Acknowledgements
It is common for authors to write that their book would not have been possible without certain other people and their contributions. This is definitively true in my case. Almost every archival record cited in this book was security-classified and closed to researchers until very recently. Without Alan Barnes’ efforts to seek access to the archival record of Canadian intelligence history, and his sharing of those records with the Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project, I would not have been able to conduct research (or even read) the records cited here. Alan’s work has fundamentally changed what is possible for students and scholars of Canadian intelligence history.
Processing Access to Information Act requests, in turn, is an unnecessarily difficult task in Canada. I am grateful to the staff of the Access to Information and Privacy, or ATIP, section at Library and Archives Canada, as well as the investigators and others of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada who helped ensure these documents were made available for research. Some other government departments remain confused about what information about Canada’s past is now publicly available, what can be released, and the benefits of releasing more information. I hope my book can contribute to their education and the further release of more historical records.
It has been my great privilege to hire a number of excellent students to work with me on this project, as research assistants for the Canada Declassified website. Elisabetta Kerr helped me make sense of many documents from the “Imminence” era. Lindsay Grant helped make sense of the documents, too, and then made her own original research contributions on the Hydra communications facility that I am pleased to cite. Angus Lee and Kenneth Wong did a wonderful job preparing Canada Declassified briefing books that will make the primary sources I used in this book easily accessible to other students and scholars. Grace van Vliet helped me pull key elements of this book together for publication. Sam Eberlee read more drafts than he probably cares to count, and I am grateful to him for his interventions. My friends Susie Colbourn and Asa McKercher read my introduction in draft stage and provided encouragement at the right time.
Support for research assistance and my larger project to make the primary source collections available on Canada Declassified was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and a University of Toronto Connaught New Researcher Award. I had early opportunities to share my ideas at the International Studies Association, King’s College London, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Canadian Historical Association, and a Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project workshop. I also wrote about some aspects of the diplomacy I cover in Chapters 5 and 6 of this book for an article that appeared in Intelligence & National Security 38, no. 3 (2023): 427–46. I am grateful for these grants and opportunities.
At the University of Calgary Press, I have had the benefit of working with Brian Scrivener, Helen Hajnoczky, and Rob Huebert. I am also grateful to the two anonymous referees, who provided helpful comments that improved the manuscript. I owe special thanks to Kelly Laycock for her excellent editorial suggestions. JoAnne Burek prepared an excellent index that will be a great help to researchers.
As you will see from the above list, I have relied on assistance from many quarters to write this book. Still, and as always, any errors or omissions are mine alone.
There is a certain tension in writing about one’s family in a book about intelligence warning of nuclear war. Does anyone want a book on the subject dedicated to them? Probably not. And so while I will not dedicate this book to my family (or anyone else), I still owe great thanks and all my love to Nicole and our boys Henry and Charlie; to Eric and Cathy, my mom and dad; to Brian and Jo; and to Hilary and Miles and Hudson and Russell.