Part One: Survey

Canada's position as the geographic barrier between the United States and the Soviet Union lent great strategic importance to its air and navy bases. The USAF had been present in Newfoundland since the Second World War, but as policies of deterrence developed in the early 1950s, the USAF and SAC required increasing use of Canadian land and airspace.

The following documents lay out the diplomatic process of surveying potential bases, the construction of which was an expensive undertaking for an impermanent operation and required both internal and external cooperation on the part of both governments and Air Force services.