Canada May Reject Warheads

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30041, 28 January 1963, Page 9

Canada May Reject Warheads

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) OTTAWA, January 26.

Canada’s Prime Minister (Mr Diefenbaker) raised the possibility last night that Canada might reject nuclear warheads and scrap or reassign more than 700,000,000 dollars worth of military equipment designed to carry them.

“More nuclear arms will add nothing materially to our defence,” he said in a House of Commons debate. Greater emphasis must be placed on conventional forces. At no time in his speech did Mr Diefenbaker indicate outright rejection of nuclear arms for Canadian forces, which now have the means to carry nuclear warheads but do not have the warheads themselves. He disclosed that Canada had been negotiating with Washington “for two or three months or more” on proposals for the United States to make nuclear warheads available to Canadian forces in case of need. However, he suggested that these negotiations might be superseded by Western defence plans arising out of the United States-British agreement for a multi-lateral nuclear defence force based on the Polaris missile. Mr Diefenbaker said the Nassau agreement “placed in doubt” any Canadian nuclear role. Mr Diefenbaker spoke after the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lester Pearson) accused the Conservative Government

of letting down Canada’s allies by hedging on a deal to equip Canadian forces with nuclear weapons. Canada to investing 450 million dollars in equipping the Royal Canadian Air Force in Europe with CFIO4 strikereconnaissance jet aircraft with nuclear capability. The Canadian Army Brigade in Germany also was equipped a year ago with the Honest John artillery rocket, a nuclear carrier. Two other nuclear carriers in question are the Bomarc anti-aircraft missile and Voodoo jet interceptors, which cost Canada 235 million dollars. Mr Pearson contended all of these weapons were worthless without nuclear warheads. Mr Diefenbaker said the Government had already announced a conventional role for the Voodoo, and suggested Canada might be better off writing off the cost of the other weapons. Two or three times, he said, all Western nation* had made military planning mistakes which, up to 1980, had cost them more than 3000 million dollars in cancelled weapons.