Roy Slemon

Air Marshal Charles Roy Slemon, CB, CBE, CD (7 November 1904 – 12 February 1992), known as Roy Slemon, was the Royal Canadian Air Force's Chief of the Air Staff from 1953 to 1957. In 1957 he was appointed as the first Deputy Commander of NORAD.

Career Slemon joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1922. After an early military career flying Vickers Vedettes, he served as Senior Staff Officer and then as the Commander of Canada's Western Air Command from 1938 to 1941. After a posting to the United Kingdom, Slemon became Senior Air Staff Officer at No. 6 (Canadian) Bomber Group in 1942.

Slemon became Air Officer Commanding Training Command at CFB Trenton in 1949, Chief of the Air Staff in 1953 and Deputy Commander in Chief of NORAD in 1957.

His next call was to NORAD's second-in-command, Slemon, then located in Cheyenne's counterpart at CFB North Bay. While the call was being connected, the alert status went to level 4, and then 5, indicating the BMEWS site was almost positive an attack was underway, and giving Slemon the authority to order the immediate release of SAC's Airborne Alert force for attack on the USSR. By the time the call was connected, Brigadier General Harris Hull, NORAD's chief of intelligence, joined the call. After the situation was explained, Slemon asked where Khrushchev was at that moment. Hull replied that he was in New York City attending the United Nations. Slemon considered it extremely unlikely that an attack would take place that would likely kill Khrushchev, and asked Hull if there were any intelligence indications that such an attack was being prepared. Hull answered no, and Slemon broke protocol to call off further escalation of the now level-5 alert.