opposition’s charges.

In the face of these controversies, Phillips, Heeney, and Pearson continued to spread the gospel of Canada’s Northern nationalism. The author of Ottawa’s publicity strategy for Northern and Arctic defense installations, Phillips continued to extoll the North’s nation-building powers.

Calling for a greater effort to exploit the regions’ energy resources, metals, and minerals, Phillips praised the North’s “frontier qualities” and declared: “Psychologically, the opening of the North though 4,000 miles from our southern border is more likely than any single conscious scheme to develop a sense of national entity and national purpose.”833 Speaking at the opening of a

830Ibid.; “Our North Really under U.S. Thumb,” Ottawa Citizen, September 27, 1956. 831 “Memorandum for the Minister,” October 2, 1956; “Memorandum for the Minister,” October 5, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.1. 832 William H. Dumsday, “Memorandum: DEW Line – Security Clearance,” October 3, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.1. 833 “Canada Urged to Aid Labor in Far North,” Globe and Mail, August 11, 1956, 23. 308

traveling exhibition of Canadian abstract art in Louisville, Kentucky, supported by Canada’s

National Gallery, the Canadian Ambassador to the United States A. D. P. Heeney heralded the power of the fine arts in promoting international understanding. In his welcoming remarks,

Heeney singled out the Group of Seven “with their emphasis on the magnificence of our northern landscape and the dramatic features of Canadian geography” as “peculiarly Canadian.”834 The

Secretary of State, in turn, framed the establishment of the DEW Line in the context of Ottawa’s overall effort to develop Northern and Arctic Canada. As a result of the radar system, Pearson explained,

the Canadian north is being developed today at a speed which was inconceivable ten years ago— and Canadians are sure to benefit. A major radio communications system is being built, and transportation facilities are being developed by land, air and water. This is bound to give a tremendous impetus to the economic development and settlement of the north.835

Yet, Pearson could not escape the recent controversies over the flying of the American flag and the visitation debate. Before dutifully laying out Ottawa and Washington’s security policy, governing the visitation of the DEW Line, Pearson facetiously commented on the public portrayal of the matter:

I have seen reports of what is happening in our own northland, which almost sounded as though it wasn’t Canadian at all. The impression I got was that the Stars & Stripes was the only flag to be seen in Canada’s north, that all Canadians, not excluding Cabinet ministers, must have the permission of the F.B.I. to visit a military installation there, such as a DEW Line station, and that the country has in fact been taken over by Americans, who come and go pretty much as they like. Now if this picture were accurate, I think you will agree my days as External Affairs Minister would quite rightly be numbered.836

Pearson’s involved explanations about the security policies and the arrangements between the

United States and Canada for the official display of national flags, following his quips, betray the

834 A. D. P. Heeney, “Members Opening: Exhibition of Canadian Abstract Art,” October 1, 1956, LAC, MG 30 E 144, Vol. 11, File: Speeches as Ambassador to U.S. Sept. 1956-Mar 1957. 835 Pearson, “Untitled speech excerpt for public remarks on October 26,” October 17, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.1., 2. 836 Ibid., 4. 309

Secretary of State’s appreciation of the political potency these debates contained. Indeed, the

Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda took advantage of the visitation controversy to paint the DEW Line as an American scheme for expansion into the North, treating Canada as a subservient pawn.837 In a letter to CBC-International Service, External Affairs noted that it would not publicly respond to the piece to avoid giving the impression Ottawa was “sensitive about the subject.” Yet Moscow was to be informed of Canada’s “complete equality” in its defense relationship with the United States and that it was “serious about North American defence.”838

The issue of sovereignty had become the predominant battle cry for opposition politicians and media outlets in the aftermath of Ottawa’s announcement to vest full responsibility for the staffing and operation of the Arctic radar system in Washington. The public focus on the issue, however, was an expression of the potency of Canada’s vibrant Northern nationalism rather than a reflection of its relevance to the U.S.-Canadian talks over the establishment of the DEW Line.

John G. Diefenbaker and James Minifie, for instance, criticized the St. Laurent government for its inconsistent policy in respect to Canadian participation in the operation of the DEW Line. The mostly exaggerated controversies over the display of national flags at military installations along the DEW Line stations or the alleged infringements on the ability of Canadian officials to visit the radar system in Canadian territory served as proxy issues to give expression to Northern nationalist sentiments.

837 N. Nikolayev, “An Astonishing Incident with the Canadian Minister,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, September 29, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-b, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.2. 838 “D. B. Hicks to W. Chevalier,” November 5, 1958 [1956], LAC, RG 25-A-3-b, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.2. 310

These reports and parliamentary attacks stood in stark contrast to the comprehensive rules and regulations governing the construction, operation, and maintenance of the DEW Line, including its impact on indigenous communities and the wildlife of Northern and Arctic Canada, which the St. Laurent government had the United States sign on to in the May 1955 DEW Line

Agreement in order to establish the radar system. As the 1955 RCAF study of Canadian participation had noted and as Pearson had repeatedly warned, the debate over the purported loss of Canada’s sovereignty in the Northern and Arctic regions was a potent vehicle for the articulation of nationalist sentiments in Canada. As such, they drew on a well-established mythology of representations of Canada as a Northern and Arctic nation, one whose history and identity was inextricably linked with the conquest, settlement, and development of the North. In view of Ottawa’s decision to defer responsibility for the staffing and operation of the DEW Line, the Northern Campaign of ’54 and St. Laurent’s public call for Northern development in

December 1953 rang hollow.

A few months before the early warning system was to become operational, Ottawa was struggling to harmonize the image of an American-run radar screen across the Canadian Arctic with its claims to turn the page on previous governments’ negligent treatment of the North. If

Pearson and the Northern nationalists in Ottawa had lost the internal battle for Canadian participation in the operation of the DEW Line, the fight over the interpretive hegemony for public perceptions of the DEW Line remained marred in the politics of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation and the notion of the North as an essential element in the national story and identity.

This debate, however, was a reflection of Canadian prejudices and attitudes toward the Arctic and less so of the realities of U.S.-Canadian defense cooperation along the DEW Line stations.

311

The Operation of the DEW Line, the Sputnik Shock, and the Canadian Federal Election of

1957

The public backlash notwithstanding, the sealift operations and the construction work along the

DEW Line sites continued unimpeded throughout the 1956 and 1957 season. Before the first stations began test-runs of the electronic and communications equipment in January 1957, however, the St. Laurent government was pressed by the Eisenhower Administration to declare its intentions with respect to the operation of the DEW Line beyond the initial period from 1957 to 1960 as a Canadian defense project, staffed, operated, maintained, and fully financed by

Ottawa.839 External Affairs and National Defence had not expected Washington to insist on a decision at such an early point and were left guessing at the rationales for the Eisenhower

Administration’s urgency, including financial considerations, long-term planning, and

Washington’s intention to “re-emphasize that they are not undertaking this task in Canada by preference and that they would be very happy to have Canada undertake it for them.”840

Whatever motivated the Americans to press for an early decision, National Defence

Deputy Minister Miller made clear, his department’s position on the matter had not changed. The government’s participation in the Pinetree Line and its operation of the Mid-Canada Line taxed

Canada’s resources to an extent that it was unable to shoulder an additional estimated annual cost of $53 million and the deployment of 24 service personnel and 600 technicians to take over the

DEW Line. As a result, National Defence recommended extending the U.S. mandate for operation of the early warning system for another three years until 1963.841 External Affairs

839 “Extract from PJBD July 1956,” n.d., LAC, RG 24-B-1, Vol. 21421, File: CSC 1855:5, pt. 2. 840 “Memorandum to the Cabinet Defence Committee: Operation of the Distant Early Warning System in Canada,” December 12, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-b, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.2. 841 Ibid. 312

adopted most of Miller’s arguments. True, politically, there still existed a rationale to press for assuming a more visible role in the DEW Line and deferring Canada’s decision to take over the radar system only for one additional year instead of three, Macdonnell advised Pearson.842 The recent months of public criticism had demonstrated as much. Such views, however, were not sufficient to re-stage the Pearson-Campney confrontation of July 1955 over Canadian operation of the rearward communications system. In a scattershot memorandum, Macdonnell enumerated the financial burden, the drain on adequately trained personnel (800 in External Affairs estimation), the emerging Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) threat, the prospect of additional NATO demands, and, not least, the responsibility for sounding the alarm that would trigger the evacuation of major U.S. cities in support of his recommendation against Canadian operation of the DEW Line.843

On December 19, 1956, half a year before the DEW Line went into operation, the St.

Laurent government extended the period of U.S. operation of the early warning system to six years. During the discussions in Cabinet, the matter did not produce debate. The focus had shifted to U.S. requests for overflight rights of interceptor aircrafts, armed with nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets.844 A year and half after Pearson had taken a stand against Campney’s plans for minimizing the Canadian government’s involvement in the DEW Line, the Secretary of State acquiesced to National Defence’s position. The Cabinet agreed to inform the United States of the government’s decision at the January 1957 meeting of the PJBD.845

842 R. M. Macdonnell, “Memorandum for the Minister,” December 18, 1956, LAC, RG 25-A-3-b, Vol. 5928, File: 50210-C-40 pts., 8.2. 843 Ibid. 844 “Cabinet Defence Committee; report of Minister of National Defence,” December 19, 1956, RG 2, Privy Council Office, Series A-5-a, Vol. 5775, Item: 15536. 845 Ibid. 313

On July 31, 1957, the DEW Line became officially operational. A public ceremony had celebrated the completion of the Alaska Highway in 1942 and Ottawa had arranged for broad press coverage of Northern and Arctic exercises such as Operation Musk Ox in the aftermath of the war. In the fall of 1956, the United States had already inquired about a ceremony at

Cambridge Bay, marking the transferal of the Canadian section from Western Electric to the operating company Federal Electric. The ACND, however, preferred not to highlight the

American operation of the DEW Line in the Canadian North. Deputy Minister of Defence Miller had cautioned that “a ceremony, in Canada, at which responsibility would be passed from one

U.S. company to another, might give occasion for further criticism regarding the scope of U.S. activities in the Canadian north.” Macdonnell agreed.846 In the summer of 1957, accordingly, the

DEW Line went operational with no reporters on site to mark the occasion.

In the United States, the public reaction to the completion of the DEW Line echoed the muted response to the publication of the May 1955 agreement between Washington and Ottawa.

Without further commentary, the New York Times marked the radar line’s activity with a three- paragraph description of the system’s purpose to give early warning of incoming hostile aircraft and its dimension, extending across the North American Arctic coastline from Alaska to the

Eastern Canadian Arctic.847 The Washington Post dispatched a reporter to an Alaskan DEW Line station at Point Barrow where the U.S. Air Force performed a demonstration of the system’s radar detection abilities with a B-47 bomber triggering a warning at 33,000 feet altitude. The report made no mention of the Canadian dimension of the DEW Line.848 Instead, coverage about

846 “From the 36th Meeting of the Committee on Northern Development,” October 15, 1956, LAC, RG 24-B-1, Vol. 21421, File: CSC 1855:5, pt. 2. 847 “D.E.W. Radar Network Is in Operation Today,” New York Times, July 31, 1957, 26. 848 “DEW Line Capability Set At 100 Pct.,” Washington Post, August 15, 1957, A2. 314

the U.S.-Canadian defense relations centered on reports about a proposal by U.S. Secretary of

State John Foster Dulles about an Arctic inspection zone.849

The Canadian press commentary greeting the start of the Arctic radar system proved less critical than the public backlash in 1955 and 1956 may have led some to believe. The francophone newspapers Le Soleil and La Presse noted the sensitive matter of ensuring the protection of Canada’s laws and customs throughout the project but generally praised U.S.-

Canadian cooperation and celebrated the DEW Line as “un éloquent témoignage des efforts de la science moderne au service de l’art militaire.” 850 Others lauded the radar system as an

“invaluable asset in Canada’s northern development” 851 and highlighted the advances in transportation by air and sea as well as greater expertise in northern construction. “In helping

Canada take such a long stride toward northern development,” the Ottawa Citizen commented,

“the U.S. has been a good neighbor.”852 Many pointed to the inability of the DEW Line to detect

ICBMs and its reduced warning time as a result of improved jet technology.853 On the whole, however, the radar system was considered a “worthwhile insurance that gives a modicum of security in a highly insecure world.”854 Only the Montreal Star revived the visitation debate, chiding Americans for their “high-handed way” and Canadians for their “juvenile bad habit” to

“holler before we are hurt,” to conclude on a somewhat conciliatory note: “Having spent so much money, time and effort in building ourselves some sort of warning against the apocalypse

849 James Reston, “Dulles Suggests Open-Skies Tests in the Far North,” New York Times, May 15, 1955, 1, 10; Raymond Daniell, “Canada’s Premier Supports Dulles on Air Inspection,” New York Times, July 28, 1955, 1, 6; C. L. Sulzberger, “The Arctic Frontier with Russia,” New York Times, October 5, 1957, 16. 850 “Une réalisation de la science au service de l’art militaire,” Le Soleil, August 1, 1957; “Les droits du Canada on été intégralement suavegardés,” La Presse, August 1, 1957. 851 “DEW Line Hopes and Fears,” Ottawa Journal, August 1, 1957. 852 “Completion of the DEW Line,” Ottawa Citizen, August 1, 1957. 853 Ibid.; “Northern Insurance,” Winnipeg Free Press, August 5, 1957. 854 Ibid. 315

of nuclear war, it would be somewhat boneheaded if we gummed it up by petty bickering. After all, which will be the more important when the chips are down—protocol or survival?”855

External Affairs and Northern Affairs certainly could chalk up as a partial success the press’ focus on the DEW Line’s impact on Northern development. The radar system’s effect on the economic and the social development of remote communities certainly was profound if not always beneficial, especially with respect to the environmental damage by toxic waste and the impact on Inuit communities.856 Moreover, the public backlash of 1956 had given way to more balanced assessments, even despite the DEW Line’s dated technology in light of the missile age.

The questions over the adequate protection of Canada’s laws and customs and the control over the Northern and Arctic territory, however, remained a fixture throughout public discussion of the project.

The inauguration of the DEW Line in the summer of 1957 coincided with a series of developments that ushered in a new phase in the U.S.-Canadian defense relationship and the

Cold War. In a surprise election defeat, the Liberal government under the 76-year old St. Laurent fell short to Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservatives by a margin of seven seats. Diefenbaker had only assumed the PC party leadership six months earlier, following the unexpected death of its incumbent George Drew. The “Diefenbaker Phenomenon,” as Robert Bothwell coined it, was as much a product of his perception as an outsider, despite being an old parliamentary hand, and of his rhetorical talents as a sharp orator. After twenty years of Liberal rule, Diefenbaker’s story as a Westerner distinguished him from the old power centers of central Canada and a coalition of

855 “The DEW Line: A Two-Way Test,” Montreal Star, August 1, 1957. 856 Grant, Polar Imperative, 319ff; Franklyn Griffiths, Robert N. Huebert, and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Canada and the Changing Arctic: Sovereignty, Security, and Stewardship (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011), 76. 316

disenchanted liberals and grumbling farmers took a chance with the Progressive Conservative, giving him enough seats to form a minority government.857 Diefenbaker’s anachronistic penchant for reviving Canada’s imperial tradition and strengthening relations with Britain at the expense of ties with the United States, a relationship St. Laurent and Pearson had nurtured, introduced a series of “irritants” into the continental relationship.858

A second caesura constituted the creation of the North American Air Defense Command

(NORAD) on August 1, 1957, the day following the inauguration of the DEW Line. Without a functioning Cabinet Defence Committee yet in place and without the consultation of the

Department of External Affairs, Diefenbaker signed off on the proposal for the integration of

Canada’s and the United States’ air defense commands. While the new Prime Minister and his incoming Minister of National Defence George Pearkes were “stampeded” with the proposal, as the Chairman of the Chief of Staff Foulkes later put it,859 the agreement had been finalized and approved by the St. Laurent government before. NORAD, as a result, placed the North American air defense architecture on a new institutional footing and further deepened the Canadian and

American defense relationship.860

Finally, the symbolic arrival of the intercontinental ballistic missile age with the successful Soviet deployment of the satellite Sputnik on October 4, 1957, vaulted the Cold War arms race into a new round. The technological feat demonstrated that Moscow had the capabilities to construct rockets that could reach targets in Western Europe and North America.

The so-called Sputnik Shock heightened concerns over the inadequacy of continental air defense

857 Robert Bothwell, The New Penguin History of Canada (London: Penguin, 2008), 388; Desmond Morton, A Short History of Canada, 6th edition (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2006), 268–69. 858 Ibid., Your Country, My Country, 252. 859 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, 1987, 104. 860 Ibid. 317

and gave rise to the perception of a ‘missile gap’ and the emergence of the Space Race.861 While not obsolete, the DEW Line, designed to detect aircraft, had become dated and provided only downward compatible protection. It took another five years before the first Ballistic Missile

Early Warning stations (BMEWs), the DEW Line’s successor capable of tracking intercontinental rockets, were established in Alaska and near the U.S. Air Force base in Thule,

Greenland.862

Conclusion

At the start of the DEW Line debate in early 1953, the Canadian Secretary of State Pearson confided to his diary that he was unable to accept the idea of the American military watching

Canada’s Northern skies all the while Ottawa was sending troops to Europe.863 Four and half years later Pearson had to resign himself to just that scenario. After years of prodding his colleagues in Ottawa and shaping public perceptions in Washington, the DEW Line had been constructed as an American project and it was operated by an American company. Instead of a tangible and meaningful role for the Canadian government, the RCAF had limited itself to the dispatch of liaison officers to the four main radar stations along the Canadian section of the

DEW Line and had postponed full participation to 1963. Inuit and Canadian businesses were able to partake in the commercial opportunities of the defense project through subcontracts, a central provision of the agreement with the United States which, as the revisionist school has

861 David Holloway, “Nuclear Weapons and the Escalation of the Cold War,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 386f; Gaddis, The Cold War, 68; Dockrill, Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy, 210–33. 862 Winkler, Searching the Skies, 1997, 49; Grant, Polar Imperative, 330f. 863 Lester B. Pearson, “Tuesday, February 10, 1953,” February 10, 1953, LAC, Lester B. Pearson Fonds, MG 26, N8, Vol. 1, File: Diary and Notes on Trips, 1953, 1954, 1955. 318

shown, should have put to rest concerns over an impending loss of Canada’s sovereignty in the

North. Neither these protections nor the St. Laurent government’s publicity campaign throughout

1956, however, could placate skeptical voices in Parliament and the press. The U.S. Embassy brief of May 1955 had presciently anticipated such parliamentary and public sensitivities.

Pearson’s unsuccessful struggle for ‘effective participation’ and his persistence in the face of entrenched opposition from the RCAF and National Defence was informed by a long- standing and deep conviction in the potency of Canada’s Northern nationalism. For Pearson, the

DEW Line and the question of continental defense was one of protecting the continent against the Soviet threat as well as preventing de facto control of the North by the U.S. military, historians have shown. But these were not the only considerations animating the Secretary of

State to mount his sustained campaign for a substantial Canadian footprint in the early warning system. In addition to questions of security and sovereignty, Pearson perceived the question of

Northern and Arctic defense through the lens of national identity and history, a dimension Grant and the authors of Arctic Front acknowledge yet do not pursue further.864 With his unwavering if ill-fated campaign privileging a Canadian military presence in the Arctic over foreign commitments and forcing an open confrontation with National Defence and the RCAF, he sought to translate his fascination with the region into tangible policy and action. While some historians have classified Pearson’s actions as uninformed, naïve, and a lapse of judgment,865 his Arctic diplomacy only becomes intelligible if placed within the context of a long history of his aggressive moves during the JAWS talks and the early phase of the DEW Line negotiations. A

864 Grant, Sovereignty or Security?, 18–20; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 6–7. 865 Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy”; Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50,” 157. 319

complete assessment of Pearson’s and his fellow Arcticians’ understanding of U.S.-Canadian

Arctic defense cooperation must place the DEW Line negotiations in the context of this Northern nationalism.

Yet for all of Pearson’s fascination with the Arctic, the Secretary of State and his department failed to persuade his colleagues and to provide a clear roadmap for how he sought to implement his Northern vision. His references to the political dimensions of Canadian participation in the DEW Line, while legitimate, did not address Campney’s concerns over budgetary and personnel bottlenecks. Pearson’s calls for a sole Canadian operation of the radar system, a “maximum effort,” and a reduction of Canadian forces abroad were diametrically opposed to the functional approach that guided the decision makers at National Defence and the

RCAF.866 Whereas Defence Minister Campney and Air Marshal Slemon, for example, sought to define Canada’s role in the DEW Line relative to its material and personnel capabilities, Pearson felt the project demanded prioritized consideration. Campney and his Deputy Minister Drury, as a result, gently disabused External Affairs of its agenda. By slow-walking committees and study reports, Campney deflated Pearson’s demands over time.

The years between the conclusion of the DEW Line agreement in May 1955 and the official completion of the radar system in July 1957 constitute an instructive period in the history of the early warning network, one most historians have passed over. The culmination of the participation dispute between External Affairs and National Defence is key to fully understanding the vigor and the rationale that animated Pearson in his Arctic diplomacy. The public campaign that followed the announcement of the DEW Line agreement, moreover,

866 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security,” 14–16. 320

demonstrates how the St. Laurent government used a broad set of media to advance the notion of

Northern and Arctic Canada as an essential ingredient in the history and identity of a maturing

Canadian nation. In speeches, articles, broadcasts, art exhibitions, press tours, and even a vice- regal tour of Canada’s Northern and Arctic regions, including JAWS and DEW Line stations, the

Governor-General, ministers, and officials assured the public of the nation’s Arctic sovereignty and gave voice to the vitality of Canada’s Northern nationalism. In the absence of overt

American challenges to Canadian claims in the Arctic and the established practice of implicit recognition, the intensity of the criticism by the opposition in Parliament and in some corners of the press of what was perceived as a dereliction of responsibility in the Arctic testifies to the complex intersection of nationalism, sovereignty, and security in the Cold War Arctic. This relationship only came to a climax during the period of 1955 to 1957 as a consequence of the publication of the DEW Line agreement in May 1955.

If Pearson had failed to leverage the power of Canada’s Northern nationalism throughout the DEW Line talks, the next Prime Minister presented him with a master class in the art of framing key questions over history, national identity, and the future of Canada during the 1958 federal election campaign. Delivering a crushing defeat to Pearson, now St. Laurent’s successor as leader of the Liberal Party, John G. Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision-campaign proved the enduring potency of Northern and Arctic stories, mythologies, and representations as a vehicle for the articulation of a Canadian Northern nationalism.

321

EPILOGUE

He possesses to a marked degree the power of depicting nature as she is whether it be the rugged mountain scenery, the desolate fascination of the Arctic world or the enthralling beauty of such natural phenomena as the ‘silver dance of the mystic Northern lights’, which are regarded by many as the most beautiful gems of nature poetry ever written by any Canadian poet.

John G. Diefenbaker, Prime Minister, on Robert Service, 1918867

The development of the North, its natural resources and people, is of prime concern to the present Government. [...] I need hardly say that your work in the northern parts of Canada is well known to us here through your numerous writings and lectures, and through the personal contacts you have had with members of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources.

Alvin Hamilton, Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, to Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1958868

Lester B. Pearson, the newly elected Leader of the Liberal Party, had first become fascinated with the appeal of Northern and Arctic Canada as a symbolic vehicle for ideas about the political, economic, and cultural growth of Canada during the 1930s. In his Cambridge Lecture in England in 1938, he extolled the regions’ vast natural riches, their impact on the imagination of Canadians, and the North’s promise as a driving force for Canada’s national maturity.869

Twenty years later, however, it was John G. Diefenbaker, the incumbent Progressive

Conservative Prime Minister, who leveraged the political power of Canada’s Northern nationalism to maximum effect during the 1958 election campaign. In doing so, Diefenbaker and his “muse”870 Merril W. Menzies drew heavily on the extensive repertoire of Western and

867 John G. Diefenbaker, “Robert Service,” 1918, DAC, MG 01/II/251, Row 1, Vol. 3, File: Service, Robert. 868 “Alvin Hamilton to Vilhjalmur Stefansson,” August 18, 1958, DAC, MG 01/VIII/312 NANR, File: Federal Government Executive – The Cabinet – Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. 869 Woitkowitz, “The Northern Education of Lester B. Pearson,” 84–88. 870 Smith, Rogue Tory, 225. 322

Northern mythologies to weave together his economic development initiatives into an uplifting and empowering national story. The campaign’s focus on the Canadian North and the resulting landslide victory that crushed Pearson’s Liberals, ushering in a Conservative majority government, illustrate the enduring appeal and political potency of linking Canadian nationhood with a promise of a distinct Northern destiny.

Diefenbaker’s ‘Northern Vision’ campaign combined history and the evocative power of

Northern development in the construction of a grand narrative of nation-building. Already for the

1957 run against Louis St. Laurent, Menzies had looked for an overarching theme, a heroic character, and the right setting for transporting Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision. The theme was

Canada’s loss of a grand story, the hero its first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, and the setting the Northern and Arctic regions of the country. In this telling, Diefenbaker took on the role of carrying forward Macdonald’s nation-building agenda, this time, however, under the rubric of the “New Frontier Policy.” Unlike any other of Diefenbaker’s aides, Menzies understood to frame Diefenbaker’s individual policy initiatives as key elements within a broader political and economic philosophy of Canada. He appreciated the “emotional impact” and the

“psychological advantages” of branding slogans, citing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ or

Harry S. Truman’s ‘Fair Deal’ programs. 871 Beyond the symbolism, Menzies effectively portrayed Macdonald’s policy not simply as a program for national growth, but one ensuring the independence of Canada in the face of American imperialism. What Diefenbaker’s strategist termed ‘defense in breadth’, a policy to forestall the loss of the Prairie west to the United States through economic protectionism, infrastructure development, and settlement subsidies, now

871 Merril W. Menzies, “Memo to Mr. Diefenbaker,” April 4, 1957, Diefenbaker Archival Collection (DAC), MG 01/XII/F/338, Row 9, Vol. 118, File: Northern Affairs and National Resources, 1957-1963. 323

applied to Northern and Arctic Canada under the rubric ‘defense in depth’.872 The continentalism of St. Laurent and Pearson, Menzies alleged, put at risk Canada’s economic and political control in the North and, ultimately, in all of Canada. The Northern Vision, therefore, revived massive state intervention to develop the North not as a mere economic plan but, once more, as a program for national independence.873 Menzies provided Diefenbaker with the language and the vision for a weary electorate, looking for a fresh way forward.874

Menzies’ impact on Diefenbaker was unmistakable. On February 12, 1958, the Prime

Minister officially kicked off his election campaign in front of a frenetic crowd in Winnipeg. At what some described as “the largest political rally in the prairie provinces in 30 years” with hundreds of people “left to stand in the near-zero cold,”875 Diefenbaker delivered his opening salvo against Pearson and the Liberal Party. The Prime Minister defended his decision to call an election just nine months after he had won a minority government in June 1957 and attacked the previous government for its fiscal and economic policies, leaving the country vulnerable to U.S. foreign investment and unprepared to deal with an economic slump.876 Blending Menzies grasp for story and the larger forces of history with his own oratory acumen, Diefenbaker offered not a mere ensemble of tax and tariff adjustments or investment initiatives to jump-start a flagging economy. Instead, he proposed a “new national development programme” and declared:

This national development policy will create a new sense of national purpose and national destiny. One Canada. One Canada wherein Canadians will have preserved to them the control of their own economic and political destiny. Sir John A. Macdonald gave his life to this party. He

872 Ibid., “Conservative National Policy and Resource Development,” n.d., Diefenbaker Archival Collection (DAC), MG 01/XII/F/338, Row 9, Vol. 118, File: Northern Affairs and National Resources, 1957-1963, 10. 873 Ibid. 874 Smith, Rogue Tory, 225. 875 “5,000 Crowd Record for PM at Winnipeg,” Globe and Mail, February 13, 1958, 1. 876 John G. Diefenbaker, “Broadcast Portion of a Speech Delivered by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker, in the Civic Auditorium Winnipeg, Manitoba,” February 12, 1958, DAC, MG 01/XI/B/760, File: 1958 February 12 Winnipeg, Manitoba. 324

opened the West. He saw a Canada from East to West. I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North.877

Had Macdonald saved the Prairie West from American absorption and expanded Confederation across the continent, Diefenbaker proclaimed, he would aim for nothing less. A development program for the next five to seven years to improve transportation networks and communication infrastructure throughout the North as well as the development of energy resources was to serve as the engine for Canada’s economic revival, national independence, and the “completion of

Confederation.” In language resembling an evangelizing firebrand—“A new vision! A new hope! A new soul for Canada.”—Diefenbaker proposed a roads and railroad program for the

Yukon and the Northwest Territories, mining industries at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island, and the development of hydro-electric power, for example, by appealing to what he perceived as

Canadians’ pioneer spirit of the era of exploration and settlement. For Diefenbaker, the opportunities he saw in Northern and Arctic Canada resembled the push west across the continent of earlier days: “As far as the Arctic is concerned, how many of you knew the pioneers in Western Canada. I saw the early days here. Here in Winnipeg in 1903, when the vast movement was taking place into the Western plains, they had imagination. There is a new imagination now. The Arctic.”878 Instilling in his audience what he described as an “Elizabethan sense of grand design” with a reference to Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Ulysses, the Prime Minister concluded his campaign speech with an appeal to the vigorous, the unwavering, and the youthful to join his call to action:

The faith to venture with enthusiasm to the frontiers of a nation; that faith, that assurance that will be provided with a government strong enough to implement plans for

877 Ibid., 8. 878 Ibid., 10. 325

development. To the young men and women of this nation I say, Canada is within your hands. Adventure. Adventure to the nations utmost bounds, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.879

At the Winnipeg rally, held in the depth of winter in February 1958, Diefenbaker conflated history, anti-American sentiment, and the mythologies of Western exploration and a Northern and Arctic frontier into a potent message of Canadian Northern nationalism.

Pearson’s Liberals had little to offer against this onslaught of attacks. They tried derision when Pearson sought to expose Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision as empty campaign bluster, mocking his roads program as paving trails “from igloo to igloo.”880 Yet the Prime Minister’s

“Challenge to Adventure” received editorial accolades and praise for its “bold and realistic” plans.881 With his rhetorical skills—“a veritable weapon of mass destruction,”882 as one historian observes—and his bareknuckle parliamentary tactics honed over eighteen years of service in the

House of Commons, Diefenbaker galvanized the electorate on the road, the radio, and the television to “Follow John,” the Tory slogan many embraced.883

879 Ibid., 13. 880 Pearson quoted in “The Two Traditions,” Globe and Mail, March 22, 1958, 6. 881 The Globe and Mail welcomed Diefenbaker’s Northern development program and heralded it as a nation- building scheme, potentially ushering in a new era of continental expansion. Northern and Arctic Canada served as the projection space for the promise of economic prosperity and national maturity: Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision, the editorial board commented, “stirs the imagination of Canadians of all sections and races more strongly than any other. […] It struck a note which has not been heard since the completion of the transcontinental railways.” See “A Challenge to Adventure,” Globe and Mail, February 14, 1958, 6; The Globe and Mail, moreover, embraced Diefenbaker’s conflation of Macdonald’s National Policy with his Northern Vision: “The basic purpose remains the same: to settle the wilderness and develop its resources; to build a greater and more prosperous nation; and last, but not least, to assure its independence—economic as well as political—from the United States.” See “The Two Traditions,” Globe and Mail, March 22, 1958, 6. 882 Bothwell, The New Penguin History of Canada, 390. 883 In a departure from parliamentary tradition, Diefenbaker made public selected information about dire economic prospects from a confidential March 1957 report commissioned under the St. Laurent government to tie Pearson to past Liberal economic policies and delegitimize charges of economic calamity under the Conservative government. Smith, Rogue Tory, 276–78; Bothwell, The New Penguin History of Canada, 390. 326

In a letter to Dean Acheson, Brooke Claxton confided that “Diefenbaker is proving a much more formidable campaigner than any one would have supposed.”884 Pearson later acknowledged that by 1958, the Liberal Party’s “great years were behind it.”885 Against the

Prime Minister’s “ferocious campaign,” Pearson was unable to overcome the fact that he considered himself “by no means a natural-born vote-seeker” and that he “disliked intensely some elements of campaigning,” qualities he begrudgingly envied his opponent. “The West and its northern reaches are Canada’s hope for the future,” Pearson recalled in his memoirs and added, “I do not wear my heart on my sleeve in this basic feeling of love of country. I have often wished that I had the easy and flowing eloquence of Mr. Diefenbaker when talking about

Canada.”886 The Liberals’ ineffectiveness and the potency of Diefenbaker’s focus on Northern and Arctic Canada was revealed on election day, March 31, 1958, when Canadians returned the

Prime Minister to power with a landslide victory and a majority government. Eying his own fortunes to succeed the outgoing Dwight Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon congratulated Diefenbaker on his triumph and praised him as “one of the truly great political campaigners of our time.”887

The cultural origins of Diefenbaker’s imagination of Northern and Arctic Canada are rooted in the literary and historical tradition of southern Canadian representations of the North.

The Prime Minister’s reliance on the interpretive lens of Western exploration and the frontier

884 “Brooke Claxton to Dean Acheson,” February 24, 1958, YALU, Dean G. Acheson Personal Papers, General Correspondence, Group No. 1087, Series No. 1, Correspondence with Brooke Claxton (Canadian Defence Minister); Philander Claxton. 885 Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, 1957-1968, vol. 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 28. 886 Pearson, 3:30–57. 887 “Richard Nixon to John Diefenbaker,” April 1, 1958, DAC, MG 01/XII/A/306, Row 9, Personal and Confidential, Vol. 9, File: Diefenbaker, John G. – Correspondence – (V.I.P.) Nixon, Richard. 327

trope to make sense of current developments and events across the Canadian North joined a well- established narrative strategy. In his student days, Diefenbaker had been an avid reader and romantic disciple of Robert Service’s Klondike poetry and his stories about rugged frontier life in the Northwest. Service’s Songs of a Sourdough and his The Trail of ’98 fascinated

Diefenbaker for their portrayal of Northern landscapes such as “the rugged mountain scenery, the desolate fascination of the Arctic world or the enthralling beauty of such natural phenomena as the silver dance of the mystic Northern lights.” Service’s tales of “the heroic and the masculine,” also exerted a special attraction on the future Prime Minister.888 The writings and the lectures of

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, furthermore, were well known to Diefenbaker and the members of his

Cabinet. Stefansson’s Arctic boosterism, portraying the Northern and Arctic regions as a modern day El Dorado and a hub for international transportation, figured prominently throughout the

Diefenbaker government. Indeed, Alvin Hamilton, the Minister for Northern Affairs and

National Resources, actively sought out the advice of the former Arctic explorer who had taken up his studies at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.889

In a departure from the Northern and Arctic advocacy of St. Laurent, Pearson, and

Ambassador A. D. P. Heeney, among others, Diefenbaker invoked the legacy of John A.

Macdonald as a nation-builder and staunch nationalist to lend authenticity and legitimacy to his

Northern Vision campaign. Donald Creighton’s Governor General Award-winning two-volume biography, published in the mid-1950s, helped to establish Macdonald’s place in the pantheon of

Canadian nationalists. As a result, Creighton’s books, “a timely gift,” as Denis Smith writes,890

888 John G. Diefenbaker, “Robert Service,” 1918, DAC, MG 01/II/251, Row 1, Vol. 3, File: Service, Robert. 889 “Alvin Hamilton to Vilhjalmur Stefansson,” August 18, 1958, DAC, MG 01/VIII/312 NANR, File: Federal Government Executive – The Cabinet – Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. 890 Smith, Rogue Tory, 223. 328

became mandatory reading for Diefenbaker and his associates.891 Yet more than claiming the mantle of Canadian history, Diefenbaker’s evocation of nineteenth-century nation-building also linked his vision for Canada to a time, in which the imperial connection had not been eclipsed by the American behemoth to the south. Had Pearson and his fellow Arcticians used the idea of a

Northern destiny for Canada to emphasize a genuine Canadian identity, one that was distinct of

British and American tutelage, Diefenbaker’s projects for Northern development and the exploitation of natural resources stood next to his policy for revitalizing Commonwealth relations. Indeed, Janice Cavell has argued that British Arctic heroes such as Sir John Franklin received much greater attention at times when Canadian attitudes sought to counterbalance

American influence. At the same time, the British legacy of Canada’s Arctic history was downplayed when it appeared more opportune to stress an independent Canadian Arctic narrative. This, in fact, might account for the absence of any references to Franklin in the

Northern nationalism of Pearson and his fellow Arcticians. Stefansson, at least for some time, offered a convenient North American story of exploration.892 The versatility of these Liberal and

Conservative brands of Northern nationalism, once more, reveal that such tropes reflected southern Canadian political interests rather than inherent features or qualities of the Northern and

Arctic regions of Canada. If Diefenbaker’s 1958 Winnipeg speech constitutes the touchstone for

891 During a visit to the United Kingdom in November 1958, Diefenbaker presented the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan with Creighton’s biography of John A. Macdonald as a diplomatic gift, thereby bestowing on the Canadian historian the role of cultural ambassador. See ibid., 301; Creighton’s books also had a profound impact on Merril Menzies, who effusively praised the historian in his memos to Diefenbaker and the importance of the Macdonald biography for the political identity of the Conservative Party. See Merril W. Menzies, “Memo to Mr. Diefenbaker,” April 4, 1957, DAC, MG 01/XII/F/338, Row 9, Vol. 118, File: Northern Affairs and National Resources, 1957-1963. 892 Cavell, “Comparing Mythologies: Twentieth-Century Canadian Constructions of Sir John Franklin,” 40. 329

a modern Conservative Arctic nationalism, Pearson’s 1938 Cambridge Lecture can be considered its Liberal antecedent.

In the realm of international politics, Northern and Arctic Canada did not command the level of attention on the Diefenbaker government’s foreign and defense policy agenda, as did the expansion of Northern defense research, field exercises, the JAWS program, and the establishment of the DEW Line during the early Cold War years for the Mackenzie King and St.

Laurent governments. Two episodes, however, are worth mentioning. First, the Polar Continental

Shelf Program (PCSP), created in May 1958 as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY)

1957-1958, encapsulated the convergence of modern science, nationalism, and Cold War politics.893 The purpose of the PCSP was to gather geophysical, oceanographic, hydrographical, and biological data in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The evolution of maritime law, the prospect of oil deposit, and the scientific requirements for the deployment of ICBMs, however, injected the seemingly benign research program with the politics of Cold War defense policy and

Canada’s Northern nationalism. Data on the nature and extent of Canada’s continental shelf extension into the Arctic Ocean gained relevance as UNCLOS I granted coastal states greater rights to off-shore seabed resources.894 Gravitational data, furthermore, was critical for effective spatial positioning of missile systems.895 Beyond these factors, historian R. C. Powell shows, politicians as well as scientists were cognizant of the geopolitical significance of their work, at

893 Richard C. Powell, “Science, Sovereignty and Nation: Canada and the Legacy of the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958,” Journal of Historical Geography 34, no. 4 (2008): 618–38. 894 Adam Lajeunesse discusses the conventions adopted as part of the UNCLOS I conference in April 1958. He stresses the importance that a more expansive interpretation of a state’s rights maritime boundary claims was codified in the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone. See Lajeunesse, Lock, Stock, and Icebergs, 84–86. 895 Powell, “Science, Sovereignty and Nation,” 629. 330

times echoing Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision language. 896 The PCSP, Powell explains, conflated “Mertonian ideals of scientific communalism, political motivations for sovereignty, and romantic constructions of Canadian nationalism.”897 A program for international scientific cooperation, the IGY’s PCSP was entangled with the nationalist politics of Canada’s Northern nationalism.

Second, the Eisenhower Administration’s push for an Arctic inspection zone during 1958 placed Northern and Arctic Canada in the midst of Cold War international politics. Shortly after

Diefenbaker’s success at the polls, a front-page article in the New York Times reported the Soviet

Union’s United Nations Ambassador Andreij Gromyko expressing outrage over U.S. strategic bomber flights across the Arctic.898 The Eisenhower Administration decided to take advantage of

Moscow’s indignation and proposed a conference to discuss measures to reduce the danger from surprise attacks along the frontlines of the Cold War. This included the Arctic. Already in 1955,

Eisenhower had suggested the establishment of a surveillance and inspection regime with his

Open Skies proposal.899 With no tangible advances to show for, Washington saw an opportunity to score a propaganda victory if not substantial progress in reducing Cold War tensions by holding what came to be known as the Surprise Attack Conference. As a result, delegations from ten countries, including Canada, convened in Geneva for a month of difficult negotiations from

November to December 1958. Diplomatic historian Jeremi Suri argues that the reasons for the

896 Powell interviewed participants of the 1959 PCSP program in 2002. All indicated they were aware of the linkage of sovereignty politics, military relevance, and the nationalist dimension of the program. Some also recalled a “real sense of urgency” or their role as “adventurers” or “pioneers.” See Powell, 635–37. 897 Ibid., 637. 898 “Soviet Says S.A.C. Flights over Arctic Peril Peace,” New York Times, April 19, 1958, 1f. 899 For a discussion of Eisenhower's Open Skies proposal, see Robert J. McMahon, “U.S. National Security Policy, Eisenhower to Kennedy,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn P Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 295; Saki Dockrill, Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy: 1953-61 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 140ff; W. W. Rostow, Open Skies: Eisenhower’s Proposal of July 21, 1955 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983). 331

conference’s failure to produce an inspection scheme or advances in arms control had already been built into the preparations and the selection of personnel leading up to the meeting.900

Published records indicate that Diefenbaker’s Secretary of State for External Affairs Sidney

Smith and his Minister of National Defence George Pearkes responded with lukewarm interest to proposals for an Arctic inspection zone when the U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pitched the proposal on his July 1958 visit to Ottawa.901 While a more thorough examination of the bilateral talks between Washington and Ottawa as well as the UN negotiations in Geneva is necessary to fully assess Eisenhower and Diefenbaker’s views on the proposal, their concerns over a Polar Pearl Harbor were not unjustified. In a conversation with Mao Zedong in August

1958 in the run-up to the Geneva talks, Nikita Khrushchev declared: “in case of war we will fire across the Pole. That is why the Americans offer inspections of the Arctic Zone, so they could detect our missile bases and secure themselves.”902

The defining moments for the Canada-U.S. defense relationship under the Diefenbaker government and the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, however, came over questions far removed from Canada’s Northern and Arctic regions. Despite Diefenbaker’s ready if uninformed accession to NORAD, the question over the stationing of nuclear-tipped BOMARC missiles on

Canadian soil, and Ottawa’s disjointed response during the Cuban Missile Crisis strained the

900 Jeremi Suri, “America’s Search for a Technological Solution to the Arms Race: The Surprise Attack Conference of 1958 and a Challenge for ‘Eisenhower Revisionists,’” Diplomatic History 21, no. 3 (1997): 438. 901 “President’s Visit to Ottawa: Canadian-United States Defense Problems,” July 10, 1958, FRUS, 1958-1960, Vol. VII, 717; “Record of Meeting between Secretary of State of United States and Secretary of State for External Affairs,” July 10, 1958, DCER, 1957-58, Vol. 25, pt. 2, 22-23. 902 “Fourth Conversation between N.S. Khrushchev and Mao Zedong, Hall of Qinjendiang [Beijing],” August 3, 1958, translated by Vladislav M. Zubok, Wilson Center Digital Archive, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112083, last accessed July 31, 2017. 332

bilateral relationship.903 Economic tensions over trade with China, U.S. agricultural products competing with Canadian farmers, and American direct investment in Canada further added to the list of frictions between Ottawa and Washington. 904 U.S. Ambassador Livingston T.

Merchant’s warnings of an “intensification of nationalistic feeling” in the wake of Diefenbaker’s election in 1957 had proven prescient.905 Yet for all of Diefenbaker’s emphasis on Northern development and its symbolic implications for the growth of Canada, by the 1960s the driving forces of activities in the Arctic constituted the influx of international oil development. In the aftermath of the first U.N. conference on the Law of the Seas in 1958, attention shifted from territorial to maritime problems in the Arctic.906 Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision campaign and its elevation of Canada’s Northern nationalism, however, became a key moment in modern

Canadian political history and continues to exert its appeal into the twenty-first century.907

* * *

This dissertation has examined the diplomatic history of the Canadian and American negotiations over the Joint Arctic Weather Stations during the 1940s and the Distant Early Warning Line during the 1950s. At a time of transition at the end of World War II and a rapidly evolving security environment, the talks between Ottawa and Washington threw a sharp light on an

903 For a discussion of these issues, see Asa McKercher, Camelot and Canada: Canadian-American Relations in the Kennedy Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); H. Basil Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World: A Populist in Foreign Affairs (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991); Smith, Rogue Tory. 904 Asa McKercher, “Dealing with Diefenbaker: Canada-U.S. Relations in 1958,” International Journal 66, no. 4 (2011): 1043–60. 905 Livingston T. Merchant, “Telegram from the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State,” June 11, 1957, FRUS, 1955-1957, Vol. XXVII, 892-93. 906 Elliot-Meisel, Arctic Diplomacy, 1998, 90–91; Coates et al., Arctic Front, 79. 907 For a discussion of Stephen Harper’s fascination with the history of Arctic exploration, the Franklin expedition, and Diefenbaker’s Northern Vision campaign as a defining element in the construction of a Canadian national story and identity, see John Ibbitson, Stephen Harper (Toronto: Signal, 2015), 326–27; Steven Chase, “Myth Versus Reality in Stephen Harper’s Northern Strategy,” The Globe and Mail, January 17, 2014, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/myth-versus-reality-in-stephen-harpers-northern- strategy/article16397458/. 333

increasingly integrated continental defense relationship, the rise of a new internationalist outlook seeking to secure a voice for Canada in world affairs, a growing sense to affirm Canadian stewardship over its Northern and Arctic territories, and an intensifying preoccupation with a potential nuclear threat to the North American continent. In the context of Northern and Arctic ideas, claims, and conflict dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, diplomats and defense officials in Canada and the United States defined their countries’ interest and their role in the expansion of Arctic scientific and military installations in Canada. As U.S. defense planners approached the Canadian government to negotiate agreements to secure the Arctic approaches against a potential Soviet threat, the intersection of security, sovereignty, and nationalism became the defining nexus within which decision makers debated Arctic defense during the early

Cold War. The history of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense relations, this thesis argues therefore, must evaluate the policies and actions of both governments during the establishment of JAWS and the DEW Line in light of these themes to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the course of internal deliberations and the bilateral negotiations between Ottawa and Washington.

Security was not a category that defined Canadian or American Arctic policy in the decades leading up to World War II. The extension of the war to the Pacific Northwest and to

Greenland in the Eastern Arctic, however, placed the Northern and Arctic regions on the radar of U.S. and Canadian strategists and defense planners, resulting in Ottawa’s policy to ‘re-

Canadianize’ Northern and Arctic Canada at the end of the war. JAWS, this thesis has shown, was an outgrowth of these wartime Arctic defense efforts. Charles J. Hubbard’s work along with

General Henry H. Arnold on the U.S. operation of the Crimson Route, a wartime operation, had dramatized, among other aspects, the lack of meteorological knowledge essential to Arctic aviation. Washington contacted the Canadian government over the establishment of the Arctic

334

weather stations program within weeks of Stalin’s and Churchill’s rhetorical escalation of the

Cold War in early 1946. Canadian and American diplomats, however, not only shared a broadly similar assessment of the Soviet threat, they both also saw great value in improved Arctic knowledge. Although scientific in nature, foreign and defense officials in Canada discussed the approval of JAWS as one of a series of U.S. Northern and Arctic defense projects. The American

Section of the PJBD, U.S. diplomats, Congressmen, and President Truman, by the same token, stressed the program’s military significance. Critically, JAWS constituted one element in a U.S. program for expanding meteorological stations in the hemisphere as parallel projects for stations on Greenland and in the Caribbean demonstrate. Once the Mackenzie King and Truman governments had agreed upon a framework for a postwar defense relationship, the Canadian

Arctic dimension of this weather program was approved.

If the Arctic weather stations constituted a dual-capacity program, the DEW Line was a bona fide response to the technological and military escalation of the Cold War. Soviet nuclear advancements and improving delivery capabilities provided the means and the North Korean invasion of South Korea seemingly confirmed Moscow’s hostile intentions. As a result, U.S. strategists and scientists enlisted recent innovations in radar technology and computation in the defense of the U.S. strategic deterrent and the war making capacities in the continental United

States, setting up a strategic-ideological battle among the civilian and military agencies of the

U.S. national security establishment, as Jockel and Schaffel have shown.908 Dean Acheson and

Paul Nitze of the State Department along with scientific advisors and civilian agencies convinced

Truman to jump-start the early warning system over the strong objections of Pentagon officials

908 Jockel, No Boundaries Upstairs, chpt. 4; Schaffel, The Emerging Shield, chpt. 8. 335

and the U.S. Air Force, who lobbied for an offensive posture towards air defense. Early warning took on even greater importance when the Eisenhower Administration broke with Truman’s military Keynesianism and focused on nuclear retaliation in its attempts to harmonize national security policy with its fiscal conservatism. Washington’s first ever continental defense policy, formulated in NSC 159/4, endorsed the DEW Line, pending the outcome of ongoing trials. The

Eisenhower Administration’s decision to secure a Canadian agreement to build the early warning system across the Canadian Arctic coastline, this thesis confirms, was the product of external threat perceptions and the institutional interests within the U.S. national security establishment.

The DEW Line, therefore, must be understood as one element in a global U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy.

Washington’s global national security conception met a national conception of continental air defense in Ottawa. Canadian foreign and defense officials continued to uphold the

Cold War consensus. Although some raised doubts about the feasibility and practicability of early warning in the Arctic, External Affairs and National Defence understood that Ottawa was unable to withhold permission for a defense project the Eisenhower Administration considered essential to the national security of the United States, fearing it might trigger unilateral action from Washington. As a result, the question over the extent of Canada’s financial, material, and personnel investment in the program, rather than the fundamental question whether the radar system ought to be constructed in the first place, framed the Canadian internal deliberations. St.

Laurent and Pearson, most vocally, and some civilian departments stressed the political benefits of substantial Canadian participation during the construction and the operation of the radar system while Brooke Claxton and his successor at National Defence Ralph Campney along with the RCAF pushed back against such proposals. Less concerned about the political or sovereignty

336

dimension of Arctic air defense, they persistently pointed to Canada’s limited financial and military resources and pressed for bringing the Canadian government’s role in the DEW Line in harmony with its capabilities. This functional approach, as Trudgen and Goette have discussed,909 this study confirms, envisioned a junior and reserved role for the RCAF in the operation of the Arctic radar system. Bureaucratic cultures, advocating for their agencies’ interests over the role of Canada’s participation in the DEW Line, not a global national security strategy, hence, characterized the strategic debate in Ottawa.

Sovereignty had vexed the Canadian-American relationship in the Northern and Arctic regions for much longer than the relatively recent emergence of security. The discussions between Washington and Ottawa over JAWS and the DEW Line, in fact, took place against the backdrop of almost half a century of sovereignty scares and crises, beginning with the Alaska

Boundary Dispute in 1903. At the end of this period, the United States had adopted the Hughes

Doctrine which demanded extensive settlement and administration to claim territory in remote regions while Canada relied on the concept of effective occupation and the sector principle.

These conflicting interpretations and uncertainties about U.S. intentions in the absence of a public recognition of Canadian Arctic sovereignty and a postwar defense agreement, the revisionist school has accurately established,910 defined how Canadian officials and diplomats perceived Washington’s JAWS proposal. R. M. Macdonnell and Lester B. Pearson, this thesis has shown, most vocally, sought to use the talks over the Arctic weather stations as leverage to wrest recognition of Canada’s Arctic claims based on the contested sector principle from the

909 Trudgen, “The Search for Continental Security”; Goette, “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957.” 910 Smith, “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty”; Heidt, “Clenched in the JAWS of America?”; Kikkert, “1946: The Year Canada Chose its Path in the Arctic”; Lackenbauer and Kikkert, “Sovereignty and Security in Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968”. 337

United States, questionable proposals given Washington’s global sovereignty interests in the

Arctic and the Antarctic. In an act of remarkable defiance of his own department’s directive and legal guidance, Pearson marshaled the sector theory in support of Canada’s Arctic claims in a

Foreign Affairs article as well as in direct talks with a U.S. delegation. Despite these brash actions, U.S. diplomats refused to engage Pearson’s initiatives. JAWS was not a sovereignty crisis.

A comprehensive reading of U.S. statements and actions during the JAWS negotiations leaves little doubt about the fact that Washington had no intention to use the weather stations program as a Trojan Horse to undermine Canadian Arctic sovereignty. The ambitious visions of

Hubbard and inconsidered remarks from lower-level officials notwithstanding, this thesis has shown that senior U.S. officials acted on State Department policy to secure agreements from the

Ottawa for defense projects in the Canadian Arctic. Embassy officials recognized Ottawa’s policy to assume full responsibility for defense installations in Canadian territory and assured their Canadian counterparts of Washington’s respect for Canadian sovereignty, leaving the construction and operation of JAWS as a sole Canadian project open to Ottawa. A U.S. Army

Air Force assessment concluded that the Canadian claims likely would be upheld by an international court and that the resulting damage to the U.S.-Canadian relationship in the event of unilateral U.S. action would far outweigh any anticipated benefits. Moreover, Truman assured

Mackenzie King personally of the United States respect for Canadian sovereignty, an assurance that eventually was enshrined in the 1947 Joint Defense Agreement. If sovereignty loomed in the minds of Canadian diplomats during the JAWS talks, the Mackenzie King and Truman governments successfully sidestepped serious confrontations, secured formal assurances for

Canadian concerns, and preserved each other’s legal position.

338

By the time of the DEW Line negotiations during the mid-1950s, concerns over terrestrial sovereignty had markedly receded. Legal appraisals of the validity of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty claims by external experts and in-house studies informed Ottawa’s senior decision makers that based on a host of factors, including the absence of foreign challenges and effective occupation, Ottawa’s claim was strong. The DEW Line proposal for the construction of radar stations on known territory in Canada, moreover, saw no sovereignty warnings raised from

External Affairs’ legal division during the negotiations and the RCAF flatly stated that it did not consider sovereignty at stake. U.S. Arctic policy, by the same token, reiterated its view that doubts over Canadian sovereignty only pertained to undiscovered land. Over time Canada had developed a strong claim, one that was further solidified with the establishment of Arctic weather stations. Some irritations persisted, however, when Canadian officials raised the sector principle in public. Sovereignty, moreover, represented more than a series of legal principles to claim territory. It also served as a potent rhetorical vehicle for the parliamentary opposition and skeptical journalists to attack the St. Laurent government and demand Canadian developmental activism in the North. Pearson’s concession in his diary that he used sovereignty scares to frighten his colleagues into action in Cabinet reveals a political dimension of sovereignty as a nationalist call-to-arms, a dimension of which Diefenbaker took great advantage. The history of

U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation in the DEW Line, this thesis argues, therefore, is not a history of sovereignty concerns, as some have suggested,911 but one of successfully managing conflicting sovereignty doctrines.

911 Grant, Polar Imperative, 318–24; Granatstein, “A Fit of Absence of Mind”; Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line.” 339

Finally, this dissertation has shown, that the Cold War security environment and the waning if unresolved debate over Canada’s Arctic sovereignty insufficiently account for the views and actions of, particularly Canadian, foreign and defense officials throughout the JAWS and DEW Line negotiations between Ottawa and Washington. Long before the Alaska Boundary

Dispute led to the first Canadian examination of its legal claims in the Arctic, the Northern and

Arctic regions became focal points of southern Canadian and American nationalist imaginations.

The project of polar exploration as a token of national prowess, a sign of membership in the club of great powers, and a validation of a Manifest Destiny became a popular trope in the United

States. Yet the Arctic never rose to a defining element in the American narrative of continental nation-building and imperial expansion. Charles J. Hubbard had been an enthusiast for Arctic meteorology, but he did not appeal to Congress using ideas of a Northern destiny or an Arctic promise for the national development of the United States. Senator Brewster did not allude to a symbolic significance of the weather stations program in his justification for appropriation of federal funds for the project. Neither Charles Hubbard, Ambassador Ray Atherton, Dean

Acheson nor Truman invoked such mythologies or narratives when deliberating about JAWS and when negotiating with their Canadian counterparts. The discussions over the establishment of the

DEW Line in the Eisenhower Administration, by the same token, were framed around questions of strategy, doctrine, and cost, not an overarching theme of American Arctic nationhood. Neither the Truman nor the Eisenhower administrations envisioned the United States as a nation with a particular Northern or Arctic history and identity.

The examination of personal papers and a re-assessment of the ministerial records of the

Canadian government reveal that ideas and narratives imagining a distinct Northern identity and destiny for the national development of Canada constituted a recurring theme among a cohort of

340

Canadian diplomats and government officials. More than rhetorical flourishes or nostalgic ornamentation, these ideas formed a potent interpretive frame of reference for Canadian diplomats to make sense of the symbolic and practical significance of the Arctic. To fully account for the views and actions of Canadian diplomats and government officials, this thesis argues, a history of the JAWS and the DEW Line negotiations must take serious these ideas and relate them to the categories of security and sovereignty. Shelagh Grant described the relationship between Northern visions and an emerging cohort of Northern nationalists during

World War II.912 Her work importantly opened to door for much needed futher exploration of this theme. This study has expanded on Grant and explored the rich texture of Northern nationalism shading, for example, Cabinet discussions, policy memoranda or public speeches.

Diplomats and foreign policy officials are “creatures of culture” indeed, as diplomatic historian

Andrew J. Rotter has aptly observed, and St. Laurent, Pearson, Keenleyside, and Heeney, among others, were no exception. Conversant in the vernacular of a Northern nationalism, these officials—few specialists but all enthusiasts—mobilized ideas and mythologies that linked an independent national identity and the spiritual and material prosperity of Canada with a Northern destiny. Many conspicuous consumers of culture, they were familiar with, for example, the frontier romance of Robert Service, the Arctic sublime of the Group of Seven, and the

“Stefansson syndrome,” as diplomat and historian John W. Homes put it, envisioning the Arctic as an overarching national imperative.913 These ideas, this thesis has shown, formed an important context for how Canadian officials assessed U.S. requests for JAWS and the DEW Line.

912 Grant, “Northern Nationalists: Crusaders and Supporters of a New North, 1940-1950”; ibid., Sovereignty or Security. 913 Holmes quoted in Macdonald, The Arctic Frontier, vi. 341

At the transition from World War II into the postwar period, the JAWS negotiations were the first major test for Canadian Arctic stewardship. Conditioned by the wartime experience of defense cooperation with the United States across Northern and Arctic Canada and the sovereignty scare of the Macdonald Report of 1943, the group that Shelagh Grant described as

Northern nationalists sought to translate their fascination with a Northern Canadian destiny into action. Without an understanding of JAWS’s impact on Ottawa’s financial, material, and personnel resources, Pearson and Heeney lobbied Hume Wrong and C. D. Howe to construct and operate the Arctic weather stations as a sole Canadian program, thereby preventing U.S. dominance, both scientific and practical as Trevor Lloyd pointed out, in an area they considered a key ingredient of a Canadian national identity. Pearson, most prominently, advocated for a

Northern nationalism throughout his tenure as ambassador in the United States, hoping to soften the U.S. strategic-military focus on the Arctic to stress a scientific-developmental perspective wrapped in the imagery of frontier romance and a modernist epic. These ideas, this thesis has shown, registered with U.S. officials as they repeatedly assured the Canadian government of

Washington’s benign intentions through high-level meetings, some identifying Ottawa’s nationalism as the principal factor driving Canadian Arctic policy towards the United States.

A Canadian Northern nationalism also constituted a key component of the U.S.-Canadian negotiations over the establishment of the DEW Line. As the American and Canadian scientific and strategic research establishments developed technological solutions to respond to an intensifying Soviet nuclear threat across the Arctic Ocean, Canadian diplomats and officials framed Canada’s role within the early warning system as a matter of ensuring Canadian stewardship of the Northern and Arctic regions. In private, behind closed doors, and in public, this thesis has shown, the Prime Minister and civilian departments raised the specter of American

342

domination in the North and portrayed the development of the region as a logical conclusion of

Canadian nationhood. In a sovereignty scare reminiscent of Stefansson’s early Arctic boosterism and Malcolm Macdonald’s 1943 report, Pearson hoped to rally the Canadian Cabinet for a most aggressive Arctic diplomacy towards the United States. Now with the power of the office of the

Secretary of State for External Affairs Pearson suggested to the Eisenhower Administration to reopen talks about the 1947 defense arrangement, raised the idea of sole Canadian construction and operation of the DEW Line, and pursued an unrelenting campaign to secure ‘effective participation’ for the Canadian government in the early warning system. Pearson’s unwavering

Arctic diplomacy, demanding a “maximum effort possible,” 914 was flanked by high-level publicity campaigns, employing a kaleidoscope of instruments, including art exhibitions, lectures, film, and a vice-regal visit to the North Pole, to reaffirm the intricate link of Canada’s national development with a Northern vision. From the moment the Canadian Secretary of State had learned about the U.S. plans for the establishment of the DEW Line in the fall of 1953 until the Cabinet’s decision to defer the operation of the radar system to the United States, this thesis has shown, he consistently preached the gospel of a Northern nationalism and privileged a meaningful Canadian military presence at the early warning stations across Canada’s Arctic coastline over Ottawa’s Cold War commitments overseas.

Shared service interests with their American counterpart and a functional approach to

U.S.-Canadian Arctic air defense cooperation demarcated the fault line between National

Defence and the RCAF, on the one hand, and the civilian departments, External Affairs most prominently, during the DEW Line negotiations. Concerned with the financial, material, and

914 “Memorandum for the Minister,” May 27, 1955, LAC, RG 25-A-3-C, Vol. 5926, File: 50210-C-40 pts. 4.1. 343

personnel resources, ministers of National Defence and RCAF Chiefs resisted the Northern nationalist agenda and cast the question of Canadian participation in the project as one of aligning Ottawa’s role with the government’s limited resources and personnel capacities. Absent political considerations and unimpressed with Pearson’s sovereignty scares, National Defence and the RCAF sought to minimize Canadian expenditures in the project, relegating Canada’s official presence in the initial operation of the radar system to token representation. Bureaucratic cultures, this thesis confirms, hence, produced diverging approaches to the Ottawa’s involvement and participation in the establishment of the DEW Line.

The history of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense relations during the early Cold War must be explored against the backdrop of security, sovereignty, and Northern nationalist dimensions. It is by accounting for these categories in the views and actions of the Canadian and American governments that a most comprehensive understanding of the course of the negotiations between both governments emerges. An in-depth and analytical approach to revealing the ideas and perceptions of, particularly Canadian, decision makers is imperative to making intelligible those attitudes and policies towards Arctic defense cooperation with the United States that otherwise appear aberrant. Ottawa’s repeated delays to inform Washington of the nature of its participation in the DEW Line, for example, should not be construed as a tactic to avoid spending Canadian money and manpower while preserving its sovereign rights.915 Rather these delays were the product of External Affairs’ unrelenting campaign rooted in the Secretary of State’s conviction in the necessity for Canadian leadership in Arctic affairs. Likewise, concerns about terrestrial

915 Trudgen, Matthew P., “The Search for Continental Security.” 344

sovereignty916 had gradually receded and no longer constituted a defining feature during the mid-

1950s negotiations. The DEW Line was not a sovereignty crisis. The realm of security interests, bureaucratic cultures, and the potent repertoire of Northern nationalist tropes offers more fruitful avenues to making sense of the U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense relations.

Matthew Farish’s exploration of the convergence of scientific and strategic construction of the Cold War Arctic in the U.S. national security imagination is an important impulse for additional research into the conception of Arctic warfare and defense activities as an object of knowledge. His portrayal of American Cold War Arctic defense views as a discursive formation out of the research laboratories and planning rooms of scientists and strategists, however, has limited explanatory power for Ottawa’s Arctic diplomacy. While Phillip’s intervention into

Pearson’s 1953 Arctic statement hints at the continuing professionalization of Arctic knowledge at External Affairs, the convergence of service interests that had emerged between the U.S. Air

Force and the RCAF driven by Farish’s scientific-military-academic complex failed to materialize among External Affairs and the State Department. Moreover, the conceptual referents for Pearson and his fellow Northern nationalists’ vision for the Arctic long predated the security crisis of the Cold War and the creation of AINA, RAND, the Arctic, Desert, and Tropic

Information Center or MIT’s central role in the planning for continental defense. Pearson’s 1938

Cambridge Lecture is a testament to the historical and cultural salience of Northern nationalist ideas reaching back as far as the nineteenth century. In the Secretary of State’ case, in fact, these ideas retained a remarkable durability as the transformations of World War II and the ensuing nuclear age of the Cold War did little to affect his fascination with the frontier and nation-

916 Herd, “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line,” 171. 345

building aspects of his Northern vision. Diefenbaker’s brand of Northern nationalism likewise invoked a romantic idea of nineteenth-century Western exploration. If Lackenbauer and Farish’s geographical engineers remade American conceptions of Arctic defense during the early Cold

War,917 it is equally important to look to the origins and the prevalence of Northern nationalist ideas in the Canadian government to fully understand the guiding ideas that shaped Canadian diplomats’ and officials’ views and actions towards Arctic defense cooperation with the United

States.

Finally, the harsh judgment of historian Donald G. Creighton that Pearson “had no intention of devoting the best part of his time to the narrow negative tasks of guarding Canadian interests against the continentalist policies of the United States”918 could not be further off the mark. The ring leader of Ottawa’s Arcticians, in fact, led the charge for a most aggressive

Canadian policy towards American defense plans in the Canadian Arctic. Throughout the JAWS and DEW Line negotiations the Canadian Ambassador, Under-Secretary of State, and then

Secretary of State persistently and with unrelenting fervor, at times in defiance of his own department’s guidance and legal advice, pressed for Canadian leadership if not full responsibility for Arctic scientific and defense projects, if necessary at the expense of Ottawa’s overseas commitments. Indeed, in his 1953 Arctic statement, he warned against “a narrow continentalism,”919 arguing that Canada should not abdicate its defense responsibilities in the

Arctic in favor of foreign deployments. The exceptional place of the Arctic in Pearson’s foreign policy remained a staple in his views even beyond his prime ministership. In the context of the

917 Farish, The Contours of America’s Cold War; Farish and Lackenbauer, “Western Electric Turns North.” 918 Creighton, The Forked Road, 193. 919 Pearson, “Canada’s Northern Horizon,” 584. 346

Manhattan crisis and Pierre Elliot-Trudeau’s creation of an Arctic waters protection zone in

1970, Pearson advised a House of Commons committee that Ottawa must not retreat from its position “no matter how negative the reaction from the United States.”920

While some see a lack of professionalism and expertise at the root of Pearson’s Arctic diplomacy during the early Cold War,921 this thesis has shown that a consistent and deep conviction in a Northern vision for Canadian independence and nationhood dating back to the

1930s constitutes an important aspect in his views and actions. In fact, while Pearson shared his fascination with the Northern and Arctic regions and his enthusiasm for Northern development with fellow diplomats and government officials, he perhaps displayed a most persistent and aggressive policy towards translating these ideas into action in the realm of Arctic defense cooperation with Washington. If St. Laurent, Lesage, Robertson, and Wrong, ultimately, softened Pearson’s proposals during the JAWS and DEW Line negotiations, the Secretary of

State’s unrelenting Arctic campaign set him apart from his fellow Northern nationalist, making him Ottawa’s Arctic exceptionalist. If the path of continentalism led through the Arctic, at times chilling U.S.-Canadian defense relations, the overall defense relationship, however, never froze—the band of Northern nationalists and their Arctic exceptionalist prophet notwithstanding.

The history of Canadian and American foreign and defense relations in the Arctic holds great potential for future research. The existing scholarly literature has only begun to examine key moments in both countries’ relationship and their policies in the North. Further basic research is necessary to write histories of Ottawa and Washington’s defense relations in the

920 “Canada,” Globe and Mail, April 22, 1970, B1. 921 Bercuson, “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50”; Kikkert, Lajeunesse, and Lackenbauer, “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy.” 347

North in the realm of scientific cooperation and the role of the Arctic as a place for Cold War politics, such as the abortive talks about an Arctic inspection zone in 1958. Recent trends in transnational and global history, moreover, point to the circumpolar dimensions of Canadian and

American defense activities, particularly in the field of environmental history and with the emergence of indigenous political activism in the 1960s and the 1970s in the form of the Inuit

Circumpolar Council. The role of non-governmental actors in the formulation of Ottawa’s and

Washington’s Northern and Arctic policies also is a fertile field for additional research. The confluence of a growing modern environmental movement in the 1960s, for example, and the

Pierre-Elliot Trudeau government’s use of environmental protection policies to quell domestic nationalist sentiments over a perceived sovereignty challenge by an American petroleum company in the late 1960s merits comprehensive study as first probings of the issue indicate.922

In addition to a more nuanced account of policymaking, such a focus on non-governmental actors sidesteps the problem of continued government classification of Canadian Arctic archival records. The growing body of source collections in the Documents on Canadian Arctic

Sovereignty and Security series is an excellent resource for Northern and Arctic policy research, including questions of indigenous, military, scientific, legal, and cultural history.923 Finally, the dearth of historical studies of U.S. Northern defense policy and the Arctic’s role in the history of

American Cold War foreign policy remains a gaping blind spot in the scholarly literature of U.S. foreign relations history. Additional research in the aforementioned fields then will help to

922 David Meren and Bora Plumptre, “Rights of Passage: The Intersecting of Environmentalism, Arctic Sovereignty, and the Law of the Sea, 1968-82,” Journal of Canadian Studies 47, no. 1 (2013): 167–96. 923 The collection is available online at https://cmss.ucalgary.ca/dcass. 348

situate North America’s Northern and Arctic regions more rigorously within the larger history of

Canada-U.S. foreign and defense relations in the Arctic.

The history of U.S.-Canadian Arctic defense cooperation during the early Cold War, as a result, complicates the narrative of continental defense convergence. For the cadre of Arcticians at External Affairs, a functionalist approach to defense cooperation with Washington may have addressed Canada’s security interests and sovereignty concerns. The findings of the revisionist school have shown how a gradual and pragmatic policy balanced both dimensions. Yet it ran counter to the lessons diplomats and officials such as Pearson, Heeney, Keenleyside, and

Macdonnell had taken away from World War II. For these Northern nationalists, the path to an independent Canadian voice in world affairs and a Northern national identity ran through the

Arctic. As a consequence, the Mackenzie King and St. Laurent governments considered

Washington’s requests for the establishment of JAWS and the DEW Line as projects affecting

Canada’s security, sovereignty, and a Northern destiny. Escott Reid’s observation in 1943 that the development of Northern Canada may serve as “an inspiring and somewhat romantic national objective” then endures as an important reminder of the symbolic power of Canada’s Northern nationalism in the writing of the history of U.S.-Canadian foreign and defense relations in the

Arctic in the early Cold War.

349

Bibliography

PRIMARY SOURCES

Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa Arctic Institute of North America Fonds A. D. P. Heeney Fonds Department of External Affairs Department of National Defence Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources Advisory Committee on Northern Affairs Hugh L. Keenleyside Fonds Lester B. Pearson Fonds Louis St. Laurent Fonds Privy Council Office Robert A. Mackay Fonds The Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Online

Diefenbaker Archival Collection, University of Saskatchewan Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker Papers

National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland Rear Adm. Robert E. Peary Papers Manuscripts, Published Writings, and Lectures Records of the National Archives Gifts Collection of the Materials Relating to Polar Regions Evelyn Stefansson Nef and Vilhjalmur Stefansson Papers Records of the National Security Council Records of the U.S. Weather Bureau Records of the Polar Operations Project Records of the Department of State Executive Secretariat Records Relating to National Security Council Papers, 1947-1979 Permanent Joint Board on Defense United States and Canada, American Section Records of International Military Agencies Permanent Joint Board on Defense Canada-United States Section Records of United States Army Commands, 1942-

Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, Independence, Missouri Papers of Harry S. Truman President’s Secretary’s File Papers of Stanley Woodward

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kansas

350

Papers as President, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File) Dulles-Herter Series NSC Series Speech Series White House Office National Security Council Staff: Papers, 1948-61 Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, 1952-61

Yale University Library and Archives, New Haven, Connecticut Dean G. Acheson Personal Papers

The National Archives Online, United Kingdom Records of the Cabinet Office

Documents on Canadian External Relations (DCER), Ottawa: Global Affairs Canada [cited as DCER, Year, Volume]. Volume 8, 1939-41, pt. II Volume 9, 1942-43 Volume 11, 1944-45, pt. II Volume 12, 1946 Volume 15, 1949 Volume 18, 1952 Volume 19, 1953 Volume 25, 1957-58, pt. II Volume The Arctic, 1874-1949.

House of Commons Debates. Offical Report. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer [cited as House of Commons Debates, Parliament, Session, Volume]. 20th Parliament 21st Parliament 22nd Parliament

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) [cited as FRUS, Year, Volume], http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/FRUS. 1940, Vol. III 1946, Vol. V 1947, Vol. III 1952-54, Vol. VI 1957, Vol. XXVII 1958-60, Vol. VII

Wilson Center Digital Archives, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org.

News media British-Pathé

351

Canadian Forum CBC Digital Archives Chicago Tribune Colliers Foreign Affairs Globe and Mail Hamilton Spectator Harper’s Magazine La Presse Le Soleil Life Maclean’s Magazine New York Times Montreal Star Montreal Gazette National Film Board Newsweek Ottawa Citizen Ottawa Journal Toronto Star Toronto Telegram Washington Post Winnipeg Free Press

SECONDARY SOURCES

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition. London and New York: Verso, 2006.

Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56. New York: Anchor Books, 2012.

Bagnall, V. B. “Operation DEW Line.” Journal of the Franklin Institute 259, no. 6 (1955): 481– 90.

Barber, Joseph. Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Why the United States Provokes Canadians. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958.

Bercuson, David J. “Book Review: Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-50 by Shelagh D. Grant.” Canadian Historical Review 70, no. 4 (1989): 578–88.

352

———. “Continental Defense and Arctic Sovereignty, 1945-50: Solving the Canadian Dilemma.” In The Cold War and Defense, edited by Keith Nelson and Ronald G. Haycock, 153–70. New York: Praeger, 1990.

———. True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.

Berger, Carl. The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971.

———. “The True North Strong and Free.” In Nationalism in Canada, by Peter H. Russell. Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1966.

Berton, Pierre. The Mysterious North. New York: Knopf, 1956.

Bothwell, Robert. The New Penguin History of Canada. London: Penguin, 2008.

———. Your Country, My Country: A Unified History of the United States and Canada. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Buxton, William J. “Arctic Surveillance: Innis, the Arctic Survey, and Canadian State Agencies.” In Harold Innis and the North: Appraisals and Contestations, edited by William J. Buxton, 227–45. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013.

Cavell, Janice. “Canada’s Arctic Sector Claim in Historical Perspective: A Response to Alan MacEachern.” Polar Record 53, no. 269 (2017): 186–91.

———. “Comparing Mythologies: Twentieth-Century Canadian Constructions of Sir John Franklin.” In Canadas of the Mind: The Making and Unmaking of Canadian Nationalisms in the Twentieth Century, edited by Norman Hillmer and Adam Chapnick, 15–45. Montreal: McGill-Queens’s University Press, 2007.

———. “Historical Evidence and the Eastern Greenland Case.” Arctic 61, no. 4 (2008): 433–41.

———. “The Second Frontier: The North in English-Canadian Historical Writing.” The Canadian Historical Review. 83, no. 3 (2002): 364–89.

Cavell, Janice, and Jeffrey David Noakes. Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918-25. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.

———. “Explorer Without a Country: The Question of Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s Citizenship.” Polar Record 45, no. 234 (2009): 237–41.

353

Chase, Steven. “Myth Versus Reality in Stephen Harper’s Northern Strategy.” The Globe and Mail, January 17, 2014. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/myth- versus-reality-in-stephen-harpers-northern-strategy/article16397458/.

Coates, Ken, and William R. Morrison. The Alaska Highway in World War II: The U.S. Army of Occupation in Canada’s Northwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.

———. “‘The Army of Occupation’: Americans in the Canadian Northwest during World War II.” In Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, 55–68. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011.

Coates, Ken, Whitney Lackenbauer, William R. Morrison, and Greg Poelzer. Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North. Toronto: T. Allen Publishers, 2008.

Cohen, Andrew. Lester B. Pearson. Toronto: Penguin, 2008.

Conant, Melvin. “Canada’s Role in Western Defense.” Foreign Affairs 40 (1962): 431–42.

———. The Long Polar Watch: Canada and the Defense of North America. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1962.

Costigliola, Frank. Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919-1933. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

———. Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919-1933. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

———. Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Costigliola, Frank, and Michael J. Hogan. America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941, 2013.

Creighton, Donald G. Dominion of the North. A History of Canada. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944.

———. The Forked Road: Canada, 1939-1957. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976.

Cuff, Robert D., and J. L. Granatstein. Ties That Bind: Canadian-American Relations in Wartime from the Great War to the Cold War. Toronto: A.M. Hakkert, 1977.

David, Robert G. The Arctic in the British Imagination 1818-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

Davidson, Peter. The Idea of North. London: Reaktion Books, 2016.

354

Dean, Robert D. Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.

“Dew (Distant Early Warning) Line Project.” Accessed May 25, 2017. http://www.beatriceco.com/bti/porticus/bell/dewline.html.

“DEWLine Adventures.” DEWLine Adventures (blog). Accessed May 25, 2017. http://www.dewlineadventures.com/.

Diubaldo, Richard J. Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978.

———. “The Alaska Highway in Canada-United States Relations.” In The Alaska Highway: Papers of the 40th Anniversary Symposium, edited by Ken S. Coates, 102–15. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985.

Dockrill, Saki. Eisenhower’s New-Look National Security Policy: 1953-61. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996.

Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security. 10 vols. Calgary: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies. Accessed August 28, 2017. http://cmss.ucalgary.ca/dcass.

Dziuban, Stanley W. Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959.

Eayrs, James. Canada in World Affairs: October 1955 to June 1957. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1965.

———. In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.

———. In Defence of Canada: Appeasement and Rearmament. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.

Elliot-Meisel, Elizabeth B. Arctic Diplomacy: Canada and the United States in the Northwest Passage. New York: P. Lang, 1998.

———. “Arctic Focus: The Royal Canadian Navy in Arctic Waters, 1946-1949.” In Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, 121–43. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011.

English, John. Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume I: 1897-1948. Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 1989.

355

———. The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume II: 1949-1972. Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada, 1992.

Eyre, Kenneth. “Forty Years of Military Activity in the Canadian North, 1947-87.” Arctic 40, no. 4 (1987): 292–299.

———. “The Military and Nation-Building in the Arctic, 1945-1964.” In Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, 201–32. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011.

Farish, Matthew. The Contours of America’s Cold War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Farish, Matthew, and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. “Western Electric Turns North: Technicians and the Transformation of the Cold War Arctic.” In Ice Blink: Navigating Northern Environmental History, edited by Stephen Bocking and Steve Martin, 261–92. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2017.

Finlay, Karen A. The Force of Culture: Vincent Massey and Canadian Sovereignty. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Francis, Daniel. National Dreams: Myth, Memory, and Canadian History. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1997.

Fraser, Blair. The Search for Identity: Canada, 1945-1967. New York: Doubleday, 1967.

Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

———. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.

Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C. E. Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

———. Transmission Impossible American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945-1955. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999.

Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C. E, and Schumacher, Frank. Culture and International History. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003.

Goedde, Petra. GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender and Foreign Relations, 1945-1949. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

356

Goette, Richard E. “Canada, the United States, and the Command and Control of Air Forces for Continental Air Defence from Ogdensburg to NORAD, 1940-1957.” Unpublished dissertation, Queen’s University, 2009.

Grace, Sherrill. Canada and the Idea of North. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001.

———. On the Art of Being Canadian. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.

Graebner, Norman A., ed. Manifest Destiny. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1968.

Granatstein, J. L. “A Fit of Absence of Mind: Canada’s National Interest in the North to 1968.” In The Arctic in Question, edited by E. J. Dosman, 13–33. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976.

———. The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins 1935-1957. New Edition. Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2015.

Grant, Shelagh D. Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010.

———. Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988.

———. “The Northern Nationalists: Crusaders and Supporters of a New North 1940-1950.” Ottawa, 1982.

Griffiths, Franklyn. Politics of the Northwest Passage. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987. ———. “Where Visions and Illusions Meet.” In Politics of the Northwest Passage, edited by Franklyn Griffiths, 3–24. Monteal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987.

Griffiths, Franklyn, Robert N. Huebert, and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. Canada and the Changing Arctic: Sovereignty, Security, and Stewardship. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011.

Hacker, Barton C., and Margaret Vining, eds. Science in Uniform, Uniforms in Science: Historical Studies of American Military and Scientific Interactions. Washington: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, 2007.

Hall, H. Robert. “The ‘Open Door’ into Antarctica: An Explanation of the Hughes Doctrine.” Polar Record 25, no. 153 (1989): 137–40.

Hamelin, Louis-Edmond. “Images of the North.” In Interpreting Canada’s North. Selected Readings, edited by Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison, 7–18. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1989.

357

———. The Canadian North and Its Conceptual Referents. Ottawa: Dept. of the Secretary of State of Canada, 1988.

Harper, Kristine C. Weather by the Numbers: The Genesis of Modern Meteorology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012.

Haslam, Jonathan. Near and Distant Neighbours: A New History of Soviet Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Heeney, A. D. P. The Things That Are Caesar’s: Memoirs of a Canadian Public Servant. Edited by Brian Heeney. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.

Heidt, Daniel. “Clenched in the JAWS of America? Canadian Sovereignty and the Joint Arctic Weather Stations, 1946-1972.” In Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, 145–69. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011.

Herd, Alexander W. G. “A ‘Common Appreciation’: Eisenhower, Canada, and Continental Air Defense, 1953–1954.” Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 3 (2011): 4–26.

———. “A Practicable Project: Canada, the United States, and the Construction of the DEW Line.” In Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, 171–201. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011.

———. “As Practicable: Canada-United States Continental Air Defense Cooperation 1953- 1954.” Unpublished M.A. Thesis. Kansas State University, 2005.

Hillmer, Norman, and J. L. Granatstein. For Better or for Worse: Canada and the United States into the Twenty-First Century. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 2007.

Hogan, Michael J. A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

———. America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Hogan, Michael J., and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

358

Holloway, David. “Nuclear Weapons and the Escalation of the Cold War.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 376–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Holmes, John W. The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943-1957. Vol. 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.

———. The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943-1957. Vol. 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982.

Housser, F. B. A Canadian Art Movement, the Story of the Group of Seven,. Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1926.

Howkins, Adrian. The Polar Regions: An Environmental History. Cambridge: Polity, 2016.

———. “The Significance of the Frontier in Antarctic History: How the Us West Has Shaped the Geopolitics of the Far South.” The Polar Journal 3, no. 1 (2013): 9–30.

Huebert, Rob. “Polar Vision or Tunnel Vision: The Making of Canadian Arctic Waters Policy.” Marine Policy 19, no. 4 (1995): 343–63.

Hulan, Renée. Northern Experience and the Myths of Canadian Culture. Montréal: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2002.

Hunt, Michael H. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Ibbitson, John. Stephen Harper. Toronto: Signal, 2015.

Iriye, Akira. “Culture.” The Journal of American History, no. 1 (1990): 99–107.

———. “Culture and International History.” In Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, edited by Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson, 241–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

———. Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Jockel, Joseph T. No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defence, 1945-1958. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987.

Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.

Keenleyside, Hugh L. “Recent Developments in the Canadian North.” Canadian Geographical Journal 39, no. 4 (1949): 156–76.

359

Kikkert, Peter. “1946: The Year Canada Chose Its Path in the Arctic.” In Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security: Historical Perspectives, edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer, 55–68. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2011.

———. “Grasping for the Ends of the Earth: Framing and Contesting Polar Sovereignty, 1900- 55.” University of Western Ontario, 2015.

Kikkert, Peter, and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. “Introduction: Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56.” In Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56, edited by Peter Kikkert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, vi–xliv. Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security. Calgary and Waterloo, 2014.

———, eds. Legal Appraisals of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty, 1905-56. Documents on Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Security. Calgary and Waterloo, 2014.

Kikkert, Peter, Adam Lajeunesse, and P. Whitney Lackenbauer. “Lester B. Pearson, the United States, and Arctic Sovereignty: A Case of Un-Pearsonian Diplomacy.” In Mike’s World: Lester Pearson and Canadian External Relations, 1963-1968, edited by Asa McKercher and Galen R. Perras, 2016.

Lackenbauer, P. Whitney. The Canadian Rangers: A Living History. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013.

Lackenbauer, P. Whitney, and Matthew Farish. “The Cold War on Canadian Soil: Militarizing a Northern Environment.” Environmental History 12, no. 4 (2007): 920–50.

Lackenbauer, P. Whitney, and Daniel Heidt, eds. The Advisory Committee on Northern Development: Context and Meeting Minutes, 1948-66. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2015.

Lackenbauer, P. Whitney, and Peter Kikkert. “Sovereignty and Security: Canadian Diplomacy, the United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968.” In The National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909- 2009, edited by Greg Donaghy and Michael K. Carroll, 101–20. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011.

———. “Sovereignty and Security in Canadian Diplomacy, The United States, and the Arctic, 1943-1968.” In In the National Interest. Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009, 101–20. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011.

———. “Right and Honourable: Mackenzie King, Canadian-American Bilateral Relations, and Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest, 1943-1948.” In Mackenzie King: Citizenship and Community: Essays Marking the 125th Anniversary of the Birth of William Lyon

360

Mackenzie King, edited by John English, K. M. McLaughlin, and Whitney Lackenbauer, 151–68. Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2002.

Lajeunesse, Adam. Lock, Stock, and Icebergs. A History of Canada’s Arctic Maritime Sovereignty. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016.

———. “Lock, Stock, and Icebergs? Defining Canadian Sovereignty from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper.” CMSS Occasional Paper 1. Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2007.

———. “The Distant Early Warning Line and the Canadian Battle for Public Perception.” Canadian Military Journal, 2007, 51–59.

Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992.

———. “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 67–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Lloyd, Trevor. “Canada’s Strategic North.” International Journal 2, no. 2 (Spring 1947): 144– 49.

Macdonald, Ronald St. J. The Arctic Frontier. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966.

Massey, Vincent. On Being Canadian. Toronto: Dent, 1948.

———. What’s Past Is Prologue: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Vincent Massey. London: Macmillan & Co., 1963.

May, Ernest R. “NSC 68: The Theory and Politics of Strategy.” In American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68, edited by Ernest R. May, 1–20. Boston: Bedford Books, 1993.

McCullough, David G. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

McKercher, Asa. Camelot and Canada: Canadian-American Relations in the Kennedy Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

———. “Dealing with Diefenbaker: Canada-U.S. Relations in 1958.” International Journal 66, no. 4 (2011): 1043–60.

McMahon, Robert J. “U.S. National Security Policy, Eisenhower to Kennedy.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 288–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

361

Meren, David. “The Tragedies of Canadian International History.” Canadian Historical Review 96, no. 4 (December 2015): 534–66.

Meren, David, and Bora Plumptre. “Rights of Passage: The Intersecting of Environmentalism, Arctic Sovereignty, and the Law of the Sea, 1968-82.” Journal of Canadian Studies 47, no. 1 (2013): 167–96.

Morenus, Richard. Dew Line: The Miracle of America’s First Line of Defense. New York: Rand McNally, 1957.

Morrison, William R. “Eagle Over the Arctic: Americans in the Canadian North, 1867-1985.” Canadian Review of American Studies Canadian Review of American Studies 18, no. 1 (1987): 63–76.

——— “Eagle over the Arctic: Americans in the Canadian North, 1867-1985.” In Interpreting Canada’s North. Selected Readings, edited by Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison, 169–84. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1989.

Morton, Desmond. A Short History of Canada. 6th edition. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2006.

Morton, W. L. “The ‘North’ in Canadian Historiography.” In Contexts of Canada’s Past: Selected Essays of W. L. Morton, edited by A. B McKillop, 229–39. Toronto: Macmillan, 1980.

Mowat, Farley. Eastern Passage. McClelland & Stewart, 2010.

———. Lost in the Barrens. Toronto: Emblem, 1956.

———. People of the Deer. Boston: Brown, 1952.

Ninkovich, Frank A. Global Dawn: The Cultural Foundation of American Internationalism, 1865-1890. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009.

———. The United States and Imperialism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

O’Brian, John, and Peter White. Beyond Wilderness the Group of Seven, Canadian Identity and Contemporary Art. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007.

Orvik, Nils. “Defence Against Help--A Strategy for Small States?” Survival 15, no. 5 (1973): 228–31.

———. “The Basic Issue in Canadian National Security: Defence Agaisnt Help/Defence to Help Others.” Canadian Defence Quarterly 11, no. 1 (1981): 8–15.

362

Pearson, Lester B. “Canada Looks ‘Down North.’” Foreign Affairs 24 (1946): 638–47.

———. “Canada’s Northern Horizon.” Foreign Affairs 31, no. 4 (1953): 581–91.

———. Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson, 1957-1968. Vol. 3. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975.

Perras, Galen Roger. Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933-1945. Westport: Praeger, 1998.

Phillips, R. A. J. Canada’s North. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967.

Potter, Russell A. Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007.

Powell, Richard C. “Science, Sovereignty and Nation: Canada and the Legacy of the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958.” Journal of Historical Geography 34, no. 4 (2008): 618–38.

Randall, Stephen J. Colombia and the United States: Hegemony and Interdependence. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992.

Reesman, Jeanne Campbell. Jack London’s Racial Lives: A Critical Biography. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009.

———. “The Call of Jack London: Earle Labor on Jack London Studies.” Studies in American Naturalism 5, no. 1 (2010): 21–36.

Robinson, H. Basil. Diefenbaker’s World: A Populist in Foreign Affairs. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Robinson, Michael F. The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture. University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Rosenberg, Emily S. A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

———. “Gender.” The Journal of American History 77, no. 1 (1990): 116–24.

———. Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890- 1945. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.

Rostow, W. W. Open Skies: Eisenhower’s Proposal of July 21, 1955. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983.

363

Rotter, Andrew J. Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947-1964. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000.

Rowley, Graham W. Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the Arctic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Schaffel, Kenneth. The Emerging Shield. The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1991.

Schulzinger, Robert D. A Companion to American Foreign Relations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

Schwartz, Mallory. “Securing the North: Building the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Northern Service.” Canadian Journal of History 51, no. 1 (2016): 83–115.

Slobodin, Brent, and Ken S. Coates, eds. “The North and the First World War.” The Northern Review, no. 44 (2017): 3–464.

Smith, Denis. Diplomacy of Fear: Canada and the Cold War, 1941-1948. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.

———. Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker. MacFarlane Walter & Ross, 1995.

Smith, Gordon W. A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North: Volume 1: Terrestrial Sovereignty. Edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer. University of Calgary Press, 2014.

———. “Sovereignty in the North: The Canadian Aspect of an International Problem.” In The Arctic Frontier, edited by R. St. J. Macdonald, 195–256. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966.

———. “Weather Stations in the Canadian North and Sovereignty.” Edited by P. Whitney Lackenbauer. Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 11, no. 3 (2009): 1–63.

Stacey, C. P. Canada and the Age of Conflict: Volume 2: 1921-1948. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.

———. “The Canadian-American Permanent Joint Board on Defence, 1940-1945.” International Journal 9, no. 2 (1954): 107–24.

Stefansson, Vilhjalmur. “Routes to Alaska.” Foreign Affairs 10, no. 4 (1941): 861–69.

364

———. “The American Far North.” Foreign Affairs 17, no. 3 (1939): 508–23.

———. The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921.

———. The Northward Course of Empire. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922.

———. “What Is the Western Hemisphere?” Foreign Affairs 19, no. 2 (1941): 343–46.

Suri, Jeremi. “America’s Search for a Technological Solution to the Arms Race: The Surprise Attack Conference of 1958 and a Challenge for ‘Eisenhower Revisionists.’” Diplomatic History 21, no. 3 (1997): 417–51.

Sutherland, R. J. “The Strategic Significance of the Arctic.” In The Arctic Frontier, edited by R. St. J. Macdonald, 257–78. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966.

“The DEWLine.” The DEWLine (blog). Accessed May 25, 2017. http://lswilson.dewlineadventures.com/.

Thompson, John Herd, and Stephen J. Randall. Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008.

Trudgen, Matthew P. “The Search for Continental Security: The Development of the North American Air Defence System, 1949-1956.” Unpublished dissertation, Queen’s University, 2011.

Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Holt, 1953.

Tynan, Thomas M. “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic: The Effect of Environmental Influences Upon Territorial Claims.” The Review of Politics 41, no. 3 (1979): 402–27.

Vipond, Mary. “Nationalism in the 1920s.” In Interpreting Canada’s Past. Volume Two. Post- Confederation, edited by J.M. Bumsted, 445–64. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Winkler, David F. Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program. Langley AFB, VA: Headquarters Air Combat Command, 1997.

Woitkowitz, John. “Arctic Sovereignty and the Cold War: Canada-U.S. Relations and the Establishment of the DEW Line.” Unpublished M.A. Thesis. Ohio State University, 2009.

———. “The Northern Education of Lester B. Pearson.” Zeitschrift Für Kanadastudien 37, no. 1 (2017): 77–98.

365

Zaslow, Morris. The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988.

———. The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870-1914. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971.

366

Appendix

Translation of copyright permission for use of material in the dissertation published in “The Northern Education of Lester B. Pearson,” Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 37, no. 1 (2017): 77- 98. The original correspondence in German follows.

Subject: Re: Article manuscript for ZKS

Thursday, 6-30-2016, 11:26 AM To: John Woitkowitz

Dear Mr. Woitkowitz,

I forwarded your request to Ms. ______and she informed me that it is okay for you to use the arguments and sources of your article for your dissertation. Please include a reference in your dissertation to an earlier version of the material published in the ZKS.

Best wishes,

______

John Woitkowitz wrote on June 29, 2016 at 8:45 PM:

Dear Ms. ______,

Thank you for your email. I would like to inquire if the ZKS grants permission to use the arguments and sources used in the article, if published, for the completion of my dissertation. Is a special request for this required?

Best wishes,

John Woitkowitz

367

Re: Artikel‐Manuskript für die ZKS

Thu 2016‐06‐30 11:26 AM

To: John Woitkowitz

Sehr geehrter Herr Woitkowitz, ich habe Fr. ______ihre Anfrage weitergeleitet und sie sagte mir, es ist okay wenn Sie die Argumente /Quellen dieses Artikels in der Dissertation nutzen, Sie mögen nur dann in der Dissertation auf die Publikation einer früheren Fassung des Kapitels in der ZKS hinweisen.

Herzliche Grüße,

______

John Woitkowitz hat am 29. Juni 2016 um 20:45 geschrieben:

Sehr geehrte Frau ______,

vielen Dank für Ihre Email. Ich wollte mich noch erkundigen, ob die ZKS es mir erlaubt im Falle einer Publikation, die im Artikel angeführten Argumente und Forschungsquellen für die Fertigstellung meiner Dissertation zu nutzen. Ist hierfür eine gesonderte Anfrage nötig?

Herzliche Grüße

John Woitkowitz

368