----- Original Message ----- From: "frank theriault"
Subject: Re: Peso Camel meets Arrow
I think what really happened is that the US military-industrial complex kicked into high gear, lobbied Washington, who informed Dief that he would sell zero Arrows to the US, any other NATO country or any country in the "free world". With no buyers it would have been a financial flop at the taxpayers expense. "You could continue to sink tax dollars into the Arrow, or you could, for less money, buy our Bomarcs..."
Perhaps, but if you are really interested in self defence, are you going to depend on weaponry from a foriegn country that potentially could cut off the supply of critical equipment, thereby rendering what you've bought dead weight.
Of course, what we bought instead never worked, so in the end, we sold off our ability to defend ourselves without external aid and got nothing in return for it except contempt from American neocons who quite rightfully chastize us for not holding up our end of the stick WRT North American defence.
The Arrow was a wonderful airplane, certainly advanced for its day, but I don't think it was quite as perfect as people seem to think. It's been mythologized far beyond its capabilities, methinks.
The Arrow was the most advanced aircraft of the day, whether perfect or not is immaterial. Ike had one short meeting with Dief, and that was enough to scrap the project. I strongly doubt that it was a touchy feely negotiation so much as a veiled threat. My father was a historian with a special interest in the military history of Canada. Apparently he had some contact with Dief in his later years. He described the meeting as an iron fist in a velvet glove.
William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
