321. Editorial Note
The third meeting of the U.S.-Canadian Ministerial Committee on Joint Defense was held at Montebello, Quebec, July 12–13. Secretary of the Treasury Anderson, Secretary of Defense Gates, and Under Secretary of State Merchant led the U.S. Delegation; Minister of External Affairs Green and Minister of National Defense Pearkes led the Canadian. In the course of three regular and one secret session, the committee discussed the international situation, the continental air defense system, nuclear weapons policy, outer space, NATO, and production sharing in joint defense.
No record of the regular sessions has been found in Department of State files, but they are briefly summarized in the journal for the August 24–25 meeting of the Permanent Joint Board (see below). A four-page memorandum of the secret session held the evening of Tuesday, July 12, is in Department of State, Central Files, 611.42/7–1860, attached to a letter from Wigglesworth to Merchant, dated July 18. Background papers for the meeting and related documentation are ibid., Conference Files: Lot 64 D 559, CF 1728–1729. For text of the communiqué issued at the [Page 808] end of the meeting, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, I960, pages 309–311.
The Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defense met at Camp Gagetown, New Brunswick, August 24–25. In the course of its 2-day meeting, the Board discussed the third meeting of the Joint Defense Committee, storage of nuclear weapons, Pepperrell Air Force Base, air defense programs, operation Sky Shield, standardization, taxation of BMEWS communications, and progress reports of various joint service projects. A 21-page journal of the discussions and decisions of the meeting is in the Eisenhower Library, White House Central Files.