Bomarc Countdown

For better or worse, air defense in Canada is inextricably tied to the U.S.'s ill-starred Bomarc B antiaircraft missile. Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker has found it to be mostly worse: every time a Bomarc B failed to soar from its test pad at Cape Canaveral, Canada's Liberal and CCF (socialist) Opposition parties gleefully assaulted the Bomarc as a dying bird. In the process they winged Tory plans to rely on two Canadian Bomarc bases and nine aging squadrons of CF-100 interceptors as the country's only home defense against the bomber threat.

Last week the Commons' rowdiest squall yet burst over Bomarc when word came from Washington that the U.S. Air Force, worried that Bomarc's test failures would delay its operational status until too near the end of the diminishing bomber era, proposed a sweeping switch in spending to other defensive hardware (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). In the past, Diefenbaker had properly insisted that all Bomarc's failures were minor "nickel-and-dime" malfunctions, and pointed out that the U.S. was spending $500 million on it this year, while Canada had committed only $15 million for work on its two bases.

This time the Opposition hungrily decided that the Pentagon had pulled the rug from under Diefenbaker for good. Socialist Leader Hazen Argue, who argues that Canada should spend its defense money on international good works, angrily shouted that Canadian defenses were "useless and due for a complete overhaul." For the Liberals, Lester ("Mike") Pearson charged that "every dollar being spent on Bomarc is in great danger of being wasted."

Harassed Defense Minister George Pearkes retired to a long-distance telephone huddle with the Pentagon, returned to the Commons with the assurance that while the Bomarc was being counted down in Washington, it still was not counted out. The $1 20 million left in the Bomarc program would provide 200 missiles for 10 to 13 bases, including Canada's; Washington was still prepared to pay two-thirds of the cost of the two Canadian bases. Canada was left with a nagging question: How useful will its Bomarcs be?

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