Cold War And Peace

The Cold War dominates the next section at the War Museum. This is the M3 Half Track, an armoured vehicle that was in use during the Korean War, which is examined in this section.

Ted Zuber was a soldier during that war, fighting as part of the Canadian efforts as a parachutist and sniper. He had enlisted while still an art student, and came away from the war with memories that later fueled his art. Several of his paintings hang here in this section. Reverse Slope finds soldiers in downtime at the front.

New Year's Eve captures Zuber's time in tunnels near the front, a particularly tense final day of the year with enemy grenades wrecking havoc.

A mock up of a situation room you might have found at a military base in the 70s or 80s is found here. The screens include stats on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and feature war game scenarios of World War Three.

Peacekeeping is also examined in this section. The blue beret of UN peacekeepers is a familiar sight, and one is on display.

It was Lester Pearson, our esteemed prime minister, who was critical in devising the concept of peacekeeping during the Suez Crisis, at a time when he was foreign minister. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts- the original is displayed today at our foreign ministry, while a replica is displayed here with other service medals for Pearson, who as a young man had served in the First World War.

This painting is titled Hercules Aircraft At Ismaila, Egypt, by Colin Williams, showing a Canadian peacekeeping operation from 1974.

The October Crisis of 1970 is also examined. The Front de Liberation de Quebec, a terrorist group, kidnapped a British diplomat and kidnapped and murdered a provincial cabinet minister. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the only peacetime use of the War Measures Act to respond to the crisis, and he can be seen on a display screen here, speaking to a reporter at the time. CBC reporter Tim Ralfe asked the PM at the height of the crisis how far he might go in terms of suspending civil liberties to maintain order, and Trudeau's famous response was "well, just watch me."

Here we have artillery equipment of the era.

An editorial cartoonist by Adrian Raeside is featured here from the 1980s- the time of Brian Mulroney and government contract scandals. Raeside has left his days of editorials behind him, but you might know him from the daily comic strip The Other Coast.

As the Cold War moved into its final decade, new faces emerged in leadership on both sides.

The fall of 1989 and the end of the Cold War is examined as the Cold War section concludes. A section of the Berlin Wall is given a prominent spot. The federal government hosted a conference of foreign ministers in the wake of that autumn to determine the future of the two German states, and the Wall section was given to Canada as a gesture of thanks. On the side that would have faced West Berlin, it has graffiti. On the side facing East Berlin, there is none.