...
Foulkes’ proposal, in short, was for a balanced but effective agency both to collect foreign
intelligence and to protect domestic secrets. There was no thought of simply turning into an
intelligence consumer or a free-rider. This was not simply a matter of self-respect; it reflected a
shrewd understanding, based on wartime experience as a significant member of a successful
military coalition, of how alliances, including intelligence alliances, worked. In 1945, Canadians,
at least in the military, had no desire to become dependent on anyone, even their closest friends.
In the event, Canada did not follow its allies in establishing a foreign intelligence service. Alistair
Hensler, a former director general of operations at CSIS, suggested that two key personalities
shaped the decision not to follow the American and British examples: Robertson and Glazebrook
(Hensler 1995, 17–18). During the war, Robertson assumed personal responsibility for foreign
intelligence, but with nothing written down, as Glazebrook said, there was no institutional
memory external to Robertson’s memory and no formal structures to manage intelligence flow.
On some issues, he maintained an arm’s length relationship from foreign intelligence because he
knew Mackenzie King’s ignorance of, and limited tolerance for, the subject. Instead, a Toronto
businessman, Thomas Drew-Brook of British Security Coordination, became the principal British
intelligence contact in Canada, even though the latter was based in New York. Drew-Brook
informed Robertson regularly about his activities, but as time passed, the regularity of this contact
waned. It is unclear what foreign intelligence matters Robertson dealt with personally, although
Drew-Brook, who operated outside the government and who had no decision-making authority
within it, coordinated much of the operational support for British foreign intelligence in Canada.
(Incidentally, Jack Granatstein, Robertson’s biographer, was given access to all files, “except
those relating to security and intelligence questions,” so that the open documentary record is thin
[Granatstein 1981, xiv, 168]). As a result, no one in the post-war government outside the
mandarins in External Affairs knew or understood the full extent of Canadian support of foreign
intelligence operations or developed an appreciation of its potential benefits (Hensler 1995, 19).
Not until many years later was the espionage training at Camp X even acknowledged.
In contrast to Robertson, George Glazebrook confined his experience and knowledge of
intelligence to communications intercepts and had little involvement with foreign human
intelligence. Even that more sanitized experience evidently caused Glazebrook to develop a
singular distaste for spying in general. While he was quick to support a continuation of Canada’s
communications intercept activities, he regarded other aspects of foreign intelligence as purely
wartime expedients and was adamant that Canada could not afford the necessary commitment of
resources to contribute anything to the work done by British Secret Intelligence Service or by
CIA. According to Starnes, Glazebrook approached security and intelligence matters as “an
irresistible intellectual challenge,” as is, perhaps, inevitable for an academic in the spy business.
Partly as a result of his approach, he was not universally admired by the military, and he
reciprocated by thinking they were not very bright, “which made for uneasy relations between
External Affairs and National Defence” (Starnes 1998, 84).
When External Affairs and National Defence did get together at meetings of the Joint Intelligence
Committee, the chairmanship was in the hands of the military. Glazebrook represented External.
In 1946, the chairmanship passed permanently to External. There is “no written record” of why
this happened, though Starnes is of the opinion that it happened simply because Robertson
insisted (Starnes 1998, 95). According to Granatstein, Robertson wanted post-war Canada to
support only a security intelligence capability, and he preferred that it be internal to the civilian
ministries, with the Privy Council Office acting as a coordinating committee along British lines
(absent, of course, any Canadian equivalent of MI6). “The intent,” said Granatstein, “was clearly
to keep security questions close by the Department of External Affairs and as far away from
National Defence as possible. The suggestion of Privy Council Office control did that”
(Granatstein 1981, 181).
There was a division, therefore, between the clear-eyed military who saw the benefit of a
dedicated foreign intelligence service, and the distinguished “Ottawa men” who did not
(Granatstein 1998). Even Sir William Stephenson, who served the Allied intelligence effort
during World War II, was unable to persuade Canadian officials to establish a foreign intelligence
collection agency. He visited Ottawa and met with Lester Pearson, then undersecretary for
external affairs (Robertson by then was high commissioner in London), who was unmoved by
Stephenson’s argument. Alistair Hensler summarized the result: “Canada therefore entered the
post-war period unconvinced of the need for a foreign intelligence service … Unlike their
American and British counterparts, Canadian policy makers were unable or unwilling to
conceptualize the role of a foreign intelligence service in a period of relative peace” (Hensler
1995, 20). The reason seems to be that Robertson and Glazebrook, two men whose personal
distaste for spying and idiosyncratic opinions about the importance of foreign intelligence, were
tasked with planning and developing the post-war Canadian intelligence community. As to why
they held those views, the biographic record is regrettably silent. The consequence, however, is
clear: No spies for Canada.
As a postscript to this fateful post-war decision, Starnes reported an encounter in the mid-1950s
with Robertson. Starnes was, at the time, the liaison officer in External tasked with coordinating
business with the military. Ralph Harry, the head of the newly established Australian Secret
Intelligence Service, raised the issue of the desirability, from an Australian perspective, of a
Canadian foreign or secret intelligence service. Starnes took the message to Robertson
“reluctantly.” When Starnes spoke to Robertson, “he gave one of his huge sighs and looked at me
rather reproachfully, but said nothing. He had decided to refuse the proposal, but so far as I know,
it never was recorded – not by him and certainly not by me” (Starnes 1998, xi).
Finally in 1958, Robertson wrote about the need to review Canadian intelligence services. He
wanted to create a “National Intelligence Body” to coordinate intelligence across all government
departments. He did not, however, propose an offensive, foreign intelligence body such as CIA
because “the coordination of intelligence through the creation of a new agency here [in
Washington, where Robertson was serving as Canadian ambassador] has caused as many
difficulties as it has solved.” Moreover, it has taken a decade for CIA to get to the point where it
“has approached the performance of its statutory role” (Granatstein 1981, 331). Besides, he
continued, a central agency works better under the American system of government, and it was
difficult for him to see how such an agency could operate outside a particular government
department. Again he advocated the creation of an interdepartmental committee chaired by the
Department of External Affairs. At the height of the Cold War, Robertson exemplified the
questionable virtue of consistency along with unquestionable loyalty to “his” department,
External Affairs...
Three year necropost though. I wonder if that approaches a site record? 
