When Friends Fall Out

"Our relations with the Soviet Union today are better than our relations with Canada." The wry statement by a U.S. Government official was only a slight exaggeration. In a week of mounting tempers, the U.S. accused Canada of failing to live up to its commitments for the defense of North America and Europe. An angry Canada in turn told the U.S. to mind its own business. The dispute threatened to bring down Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's shaky minority government and force an election. If so, Diefenbaker might be able to wage a campaign whose main issue would be U.S. intervention in Canadian affairs, and whether or not to accept U.S. nuclear weapons for Canadian defense.

Not a Satellite. The storm blew up over a U.S. State Department press release bluntly chiding Canada for its failure to equip its jet interceptors and antiaircraft missiles with nuclear warheads, and openly disagreeing with public statements made by Diefenbaker on U.S.-Canada defense plans and negotiations. Drafted "on a lower level," and handled in a manner that Britain's Manchester Guardian called "a foolish piece of hamfistedness." the release was approved by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and issued after only a 30-minute advance notice to the Canadian Department of External Affairs. Furious at both the content and style of the release, Prime Minister Diefenbaker was a model of outraged dignity before the House of Commons. It was, he cried, "an unprecedented action" and an "unwarranted intrusion in Canadian affairs." Canada remains a friend and ally of the U.S., but not a "satellite."

The beginnings of the argument went back to 1958, when Canada first agreed to contribute two squadrons of air-breathing Bomarc antiaircraft missiles to a joint North American Air Defense Command. Three and a half years ago, the Canadians also promised to provide eight jet squadrons for the NATO air shield in Europe. But Diefenbaker, fearing the opposition of Canadian ban-the-bombers, could never quite bring himself to accept the nuclear armament designed for the jets and missiles.

After the Cuban crisis, when it became patently clear that there was a wide-open, undefended path through Canada for Soviet bombers, Canadian defense officials began secret nuclear negotiations with the U.S. Diefenbaker still hedged. Returning from a Nassau meeting with British Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy, during which Britain agreed to scrap Skybolt bomber-carried missiles in return for Polaris-armed submarines, Diefenbaker told Parliament that bombers had been ruled obsolete. Therefore, he said, there was no need for Canadian nuclear de fense against a transpolar Russian strike.

Wily & Wobbly. The State Department said that last week's statement was merely to clear up misleading impressions. Secretary Rusk told a press conference that he was sorry "if any words of ours have been so phrased as to give offense." Yet if he had wished to make things hot for Canada's Conservative Prime Minister, he could hardly have done better. The release contradicted Diefenbaker on the Nassau agreements, which raised "no question of the appropriateness of nuclear weapons for Canadian forces."

In Ottawa the Liberals, who had been seeking an issue to topple Diefenbaker's Conservatives, lost no time attacking the government. Though everyone deplored the inappropriateness of the U.S. statement, Liberal Leader Lester Pearson told the Commons: "The real issue for Canadians is: what are the facts and what is the truth about our defense policy?" Leaders of the two minor parties, whose votes would be needed to bring down Diefenbaker's Conservatives on a vote of noconfidence, seemed to agree. Said the New Democratic Party's Tommy Douglas: "The Prime Minister said that the government's policy was flexible and fluid; it has become wily and wobbly."

Plainly in trouble, Diefenbaker paid two visits to Canada's Governor-General --and insiders said it was to obtain the formal permission he needed to dissolve Parliament and call new elections. Whether he dissolves Parliament or tries to weather a vote of noconfidence, he will probably have to face new elections soon.

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