THE CANADIAN NUCLEAR THREAT
Editorial writers in the capitalist press of the USA sounded a sober and almost repentant note in summing up the events of 1963. The unusual modification of the usual end-of-the-year boasting was out of deference apparently to lingering emotions among the public over the assassination of President Kennedy and the blinding light it cast on the growth of irrationality and violence in the American Way of Life.
The mood was not shared in the Pentagon and the White House, No weak-sister stuff there, In fact New Yearts Eve was selected for a move of grimmest implications, As a way of demonstratively ringing out the old year and ringing in the new, U.S. armed forces made their first delivery of nuclear warheads to Canada.
Twenty-eight missile tips -- fourteen times the number of atomic devices used to wipe out Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- were delivered to the Bomare base seven miles from North Bay, Ontario. i
This was only the first delivery. An undisclosed number of nuclear warheads are also to be installed at La Macaza, Quebec, eighty miles north of Canada's capital city Ottawa.
These nuclear warheads are designed for antiaircraft missiles, according to press reports, They do not complete the nuclear arsenal to be installed on Canadian soil.
The Canadian government has given the Pentagon permission to store nuclear warheads for U.S. jet interceptors at Harmon Field, Newfoundland, and Goose Bay, Lebrador.
Finally, it should be noted that "Canada" is a rather loose designation in the thinking of the White House and Pentagon. The Canadian Army has "Honest John" rocket units stationed in West Germany. These units, too, in accordance with the agreement with the U.S. which wes approved by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B, Pearson, are to be equipped with nuclear warheads,
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No comparative figures were issued on Canada's relative standing as the latest member of the “nuclear club." It seems clear, however, that it took Canada only a single evening to achieve a larger "force de frappe" than the one possessed by de Gaulle's France or probably Great Britain. Canada may shortly have a bigger nuclear stockpile than these two powers combined, becoming the third nuclear power in the world,
Moreover, Canada's unusual geography, extending into West Germany, gives its armed forces strategic advantages, hitherto little appreciated, in the deadly game of building up "deterrence."
However, lest anyone become overly alarmed at capitalist Canada's extraordinarily swift emergence as a nuclear threat, the North American press stressed the reassuring limitation of this new development: "The United States will control use of the warheads."