Ogdensburg Agreement

A 1940 agreement between Canadian Prime Minister Wm Lyon Mackenzie King and US President F. D. Roosevelt. It primarily inaugurated closer Canadian-American military co-operation and established the Permanent Joint Board of Defence.

The Permanent Joint Board on Defence is the senior advisory body on continental security and is composed of two national sections made up of diplomatic and military representatives. Its meetings have served as a window on Canada-US defence relations for more than five decades. The Board has examined virtually every important joint defence measure undertaken since the end of the Second World War, including construction of the Distant Early Warning Line of radars, the creation of the North American Air (later Aerospace) Defence ([NORAD])command in 1958, the bi-national operation of the underwater acoustic surveillance system and high-frequency direction finding network, and the decision to proceed with the North American Air Defence Modernization program in 1985.