U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Canada

John Clearwater

Oct 1999 · Dundurn

About this ebook

In this second volume of his nuclear weapon series, John Clearwater continues to investigate the presence of American nuclear weapons in Canada. In Canadian Nuclear Weapons, Clearwater told the story of nuclear weapons that were in the hands of Canadian forces during the Cold War. In U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Canada, he goes further, looking at nuclear weapons held by American forces on Canadian soil. His purpose is to bring together until-recently secret information about the nature of the nuclear weapons stored, stationed, or lost in Canada by the United States Air Force and the United States Navy, and combines it with known information about the systems in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The history of the atomic bomb in Canada goes back to the first years immediately after World War II when the U.S. government, under the prodding of the newly created Strategic Air command, began a slow and steady process of talks designed to allow Goose Bay to be groomed for the eventual acceptance of nuclear weapons.

Crashes and nuclear accidents. Conspiracies and cover-ups. Clearwater examines them all in great detail. The reader will see for the first time the minutes of Cabinet and the Cabinet Defence Committee meetings in which the storage of nuclear weapons are discussed. Also printed here for the first time are the agreements between Canada and the U.S. for the storage of nuclear weapons. Many of the documents presented here were until recently classified as secret, and many were top secret.

About the author

John Clearwater is a military-strategic analyst. He recently graduated from the War Studies Department of King's college, London, where he worked in the field of strategic nuclear arms control.