Ubcpress.ca :: University of British Columbia Press

search : contact us : about us : site guide : home

Search Our Catalogue

UBC Press

About UBC Press
Acknowledgements
Conferences & Events
Contact Us
Media Centre
Publishing With UBC Press
Publishers Represented
Staff Directory

Books

Awards
Catalogues
Forthcoming Titles
How To Order
Recent Reviews
Review Copies
Series

Join Our Mailing List

Sign Up
Privacy Statement

ubcpress.ca

About ubcpress.ca
Frequent Questions
Privacy Statement
Site Guide
Website Feedback

Featured Title

Cautious Beginnings

Canadian Foreign Intelligence, 1939-51

Kurt F. Jensen

$85.00 Hardcover
Release Date: 6/30/2008
ISBN: 9780774814829

$34.95 Paperback
Release Date: 1/1/2009
ISBN: 9780774814836

240 Pages

OTHER WAYS TO ORDER

About the 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.

Drawing on newly released materials and exhaustive research, he describes Canada’s contributions to Allied intelligence before the war began, as well as the distinctly Canadian activities that started from that point. He reveals how the government created an intelligence organization during the war to aid Allied resources and established operations such as SIGINT, or Signal Intelligence, which intercepted and decrypted Vichy and Free French diplomatic communications.

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 rivalled 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.

Drawing on newly released materials and exhaustive research, this book will greatly interest students and academics in Canadian history, political science, military history, specialists in the field, and anyone interested in the often mysterious world of foreign intelligence.

About the Author(s)

Kurt F. Jensen is a former Canadian diplomat whose assignments included work with foreign intelligence. He also teaches political science at Carleton University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Foreign Intelligence at the Beginning of the War

2. The Birth of the Examination Unit

3. Building Alliances

4. Canadian HUMINT Collection

5. The Mousetrap Operation, 1942-43

6. Canadian Intelligence at War

7. Planning for Postwar SIGINT

8. Postwar Intelligence Structures

9. The Postwar SIGINT Community

Conclusion

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Reviews

"Kurt F. Jensen has written a thoroughly researched study of an elusive subject: the origins of the modern Canadian intelligence community…. His survey of the Canadian archives is complete. The result is a convincing picture of how Canada constructed a small but effective system for collecting and analyzing intelligence during World War II."
--Richard J. Aldrich, University of Warwick

"Kurt Jensen’s fine book contributes much to our understanding of the early foundations and evolution of the complex and well-developed security and intelligence world in which Canada finds itself today." -- Reg Whitaker

Sample Chapter

Front Matter and Chapter One