1. I would like to thank Professors Francine McKenzie, Robert Wardhaugh, and Alan MacEachern for their much-appreciated comments on this paper, as well as those of the anonymous readers.
2. One recent study has argued that the beliefs and assumptions of the political elite about the Soviet threat and the credibility of the Western nuclear deterrent determined their positions on the nuclear acquisition issue. In her monographNATO and the Bomb, Erika Simpson explains that the Canadian political elite held “a variety of underlying beliefs and convictions” about the nature of the Soviet threat and the “suitability” of the West's nuclear deterrent strategy, leading them to either support or oppose a nuclear role. See Erika Simpson,NATO and the Bomb: Canadian Defenders Confront Critics(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001), 4–5. Other scholars have examined opinion polls to illustrate the debate's divisive impact upon the electorate. See Donald Munton. “Public Opinion and the Media in Canada from Cold War to Détente to New Cold War,”International Journal(1982/83): 171–213 for an analysis of Canadian public opinion polls on the acquisition issue. More recently, Andrew Richter has examined the nuclear acquisition debate within the context of Canada's strategic community. See Richter,Avoiding Armageddon: Canadian Military Strategy and Nuclear Weapons, 1950–63(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002).
3. In one Gallup poll, 54.5 per cent of respondents favored Canada accepting a nuclear role, while a Canadian Peace Research Institute (CPRI) poll found that 75 percent of the business elite and 60 percent of voters favored a nuclear role, while only 20 percent of the Members of Parliament and union leaders surveyed responded likewise. See theToronto Scar, January 30,1963 and John Paul and Jerome Laulicht,In Your Opinion: Leaders' and Voters' Attitudes on Defence and Disarmament(Oshawa, ON: Esperanto Press, 1963), 24. The impact of public opinion on the Diefenbaker government's approach to the nuclear weapon acquisition issue is cited in Basil Robinson'sDiefenbaker's World: A Populist in Foreign Affairs(Toronto University of Toronto Press, 1989) and Patrick Nicholson'sVision and Indecision(Don Mills, ON: Longmans Canada Ltd., 1968). Patricia McMahon has concluded that Diefenbaker's concerns about electoral success meant that the state of public opinion and opposition positions in Parliament played a major role in his inability to formulate a nuclear weapon policy. See Patricia McMahon, The Politics of Canada's Nuclear Weapons Policy, 1957–1963” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1999).
4. Munton cites theGlobe and Mail's support for a Canadian nuclear role and loosely applies its perspective to the Canadian media as a whole (Munton, 199–297). Jocelyn Ghent-Mallet refers only to national publications (Globe and MailandMaclean'smagazine) and their demands that Canada live up to its nuclear obligations in her analysis of the 1960's nuclear weapon debate. Jocelyn Ghent-Mallet, “Deploying Nuclear Weapons, 1962–63,” in Don Munton and John Kirton, eds.Canadian Foreign Policy: Selected Cases(Scarborough, ON: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1992), 101–102.
5. The newspapers examined include theGlobe and Mail, Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton Journal, Regina Leader Post, Winnipeg Free Press, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, St. John's Evening Telegram, Le Devoir, Le SoleilandHalifax Chronicle-Herald.