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and anticrop agents. Although the biological and toxin munitions tested
at Suffield were not used during World War II, Canada's military and po-
litical leaders were sufficiently impressed with their potential that they
decided to retain most of the CBW wartime facilities, and the services
of key university and military BW scientists, under the auspices of the
newly created Defence Research Board.
6
Whereas during the war the civilian National Research Council had co-
ordinated Canada's CBW activities, the DRB was a unit of the Depart-
ment of Defence, with its own director general, Dr. Omond Solandt. A re-
spected medical scientist and skillful administrator, Solandt recognized
the importance of reestablishing the wartime Anglo-American-Canadian
BW system that would give Canadian scientists access to top-secret
American and British BW research while, in return, making Suffield
available for large-scale US and UK field tests with chemical agents and
BW agents or simulants.
7
In pursuing this goal, he utilized the services of
the special DRB Biological Sub-Committee, composed of scientists who
had been involved with wartime research either at Suffield, Ottawa, or in
the university laboratories of McGill, Queen's, or Toronto. This small ex-
pert group had another important asset: they were personally acquainted
with the scientists who were directing the US and UK programs during
the postwar years.
8
The founding meeting of the Tripartite Conference took place in Au-
gust 1946 in the US. It began with David Henderson, director of Porton
Down's biological warfare research center (the Microbiological Research
Department, or MRD), providing an overview of Britain's priorities and
problems, notably the limited number of qualified scientists, minimal
research facilities, and difficulties of reconciling military and scientific
goals. A similar message came from the DRB team, who gave assurances
that Canada's BW wartime operation would continue, though at a re-
duced level, “for continuing fundamental and basic research at Kingston
and field experiments at Suffield.” Priority would be given to three proj-
ects: insect vectors, the problems of ground contamination, and field tri-
als with BW munitions. In summary, Solandt called for “close coopera-
tion in the research and development of BW between Canada, Great
Britain and the United States...[with] close scientific cooperation more
important than cooperation at the policy level.” General Alden H. Waitt,
head of the US Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), echoed this viewpoint,
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