THE AVRO CANADA CF-105 ARROW PROGRAMME: DECISIONS AND DETERMINANTS

CHAPTER ONE

To have command of the air means to be in a position to wield offensive power so great that it defies human imagination. It means to be able to cut an enemy’s army and navy off from the bases of operation and nullify their chances of winning the war. It means the complete protection of one’s own country, the efficient operation of one’s own army and navy, and peace of mind to live and work in safety. In short, it means to be in a position to win. To be defeated in the air, on the other hand, is finally to be defeated and to be at the mercy of the enemy, with no chance at all of defending oneself, compelled to accept whateverterms he sees fit to dictate.

This is the meaning of “command of the air.”1

Introduction.

The Italian military theorist Guilio Douhet wrote these words in his 1921 book on air power, The Command of the Air, one of the most influential books on strategy ever written. With the end of the Second World War and the dawning of the atomic age, the question of who would command the air above the 49th parallel took on paramount importance in the minds of Canadians. Suddenly, Canada became, as American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles observed, “a very important piece of real estate.”2 Since the First World War the world’s air forces had conceded that “the bomber will always get through”3 but with the advent of the atomic bomb the failure to stop even one bomber would result in untold devastation. Situated as they were between two ideologically and militarily hostile superpowers, Canadians realized that they no longer lived in a fireproof house, far away from inflammable materials: some form of insurance would now be necessary. How to go about safeguarding North America from Armageddon would thus prove to be the issue which would vex Canada’s civil and military decision-makers throughout the immediate postwar period.4 The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow programme would be the manifestation of Canada’s brief commitment to commanding its air.5 But what began as a modest venture in supersonic airframe design would become, through profligacy and skyrocketing costs, “the most expensive defence procurement programme underwritten by Ottawa to that time.”6 And despite its death, the ill-starred Arrow programme continues exert a dramatic effect on Canadian popular culture, for “no single event in our history has been so mythologized.”7

This thesis is about neither an aircraft company nor aerospace technology, though by necessity any history of an air force will also in part be a history of its airplanes and their manufacturers. Suffice it to say, the Arrow was a magnificent, mighty, and graceful example of aeronautical engineering (see the following photograph). Nothing written in this thesis detracts from the tremendous achievement of the engineers and technicians who worked on the project and who have every reason to be proud of their effort. 8 Instead, this thesis is a case study of the origins and outcomes of a weapons acquisition process, the weapon in question being the Arrow. For the purposes of this thesis, weapons acquisition “is defined to include the conception, development, and production of technically advanced weapons for ultimate use by the armed forces,"9 whereas process “emphasizes the flow of decisions and activities during weapons programs, including the actions, reactions, and interactions of government agencies and defense contractors.”10

James Kurth, an American political scientist, wrote that, “the problem with questions about weapons procurement is not that there are no answers but that there are too many answers.”11 Nevertheless, Kurth distilled from the academic and journalistic literature four broad, major, and competing explanations of weapons procurement from among this “thicket of theory.”12 Though drawn exclusively from the American experience, they are, in general, universally applicable. The four explanations are as follows: strategic theory, emphasizing the centrality of the rational calculation of foreign threats or the reciprocal dynamics of arms races; democratic theory, highlighting the importance of the domestic political system (i.e., electoral politics) as a determinant; economic theory, which gives prominence to the character of the domestic economic system (i.e., due to the aggregate economics of capitalism or the role of corporations) as a determinant; and bureaucratic theory, which focuses on the outcomes of competition between bureaucracies (especially armies, navies, and air forces) or the output of bureaucratic processes (i.e., standard operating procedures).13

Any of Kurth’s four explanations could serve as a lens through which to examine the salient features of the Arrow programme as a case study by providing a model be used in illustrating and interpreting the complex linkages between decision-making inputs, processes, and outputs, an exercise which is critical to understanding policy outcomes.14 In this vein, and especially within the United States (US) academic environment, such theories of foreign and defence policy behaviour have spawned devotees and critics in vast numbers, and the theoretical literature associated with them is voluminous. Students of Canadian foreign and defence policy, however, have not been as eager to put the “science” in political science, preferring instead, as Denis Stairs wrote, the time-honoured pedagogy of the “highly descriptive and theoretically unadorned case history.”15 It is a tradition where the narrative is influenced by a perspective of place and time and the evidence is chronologically selected and arranged in such a way as to highlight an argument or thesis.16 Furthermore, it is a tradition wherein “Canadian defence policy making remains a largely neglected and misunderstood area of study.”17

It is within this tradition that this thesis, as a good case history, will provide an account of the Arrow weapons acquisition process. The focus, however, is very much the essence of good political science as well as good history: the civil-military decision-making process during the Arrow programme. Indeed, it will be shown that process was what the Arrow programme was all about.

This thesis gained much insight from the work of Lawrence Aronsen. Aronsen examined the dynamics of the Canada’s defence decision-making process in the post-World War Two period; his analysis may be seen to fuse together elements from each of Kurth’s four explanations.18 Aronsen uncovered a key feature of the Canadian defence decision-making process which goes a long way toward explaining why the Arrow programme unfolded as it did. He concluded that rather than having a “military-industrial complex,” such as is purported to exist in the US, Canada had a “national security bureaucracy” composed of high- level officials in the military, bureaucratic, scientific, and political sectors of the government that interacted with (and were dependent for its authority upon) Cabinet and the Prime Minister. Aronsen noted that these important elements of the defence decision-making process in the 1950s were almost seamlessly integrated - notably the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CSC), the Cabinet Defence Committee (CDC), and the Cabinet itself. In Aronsen’s words, the Cabinet was extended into the “labyrinth” of this national security bureaucracy. This thesis will demonstrate that, because of this situation, the national security bureaucracy wielded a near unchallengeable influence on defence policy. Colonel Douglas Bland termed this period the Command Era:

the Command Era was characterized by command authority, military concepts of decision-making and administration, respect for individual responsibilities (but perhaps not always for individuals), an integrative policy process, and a reliance on subjectivity based on experience. The system produced many successes, some failures, and it tended towards “hedging” as a management philosophy. The efficiency of the whole system was often called into question, something that would become central to later reform movements. Efficiency has many definitions that are often oriented to particular professions. The Command Era may have been militarily efficient while at the same time being inefficient in the eyes of accountants.19

An understanding of the Arrow weapons acquisition process proceeds from an understanding of this decision-making environment as it existed in Canada at the time. Advice on air defence matters came from the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Air Council to the CSC. The CSC was comprised of the army, navy, and air force chiefs, the Chairman of the Defence Research Board (DRB, often referred to as “the fourth service”)20, and the Chairman of the CSC. The Secretary to the Cabinet, the Deputy Minister (DM) of the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Department of Defence Production (DDP), the Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, and occasionally other bureaucrats and officers also attended CSC meetings, though they could not take part in the decision-making process. Through this procedure officials in interested departments became familiar with all aspects of an issue and were in a position to brief their respective ministers.21

It should be noted that though the Chairman of the CSC was preeminent in rank, under The National Defence Act he had no overriding authority to make a decision on his own. Because the recommendations of the CSC had to be unanimous, the Chairman’s role was to coordinate the army, navy, and air force and build a consensus.22 Minority viewpoints rarely, if ever, reached the Minister of National Defence (MND), the CDC, or Cabinet. The consensus-building nature of the position of Chairman thus required an individual who was “ more diplomat than a soldier.”23 As the Royal Commission on Government Organization would later report about the CSC:

The effectiveness of the Chiefs of Staff Committee as an executive authority is, to a large extent, dependent on the personal qualities of its members, each of whom has the virtual power of veto in its deliberations....Although the business of the Chiefs of Staff Committee appears to be conducted with reasonable dispatch, your Commissioners observe that, in general, the system permits procrastination, and the absence of a single commanding voice may spell the difference between success and failure in any matter of joint concern.24

In building a consensus, however, a Chairman of the CSC could wield “immense power,” becoming in many cases “the real arbiter of the advice on defence policy tendered to the Government.”25

If the MND approved the CSC’s submission, he took its recommendations to the CDC. The CDC was usually composed of the Prime Minister, the MND (and the Associate MND under the Liberals), and the Ministers of Defence Production, Finance, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (SSEA), and their respective DMs and undersecretaries (under the Liberals, the Ministers of Justice and of National Health and Welfare also attended, though their DMs did not). Occasionally other ministers (such as Labour) would also attend. The CSC would normally attend CDC meetings, but military and bureaucratic officials took no part in the decision-making process and they normally withdrew before any discussion began.If the CDC approved of the CSC’s submission as presented by the MND, the CDC recommended that Cabinet give its approval.26

This was the formal hierarchical structure of the civil-military decision-making process as it existed at the time (see the following organizational chart). However, the reality was that the CSC exercised preeminent power through its influence over the MND. In effect, the CSC functioned as “a shadow Cabinet Defence Committee and as a national security council.”27 This thesis will assert that throughout the life of the Arrow programme it was the military who were setting the defence priorities for the political authority, rather than vice-versa. The CSC’s advice to the CDC nearly always laid out what the CDC’s recommendations to Cabinet should be, and the CDC effectively approved all the important decisions on the Arrow programme. Cabinet in turn gave near perfunctory approval to the CDC’s recommendations. According to Michael Tucker, one reason the military enjoyed such influence because:

The powers of the Chiefs of Staff did not stem only from their organizational means to tender advice to the Cabinet; these powers came from the very nature of the advice itself. The service chiefs were privy to alliance intelligence, derived from their close collaboration with the armed forces of the great powers, those of the United States especially.28

James Eayrs captured the nature of the civil-military decision-making process when he wrote:

The layman may be pardoned for his reluctance to express opinions about weapons policy. Everything conspires to produce an attitude of acquiescence in what the authorities decide. The subject is forbiddingly technical. Shrouds of secrecy confront the curious; information is hard to come by and difficult to check. The strategic aspects are esoteric. How then can the ordinary citizen quarrel with decisions made on his behalf? By what prerogative dare he challenge the judgement of the experts. “Complete assessment of the whole field and all factors,” he is assured, “is the responsibility of the joint planning committee - Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Defence Research Board - who have available to them all pertinent information. The consideration and ultimate decision is the responsibility of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and finally the Cabinet....This competent and informed body of opinion is in a better position than any layman to decide on the best and mosteconomical means of defending our country.”29

Thus the CSC would play the pivotal role in the Arrow weapons acquisition process, but within the CSC it was the RCAF, supported by its allies in the DRB and the DDP, which was the force with which to be reckoned. As David Dewitt and John Kirton concluded:

The influential role of Air Force officers and scientists within [the CSC] and subordinate structures tended to generate military and ministerial perspectives that highlighted the North American region and the air defence task as the dominant elements of Canadian security....Thus, whereas DND would reluctantly defer to External on low-cost involvements beyond Europe and jointly determine policy with it for the North Atlantic, it jealously guarded its primacy in matters within the continent and in Canada itself.30

This thesis will show that the RCAF, acting through the vehicle of the CSC, largely determined all of the key decisions on the Arrow’s technological, tactical, and financial requirements. The MND and the CDC, both Liberal and Progressive Conservative31 in turn deferred to the CSC for the “advice and execution of all matters related to defence policy, strategic appreciations, and military plans.”32 This system of “bottom-up” decision-making - the “bottom” in this case study being the highest echelons of the RCAF and the other services - led to a basically uncritical acceptance of the recommendations of the CSC, the acknowledged military experts who were able to present a united front to their bureaucratic and governmental counterparts. Adrian Preston described this milieu in this manner:

Thus, in a curious reversal of British and American experience between 1945 and 1958, in which military power had been steadily eroded by political authority, the Canadian armed profession during roughly the same period exercised in terms of tasks, expertise, and political influence a virtually unbridled control of foreign and defence policy.33

Over twenty years after the Arrow’s cancellation, in their case study of the initial phase of the New Fighter Aircraft (NFA) 34 weapons acquisition process, Kim Richard Nossal and Michael Atkinson acknowledged the danger inherent in such a decision-making process:

Bureaucratic, rather than political control of the [NFA] program was always a serious possibility. An enormous amount of technical information would have to be digested and evaluated and politicians would be obliged to rely heavily on the expertise available in several bureaus. Moreover, because the choice of a fleet of fighter aircraft is a “lumpy” decision, there would be little or no opportunity to combine the best features of each competitor’s package.35

Bureaucratic control of a procurement programme was clearly thought to be undesirable from the point of view of the Cabinet in the late 1970s and early 1980s, largely because Cabinet recalled that just such a situation had prevailed during the Arrow programme. The First World War French Premier Georges Clemenceau is famous for warning future generations that war is too serious a business to be left in the hands of the generals. To paraphrase Clemenceau, in Canada in the 1950s the CSC thought that the acquisition of war matériel was too serious a business to be left in the hands of politicians.

This thesis will present a concise history of the civil-military decision-making during the Arrow’s lifespan which led to its confident creation in 1953, fateful expansion by 1956, belated curtailment by 1958, and inescapable termination in 1959. However, by definition, as a critical reassessment this thesis will claim the moniker of a revisionist political history. A revisionist history is long overdue, for as the American political scientist Melvin Conant observed in 1962, “the Arrow affair has had far reaching political repercussions and it will be a long time before the charges and countercharges about the soundness of the decision die down.”36 A long time indeed. Weapons acquisition processes in Canada have always shared one common characteristic: controversy. The controversy that the Arrow programme generated came to symbolize the 1950s much like the nuclear weapons issue symbolized the 1960s and the decline of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) came to be identified with the 1970s. Such controversy was perhaps inevitable, according to Michael Tucker:

As a necessary element of their professionalism, the Canadian military have always sought the best weapons available, short of suggesting an independent nuclear capability. As soldiers in an alliance, they have sought the best weapons available which accord with alliance strategic theory and practice. This quest has been, since the weapons procurement imbroglios of the Diefenbaker era, a basis for the “struggles” between the Canadian military and their political masters.37

Melvin Conant’s words still reverberate largely because for almost forty years the field was abandoned to a veritable cottage industry of pro-Arrow aviation enthusiasts, generically known as “Arrowheads.” They are amateur historians who write - irritatingly, often bestselling - “buff books”38 which have helped to perpetuate an Arrow mythology:

Listening to these laments, you might think that killing the Arrow was a crime against humanity, a kind of technological infanticide. In a debate with words such as beauty and poetry used in the same breath as requiem and tragedy, the stillborn Arrow seems the greatest failure of our nationhood. To the revisionists and nationalists who have freighted the Arrow with hopes and fears, the airplane was a metaphor. When it soared, it reflected daring, stature and self- confidence. When it crashed, it represented weakness and insecurity. And when those dazzling prototypes were cut up into little pieces, allegedly on the orders of a vengeful prime minister...it gave rise to a delicious conspiracy: that the planes (and plans) were destroyed to ensure none would end up in a museum where dispossessed romantics would hold monthly vigils....39

Thus “the decision to undertake the Arrow program has not been questioned in Canada,” observed Julius Lukasiewicz, “but its abandonment has been widely condemned.”40 That the cancellation of the Arrow programme was a watershed event for many Canadians of the post Second World War generation is undeniable. As Peter Newman wrote, “the death of the proud plane represented a choice...as fundamental as the decision a decade earlier by the Royal Navy to scrap its capital ships.”41 Denis Smith added:

The saga of the Arrow from inspiration to demise has spawned an unusual mythology, sustained over forty years by an endless flow of newspaper and television features, a cult literature, and a play featuring an on-stage model of the aircraft. Thirty years after its destruction, tales were still told of phantom sightings of the doomed prototypes. The Arrow seems as deeply lodged in English Canadian memory as the Canadian Pacific Railway or the Calgary Stampede.42

In particular, the popular literature spawned by the Arrow myth tends to begin with the premise that technology should be an end in itself, rather than the means to an end. To varying degrees, the amateur historians who have written about the Arrow programme have adopted a nationalist standpoint that the benefits of the project to Canada far outweighed the costs. A typical recitation of this techno-nationalist viewpoint is that of J.J. Brown:

The paradox that enlivens the history of Canadian invention is that Canada is a great producer of ideas, yet it has virtually no native technical industry. The story of Canadian invention and technology can be seen as a melancholy procession of golden opportunities which we have let slip through our fingers. We have let them go abroad to be developed by other nations because we have not the vision to see their potential.43

Thus, within this literary genre, the mythmakers portray Canada as the victim of its “ colonial thinking”44 which led to the destruction not only of the Canadian aviation industry but of “the heart and soul of a nation;”45 the Conservative government is lambasted for having neither the courage nor the foresight to see the project through to the end, regardless of the financial burden or the operational requirement; the Prime Minister is derided as “a small-time Prairie lawyer...far out of his depth when it came to making decisions about the world military aircraft industry;"46 the US military-industrial complex is excoriated for having manipulated and pressured the government into cancelling the finest military aircraft in the world in favour of their own grossly inferior products; and the scrapping of the existing Arrows is reviled as an “appalling act of vandalism.”47 The more egregious examples of these works are written by anti-American experts made clever by hindsight and with a gift for hyperbole. These authors invariably focus on the Conservative Cabinet in particular as the locus of decision-making and ignore, misinterpret, or manipulate the facts about the Arrow programme to support their contentions that the government made the wrong decision, most likely at the behest of US. The cancellation of the project is therefore portrayed as unjustifiable under any circumstance. Believing the lessons of the Arrow programme to be glaringly obvious, professional historians and political scientists have rarely felt it necessary to rebut the often unsubstantiated claims of their amateur counterparts.48 Though academics have addressed the Arrow programme within the context of other defence and foreign policy issues of the time, there has not been a single academic book, journal article, thesis or dissertation exclusively devoted to the Arrow programme despite its enduring presence in the national psyche.

The Arrow myth as reflected in the popular literature has all of the components of a national mythology, including the celebration of an achievement of greatness and the demonization of enemies. As one editorial put it: “Time has made the Arrow an empty vessel, filled it with romance, nostalgia, loss and longing, and cast it adrift on a nation’s restless soul.”49 The great achievement, of course, is the Arrow itself - an undeniably superb example of Canadian technological genius. The twin demons are the US, which conspired to destroy Canada’s hopes of realizing both technological and political self-sufficiency; and an incompetent and ignorant Conservative government, led by Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker (1957-1963), which sacrificed those prospects for all time because it did not understand defence issues.

The Arrow myth will endure as long as individuals choose to ignore the historical record. But the tenets of the myth which has captured the hearts and minds of Canadians for so many years merit serious challenge. The government documents and personal papers related to the Arrow programme held by the relevant archives, museums, and other institutions and organizations are now largely declassified and open to the public.50 Taken together with the secondary literature and government publications, there are now more than enough information available to provide a detailed record of the historical period which is not dependent on any single source of information. The story can now be told and thus many of the claims made by popular literature rebutted. The purpose of this case study is to examine how decisions were made by the Liberal and Conservative governments during the 1950s pertaining to the Arrow programme. The argument of this thesis is that the Arrow programme’s demise was the consequence of three factors: a flawed weapons acquisition process driven by an overly ambitious RCAF, dramatic strategic shifts, and harsh financial realities.

 

 

© Copyright Russell Steven Paul Isinger, 1997. All rights reserved.

BACK...

...NEXT

THESIS HOME | CONTENTS | PERMISSION | ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | ABSTRACT | DEDICATION
GLOSSARY | CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4
APPENDIX I | APPENDIX II | FOOTNOTES | BIBLIOGRAPHY | ARROW HOME