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Cold Warrior: C. S. Jackson and the United Electrical Workers. By Doug Smith. (St.John's: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1997. x, 274 pp. Paper, X24.95, ISBN 0-9695835-7-5.) Doug Smith, a Winnipeg free-lance historian, has written the first biography of Clarence Shirley Jackson. Jackson was the central leader of the Canadian District of the United Electrical Workers (UE) from 1937 until his retirement in 1980. During this period, the UE was one of the largest left-wing unions in Canada, and Jackson, a Communist party supporter, was one of the most important labor leftists.
Cold Warrior had an odd genesis. Jackson (who won the Canadian lottery after his retirement) commissioned Smith to write his biography. He proved to be an uncooperative subject and blocked access to material. When he died in 1993, his daughter arranged...