Cold actions, cold methods, cold war: Canadian foreign policy and the Prague Coup of 1948

This thesis will view Canadian Cold War policies through the prism of the coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948. It is the first account, based on primary sources, of the Canadian government's response to the coup in Czechoslovakia, of government and media attitudes towards the republic, and of the manner in which the Communist revolution in 1948 affected foreign policy. It will also examine some of the perceptions that Canadian diplomats and foreign policy experts held about the Soviet Union and Communist ideology between 1943 when Canada set up its first Moscow diplomatic mission, and 1949, the year that NATO was formed. The aim of this thesis is to compare attitudes before and after the coup in order to assess Canadian images of the Soviet Union, and also test historians' claims about Canada's role in the Western alliance and the Cold War.