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STORMS OF CONTROVERSY
FOURTH EDITION
STORMS OF CONTROVERSY
THE SECRET AVRO ARROW FILES REVEALED
PALMIRO CAMPAGNA
DUNDURN PRESS TORONTO
Copyright © Palmiro Campagna, 2010
Originally published by Stoddart Publishing in 1992.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Project Editor: Michael Carroll
Copy Editor: Matt Baker
Design: Jennifer Scott
Printer: Marquis
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Campagna, Palmiro
Storms of controversy : the secret Avro Arrow files revealed / Palmiro Campagna ; foreword by Richard Rohmer. -- 4th ed.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-55488-698-2
1. Avro Arrow (Turbojet fighter plane). 2. Aircraft industry--Canada--History. 3. Canada--Politics and government--1957-1963. 4. Canada--Foreign relations--United States. 5. United States--Foreign relations-Canada. I. Title.
TL685.3.C34 2010 338.4’762374640971 C2009-907462-1
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
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For James Gilbert and all the children in the world.May their dreams become reality and not suffer at the hands of those unable to dream.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Major-General (Retired) Richard Rohmer
Preface to the Fourth Paperback Edition
Preface to the Third Paperback Edition
Preface to the Second Paperback Edition
4 Up, Up, or Away?
5 Mutilation
6 Why?
7 Myths and Misconceptions
Epilogue
Postscript
Appendix I: A Selection from the Secret Files
Appendix II: The Forgotten Tapes and Costs Revealed
Appendix III: A Report on Arrow Flight-Test Models
Appendix IV: Continuing Arguments About the Arrow’s Destruction
Notes
Index
The Arrow controversy caused by the abrupt 1959 cancellation of the development of that years-ahead-of-its-time jet aircraft by the Diefenbaker government (followed immediately by the brutal destruction of all existing Arrows) has left a searing scar on the national psyche of Canada. The intimidating puzzle has been — why? Why the cancellation, why the destruction? In his work, Palmiro Campagna lays out hitherto unavailable evidence from Cabinet records. His precise, unemotional documentation gives a new and brilliantly clear picture of the American political influence that used the United States’ Bomarc system threat to cause the naive Canadian government to elect to invest in that worthless system and to cancel the Arrow.
The Canadian Cabinet argument was that Canada could not afford both programs. The United States, as Campagna tells us, forced the Diefenbaker decision in favour of the Americans’ nuclear-warheaded Bomarc system.
The explanation of the whys of the demise of the Arrow, as skill-fully developed by Campagna, will not bury the Arrow controversy. But it will serve to illuminate the dim-bulb rationale that pervaded the tempestuous, reactionary Diefenbaker years.
The administration of John George Diefenbaker left its indelible, depressing footprint on the ego of a Canadian people anxious and capable then to become one of the world’s leading high-tech nations. What a powerhouse of technology employment and high prosperity Canada would be enjoying today if the Arrow had survived and flown into our future.
Major-General (Retired) Richard Rohmer
Toronto
June 1992
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH PAPERBACK EDITION
The year 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of the cancellation of the Arrow, so it is fitting that more