Canada: Nuclear Impasse

"Should war come," Prime Minister John Diefenbaker demanded rhetorically last week, "are we going to arm Canadians with bows and arrows?" If that sounded as if Tory Diefenbaker was at last ready to end his long indecision on whether to arm Canada's two Bomarc-B antiaircraft bases with nuclear warheads, it proved not to be. Canada prefers to leave its missiles unarmed, said Diefenbaker, and itself free to lobby for disarmament without the stain of nuclear arms on its own hands. In the event of war, the Prime Minister went on, claiming the best of two worlds, Canadian forces could immediately be equipped with nuclear weapons.

Diefenbaker is probably going to call a national election this year (his five-year term has only a year to go), and with the electorate deeply divided on nuclear weapons, Diefenbaker appeared to be trying to please everyone but wound up pleasing no one. In the House of Commons, Liberal Opposition Leader Lester ("Mike") Pearson raised an embarrassing point: Diefenbaker insists on sharing "joint control" over any U.S. nuclear weapons in Canada. But U.S. law forbids any such arrangement. How, therefore, could the Prime Minister be sure that the missiles would be armed in time to do any good? Diefenbaker evaded the point—and left U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk equally up in the air. To keep nuclear powers from increasing, said Rusk, the U.S. insists on retaining "custody" of allies' nuclear weapons but is ready to negotiate "control."

Bouncing the ball back to Diefenbaker, Rusk said the U.S. "is willing to work out joint control fully consistent with national sovereignty."