1000 words comparison essay

No, Prime Minister: Revisiting Diefenbaker and the ‘‘Pearsonalities’’

BY ASA MCKERCHER1

Abstract: John Diefenbaker has been portrayed as having been out of his league in foreign affairs. In part, his lack of foreign policy successes have been blamed on his poor relationship with Canadian diplomats, who he feared were ‘‘Pearsonalities’’ loyal to former Liberal foreign minister Lester Pearson. Yet, historians have largely dismissed Diefenbaker’s suspicions. First revisiting the poor relationship between Diefenbaker and the diplomats, this article then focuses on one highly divisive policy issue: the prime minister’s rhetorical war against the Soviet Union, notably a campaign, carried out from 1960–62, to have the un pass a resolution condemning Soviet colonialism. Commentators have been unkind toward this campaign, in part because it was so obviously driven by domestic political calculations but also, and relatedly, because it sparked a feud between the prime minister and Canadian diplomats. As this article makes clear, there were in fact Pearsonalities actively working against Diefenbaker on this issue, a finding that raises questions about the Canadian tradition of civil service loyalty and that fits within the ongoing histor- iographical trend of adding nuance to the study of Diefenbaker’s foreign policy.

Keywords: John Diefenbaker, Department of External Affairs, Canadian Foreign Policy, Civil Service, Soviet Colonialism

Résumé analytique : John Diefenbaker a été représenté comme étant hors de sa ligue dans les affaire étrangères. Son manque de succès dans ce domaine est en partie attribué aux mauvaises relations avec les diplomates canadiens qu’il craignait était des ‘‘Pearsonalités’’ et fidèle à l’ancien ministre libéral des affaires étrangères, Lester Pearson. Pourtant, les historiens ont largement rejeté ses doutes. En premier lieu revisitant les pauvre relations entre Diefenbaker et les diplomates, cet article porte ensuite sur un enjeu politique conflictuel en particulier: le combat rhétorique du premier ministre contre l’Union soviétique pendant une campagne entre 1960 et 1962 pour développer une résolution de l’ONU dénonçant le colonialisme soviétique. La campagne a généré des critiques en partie parce qu’elle était motivée par les politiques domestiques, mais aussi parce qu’elle a déclenché une querelle entre le premier ministre et les diplomates canadiens. Cet article prouve qu’il y avait en effet des ‘‘Pearsonalités’’ travaillant activement contre Diefenbaker pendant ce temps, ce qui soulève des questions concernant la tradition canadienne de loyauté de la fonction publique. Cette recherche correspond bien avec la tendance historiographi- que d’ajouter une nuance à l’étude des affaires étrangères de Diefenbaker.

Mots-clés : John Diefenbaker; ministère des Affaires extérieures; politique étrangère canadienne; fonction publique; colonialisme soviétique

1 My thanks to Greg Donaghy and Michael Stevenson for their comments on a draft of this paper.

Canadian Journal of History / Annales canadiennes d’histoire 52.2 6 2017

doi: 10.3138/cjh.ach.52.2.003

The 2015 Canadian election result was greeted with considerable joy by many civil servants in Ottawa, especially by Canada’s foreign service. After close to a decade of Conservative foreign policy, one reporter noted that ‘‘in frank off-the-record conversations with former ambassadors and foreign affairs experts, it was clear there was almost universal relief that what one retired diplomat called ‘the dark ages’ of the Stephen Harper years were over. ‘On election night there was this huge collective sigh,’ he said.’’2 Diplomatic schadenfreude over the Harper government’s demise seemed to recall bureaucratic relief at the fall of another Tory prime minister, John Diefenbaker. Writing in his diary following the Tories’ electoral defeat in April 1963, Charles Ritchie, Canada’s ambassador in Washington, un- doubtedly reflected the views of many of his colleagues: ‘‘The government is out. Diefenbaker is gone. . . I consider his disappearance a deliverance; there should be prayers of thanksgiving in the churches. And these senti- ments do not come from a Liberal.’’3

That both Harper and Diefenbaker provoked considerable enmity from certain quarters of the civil service should not be surprising: both prime ministers promoted — or were seen to promote — policies that challenged the status quo in certain areas, often with an eye toward domestic politics. As long-time diplomat Arthur Andrew put it: ‘‘Diefenbaker, perhaps more than any new prime minister up to then, actually tried to give Canadian foreign policy not just his own imprint but a new spin.’’4 Harper, mean- while, took positions on Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and environ- mental diplomacy, which were at variance with previous policies. ‘‘As you know,’’ Harper remarked in 2014, ‘‘[W]e have brought in a different ap- proach to foreign affairs from previous governments, previous Liberal governments,’’ whose stance was to ‘‘‘go along to get along.’ Whatever the consensus is, just sign on to it. We have taken stronger stands when we view that important issues, important interests and important values, are at stake.’’5 Austerity measures worsened the divide between civil servants and their political masters (resulting in a foreign service strike in 2013) as

2 Patrick Martin, ‘‘Ottawa brings fresh vibe to festering age-old issues in Middle East,’’ Globe and Mail, 22 January 2016: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/ world/ottawa-brings-fresh-vibe-to-festering-age-old-issues-in-middle-east/ article28360460/ accessed 24 January 2017.

3 Charles Ritchie, Storm Signals: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1962–1971 (Toronto, 1983), 47.

4 Arthur Andrew, The Rise and Fall of a Middle Power: Canadian Diplomacy from King to Mulroney (Toronto, 1993), 52.

5 Steven Chase, ‘‘Transcript: Harper explains why he still wants to be prime minister,’’ 17 December 2014: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ transcript-harper-explains-why-he-still-wants-to-be-prime-minister/ article22129003/ accessed 24 January 2017.

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did an overarching directive to ‘‘Do nothing without instructions. Do not expect instructions.’’6

As for Diefenbaker, his stumbles in foreign policy have become legendary. Although recent more nuanced treatments by historians have cast new light on the prairie populist’s handling of global affairs, still, there is little doubt that the Chief, as he was popularly known, rubbed Canadian diplomats the wrong way.7 Moreover, he himself was deeply suspicious of the loyalties of the civil service due to what he and other Tories feared were deep ties between bureaucrats and the Liberal Party, which had been in power for twenty-two years prior to Diefenbaker’s June 1957 election win. A special target of his ire was the Department of External Affairs (dea), formerly headed by Lester Pearson, who became Liberal leader in January 1958. No wonder, then, that Diefenbaker saw the dea as a haven for what he called the ‘Pearsonalities,’ diplomats allegedly committed to their former minister and to Pearsonian foreign policy. Diplomats’ recollections of this period are replete with references of the tense relationship between the prime minister and the foreign service. The Chief’s views were ‘‘under- standable,’’ wrote Arthur Andrew, ‘‘but Diefenbaker was given to over- simplification,’’ while J.C. Gordon Brown admitted that ‘‘[t]here was some truth in his suspicion that we were ‘Pearson’s old gang,’ although he was off base in that as a general assessment.’’ Indeed, there were some diplomats who embraced the label. George Ignatieff, for one, proudly boasted: ‘‘I was what Diefenbaker used to call a ‘Pearsonality.’’’8

Although these diplomats’ comments indicate some sense of guilt or at least an admission that Diefenbaker was not wholly wrong about the dea’s Pearsonian inclinations, historians have stoutly risen to the civil

6 John Ibbitson, ‘‘Stephen Harper: The Making of a Prime Minister,’’ Globe and Mail, 31 July 2015.

7 For nuanced or favourable analyses of Diefenbaker’s handling of foreign affairs, see: Kevin Spooner, Canada, the Congo Crisis, and UN Peacekeeping, 1960–1964 (Vancouver, 2009); Patricia McMahon, Essence of Indecision: Diefenbaker’s Nuclear Policy, 1957–1963 (Montréal and Kingston, 2009); Asa McKercher, ‘‘Southern Exposure: Diefenbaker, Latin America, and the Organization of American States,’’ Canadian Historical Review 93.1 (2012): 57–80; Michael D. Stevenson, ‘‘‘A Very Careful Balance’: The 1961 Triangular Agreement and the Conduct of Canadian-American Relations,’’ Diplomacy & Statecraft 24.2 (2013): 291– 311; Idem, ‘‘‘Tossing a Match into Dry Hay’: Nuclear Weapons and the Crisis in U.S.-Canadian Relations, 1962–1963,’’ Journal of Cold War Studies 16.4 (2014): 5–34; and Ryan Touhey, Conflicting Visions: Canada and India in the Cold War World, 1946–76 (Vancouver, 2015).

8 Andrew, Rise and Fall, 48; J.C. Gordon Brown, Blazed Along a Diplomatic Trail: A Memoir of Four Posts in the Canadian Foreign Service (Victoria, 2000), iv; George Ignatieff, The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff (Toronto, 1985), 173.

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servants’ defence. J.L. Granatstein noted that the suspicions were ‘‘understand- able’’ yet ‘‘unjustified,’’ while Hector Mackenzie offered the assurance that ‘‘[c]ontrary to Diefenbaker’s suspicion and expectation the Canadian foreign service did its best to serve the new gov- ernment well and to implement its poli- cies effectively.’’ In the most incisive overview of the split between the prime minister and the diplomats, John Hilliker has shown the extent to which Diefenbaker’s antagonism toward External Affairs blunted the effec- tiveness of Canadian policymaking, and as he has attested, ‘‘there is a great deal of testimony that members of the Department of External Affairs upheld the principle of nonpartisanship and indeed took considerable care to avoid even innocent social relationships with Pearson, which, if mis- understood, might give rise to suspicion.’’9 From such analyses, one could be forgiven for thinking that Canadian diplomats were a valiant lot, work- ing under considerable duress for a man out of his depth in the world.10

I want to complicate this story. Given the recent more nuanced treat- ments of Diefenbaker that have emerged in the historiography, it is time to add some nuance to relations between Diefenbaker and the diplomats. First revisiting this relationship, I then focus on one highly divisive policy issue: the prime minister’s rhetorical war against the Soviet Union, notably a campaign, carried out from 1960–62, to have the un pass a resolution con- demning Soviet colonialism in Eastern Europe. Commentators have been unkind toward this campaign, in part because it was driven by domestic political calculations but also — and relatedly — because it sparked ‘‘a

9 J.L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935–1957 (Toronto, 1998 [1982]), 277; Hector Mackenzie, ‘‘Golden Decade(s)? Re- appraising Canada’s International Relations in the 1940s and 1950s,’’ British Journal of Canadian Studies 23.2 (2010): 192; John Hilliker, ‘‘The Politicians and the ‘Pearsonalities’: The Diefenbaker Government and the Conduct of Canadian External Relations,’’ Historical Papers 19 (1984): 153. Perhaps more consequentially given the import of the CF-105 AVRO Arrow, NORAD, and the Cuban missile and BOMARC missile crises, Diefenbaker also clashed with Canada’s military; see observations by E. Davie Fulton and George Pearkes in Reginald H. Roy, For Conspicuous Bravery: A Biography of Major- General George R. Pearkes, V.C., Through Two World Wars (Vancouver, 1977), 324, 341.

10 In much of the mythologizing about a postwar golden age of Canadian foreign policy, 1957 serves as a major demarcation point where Canada began to lose its influence abroad. The subtext is that this slippage was the result of Diefenbaker steering policy away from its Pearsonian course. More on this, below.

Diefenbaker saw the dea as a haven for what he called the ‘Pearsonalities,’ diplomats allegedly committed to their former minister and to Pearsonian foreign policy.

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bitter feud between the dea and the prime minister’’ and became ‘‘the biggest single irritant between him and the Department of External Affairs.’’11

For his part, Diefenbaker reflected in his memoirs: ‘‘I have never under- stood the reluctance of Canadian External Affairs officials, or indeed of some Canadian politicians, to criticize the Soviet Union. Why are these people loath even to speak out against the diabolical cruelties perpetrated by the USSR against captive peoples whom have committed no offence, even under Soviet law?’’12 This is not an article that debates the merits of this campaign, which has been done elsewhere; suffice it to say that there were indeed captive peoples behind the iron curtain and that Diefenbaker was not wrong in highlighting their plight.13 Rather, it is meant to show — as evidence from British and American archives makes clear — that on this specific issue, Diefenbaker was quite right to see that there were Pearsonalities working against him even if he was wrong by overstating that there was a conspiracy of senior civil servants ‘‘underground, quietly working against my government and waiting for the Liberals to return to power.’’14

Contrary to the views of Granatstein, Mackenzie, and Hilliker, then, this paper shows that the diplomats’ hands were not entirely clean. Still, in terms of the deterioration of the relationship between the prime minister and the dea, Diefenbaker bears considerable blame, chiefly because of the climate that he created. As Arnold Heeney put it in early 1962 with reference to the ‘‘malaise and discouragement’’ that the prime minister had created: ‘‘The consequence is demoralizing — to produce, it seems to me, the very attitude that the P.M. may fear or suspect viz. that ‘they are all Pearson men.’’’15 Making clear his distaste for the diplomats, Diefen- baker did little to engender their wholehearted support. Finally, this paper concludes with some thoughts on the relationship between Canadian prime ministers and diplomats.

11 Jamie Glazov, Canadian Policy toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (Montréal & Kingston, 2002), 129; H. Basil Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World: A Populist In Foreign Affairs (Toronto, 1989), 226. And see: Peyton V. Lyon, Canada in World Affairs 1961–1963 (Toronto, 1968), 65; Hilliker, ‘‘Politicians and the ‘Pearson- alities,’’’ 158–60.

12 John Diefenbaker, One Canada: Memoirs of the Right Honourable John G. Diefen- baker, The Years of Achievement 1957–1962 (Toronto, 1976), 131.

13 Asa McKercher, ‘‘Sound and Fury: Diefenbaker, Human Rights, and Cana- dian Foreign Policy,’’ Canadian Historical Review 97.2 (2016): 165–94; Idem, ‘‘The Trouble with Self-Determination: Canada, Soviet Colonialism, and the United Nations, 1960–1963,’’ International Journal of Human Rights 20.3 (2016): 343–64.

14 Diefenbaker, One Canada, 53–4. 15 Library and Archives Canada [hereafter LAC], A.D.P. Heeney Papers, vol. 2

file 30, Diary Entry, 4 February 1962.

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I. THE CHIEF AND THE PEARSONALITIES

Two commentators presented the struggle between Harper and Ottawa officialdom as a battle between Western conservatism and Central Cana- dian liberalism.16 This conflict went beyond simple policy differences and represented a clash between differing political cultures, underlain by re- gional divisions. Similar tensions were in play in 1957, with Diefenbaker, a small-town prairie lawyer with little executive experience, taking over the reigns of government; the same was true for most of his incoming ministers.17 The capital, meanwhile, was populated by the Ottawa Men, able civil servants who had overseen a period of huge economic growth and a golden age of Canadian engagement with the world. As their biographer has noted, Diefenbaker’s ascendance in 1957 saw the breaking of their power.18 From 1935 to 1957, these mandarins had worked with Liberal administrations, and became accustomed to Liberal ways, or at least to Liberal officials.19 There was a chummy atmosphere in Ottawa, well-captured by Charles Ritchie, who wrote in 1952 of an ‘‘absorbing little world where politicians and diplomacy merge into personalities. You spend the day working with this group of politicians, officials, and diplomats, then you dine with them, and drink with them. The dominant theme — the only point in this place — is the pursuit of power.’’20 Judging that there was ‘‘something unhealthy about its ‘incestuousness,’’’ diplomat Earl Drake added that in the capital under Louis St. Laurent there was ‘‘a comfortable feeling about the relations between civil servants at all levels and cabinet ministers,’’ who held ‘‘a common interest in a low-key, non-confrontational style of quiet consultation in order to go on presiding over a nation content with peace and prosperity.’’21 In terms of the Liberals’ longevity in office, Diefenbaker himself saw it as ‘‘natural that many public officials absorbed the political faith of the government, which in their opinion seemed destined to endure forever.’’22

16 Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Cana- dian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future (Toronto, 2013).

17 Denis Smith, Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker (Toronto, 1995), 248–9.

18 Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, 273. 19 Paul Martin Sr. would note that Diefenbaker’s problems with the civil service

stemmed from the Tory’s lack of familiarity with civil servants: Peter Sturs- berg, Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained, 1956–62 (Toronto, 1975), 145.

20 Charles Ritchie, Diplomatic Passport: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1946–1962 (Toronto, 1981), 52.

21 Earl Drake, A Stubble-Jumper In Striped Pants: Memoirs of a Prairie Diplomat (Toronto, 1999), 19, 18.

22 Diefenbaker, One Canada, 52.

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But there were other, subtler, reasons for the clash between Diefenbaker and External Affairs. While certainly a gross oversimplification, the Depart- ment was seen to be dominated by a refined set, for whom the line into the foreign service ‘‘ran roughly from Rosedale through [Upper Canada College], Trinity College and on to an Oxbridge accolade’’ and who were used to wielding power.23 This group had its share of extreme self-confidence. While making clear that members of the dea were ‘‘aware of the dangers of elitism in an egalitarian society like Canada,’’ Arthur Andrew also made reference to the Department’s ‘‘self-love’’: ‘‘If asked what they were doing in Ottawa they would reply, ‘I work for External,’ spoken flatly without any inflection that might suggest they expected the questioner to be im- pressed, which of course they did.’’ In his own memoir, Drake recalled that ‘‘we were told that we were a small elite group modelled on the old Indian Civil Service.’’ ‘‘My colleagues,’’ he added, ‘‘were bright and articu- late but some were also snobs and fops.’’ Other diplomats have noted this Departmental pretension. ‘‘We always said, simply, ‘the Department,’’’ Max Yalden reflected, ‘‘as if we were talking about the Household Guards or another institution of such ancient and distinguished lineage that it hardly needed more precision.’’ James Bartleman wrote that there was a ‘‘certain aura around ‘The Department’’’ filled with ‘‘legendary figures of the glory years of Foreign Affairs and of Ottawa’s mandarin class. . . I detected no superhuman individuals wandering the halls.’’24 Many lead- ing dea officials — Pearson most notably, but also, for example, Escott Reid, Marcel Cadieux, Arnold Heeney, as well as Drake and Bartleman — were hardly cut from Rosedale cloth, but what mattered was the percep- tion of a pretentious elite.

Into this cozy, elitist milieu came Diefenbaker, who lacked in preten- sion, had attended the University of Saskatchewan — venerable but no Oxford, let alone Cambridge — and had spent much of his political career as a backbencher far from power. Having served as his party’s external affairs critic, he was not an ingénue when it came to foreign affairs. Indeed, in 1954 cbc reporter James Minifie characterized him as ‘‘the Progressive Conservative hot shot on foreign affairs.’’25 Even so, Diefenbaker had had

23 Douglas Marshall and Eileen Turcotte, ‘‘How diplomats will be made, not born,’’ Maclean’s, 1 November 1965.

24 Andrew, Rise and Fall, 6, 4, 5; Drake, A Stubble-Jumper, 19, 20; Max Yalden, Transforming Rights: Reflections From the Front Lines (Toronto, 2009), 7; James Bartleman, On Six Continents: A Life in Canada’s Foreign Service, 1966–2002 (Toronto, 2004), 9–10. Derek Burney, too, wrote that, ‘‘The foreign service has been characterized as elitist, even monarchic or aloof from the domestic branch, and there may be some truth to this view.’’ Getting It Done: A Memoir (Montréal & Kingston, 2005), 10.

25 LAC, James Minifie Papers, vol. 2, file cbc Correspondence and Memoranda, Minifie to Leonetti, 12 June 1954.

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little experience living abroad and was certainly not Pearson, with a long diplomatic career — and a lengthy list of foreign contacts — behind him. On the cultural clash between Diefenbaker and the foreign service, one Tory Cabinet minister recorded that the Chief ‘‘never concealed his conviction that top diplomats were either pompous bores or expensive parasites.’’26

In addition to skepticism of the foreign service, Diefenbaker also brought ‘‘a change of emphasis and style that would affect the way Canada used its position as a middle power.’’27 Such changes alarmed official Ottawa. Jules Léger, who served as Diefenbaker’s first Under-secretary of State for External Affairs (ussea), complained early on of the new prime minister ‘‘that he could not understand ‘how this man’s mind works.’’’28 Mitchell Sharp, serving in 1957 as deputy minister of trade and commerce, later reflected that ‘‘[m]uch to the surprise of myself and other senior civil servants, the new government took seriously and tried to implement some policies they had advocated while in opposition that to those of us who had long experience in government were simply based on ignorance of the facts.’’29

There is no doubt that these new policies, or at least a new emphasis, generated problems between the new government and the mandarinate.30

This situation was worsened by the sense of distrust between the Tory ministers and the civil servants, which, as Arnold Heeney recalled, resulted in ‘‘a widening failure of confident official communication and a marked deterioration in the process of arriving at decisions in foreign policy.’’31

What is surprising, perhaps, is that despite his suspicions of the dea and the civil service more generally, the new prime minister did not clear house. Following the March 1958 snap election, in which the Tories won

26 Pierre Sévigny, This Game of Politics (Toronto, 1965), 187. 27 John Hilliker and Donald Barry, Canada’s Department of External Affairs, Volume

2: Coming of Age, 1946–1968 (Montréal & Kingston, 1995), 137. 28 Quoted in Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World, 8. 29 Mitchell Sharp, Which Reminds Me. . . (Toronto, 1994), 69. Granatstein notes

that an initial ‘‘atmosphere of doubt’’ was magnified when Diefenbaker used a classified economic report to attack the Liberals in the House of Commons. It was this move that led Sharp to resign his post as deputy minister of trade and commerce; soon, he joined the Liberals, a move hardly conducive to reducing Diefenbaker’s suspicions. J.L. Granatstein, A Man of Influence: Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929–68 (Ottawa, 1981), 332. Tory insider Grattan O’Leary would remark: ‘‘The first thing I would have done if I had been prime minister would have been to fire Mitchell Sharp’’: quoted in Stursberg, Diefenbaker, 148.

30 An initial point of divergence was Diefenbaker’s quixotic quest to shift 15 percent of Canadian exports from the United States to the United Kingdom: Tim Rooth, ‘‘Britain, Europe, and Diefenbaker’s Trade Diversion Proposals, 1957–58,’’ in Canada and the End of Empire, ed. Phillip Buckner (Vancouver, 2005), 117–32.

31 A.D.P. Heeney, The Things that are Caesar’s (Toronto, 1972), 179.

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the largest parliamentary majority to that point in Canadian history, the Globe and Mail urged Diefenbaker ‘‘to begin the necessary task of recon- struction — which involves the dismantlement of what has come to be called, in Ottawa, the ‘Establishment.’’’ This advice, Robert Bryce, the clerk of the privy council, told the prime minister, was sure to do ‘‘damage to the morale of the Service’’; Diefenbaker did not act on it. Instead, he sought to reassert ‘‘the notion of a political/administrative dichotomy’’ with an effort to reduce the importance of civil servants in the policymaking process. Diefenbaker did so directly in the case of the dea by serving as secretary of state for external affairs (ssea) from June to September 1957.32

Figure 1: John Diefenbaker with Jules Leger and R.B. Bryce. Photo from University of Saskatchewan, University Archives & Special Collections, John G. Diefenbaker fonds MG 411, JGD 3966.

32 ‘‘The Government and the ‘Establishment,’’’ Globe and Mail, 9 April 1958; LAC, R.B. Bryce Papers, vol. 8, file 19, Bryce to Diefenbaker, 9 April 1958; Ken Rasmussen, ‘‘Bureaucrats and Politicians in the Diefenbaker Era: A Legacy of Mistrust,’’ in The Diefenbaker Legacy: Politics, Law and Society Since 1957, eds. D.C. Story and R.B. Shepard (Regina, 1998), 155. Denis Smith notes that as ssea Diefenbaker ‘‘enjoyed the element of uncertainty created by his temporary stewardship of the department and sought in these early days to impose his permanent control over it’’: Smith, Rogue Tory, 261.

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Furthermore, he came to rely on the advice of Bryce and on the support of Basil Robinson, a young foreign service officer appointed to liaise between the prime minister’s office and the dea. Bryce and Robinson became ‘‘ex- amples to the prime minister that the senior civil service was something more than a local branch of the Liberal Party,’’ and by giving them vital roles in the policy process, Diefenbaker largely bypassed Norman Robertson, the ussea from 1958 to 1964. A long-time diplomat and friendly rival to Pearson, Robertson, though highly respected by his peers and by foreign officials, was viewed by the prime minister as ‘‘an enemy, yet another in a Department that was riddled with them.’’33 One area where Bryce’s influ- ence was felt keenly — and where Robertson was sidelined — was on the question of apartheid South Africa’s membership in the multi-racial Common- wealth, an issue that sparked a policy cleavage between the dea and Die- fenbaker. Ultimately, the prime minister sided with Bryce in supporting — in effect — South Africa’s expulsion from the Commonwealth.34

As for the prime minister’s suspicions of the dea, for insights into Depart- mental views, we might turn to Basil Robinson, who, when the Diefenbaker interregnum began, was serving as the head of the Middle Eastern Division. In June 1957, with the Tories’ election win, he wrote to Margaret Meagher, the chargé d’affaires in Tel Aviv, and described the immediate post-election atmosphere as akin to the ‘‘calm before the storm.’’ Amongst members of the foreign service there was ‘‘much sympathetic comment’’ for Pearson, and many in the Department felt that it was ‘‘a pity at a time like this [in the wake of the Suez crisis] to have him on the sidelines.’’ A month later, the tension in Ottawa had not abated, and Robinson told Meagher that Diefenbaker’s decision to assume the mantle of ssea had led to ‘‘general frustration’’ throughout the Department as it was a return to the days of William Lyon Mackenzie King, who, like his predecessors, had served as his own foreign secretary.35 In August, Bryce arranged for Robinson to act as the liaison between Diefenbaker and the dea, a position he would hold until mid-1962, and in September the prime minister named University of Toronto President Sidney Smith as ssea.

33 Smith, Rogue Tory, 250; Granatstein, A Man of Influence, 324–5. Journalist and Diefenbaker confidante Grattan O’Leary later recalled that the Tory prime minister ‘‘thought External Affairs was against him. He told me so. He thought the late Norman Robertson was an enemy’’: Stursberg, Diefenbaker, 145.

34 In fact, South Africa withdrew from the organization. On this issue and the Diefenbaker-dea split, see: Peter Henshaw, ‘‘Canada and the ‘South African Disputes’ at the United Nations, 1946–1961,’’ Canadian Journal of African Studies 33.1 (1999): 27–36; Hilliker, ‘‘Politicians and the ‘Pearsonalities,’’’ 160–2.

35 LAC, H. Basil Robinson Papers, vol. 19, file 1, Robinson to Meagher, 13 June 1957 and Robinson to Meagher, 14 July 1957.

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From his vantage point as a liai- son, Robinson saw firsthand the prime minister’s views of the dea. After a year in office Robinson ob- served that Diefenbaker ‘‘remained extremely suspicious of the Depart- ment, mainly because of our close association in his mind with Mr. Pearson.’’ In a letter to Robertson, he recalled an incident when Diefenbaker had made clear that he was worried about controversial information being committed to paper. As the prime minister had put it: ‘‘I’ll tell you frankly. What I am worried about is that Pearson is going to find out what is in these reports 24 hours after they reach Ottawa.’’ Such sentiments made it difficult for Robinson to record the prime minister’s decisions and to communicate his thinking and actions to the Department. Moreover, it was not simply an offhand comment, for Diefenbaker was convinced that on at least three occasions the Liberal leader had raised issues in Parliament based on information that he could not have possibly known without having received inside information. Robinson thus found himself in the unenviable position of having to try to convince Diefenbaker of something he did not wish to believe.36 Two years later, in a draft think-piece on the dea’s personnel problems, including recruitment and attrition, Robinson pointed to ‘‘malaise’’ within the Department, the result of Tory suspicions of civil servants and of their ignorance of the permanent civil service’s non-partisan role. ‘‘It is a serious matter when the impression is created that unless a public servant identifies himself wholeheartedly with the Party in power his loyalty is called in question,’’ Robinson wrote. ‘‘I know for a fact that in certain Progressive Conservative circles there has been a conscious lookout kept for those deputy ministers and senior officials whose actions con- sistently, or in important isolated cases, run against Government inclina- tion.’’37 Such an atmosphere was not a breeding ground for prime ministerial popularity.

Early tensions between Diefenbaker and the dea had eased somewhat with Smith’s appointment as ssea, and then, following Smith’s death, with Howard Green’s appointment in June 1959. A Diefenbaker loyalist within the party, the prime minster trusted that Green had the necessary resolve

36 Robinson, vol. 11, file 1, Robinson to Robertson, 1 November 1958. 37 Robinson, vol. 3, file 2, Robinson to Gill, draft, ‘‘Some Thoughts on the De-

partment’s Personnel Problems,’’ 11 March 1960.

Diefenbaker was convinced that on at least three occasions the Liberal leader had raised issues in Parliament based on information that he could not have possibly known without having received inside information.

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Figure 2: Photo by Leo Rosenthal: John Diefenbaker with Howard Green and U Thant in New York. U Thant, Burmese Permanent Representative to the United Nations and future UN Secretary General. Photo from University of Saskatchewan, University Archives & Special Collections, John G. Diefenbaker fonds MG 411, JGD 4016.

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to avoid ‘‘becoming a captive of his officials in External Affairs.’’38 Green seems to have got on well with Robertson as well as with many of the Department’s assistant under-secretaries, especially A.E. Ritchie. As he told a friend soon after becoming foreign secretary, ‘‘Norman Robertson and the other officers of the Department have been wonderful and I am thankful that he is the Under-Secretary.’’39 Certainly, Green was willing to defend the dea publicly, as he did, for instance, in early 1962 when asked about the Department’s loyalties: ‘‘It would have been impossible for a minister to have had finer co-operation than I have had from the foreign service officers and [the others] in the department. . . I have found the representa- tives of no other country to be any better, and I think none of them were as good.’’40 Strong praise indeed, given Diefenbaker’s own antipathy.

Even so, Green held some of the same suspicions as Diefenbaker. In September 1959, Charles Ritchie — a Tory — wondered with regard to a dispute with the ssea over a un resolution on Tunisia’s independence: ‘‘Does he [Green] think that as an official of the suspect Department of External Affairs I am working against him in some way?’’41 Moreover, Green was involved in a most curious incident in early 1962. Although it is largely forgotten now, Britain’s first bid to join the European Economic Community contributed to a sharp decline in Anglo-Canadian relations from 1961–1963. The issue made the Diefenbaker government politically vulnerable, especially since Pearson had come out in favour of Britain’s move, while the Tories opposed — vocally and actively — London’s policy lest it damage Anglo-Canadian trade. Concerned by this Liberal-Conserva- tive divide in the run up to the 1962 Canadian federal election, senior Tory ministers Green, Donald Fleming (finance), and George Hees (trade and commerce) approached Ted Heath, the British minister spearheading talks with Europe, to explain that, with Liberal appointees dominating Canada’s civil service, any confidential proposals made between the British and

38 Hilliker and Barry, Canada’s Department of External Affairs, 148. On Green’s loyalty, see: Smith, Rogue Tory, 338. Like Diefenbaker, recently Green has been the subject of more favourable treatment: Eric Bergbusch and Michael D. Stevenson, ‘‘Howard Green, Public Opinion, and the Politics of Disarma- ment,’’ in Architects and Innovators: Building the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009, eds. Greg Donaghy and Kim Richard Nossal (Montréal & Kingston, 2010); Daniel Heidt, ‘‘‘I think that would be the end of Canada’: Howard Green, the Nuclear Test Ban, and Interest-Based Foreign Policy, 1946–1963,’’ American Review of Canadian Studies 42.3 (2012): 343–69.

39 City of Vancouver Archives, Howard Green Papers, box 605-D-3, file 12, Green to Logan, 9 October 1959. I am very thankful to Michael Stevenson for sharing this document with me.

40 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 16 April 1962, 2993. 41 Ritchie, Diplomatic Passport, 162.

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Canadian governments would be leaked to the Liberals ‘‘within a matter of minutes.’’ What they sought, then, was an end to mutual hostility on the issue in advance of the looming election.42 Heath granted their request, but the incident is telling of the widespread suspicions of the Pearsonalities in Diefenbaker’s Ottawa.

As for Green, he was, in Max Yalden’s view, ‘‘one of the finest gentle- men I have had the pleasure to work for in government.’’43 Yet not every- one within the dea was impressed with him. While appealing to those diplomats with disarmament in mind, Green also upset officials more con- cerned with national security. Hence John Starnes, who spent much of the Diefenbaker years in the Defence Liaison (2) Division — responsible for intelligence-sharing with allied governments — recalled that the minister suffered from a dearth of ‘‘knowledge of international relations, and in intelligence and security he lacked interest in and understanding of the complexities vis-à-vis both our allies and our enemies.’’ In a similar vein, in 1961, William Barton complained to US officials that Green had per- formed poorly at a nato ministerial meeting because he ‘‘is not at his best in meetings of this kind since he does not have a background of experience in diplomacy, does not have the same intellectual sophistication, and refuses to wear a hearing aid despite the need for one.’’44 Nor was Barton alone in voicing a negative opinion of Green. Geoffrey Murray, chief of the dea’s United Nations Division for much of the Diefenbaker period and a rising star within the Department, groused about the ‘‘hypocrisy and the amateurism’’ of the Diefenbaker government in its attitude toward foreign affairs. Reserving particular scorn for Green, he attacked his minister’s fail- ing attempts to ‘‘out-Nobel’’ Lester Pearson. Murray — who had assisted the Liberal ssea at the un during the Suez crisis — found it ironic that in resolving the crisis, Pearson had capitalized on a US suggestion to create a

42 The National Archives of the United Kingdom [hereafter TNA], PREM 11/ 4016, ‘‘Record of Meeting Between the Lord Privy Seal, the High Commis- sioner, Mr. Fleming. . .’’ 26 March 1962. On Anglo-Canadian relations and the EEC, see: Andrea Benvenuti and Stuart Ward, ‘‘Britain, Europe, and the ‘Other Quiet Revolution’ in Canada,’’ in Canada and the End of Empire, ed. Phillip Buckner (Vancouver, 2005).

43 Yalden, Transforming Rights, 12. 44 John Starnes, Closely Guarded: A Life in Canadian Security and Intelligence

(Toronto, 1998), 104; US National Archives and Records Administration [hereafter NARA], Records of the Department of State, RG 59, Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, Office of the Coordinator of Cuban Affairs, Subject Files, box 22, folder Relations-Canada, Memorandum of conversation, 22 May 1961.

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un peacekeeping force, while Green would have ‘‘instinctively refused’’ to work with the United States in such a fashion.45

Murray’s antipathy toward Green, but especially toward Diefenbaker, is important, because he emerges from the archival record as a bona fide Pearsonality. He was also one of many dea officials who had little affection for the Tories. Whether this feeling was the result of pro-Liberal sympa- thies or a reaction to Diefenbaker’s evident distaste for the Department is unclear; as Charles Ritchie put it in 1959: ‘‘It is true, I imagine, that most of the influential civil servants in Ottawa have Liberal sympathies, certainly very few are Conservatives, but I think they are much too loyal to the tradition of an impartial civil service to work against the government. Unfortunately, this intense suspicion of their motives and behaviour may create the very animosity that it fears.’’46 What is clear is that a lack of enthusiasm for Diefenbaker translated into half-hearted action in support for the centrepiece of the prime minister’s anti-Soviet agenda.

II. THE PEARSONALITIES AND SOVIET COLONIALISM

In September 1960, Diefenbaker delivered an address to the un General Assembly in which he castigated Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for maintaining a vast empire in Eastern Europe and for doing so at a time when the Western European imperial powers were devolving their colonial possessions. The speech, which the Canadian prime minister felt was ‘‘my most important single statement on Canadian external relations,’’ was made to deflect Khrushchev’s own address in which the diminutive despot had criticized Western imperialism. It was also, as Diefenbaker told US President Dwight Eisenhower, a statement made to appeal to the ‘‘antago- nism and strong feelings’’ of Eastern European émigrés in Canada toward

45 NARA, RG 84, Classified General Records, box 224, file international political rel. classified 1959–61 Canada-US, Memorandum of conversation, 2 June 1961. American Embassy reports from the Diefenbaker years are replete with refer- ences to the poor relationship between the dea and Green and Diefenbaker, with Canadian diplomats evidently using their American counterparts as confidantes. As one 1962 report stressed: ‘‘Canadian career officers in general are embarrassed at Green’s lack [of] prior experience or interest in Foreign Affairs, his naiveté, his prejudices, and his great sensitivity to domestic political breezes. Some have come however to point of grudging admiration even affection for him in view [of] his stubborn persistence’’ in defending appointments of career diplomats. John F. Kennedy Library [hereafter JFKL], National Security Files, box 18, folder Canada, General, 2/62–3/62, Ottawa to State, no. 960, 30 March 1962.

46 Ritchie, Diplomatic Passport, 158.

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the Soviet Union.47 Given the domestic angle, in drafting the speech, the prime minister relied on advice from political allies in addition to input from his diplomatic staff, notably Basil Robinson.48 However, in his overall approach Diefenbaker avoided input from the dea, complaining: ‘‘External Affairs, all they tell me is to be kind to Khrushchev.’’49 Beyond his stated interest in appealing to ethnic voters in Canada, also underlying the speech were Diefenbaker’s personal commitment to human rights and his anti- pathy toward communism and the Soviet Union.50

Amongst many Canadians, Diefenbaker’s castigation of Soviet colonialism stirred up a groundswell of support, or at least of favourable correspondence, which was the prime minister’s preferred method of gauging public opinion. Furthermore, colonial questions had by then emerged as a major point of contention at the United Nations, where the Soviet delegation was bent on stirring up anti-western opinion amongst the so-called Afro-Asian bloc, the group of countries comprising the Third World and which, thanks to decolonization, was coming to dominate the General Assembly.51 So in September 1961 the prime minister considered again speaking at the un General Assembly. In this connection, he tasked the dea with examin- ing the feasibility of a resolution against Soviet colonialism. The resulting document was drafted by Geoff Murray. His study admitted that it was unfair that Moscow ‘‘should be permitted to pose as a champion of freedom’’ especially given European decolonization. However, the report made clear

47 Diefenbaker, One Canada, 121; NARA, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Secretary and Undersecretary’s Memoranda of Conversation, Box 17, file Sec Memcon: Sept 16–30, 60, Memorandum of conversation, ‘‘UN Matters,’’ 27 September 1960.

48 Smith, Rogue Tory, 373–4; Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World, 152–6. Charles Ritchie, then serving as Canada’s UN envoy, complained to his diary that Diefenbaker ‘‘is in New York for the United Nations and has made no effort whatever to contact or consult me. So I sit in my room waiting for a telephone call. I am determined not to approach him’’: Ritchie, Diplomatic Passport, 175.

49 Quoted in Stursberg, Diefenbaker, 146. 50 See: McKercher, ‘‘Sound and Fury.’’ 51 On the colonialism issue, see: Wm. Roger Louis, ‘‘Public Enemy Number

One: The British Empire in the Dock at the United Nations, 1957–71,’’ in The British Empire in the 1950s: Retreat or Revival?, ed. Martin Lynn (Basingstoke, 2006); Mary Ann Heiss, ‘‘Colonialism and the Atlantic Alliance: Anglo- American Perspectives at the United Nations, 1945–1963,’’ in NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Intrabloc Conflicts, eds. Mary Ann Heiss and S. Victor Papa- cosma (Kent, 2008). For Canada and these issues, see: Asa McKercher, ‘‘The Centre Cannot Hold: Canada, Colonialism, and the ‘Afro-Asian Bloc’ at the United Nations, 1960–1962,’’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42.2 (2014): 329–49; and Idem, ‘‘The Trouble with Self-Determination.’’

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that there was little likelihood that a resolution would succeed as Afro- Asian governments did not equate traditional colonialism with Soviet practices.52 Forewarned by this ad- vice, Diefenbaker refrained from addressing the General Assembly, though with the issue of colonialism hotly contested at that year’s un session, he continued to mull a potential appearance, a prospect greeted with little enthusiasm by Canadian diplomats who put stock in lowering Cold War tensions — and autumn 1961 witnessed a tense standoff over Berlin.53

In early 1962, no doubt because of the looming federal election, Diefen- baker ordered the dea to begin the first of what over the next seven months became three series of consultations with other governments re- garding a potential resolution condemning Soviet colonialism. Canadian diplomats’ initial talks with British, French, and American officials turned up little support from these key allied governments, all of which empha- sized that since a resolution was unlikely to pass it would, therefore, em- barrass the West by seemingly exonerating Soviet conduct in Europe, a sensible conclusion. As for Canada’s diplomats, they themselves evinced little support. British officials found George Glazebrook, head of the Com- monwealth Division, to be ‘‘less than enthusiastic’’ about the resolution, while Arnold Smith, Canada’s man in Moscow, told his British counterpart that he was personally ‘‘anything but enthusiastic’’ about the proposal since it was so obviously geared toward winning support from Ukrainian Canadians.54 Ross Campbell, the diplomatic liaison between Green’s office

52 LAC, RG 25, vol. 5122, file 5475-AT-7–40-pt.1, Robinson to Robertson, ‘‘Prime Minister’s Enquiry Regarding a Possible Resolution On Soviet Colo- nialism in the General Assembly,’’ 27 September 1961, and Robertson to Green, ‘‘Resolution on Soviet Colonialism,’’ 29 September 1961 and attached memorandum for the prime minister.

53 RG 25, vol. 5122, file 5475-AT-7–40-pt.1, Robinson to Robertson, ‘‘Prime Min- ister’s Speech on Colonialism in the General Assembly,’’ 18 October 1961; Fournier to UN Division, ‘‘General Assembly Debate on Colonialism — Statement by the Prime Minister,’’ 31 October 1961; RG 25, vol. 5451, file 11389-A-40-pt.1.1, Murray to Robertson, ‘‘Soviet Colonialism at the United Nations,’’ 21 December 1961.

54 TNA, FO 371/166822, Fowler to Hampshire, 9 February 1962; FO 371/ 166823, Roberts to Wilson, 28 March 1962. On the issue of ethnic voters, see: L.D. Collins, ‘‘Canada-Soviet Relations During the Cold War,’’ in Canadian- Soviet Relations 1939–1980, ed. Aloysious Balawyder (Oakville, 1981), 55; Jaroslav Petryshyn, ‘‘The ‘Ethnic Question’ Personified: Ukrainian Canadians

In September 1961 the prime minister considered again speaking at the un General Assembly. In this connection, he tasked the dea with examining the feasibility of a resolution against Soviet colonialism.

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and the dea, confided in a discussion with US Embassy officials and cbc journalist Tom Earle that the initiative on Soviet colonialism was a deplor- able effort, which, because of a lack of un support, would likely ‘‘fall flat on its face.’’55 The only Canadian diplomat who seems to have favoured such a resolution was Robert Ford, the dea’s top Soviet specialist, and yet he saw value only in highlighting Russian control of Central Asia and the Caucasus, areas of undisputed colonial control stretching back to Czarist times. On this point Geoff Murray sardonically noted of a resolution’s domestic overtones that ‘‘the more desirable targets would seem to be those parts of the Soviet empire which have special ties with ethnic groups in this country’’ and given the dearth of Canadian voters of Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz ancestry, Diefenbaker was unlikely to care about this shift in focus away from Eastern Europe.56 It was both the un- likelihood of a successful resolution and the manoeuvre’s political purpose that seemed so off-putting to dea officials, and one can certainly empathize with their stance particularly given the proposal’s chances of success.57

What is worth emphasizing here is that since Canadian diplomats did not support the resolution, which seemed both bound to fail and to be so overtly political in its conception, they did little either to press the issue or to curry favour for it with allied governments. For instance, in July 1962 George Ignatieff, then Canada’s envoy to nato, gave the North Atlantic Council an overview of the planned resolution and appealed for their backing. In response, Canada’s allies were almost unanimous in showing no support for his presentation and some delegates offered strong rebuttals of the proposal. In a telegraphic cable, American Ambassador Thomas Finletter reported back to Washington that Ignatieff had done nothing to counter the negative responses and, in fact, ‘‘seemed relaxed about nega- tive attitude toward it [the resolution].’’ Further, Ignatieff had confided that ‘‘this was pet idea of Diefenbaker who had promised during recent political campaign to float a resolution along these lines.’’58 Harlan Cleveland, the American Assistant Undersecretary for International Organizations,

and Canadian-Soviet Relations 1917–1991,’’ in Re-Imagining Ukrainian Cana- dians: History, Politics, and Identity, eds. Rhonda L Hinther and Jim Mochoruk (Toronto, 2011), 240–1.

55 NARA, RG 59, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs, Alpha-Numeric Files Relating to Canadian Affairs, 1957–1963, box 1, file Ottawa – Memoranda of Conversation, Memo- randum of Conversation, 23 May 1962.

56 RG 25, vol. 5450, file 11389-A-40-pt.2.1, Cairo to External, despatch 470, 12 May 1962; UN Division to European Division, ‘‘Soviet Colonialism,’’ 28 May 1962.

57 See: FO 371/166823, Campbell to Scott, 13 April 1962. 58 JFKL, NSF, box 122, folder NATO, General, Cables 6/15/62–3/31/63, Paris

to State, POLTO 70, 13 July 1962.

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added in his own report on Ignatieff’s presentation that the Canadian ‘‘went away happy since he now [is] in position to report to Ottawa that practically every nato member has reservations about submission [of] formal item re ‘Soviet colonialism.’’’59 As is evident, Ignatieff carried out the letter of his instructions but not their spirit.

Not only did Canadian diplomats do little to encourage support for the resolution, they actively sought allied government discouragement of the initiative. In July, what the State Department described as an ‘‘informant’’ from the dea offered, first, a warning that Diefenbaker was deeply com- mitted to a resolution, but, then, that ‘‘postponement’’ of a resolution might be possible should enough of Canada’s allies come together to oppose the effort.60 Although the identity of the informant is unclear, other American and British diplomatic reports show Geoff Murray taking an active role in seeking foreign support to dissuade Diefenbaker from pushing a resolution at the same time that, as head of the un Division, he was coordinating the dea’s lobbying effort in support of the initiative. Murray had no enthusiasm for the project, viewing it as an effort by Diefenbaker to ‘‘appear’’ to ethnic groups ‘‘as the champion of the subjugated people.’’61 In March 1962 he told Rufus Smith, political counsellor at the US Embassy in Ottawa, that Diefenbaker was motivated entirely by the applause he had received at the un in 1960 and by his commitment to ethnic voters. As Murray stressed, Green and the dea were equally reluctant to go along with the prime minister over a fear for ‘‘Canada’s general reputation and standing at the un.’’ For this reason, Murray pleaded with Smith to make sure that the State Department did not encourage Diefenbaker’s initiative. As Smith put it in his report to his superiors, while he personally found ‘‘it very tempting to see us egg Diefenbaker on any time he wants to take out after the Communists,’’ he was ‘‘inclined to agree that this may be short- sighted’’ given that a resolution was unlikely to succeed.62 For the Americans, committed as they themselves were to exposing Soviet colonialism, the practical limitations of the resolution were clear.63

59 Paris to State, POLTO 79, 14 July 1962, JFKL, POF, box 128, folder United Nations, Security, 1962–1963.

60 Memorandum for file, ‘‘Canadian Views on Colonialism Issue at the UN,’’ 13 July 1962, and Memorandum for file, ‘‘Canadian Views on Colonialism Issue in the UN,’’ 13 July 1962, NARA, RG 59, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of Soviet Union Affairs, Subject 1957–1963, box 9, file Soviet Colonialism.

61 Rogers to Evans, 10 April 1962, TNA, FO 371/166824. 62 NARA, RG 59, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of British Commonwealth

and Northern European Affairs, Alpha-Numeric Files Relating to Canadian Affairs, 1957–1963, Box 6, file UN 1961–1962, Smith to Carlson, 6 March 1962.

63 Mary Ann Heiss, ‘‘Exposing ‘Red Colonialism’: U.S. Propaganda at the United Nations, 1953–1963,’’ Journal of Cold War Studies 17.3 (2015): 82–115.

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By August, allied consultations had failed to elicit positive responses. Even so, Diefenbaker was mulling over whether Canada would put for- ward a resolution. In response, Murray kicked his own lobbying campaign into high gear. As he related to British offi- cials, with the un session due to open in September the pm might push a resolution, and so Murray’s ‘‘own hope was that the reactions would be so negative that the Prime Minister could be headed off.’’ It would be necessary, in this regard, ‘‘for countries to speak out loud and clear.’’ Citing Murray’s advice, the British High Com- mission advised Whitehall of the need of convincing Diefenbaker of the lack of international support. When the Foreign Office drafted a diplomatic note laying out London’s wariness toward a resolution, British diplomats in Ottawa returned the draft on the grounds that as the wording was weak it was ‘‘just the reply which Murray does not want if he is to persuade Mr. Diefenbaker not to introduce a resolution.’’64 Murray also sought American support against Diefenbaker. In talks with Ivan White, the US chargé d’affaires in the summer and autumn of 1962, Murray emphasized that he and his colleagues were ‘‘reluctantly’’ implementing the prime minister’s programme and that they were unable ‘‘to discern or elicit exactly what Diefenbaker’s full intentions are.’’ Thus, Murray appealed for American help against the prime minister. As White put it in his report to Washington, he would do his best to dissuade the initiative by lobbying Green, which, while ‘‘preaching to [the] converted,’’ might strengthen the dea’s position with the prime minister.65 Nor was Murray alone in seeking US help. With American Secretary of State Dean Rusk due to visit Ottawa at the end of August, Ross Campbell asked White to ensure that Rusk would raise Soviet colonialism with Green because Diefenbaker remained ‘‘adamant’’ on this question.66

Both the Americans and the British duly pressed their senior Canadian counterparts to avoid a resolution. During his August meeting with Green, Rusk stressed that while he supported the sentiment undergirding a reso- lution against Soviet colonialism, he was fearful that if such a resolution

Not only did Canadian diplomats do little to encourage support for the resolution, they actively sought allied govern- ment discouragement of the initiative.

64 FO 371/166834, Rogers and Smallman, 9 August 1962; FO 371/166835, Fowler to Hampshire, 14 August 1962; and Rogers to Smallman, 16 August 1962.

65 JFKL, NSF, box 18, file Canada, General, 7/62–9/62, Ottawa to State, no. 182, 10 August 1962.

66 JKFL, NSF, box 18, file Canada, General 7/62–9/62, Ottawa to State, no. 233, 22 August 1962.

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failed, then Moscow’s control of Eastern Europe would be exonerated.67

The following month, prior to a prime ministerial visit to London, Lord Amory, the British high commissioner in Ottawa, pressed Green on the resolution and sensed that the Canadian minister, cognisant of the lack of international support, ‘‘would be relieved’’ were the resolution not pursued. During Diefenbaker’s subsequent talks in the United Kingdom, British Foreign Secretary Lord Home cautioned him against a resolution.68

Ultimately, the prime minister dropped the matter, though when both Green, and his parliamentary secretary, Heath Macquarrie, spoke at the un that autumn, their speeches contained firm denunciations of Soviet colo- nialism, much to the chagrin of Russian officials.69

What can we make of all of this in terms of the clash between Diefen- baker and the diplomats? Certainly, it is evident that some Canadian foreign service officers were doing their best to undermine the prime minister’s initiative, while others were doing little to advance it. What effect this bureaucratic obstruction had upon allied willingness to back a resolution is unclear: British and US officials were not reticent about referring to Soviet colonialism in their own un speeches, but both London and Washington recognized the unlikelihood of a formal resolution pass- ing through a un dominated by a non-Western majority.70 So while in terms of allied opinion Canadian diplomats’ actions may not have hurt, they also did not help. Diefenbaker himself was aware of the problems confronting his resolution, complaining in the summer of 1962 that he was ‘‘well aware’’ that Canadian diplomats and the British and the Americans all opposed his plan. Incredulously, he then added that despite this opposition ‘‘under no circumstances’’ would he accept anything less than a resolution and so he wanted to ‘‘see more enthusiastic action at once.’’ As it turns out, he was not incorrect in then adding that ‘‘if such a resolution had been proposed by Paul Martin [Sr.], there is no doubt that this would have the full support of all officials in the Department.’’71 However, Martin,

67 RG 25, vol. 5030, file 1415–40-pt.12, Robertson to Green, ‘‘Visit of Mr. Rusk — August 24,’’ 29 August 1962.

68 FO 371/166838, Ottawa to CRO, no. 777, 6 September 1962 and Minute by Tahourdin, ‘‘Canadian Resolution on Soviet Imperialism,’’ 11 September 1962.

69 LAC, Howard Green Papers, vol. 12, file 44, Statement by Howard Green in the General Debate at the 17th Session of the General Assembly, 25 September 1962; Canada, Department of External Affairs, Statements & Speeches 62/14 (23 November 1962).

70 Heiss, ‘‘Exposing ‘Red Colonialism.’’’ In 1963, the British mounted a rhetorical campaign in the UN against Soviet colonialism, but their effort stopped well short of a resolution along the lines of Diefenbaker’s ‘‘dangerous initiative’’: TNA, DO 181/2, Dean to Caccia, 29 April 1963.

71 Robinson Papers, vol. 6, file 2, Dier to Robertson, ‘‘Soviet Colonialism,’’ 3 July 1962.

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the Liberal external affairs critic, might have had more diplomatic sense about approaching the issue in the first place.72 In any event, Diefenbaker’s comment reflects his sense of Liberal diplomats working to undermine him.

And what of the connection between the Liberals and the Pearsonalities? At the time, like the Progressive Conservatives, the Liberals were engaged in an effort to ‘‘court’’ Eastern European Canadians through promises to combat Soviet colonialism.73 Early in 1962, Pearson had criticized Diefen- baker’s Throne Speech for not giving due recognition to ‘‘the menace of communist imperialism and colonialism,’’ and in late 1961 the party had produced a pamphlet titled ‘‘Lester B. Pearson — A Force Against Com- munism,’’ which touted his anti-Soviet bona fides.74 This line was taken for purely political reasons, and the Liberals abandoned it following the June 1962 federal election, during which Diefenbaker had campaigned hard on this question. Liberal Party files as well as those belonging to Pearson and Paul Hellyer — the Liberal defence critic heavily involved in courting Eastern European Canadians — give little indication of any collusion between the party and the diplomats. The only shred of evidence in this direction comes from an American diplomatic document from July 1962, that is after the election, in which Geoff Murray discussed a proposal that he had put forward in which the Canadian delegation to the un would table Diefen- baker’s resolution without actually presenting it for a vote. This break- through, Murray believed, would get the prime minister ‘‘off the hook’’ with his domestic audience without resulting in a loss for Canada during a vote at the un. As Murray revealed, this solution — ultimately ignored by Diefenbaker — was important because he had recently spoken with Lester Pearson, who had warned him that the Liberals were set on raising the colonialism question in Parliament so as to show that the prime minister’s initiative was hollow.75 Thus the image of Murray that emerges here is of a figure attempting to aid Diefenbaker and one gets a sense that Murray’s efforts to thwart a resolution were not meant simply to frustrate the prime

72 Martin had no enthusiasm for Diefenbaker’s initiative; see: Peter Stursberg, Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained, 1956–62 (Toronto, 1975), 170.

73 C.P. Champion, ‘‘Courting ‘Our Ethnic Friends’: Canadianism, Britishness, and New Canadians, 1950–1970,’’ Canadian Ethnic Studies 38.1 (2006): 23–46.

74 Canada, House of Commons, Debates (22 January 1962), 40; LAC, Paul Hellyer Papers, vol. 48, file Material for Meetings 1961, Pamphlet ‘‘Lester B. Pearson – A Force Against Communism.’’ And see the documents in LAC, Lester B. Pearson Papers, series 2, vol. 88, file Liberation of Communist Eastern Europe.

75 RG 59, Bureau of European Affairs, Country Director for Canada, Records Relating to Political Affairs 1957–1966, box 3, file USSR 1962–63, Memorandum of Conversation, 23 July 1962.

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minister but, instead, were geared toward shielding Canada and the Cana- dian government from embarrassment, both foreign and domestic. Even so, the contact between Murray and Pearson on an issue of such impor- tance to Diefenbaker is revealing in itself. Ultimately, despite all the bad blood between the prime minister and the diplomats, it was not the issue of Soviet colonialism that proved fatal to Diefenbaker’s government. On nuclear weapons, Diefenbaker alone bears the blame for picking a fight with the Americans by pursuing a policy of equivocation and delay.76

III. CONCLUSIONS

The Diefenbaker government’s collapse and Pearson’s April 1963 election win were greeted with satisfaction by officials in External Affairs, who welcomed the Liberal victory as a return to a ‘‘sort of normalcy.’’ ‘‘So far as I am concerned,’’ Charles Ritchie wrote happily in his diary, ‘‘I am deal- ing with someone familiar. Mike Pearson has already telephoned me 3 or 4 times.’’77 This sense of normalcy was undergirded by a return to a more cooperative working relationship between the politicians and the diplomats. As Arthur Andrew later reflected, what the Diefenbaker years truly signi- fied was a period in which ‘‘the Department got its first taste of having its views ignored, its people by-passed and its advice unsought.’’ In the end, though, there were no great upheavals. Rather, Pierre Trudeau’s assumption of power in 1968 ‘‘was a much greater shock to the Depart- ment’s system’’ than was Diefenbaker’s arrival.78 Famously, or infamously, Trudeau would voice a preference for the New York Times as a source of information over diplomatic reports. Furthermore, implementing cuts to the dea’s budget, he also appointed his own foreign policy advisor and began a policy of shifting senior officials out of External Affairs and into the domestic branches of the civil service. So began ‘‘a generation-long period of unrest’’ for the dea.79 In offering reasons for Trudeau’s antipathy to the Department, some authors have noted his disdain for professional diplomats, adding that he had ‘‘little patience with, or understanding of, the importance of professional diplomacy’’ and so he sought ‘‘a top down’’

76 For a different interpretation of nuclear weapons and the end of the Diefen- baker era, see the excellent piece by Stevenson, ‘‘Tossing a Match into Dry Hay.’’

77 Ritchie, Storm Signals, 52. 78 Andrew, The Rise and Fall of a Middle Power, 49, xviii. 79 J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian

Foreign Policy (Toronto, 1991), 9.

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structure ‘‘outside the traditional channels of foreign policy making.’’80

It is important, then, to keep the Die- fenbaker period in perspective.

Seen in broader perspective, the tension between the diplomats and the prime minister during the Die- fenbaker years seems in fact to be unexceptional. Rather, the cohesion of the St. Laurent-Pearson years from 1948 to 1957 seems exceptional. Not only was this period the golden age of Canadian foreign policy, where Canada’s postwar stability and prosperity gave it a relatively influential position internationally, but it was a time in which foreign policy-making ran smoothly. As St. Laurent’s biographer noted, he and Pearson established a ‘‘fruitful working relationship’’ and he ‘‘allowed his officials a greater degree of freedom’’ than had been the case under Mackenzie King — or would be the case under successive gov- ernments.81 Likewise pointing to the ‘‘formidable team’’ of St. Laurent and Pearson, in their official history of the dea John Hilliker and Donald Barry highlighted how ‘‘[t]he conduct of Canadian foreign policy was enhanced by the rapport between Pearson and his former colleagues in the senior ranks.’’82 In later years, and not just under Diefenbaker, such a rapport did not exist. Hence in comparison to the highs of the St. Laurent-Pearson years, the lows of the Diefenbaker period seem inevitable. Added to the mix, of course, were the Tory prime minister’s own suspicions of what Hilliker and Barry dubbed ‘‘Pearson’s Department.’’83

In summing up the Diefenbaker era, Basil Robinson reflected in his memoir-cum-history of the period that ‘‘for those who wanted a creative, resourceful role for Canada in the world, Diefenbaker was not the answer.. .

80 Herald van Riekhoff and John Sigler, ‘‘The Trudeau Peace Initiative: The Politics of Reversing the Arms Race,’’ in Canada Among Nations 1984 (Halifax, 1985), 51; Beth A. Fischer, ‘‘The Trudeau Peace Initiative and the End of the Cold War: Catalyst or Coincidence?,’’ International Journal 49.3 (2004): 616. James Bartleman recounts a much more shocking reason for Trudeau’s antipathy toward External: Bartleman, On Six Continents, 19.

81 Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto, 1967), 216. On the golden age, see: Mackenzie, ‘‘Golden Decade(s)?’’; Adam Chapnick, ‘‘The Golden Age: A Canadian Foreign Policy Paradox,’’ International Journal 64.1 (2008–09): 205–221; Greg Donaghy, ‘‘Coming off the Gold Standard: Re- assessing the ‘Golden Age’ of Canadian Diplomacy.’’ Paper presented to the symposium A Very Modern Ministry: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, University of Saskatchewan, 28 September 2009.

82 Hilliker and Barry, Canada’s Department of External Affairs, 5, 47. 83 Ibid., 87.

Seen in broader perspective, the tension between the diplomats and the prime minister during Diefenbaker years seems in fact to be unexceptional. Rather, the cohesion of the St. Laurent- Pearson years from 1948 to 1957 seems exceptional.

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The department did not find it easy to accept this fact of life.’’84 Many of the divisions between Diefenbaker and the diplomats were over the direc- tion of Canadian policy. Yet their clash also highlights the importance of a smooth working relationship between the government and the civil service. Thus, it shows the problems that are created for policy-makers and policy-implementers alike by hostility and suspicion. Sapping the morale of public servants does little to improve either their performance or their willingness to vigorously promote government policy, especially controversial policies made with domestic politics in mind. Moreover, if the Diefenbaker years are any indication, treating public servants with intense suspicion seems, in fact, to breed dissension.

Commenting on the ‘‘present darkness’’ in Ottawa in 2015, retired diplomat John Graham wrote perceptively that though ‘‘an adversarial attitude toward the foreign service preceded the Harper government,’’ the Conservatives were openly ‘‘hostile’’ toward diplomats. The impact of this hostility proved just as important as the Tories’ efforts to forge a new course in foreign affairs, for it did nothing to promote morale or loyalty, nor, critically, to prompt important if unpopular advice.85 Even so, it is worth noting, as the case of Soviet colonialism shows, that civil servants are sometimes not entirely blameless. In this regard, the release of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails has shown at least one instance where in response to the Harper government’s plans to cut aid to Haiti, Canadian diplomats lobbied their American counterparts to intervene against Canada’s government. ‘‘In my many years here,’’ a US official wrote to Clinton, ‘‘I have never seen such open disloyalty with a change of administrations.’’ Indeed, early signs of disloyalty toward the Harper government had led senior diplomats to reprimand rank-and-file foreign service officers.86 As

84 Robinson, Diefenbaker’s World, 103. 85 John W. Graham, Whose Man in Havana? Adventures from the Far Side of Diplo-

macy (Calgary, 2015), 286. Canadian civil servants are meant to be loyal to the government in power yet free to give advice: Kenneth Kernaghan, ‘‘Politi- cians, Policy and Public Servants: Political Neutrality Revisited,’’ Canadian Pubic Administration 19.3 (1976): 132–56; Lorne Sossin, ‘‘Speaking truth to power? The search of bureaucratic independence in Canada,’’ University of Toronto Law Journal 55.1 (2005): 1–59; and Donald Savoie, Breaking the Bargain: Public Servants, Ministers, and Parliament (Toronto, 2003).

86 Alexander Panetta, ‘‘Clinton e-mails reveal Canadian foreign service enmity towards Harper Tories,’’ Globe and Mail, 30 November 2015: www.theglo- beandmail.com/news/world/clinton-e-mails-reveal-canadian-foreign-service- enmity-towards-harper-tories/article27538070/ accessed 24 January 2017. And Alan Freeman, ‘‘Top Bureaucrats Take Aim At Ottawa Diplomats: Foreign Affairs Officials Instruct Staff at Home and Abroad to ‘Align’ with Harper Government Policies,’’ Globe and Mail, 29 June 2007.

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historians and other analysts begin to assess the Harper era, then, it might prove important to look for instances not only of government perfidy and paranoia but of push back from foreign service officers.

Asa McKercher is a LR Wilson Assistant Professor of History at McMaster Uni- versity. His book Camelot and Canada: Canadian-American Relations in the Kennedy Era was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

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