Review: Just Dummies

Abstract

JUST DUMMIES Cruise Missile Testing in Canada John Clearwater Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2006. 283pp, $34.95 paper (ISBN 1-55238-211-7).The Liberal government's decision in 1983 to allow the US to test cruise missiles in Canada's north produced a political hot potato. For over a decade, successive governments continued to allow Americans to test cruise missiles despite overwhelming domestic opposition and political protest. In the face of such opposition, the Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien governments were faced with the unenviable task of trying to placate American demands for testing rights while avoiding the political fallout of such a domestically unpopular decision. Clearwater's fust Dummies provides a comprehensive history of this contentious episode in Canada-US relations. The book is the third installment in Clearwater's history of nuclear weapons in Canada-the first two being Canadian Nuclear Weapons and US Nuclear Weapons in Canada. As a trilogy, these books provide an overview of Canada's complicated history of nuclear weapons that scholars of cold war history, Canadian defence policy, and North American relations are sure to find fascinating.Just Dummies is arranged chronologically, with six chapters covering the history of cruise missile testing from the initial negotiations between Canada and the US to the termination of the cruise missile testing by the Chretien government in 1994. Chapter one provides a detailed account of Canada-US negotiations over cruise missile testing from 1980-84. The second chapter covers the history of the early cruise missile tests from 198488. The third examines the impact of cruise missile testing on broader Canadian civil society by focusing on the anti-cruise missile movement in Canada and the Direct Action terrorist attack on the Litton Systems Canada Ltd. plant in Etobicoke, Ontario. Chapter four covers the history of testing the stealth cruise missile in the late 19803. Chapter five looks at the controversy over the Conservative government's renewal of cruise missile testing in 1992-93. Chapter six examines the termination of the cruise missile testing program by the Liberal government in 1994.The chief strength of this volume is its history of cruise missile testing in Canada. Clearwater has engaged in extensive archival research and has declassified documents unearthed through numerous freedom of information act requests. The result of this exhaustive work is a detailed account of Canadian government deliberations over the cruise missile issue and an interesting portrait of Canadian-American relations. Descriptions of diplomatic exchanges between the Department of National Defence and the Pentagon, cabinet debates over cruise missile testing, and personal correspondence between Mulroney and Reagan provide the reader with a rich understanding of the interactions between the Canadian and American governments in the 19803 and early 19903.While the depth of detail of this book is its greatest strength, it also at times is its greatest liability. In many places analysis is sacrificed for description. The book reads like a detailed chronology of cruise missile testing with little exploration of the context in which these events took place or explanation of the principal actors' motives. …