The moment Canada learned about the Cuban Missile Crisis
And: Just what is an “intelligence officer”?
About 61 years ago this week, Canadian intelligence officials learned about the Soviet missiles that would touch off the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, over six decades later, the Government of Canada has released (in part) the critical record of that conversation.
In mid-October 1962, a handful of Canadian officials with intelligence responsibilities were in Washington, D.C. for a conference with American, Australian, and British colleagues.
John McCone, the Director of Central Intelligence (and head of CIA), invited the Canadians to his home for lunch. McCone also invited several senior CIA people to join them.
Lunch began with “preliminary pleasantries,” and then on to a discussion of Canadian policy toward Cuba. Both the Americans and Canadians were particularly worried about the increasing amount of military aid the Soviets were sending to Cuba.
McCone then suggested the Soviet Union might have introduced a new capability in Cuba. He asked what Canada and other allies would do “should such a Soviet-Cuban capability be clearly shown, at some future time, to exist.”
McCone was clearly referring to the offensive missiles that would lead to one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War (and also one of the most studied and well-documented moments of the nuclear era).
The above document was released by Global Affairs Canada under the Access to Information Act in 2023. And, as you can see, it is heavily sanitized. (Read the whole thing here.)
This partial release is particularly disappointing.
Over forty years ago, in his 1981 A Man of Influence, J. L. Granatstein, noted that members of the Canadian intelligence community had learned of the brewing crisis. And the Documents on Canadian External Relations series also published a document detailing intelligence information passed from the United States to Canada:
… we are aware through intelligence channels that as of October 16 the U.S.A. had satisfied itself through photographic and other intelligence media that offensive ballistic missiles with a range of between 1100 and 2200 miles were being installed in Cuba in sufficient number (an estimated 40) to directly threaten the Security of U.S.A.
So why can’t we see this particular document in full?
That might change soon.
It turns out that there is an American memorandum of this conversation, available on the Central Intelligence Agency’s FOIA Electronic Reading Room, released in 2003.
The CIA has sanitized the names of the Canadians, but the title is “Memorandum of Conversation on October 18, at Luncheon at DCI’s Residence,” and it was written by Walter Elder, who was at lunch with the Canadians that day.
It is worth reading this part of the American version:
The CIA memorandum, like the Canadian version, captures the “hypothetical” discussion floated by the DCI, and the U.S. view of Canadian reactions to the news.
What seems to be sanitized in the Canadian version, among other things, is discussion of “what action the United States might be forced to take should the Soviets install an offensive capability in Cuba.” Discussions of what action the U.S. might have taken, including air strikes and invasion, has already been extensively documented in the declassified ExComm records, and of course the details of what the United States did do is also public knowledge.
With the discovery of this CIA document, I believe that the Canadian record can now be released in full.
What is an intelligence officer?
In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dean Rusk, the U.S. Secretary of State, asked Canada to do… something in Cuba. (Full document here.)
Again, despite these sanitizations, we already know a great deal about Rusk’s request and the Canadian response. The Americans asked Canada to be their eyes and ears in Cuba, to “improve and extend” Canadian intelligence activities on the island.
This is well documented in the public record, including in the memoirs of the Canadian diplomat responsible for gathering intelligence in Cuba, John Graham. His memoirs include a detailed account of his efforts in Cuba, and his book reproduced copies of sketches of Soviet military materiel he made in Cuba and that he sent back to Ottawa for dissemination to allies.
There is another newly-released document that is particularly intriguing: a telegram drafted to explain to leaders outside of the intelligence world just what is meant by the phrase “intelligence officer.”
The term “intelligence officer” has a specific meaning among [approximately 1 line sanitized - likely a reference to allied intelligence services.] At the minimum it would mean an officer with special training in overt observation of places, people and events which would not [repeat] not normally occur to a diplomat as meriting special attention. At the other end of the scale it would mean a professional covert agent with a great deal of training in covert techniques, and perhaps more important, an individual equipped with knowledge of the kind of risks he would run. In between these extremes are simply variations of training, legality, experience and opportunity. Canada has [repeat] not been active in the training and production of intelligence officers with the exception of those in the armed services and to some degree those in the RCMP. The latter are, or are more likely to be, trained the field of security and counter-espionage rather than in intelligence. There are, of course, a number of rank amateurs who have been exposed for various periods of time to life in D.L (2) Division. [A tongue-in-cheek reference to the intelligence section of External Affairs, the drafters of the memorandum that informed the telegram.]
You can read the rest of the heavily sanitized telegram here.
Where to find the best wardrobe for intelligence collection?
We also know from John Graham’s memoirs just how an intelligence officer (or a diplomat with intelligence collection responsibilities) dressed for the job.
Graham wanted the correct wardrobe to do his duties in Cuba. He consulted with a colleague, George Cowley, just returned from Cuba. Cowley suggested that Graham wear the “plaid shirts, khaki pants, and tennis shoes” worn by Soviet soldiers in Cuba. But where to get this unofficial Soviet uniform?
Cowley took Graham shopping, and they spent an afternoon buying the requisite uniform at…
Zellers!