Wartime secrets and the men charged with manipulating Canadian public opinion are unveiled for the first time in this riveting account of media censorship by the government during World War II.

The Canadian government censored the news during World War II for two main reasons: to keep military and economic secrets out of enemy hands and to prevent civilian morale from breaking down. But in those tumultuous times -- with Nazi spies landing on our shores by raft, U-boat attacks in the St. Lawrence, army mutinies in British Columbia, and Ontario and pro-Hitler propaganda in the mainstream Quebec press -- censors had a hard time keeping news events contained.

Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. In Mark Bourrie's illuminating and well-researched account, we learn about the capture of a Nazi spy-turned-double agent, the Japanese-Canadian editor who would one day help develop Canada's medicare system, the curious chiropractor from Saskatchewan who spilled atomic bomb secrets to a roomful of people and the use of censorship to stop balloon bomb attacks from Japan. The Fog of War investigates the realities of media censorship through the experiences of those deputized to act on the public's behalf.

MARK BOURRIE holds a PhD in Canadian media and military history; he is a National Magazine Award–winning journalist and has been a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1994. He has written hundreds of freelance pieces for most of the country’s major magazines and newspapers, which have resulted in several awards and nominations.

Bourrie lectures on propaganda and censorship at the Department of National Defence School of Public Affairs; media history and propaganda at Carleton University; and Canadian studies at the University of Ottawa, where he is also working on a Juris Doctor degree.

Bourrie’s book The Fog of War: Censorship of Canada’s Media in World War Two was the first examination of Canada’s wartime news-control system. It reached number six on the Maclean’s bestseller list. His academic paper “The Myth of the 'Gagged Clam': William Lyon Mackenzie King’s Press Relations,” published in Global Media Journal in 2010, is considered the authoritative analysis of the media strategies of Canada’s longest-serving prime minister. In 2011, Bourrie was invited to contribute to a collection of papers written by Canada’s top military historians. His essay “Harnessing Journalists to the War Machine” was published in 2012 in Canada and the Second World War.

Bourrie lives in Ottawa and is married to Marion Van de Wetering, a corporate lawyer working for the federal government. They have three children.

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