Middle Kingdom

From his headquarters at Edmonton, the commanding officer of the North West Air Command looks out and up into a vast aerial kingdom. His domain stretches 2,000 miles from Lake of the Woods to the Pacific, and 2,000 miles from the 49th Parallel to the polar seas. Prairie flying schools trained 131,553 flyers for World War II. Through North West's staging fields pass B-29s, shuttling between the U.S. and Alaska (half of the Edmonton field is set aside for Americans).

Last week, the R.C.A.F. announced that Air Vice Marshal Kenneth M. Guthrie, an oldster of 49, was retiring from the service. To replace him as boss of the North West Command it named Air Vice Marshal Hugh Lester Campbell, 40.

Lean, long-faced Hugh Campbell had moved up to administrative jobs before the shooting started in World War II. As Director of Training Plans he was general manager of the Commonwealth's pilot-training program for a year and a half. Then, as a member of the Air Staff, he saw the R.C.A.F. in action from Britain to India. In the North African desert, his jeep ran over a land mine. Lucky Campbell's worst injury was a broken eardrum (which has healed).

Campbell's hobby is cooking (he is reputedly able to turn Britain's austerity rations into tasty dishes). His professional obsession is interservice cooperation. Says Campbell: "Duplication of effort means jealousies and diversion of effort. Canada is just not big enough to take it." Privately, to the horror of all good navy men, he has urged putting all three services into the same uniform.

Last week Campbell was catching up on his piloting after a year spent flying a desk at the Imperial Defense College in-London. Soon he will tour U.S. airbases, perhaps visit Alaska. Then he will be ready to rule the middle kingdom between the U.S. and the strategic north.

Twenty-five years ago, at the University of Toronto, three history lecturers became fast friends. Two, Lester Bowles Pearson and Hume Wrong, went into Canada's foreign service; George Parkin de Twene-brokes Glazebrook stayed on as a history professor. During the war, Mike Pearson drafted Glazebrook to help him in the Department of External Affairs. Last week Glazebrook was drafted again, to direct Canada's Joint Intelligence Bureau.

The intelligence sections of Canada's three armed services and of the Defense Research Board are all specialists. None of the four has the manpower trained to carry out basic geographic and economic research. That is the job of the Joint Intelligence Bureau.

A beanpole (6 ft. 1 1/2 in.) bachelor with a dry sense of humor, Glazebrook writes on foreign policy with full attention to underlying economic and geographic factors. As JIB's boss, he will have the job of telling the other intelligence arms what they need to know about other countries--their steel production, flying weather, rivers & harbors, and the load limits of their bridges.

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