Cautious Beginnings: Canadian Foreign Intelligence, 1939-51 Book

When the Second World War began, Canada had no foreign intelligence capacity. Its political leaders had concluded that a clandestine service was not necessary to meet the nation's intelligence requirements. Yet Kurt F. Jensen argues that the country was a more active intelligence partner in the wartime alliance than has previously been suggested. Cautious Beginnings spans the period from 1939 to 1951, when key policy and personnel structures were put in place. In the postwar years, Canada reconfigured its foreign intelligence operations to meet the challenges of a changing world, and by the early 1950s possessed resources that rivaled or exceeded those of many other nations. This is a convincing portrait of a nation with an active role in Second World War intelligence gathering, one that continues to influence the architecture of its current capabilities.Read More