427. Telegram From the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State0
519. Please inform the President that during the course of long rambling talk with Prime Minister Diefenbaker November 27, I raised the subject of arrangements for storage of nuclear weapons in Canada. I told him of the interest the President expressed to me regarding this paralyzed problem on November 10.1 The Prime Minister told me in strict confidence that this matter would again be discussed by cabinet during coming week, and that he hoped to have an answer for the President in 10 days or 2 weeks. He intimated, but did not explicitly state that the response would be affirmative in the sense of at least enabling a renewal of negotiations on the text of an agreement. Diefenbaker said that the [Page 1164] cabinet had been on verge of decision on the matter last September, but that press stories emanating from the White House sources to the effect that the President had sent a personal message on this subject to the Prime Minister had made it impossible for the Canadian cabinet to appear to be acting under pressure from Washington.
The continuing conflict within the cabinet between Green and Harkness on the issue of nuclear weapons on Canadian soil coupled with the Prime Minister’s sensitivity to what he considers public opinion in Canada, make it improbable, in my opinion, that the cabinet will be prepared to go further at this time than the resumption of negotiations on an agreement, which if successfully concluded would be initialed but not brought into force immediately thereafter.
The Prime Minister referred glancingly to the troublesome spate of resolutions on nuclear arms in the UNGA. I told him we were reassured by Canada’s switch of position to vote negatively in the GA last week on the Ethiopian resolution.