CDKW00162 - America Encourages Canada to Join the (Ground) War

By the end of September, Washington was heavily pushing on the Canadians to commit to a theater to dispatch their newly announced Canadian Special Forces group. The Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Hume Wrong, proposed to Troy Perkins, in the Office of Far Eastern Affairs of the U.S. State Department, that as it “looked as though large-scale fighting in Korea would end very soon,” the Canadian Special Forces might be more useful elsewhere. In light of this, Wrong and Perkins discussed the value in sending Canadian troops possibly to Europe instead, as the United States desired a larger Asiatic commitment in protecting Korea to maintain security after the war and Canadian commitments in Europe would assuage some French fears that Germany might build up arms. However, Wrong also indicated that if Special Forces were not committed to Korea, they certainly must be committed elsewhere. If uncommitted, Wrong expected that Canadian relations with the United States would be adversely affected, with Washington likely to restrict the flow of military supplies and scarce materials to Canada. Even as Wrong wrote that Special Forces just needed to be committed somewhere, either in Europe or Korea, to appease the Americans, there is also a note that Canadian forces should be in Korea in at least tokenistic numbers to show their support for the UN mission.