164 ■ THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
LIFE WITH HARRY • 165
Korea did not extend overtly to his relationship with Truman. The two leaders never found it necessary to meet to discuss the war.
Bilaterally, the issue of consequence between the president and the prime minister, an issue which compelled person-to-person work between them, was the three-decade-old St. Lawrence Seaway proposal. In the 1920s the Canadian government did the stalling on the project. But in the following years it was Washington and by St. Laurent's time, when power shortages in Ontario dramatically increased the importance of the project, the Truman administration was clearly anxious. Sensing continued congressional opposition, the State Department's James Webb issued a strong warning to Truman in a memo. Don't put the Canadians "in a box," he said. Don't give them the idea there is no hope. "If the Canadians were to gain this impression it would probably injure our relations with Canada more than any other single incident which has occurred during this century."
The Seaway figured prominently in the first meeting of the two men in February 1949, and was the sole reason lor the second in September of 1951. At the first, only a few months after Truman's upset win, St. Laurent joked that he was in Washington to find out the secret of winning elections. Truman had told the U.S. press that no matters of substance would be discussed, but St. Laurent, according to a State Department memo on the meeting, banged away on the Seaway, Ottawa's balance-of-payments deficit, and wheat markets. He warned Truman that he had to give consideration to going ahead alone on the hydro phase of the St. Lawrence development because of the power shortages. Truman expressed sympathy with the prime minister's plight and promised to look into the possibility of purchasing more military equipment from Canada to ease the current account deficit. The visit ended, the memo noted, with "mutual expressions of esteem."
A month later, St. Laurent, who respected Truman, gave this glowing account of Washington's treatment of Canada. "We have been negotiating many times with our American neighbours. We have been agreeing to do a great many things and they have been agreeing to do a great many things. But never have we been made to feel that we were obliged to agree to something because they were bigger and stronger than we were."
In 1950 Congress again failed to approve a renewed St. Lawrence
agreement, thus ending Ottawa's patience. Canadians, said Transport minister Lionel Chevrier, "cannot sit idly by and wait forever." The problem, as the Webb memo made clear to Truman, was also political. The Ontario Tories, led by Premier Leslie Frost, were helping their federal colleagues by shouting loudly that the central government was not pushing Washington hard enough. "It appears now," said Webb, "that the Canadians may try to force the problem to a head within the next few months."
He was right. St. Laurent, who telephoned the president asking to see him and arrived the next day, put the matter on the table. His government had waited long enough. If the administration couldn't secure immediate passage of the joint proposal, it was time for Ottawa to move alone. Truman said he was a great supporter of the Seaway, that he voted for it in the Senate as early as 1935. David Bell, one of his advisers making notes of the conversation, thought this was unlikely. "I do not believe," he wrote in parentheses, "there was a floor vote on the St. Lawrence in 1935."
"Since I've been President," Truman continued, "I've been doing everything possible to get Congress to take a broad view of the matter. But if there's no other way I'll go along with you."
St. Laurent was pleased. When "you and I have passed on, people will be grateful to us," for starting this project. He recalled that when the railroads were being built across Canada some people said they "wouldn't even earn their axle grease." Events proved how wrong they were and the same thing will happen in regard to the St. Lawrence project, St. Laurent predicted.
Truman rose from his chair and moved to a corner where he talked privately with St. Laurent for a few minutes. The prime minister then conferred with some of the president's officials on the draft of a public statement and he was warned of technicalities which might require Ottawa and Washington to ratify any agreements made on the project between the province of Ontario and New York State. But St. Laurent said not to worry about it. He cited the instance of the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, saying it probably should not have been built without the consent of Parliament. "But it was, and it's there now."12
The prime minister left happily. Jack Pickersgill, who accompanied him, was impressed. "St. Laurent just dominated the whole thing."
COUNTRY COUSINS: IKE AND UNCLE LOUIS • 167
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Country Cousins: Ike and Uncle Louis
BY THE TIME Dwight Eisenhower became president, Canada had already named a mountain alter him. Castle Mountain in Alberta was renamed Mount Eisenhower in tribute to the general's leadership in the war. At the Ottawa announcement in 1946, tears filled Eisenhower's eyes as he spoke of Canada's marvellous expression of friendship. His subsequent ascendancy to the White House seemed to confirm the wisdom of the choice of such a majestic memorial. On a 1953 visit to Washington, Prime Minister St. Laurent referred to it, recalling that Eisenhower had found some significance in the mountain being bald. "It is, in fact, snow capped," St. Laurent said, "and we in Canada are proud that one of our highest peaks will always bear the name Eisenhower."
But the people of Alberta were not so proud. After Ike's death, they decided that Castle Mountain was too big an honour for him. They withdrew the designation. Mount Eisenhower was renamed Castle Mountain. Another far less significant peak was given the name of the president.
The peculiar development was fitting for what, in the continental context, was a peculiar presidency. Eisenhower was admired by Canadians. He was admired by St. Laurent. He was admired by Diefenbaker. With some exceptions, he managed the bilateral relationship, whenever he got around lo ii, in a cooperative, friendly
spirit. But in an inadvertent kind of way, the Eisenhower presidency inspired Canadian hostility. In the late years of his stewardship, a wave of anti-American feeling, or at least what John Diefenbaker perceived to be a wave, would sweep Canada, spawning the bitter, inglorious struggles of the early 1960s. Well before Kennedy would come into power, Diefenbaker would be complaining behind closed doors that Canada was being pushed around by Washington. But he did not want lo confront Eisenhower, his friend. Instead he chose to wait for the next president. John Kennedy was not a friend.
For Eisenhower, the north country was a member of the club, a place he could allude to as the "Republic" of Canada; a place where he could play golf, make ceremonial appearances, and look at his own mountain. Benign, avuncular, and sometimes remiss in his approach, Eisenhower was capable of stunning Canadian officials with his lack of information. When he told them he didn't read newspapers, they believed him. In the first half of the decade he had a prime minister in Louis St. Laurent who fit his style like an old shoe. They were both elderly, aloof statesmen, both cut from the chairman-of-the-board mould, both late and rather reluctant politicians. They didn't become close friends. They saw each other only four times in their five years together as heads of government. But Ike and Uncle Louis shared a distant respect. Their relationship was close to the relationship the president wanted for the two countries; they were like country-club cousins, the type of people who would send each other occasional notices of affection, such as shining red apples. St. Laurent had a son in Quebec who was an apple grower and it so happened that Senator Harry Byrd passed through his orchard, sampled a few and found the flavour extraordinary. The prime minister concluded that perhaps the president would find these Canadian apples delicious too, and sent off a batch. "I hope...that you also find that they do have an agreeable flavour," he wrote, spelling flavour with a "u" as all good Canadians do. Great applies, replied Ike. "They are unusual in flavor and quality."
That was Ike and Uncle Louis. Their relationship seldom surpassed that level of excitement even though St. Laurent could be a most prickly gent on occasion. When the focus switched from apples, to oats and groundfish fillet, the prime minister got so upset he sounded like his population was alxmt to take up arms. The U.S. Tariff Commission threatened to.set an import quota on these two Canadian products in
1(38 ♦ THE PRESIDENTS AM) THE PRIME MINISTERS_
1953. Such an action, St. Laurent wrote the president "could not fail to create resentment and ill-will and consequential demands for action on our part." Oat cut-oils would contradict the American commitment to free trade, he said, and run against the spirit of the Canada-U.S. trade agreement of 1935. "The possibility of any action which would mar those harmonious relations [1935] is something our government would greatly deplore." Eisenhower basically told him not to get so excited.
But trade was a hot point for the prime minister and he upbraided the U.S. administration in a speech to the National Press Club in the same yean "Is your economy not too strong and are your industries not too productive to be in any serious danger from imports? American business has always proclaimed its faith in the wholesome effects of honest competition. Is it not then the part of wisdom to widen the area of competitive free trade and see if more nations cannot make their own way into prosperity and strength?
"... Unless the national economies of the free world can be made and kept healthy and productive, Communism could win a bloodless
victory without any war, hot or cold____It is not very helpful to preach
the abstract advantages of freedom to men and women who are suffering from misery and starvation."
The advice on communism, most prescient advice, was extraordinary. It was not the custom of the Canadian prime minister—nor would it be—to publicly criticize the White House on multilateral questions, particularly when visiting the country. Years later, Pearson would try it with Johnson and rue the day.
Usually the counsel was bilateral, St. Laurent's being—"Much as we like you Americans, we want to remain Canadians." To many observers, particularly those from the New York Times, the bilateral relationship was in distressing condition in 1953. James Reston and Waller Lippmann would gather at dinner parties with Canadian officials and discuss the problems—continental defence, trade, and I lie St. Lawrence again. Reston maintained a keen interest in Canadian affairs, one of the few great American journalists to do so. He went lo I he Canadian embassy one day to meet Lester Pearson for the lii.si lime and couldn't find him. A staff assistant said he might try the backyard. There was Pearson, playing baseball. The two men quickly I>«•■ iitni' great IririicIs, and through Ri sion's work, Canada received mi in- in ii ii <■ iii the c apital than it otherwise would have.
_COt MRV COCHIN'S: IKE AM) l'NCI.E I.PITS » 169
But despite the concern of the Times, the problems of 1953 were not terribly different from most years. They were not substantive enough to stand in the way of celebration when Eisenhower made his first presidential visit to Ottawa that fall. Nor were they serious enough to even command his attention during that visit.
The train carrying him to Ottawa had barely reached the border on the morning of November 17 when loving Canadians demanded an appearance. Before 7:00 A.M., in Rousse Point, Quebec, the sleepy-eyed president was moved to roll out of bed and, in blue pyjamas and red robe, climb to the platform. "Cood morning folks, I'm sorry I'm not dressed." He waved a few times and started back into his quarters, whereupon photographers called for just one more picture. "It's always one more," Ike grumbled and rejoined his wife Mamie for some more sleep.
Adulation pursued the president throughout the trip, the crowds shouting, "We like Ike. We like Ike." There were scores of reporters, rigid security, and so much pomp that the president concluded that one of the advantages of the Canadian system was having a governor-general to take care of much of the fluff for the prime minister. On visits to Washington at this stage of the relationship, however, prime ministers rarely had to worry about iluff. A few months earlier, St. Laurent's trip to the White House had been as casual as a walk to the barber shop.
While there were many issues confronting the two countries, Eisenhower had arranged that his trip not be marred by them; that it be ceremonial. And so, the highlights included such features as the executive tree-plant."You're the superintendent," Ike called to his wife, Mamie, as he lofted his shovel. "This is the first time I've had some exercise in a long time," he said with a mock grunt. "I could do this for a living." President Kennedy would wrench his back while planting his tree in Ottawa. Nixon's tree would die. But this spading, like the Ike-St. Laurent period on the whole, was rather uneventful. "Look," said Mamie as she Hung dirt with all the force a first lady-could muster. "I'm getting the swing of it."
In their speeches, both the president and the prime minister took runs at the bilateral cliche record. In preparing Eisenhower's address it had actually become a source of debate in the State Department and White House whether to use the old bilateral colloquialism — the undefended border. A memo from the- head of the
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COUNTRY COfSINS: IKE AND UNCLE LOUIS «171
Canada section in the State Department complained to a presidential adviser: "The speech still contains a reference to 'undefended frontier." Frankly, this was considered a 'corny' topic lor after-dinner speeches when I went to Ottawa 23 years ago. I still think it is a mistake for the President to mention it."
A compromise was reached. Eisenhower would use it, but acknowledge that it was boring. The speech? — "We have a dramatic symbol of the partnership in the favored topic of every speaker addressing an audience made up of both our peoples—our unfortified frontier. But though this subject has become shopworn and well-nigh exhausted as a feature of after dinner oratory, it is still a fact that our common frontier grows stronger every year, defended only by friendship."
In a semifinal draft, the State Department included this optimistic assessment of Canada's future: "Today, a bulwark of the British Commonwealth, Canada is destined for international leadership. My country rejoices in that prospect." To the State Department's dismay, the White House dropped it.
Commenting on the visit in his memoirs, Eisenhower said: "Specifics were not so much on my mind at the time as was my desire to create an atmosphere in which difficulties could be discussed and composed. "In the parliament I began by attempting in my execrable French a few words of salutation... I knew that because of the comparative size of our two nations, our Canadian friends sometimes suspected us of arrogance. As I told my audience, our country made no claims to a monopoly on wisdom."
The only portion of the three-day visit devoted to issues was a ninety-minute Eisenhower session with the Canadian cabinet. There was some expectation that the ministers would challenge him. But about all they did was butter Ike's toast. Arnold Heeney, Canada's new ambassador to Washington, was disappointed. "I was struck once again by the reluctance of Canadian ministers to take issue with a celebrated guest or to raise embarrassing questions. I had no doubt that Eisenhower and his advisers left with the impression that Canada had no problems of any consequence with the United States."
There were times, however, when issue was taken, and one was in 1955 when the Eisenhower administration atempted to bully Canada into backing off on a resolution to admit sixteen new members to the United Nations, additions which would alter the power balance in the body. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a cold, imperious man
thoroughly disliked by many Canadian ofliciais, threatened Ottawa, saying there would be many options open to Washington if Canada supported the bid, including an embargo on Canadian oil imports. Cabot Lodge, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, approached Paul Martin, head of the Canadian delegation. "We know Pearson doesn't like the Eisenhower administration. There are things that we can do." Martin was incensed. "I've had enough of this kind of talk," he said and walked away. He was called in by Dag Ham-marskjold, the secretary general. Hammarskjold had just received a call from Dulles. The United States was threatening to withdraw from the United Nations if the resolution wasn't pulled. Martin told him not to believe it, that Dulles was bluffing. "I'm sure that Eisenhower never authorized that kind of declaration," Martin recalled.1 From Ottawa, St. Laurent instructed his delegation to stick to its position. It did, the resolution passed, and Eisenhower took no retaliatory action.
The president did not see the prime minister from November 1953 until March 1956 and only then, because Ike insisted. For a first in continental summitry, and for some favourable publicity heading into his re-election campaign, Eisenhower called a three-way meeting to include Mexican President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines. But there were no major issues to be settled. Pickersgill thought it "just a junket." Heeney thought it "cockeyed," and St. Laurent, age 74. didn't want to go. In the end he relented, but demonstrated his disdain for the event by rarely participating in discussions and showing complete disinterest. "It is almost a pathetic spectacle," ambassador Heeney said of his performance in a diary notation. "In long intervals he says nothing and is completely withdrawn. I now realize how difficult things are for Mike [Pearson]. Surely the PM will have to give up and LBP take over. It seems to me we are approaching a crisis...."
If the St. Laurent performance was the most languid ever given by a prime minister in the presence of a president, Eisenhower's was not much better. Golf was his preoccupation, and one of the most exciting developments the press could find to write about. On the way to the summit, which took place at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Dulles had told Pearson that golf would be on the menu and used the occasion to needle the external affairs minister. "You Canadians," Dulles said almost sneeringly, "are always complaining that we never consult you about our policies. Ike- ;is you know is ;i i;i<-;it poller and,
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COUNTRY COUSINS; IKE AND UNCLE LOUIS • 173
who knows, he may want us to play a few holes together on this visit. If we do and the score is all square on the eighteenth green, I'll wager that you will intervene just as I am about to make the deciding putt to demand that I consult you about it first."2
Pearson got the same rap from Acheson, the previous secretary of state. When Pearson complained about Ottawa not being consulted on a certain White House decision, Acheson exploded: "If you think, alter the agonies of consultation we have gone through here to get agreement on this matter, that we are going to start all over again with our NATO allies, especially you moralistic, interfering Canadians, then you're crazy."3
As did Acheson, Secretary of State Dulles had Canadian ties, holidaying there almost every summer. But the connection brought no special advantage from Dulles. The point man lor Ottawa in the administration became Sherman Adams, Eisenhower's all-powerful top adviser. A former governor of New Hampshire, Adams was well-acquainted with Canadian concerns, and Pickersgill established a relationship with him whereby he could pick up the phone and have instant access.4 Adams was a frequent contact for Canadian embassy officials who, particularly following the controversy over the U.N. additions, were not wild about dealing with Dulles. Heeney was out of town during the affair, and Dulles called over his second-in-command, George Glazebrook. He ripped into Glazebrook in blistering schoolmaster style. Canadian officials subsequently lodged complaints and Dulles eventually apologized for his behaviour.
Much warmer was the Canadian contact with the White House during the Suez crisis in the fall of 1956. The principals, the president and the prime minister, were in the background as Pearson's expert, well-documented diplomacy cleared the course for the adoption of the resolution establishing a peace-keeping force to bring calm among the French, British, Egyptians, and Israelis. It was a classic display of Ottawa's intermediary role between the British and the Americans and a heralding of the Canadian shift from support of British foreign policy to support of American. So close was the collaboration between Ottawa and Washington that the resolution submitted by Canada was actually written by the American officials at the United Nations. The American wording was tantamount to Pearson's and considered more likely to succeed because the Egyptians had already agreed to it. The I Iniied Stales didn't want lo introduce:! resolution itself I jccau.se it would provoke a more polarized traction. Canada, with its clean
international reputation, had more chance of being successful.
On November 6, 1956, after the resolution establishing a U.N. command was accepted, after the Canadians had agreed to contribute to the emergency force and after it was announced that a cease-fire was to take place in the disputed canal zone area by midnight, President Eisenhower telephoned Prime Minister St. Laurent:
Eisenhower: "Things are pretty encouraging. Never have I seen action on the part of a government that excited me more than the rapid way that you and your government moved into the breach. You did a magnificent job and we admire it."
St. Laurent: "I very much appreciate that, and my colleagues will, too. But we happened to be in a position that no one had any misgivings about it. But you can't explain the vagaries of human nature. We have trouble up here, with people who look upon bigness as a sin."
Eisenhower: "I just really felt it necessary to say congratulations—I think you have done a wonderful thing."
St. Laurent: "We do our best. We have been trying to get our teeth in this thing since 1946, and I think this will be a permanent set that will serve as a pretty good example."
Eisenhower: "If we can get this settled today without complications, we will be a most fortunate people."
St. Laurent: "Have you seen the dispatch from the French and British?"
Eisenhower: "Yes, I have."
St. Laurent: "They want to be authorized to remove the obstacles from the Canal."
Eisenhower: "I don't think they should quibble now—should accept Mr. Hammarskjold's plan."
St. Laurent: "They are not making it a condition, you know. They are merely saying they have the equipment that would do the job if the UN feels..."
Eisenhower: "I can't tell you how sensible and logical their offer is. I don't want Egypt to get a chance to say they are getting Russian backing. So I think they should offer it to Hammarskjold and let him work it out."
St. Laurent: "I hope our General Burns will be over here soon and will be able to tell us how much he needs and then allocate his needs, and tell us who, under die resolution can take part."
Kisenhowcr: "In a message to Anthony |Lden|, I told Inm I was
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COUNTRY COUSINS: IKE AND UNCLE LOUIS • 175
glad he didn't insist on using any big five troops; because then the Russians would send 6 Army Corps."5
A month later, the work of their U.N. representatives successful, the groundwork laid for a Nobel Peace Prize for Lester Pearson, the two leaders ended their country club relationship with a final meeting on a golf course. Eisenhower was vacationing at the Augusta National in Georgia, his favourite club and the home of the Masters Tournament. Uncle Louis was on holiday in Florida and the president rang him up and invited him over to play a few holes. The interesting spectacle of the prime minister receiving full military honours before teeing up his golf ball ensued. On the links the leaders discussed tariffs on Canadian fish, balance of trade problems, and the Cold War policies of Indian Prime Minister Nehru. They travelled the picturesque Augusta fairways in an electric cart, a relative novelty in those days. "Well I found, in fact, you know," St. Laurent said, "that a game of golf in one of those electric go-carts was about the best way to have an international conference because you are getting off the go-cart quite frequently for only a couple of minutes, but for time enough to reflect on what had been said up to that moment and to reflect on what is going to be said when you get back on the seat of the go-cart."
Eisenhower was astounded when St. Laurent told him Canada would be importing one billion dollars more in goods in the current year from the United States than it would be exporting there. American capital was entering Canada in waves also. It was the 1950s and the American takeover of the Canadian economy was moving full force. But St. Laurent wasn't complaining to Ike, just explaining: "I also told him... that there was going to be, as a result of the investment of American capital in Canada, a very substantial increase in production and that we were buying more than we were selling at the present t ime just as it sometimes happens to a farmer that he buys more in the spring than he sells in the spring. But it is because he is going to use the fertilizer and seed, which occasion the additional buying, to have a crop that is going to be larger in the fall; and that we were going to have a crop of production in our country, a portion of which was going to be the crop resulting from the investment of his own fellow citizens in the industries of our country."
There was some advice, asserted with conviction, for the president
on ant i-.....in ii ii iisi 11.' I 1 ic liars were not the same in places like India,
the |n imc minislci told him. It should not lie forgotten, he said, that
the backdrop of the United States was not the only backdrop against which the attitudes of other people in the world should be appraised.
As for the golf scores, Eisenhower, a player with a respectable 15 handicap, was the clear winner. Uncle Louis played "no worse than usual." Quashing a rumour that he had cracked the important three-digit barrier, he said: "when I manage to break 100, I'll announce it myself."
When Diefenbaker broke the twenty-two-year Liberal dynasty in 1957, American officialdom was startled. The assumption had been that the Grits would win again. The U.S. embassy in Ottawa ran a pool on the election results and nobody came close. Officials there, desperate for information on members of the new Conservative cabinet, telephoned Eugene Griffin, a veteran Ottawa correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, asking for help. "To them," said Griffin, "it was like a bunch of guys from Mars had taken over."6
A harbinger of discontent when the Tories took control was the Herl >ert Norman affair. Norman, the Canadian ambassador to Egypt, committed suicide in the spring of 1957 following reckless disclosures by a U.S. Senate subcommittee linking him with communism. His death occasioned an outpouring of venom in Canada against the anti-communist excesses of the McCarthy period. The Eisenhower administration reacted with relative nonchalance, fueling the passions. St. Laurent and his officials had been perturbed by Ike's essentially timid response to the witch hunts in the first place. Now they were furious. Norman Robertson, beginning a term as Washington ambassador, saw the president, but received little satisfaction. Eisenhower, who had been so impressed with Canadian diplomatic efforts in the Suez crisis, told him that the American governmental structure was such that he could do little about congressional indiscretions. He could give no assurances that they wouldn't continue.
Diefenbaker, a fiercely proud Canadian, a man who cherished the British heritage, gave early notice of the new direction by campaigning to shift Canadian trade from the United States to Europe. When reporters inquired how much, the prime minister didn't seem to know. One scribe suggested that it may be something like 15 percent. Diefenbaker said that sounded about right, and his first anti-American policy was on the books.
The While House was somewha! anxious about Diefenbaker, the
I 76 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
prairie populist, but the fears were eased by the quick, friendly rapport Eisenhower established with him. Diefenbaker felt Eisenhower was a truly great man. He liked the non-Anglo name, he could talk to Ike about fishing. While Eisenhower and St. Laurent addressed each other by titles in correspondence and formally in person, Eisenhower requested not long into his relationship with Dieienbaker that it be "John" and "Ike." "I like Mr. Diefenbaker," he told the press, "and I think he is a very able man." The prime minister boasted to friends about the relationship. "Why, I can get Ike at any time, just by picking up the phone at my elbow."
They met briefly in October of 1957 when Diefenbaker accompanied the queen to Washington, and again in December at a NATO meetingin Paris. Four months later, Eisenhower telephoned to suggest the prime minister come down for a private visit. Dieienbaker persuaded him that it should be the other way around and although the president had already addressed the Canadian Parliament, he agreed to a repeat performance. He is, to date, the only president to have made one.
Suspicious of Diefenbaker's "tinge of neutralism," the State Department emphasized an anti-communist theme in briefing papers for the president. "The present is a time of great danger," said one outline. "Soviet communist imperialism aims to weaken and disrupt and to pick off the nations of the free world." In a later phone call to the prime minister, Eisenhower, after a few words about a plaque being dedicated at his mountain, recalled a Peking communique to the effect that the Russians and the red Chinese were going to "liberate" the peoples of Central America, South America, Africa and Asia. "Can you imagine!"
Communism was a theme in his second speech to the House of Commons, but a more surprising feature was Eisenhower's direct rebuttal of Canadian grievances on bilateral issues. A meaningless, ceremonial speech it wasn't. He ticked off the Canadian complaints one by one and shot them down. On American takeovers of Canadian business: "These investments have helped you to develop your re-sou ices and to expand your industrial plant at a far laster rate than would have been possible had you relied wholly on your own savings. They have thereby helped to provide employment, tax revenues, and other direct benefits. These funds have also helped Canada to finance with ease its receni surplus ofimports from the I !niled Slates." On restrictive polii ies against ('anadiauoil imports: "A heiilthy, domes!ic
COUNTRY COUSINS: IKE AND UNCLE LOUIS • 177
oil producing industry is vital to our national security," On Canada's imbalance of trade in manufactured goods: "I assume that Canada is as interested as we are in the expansion of world trade rather than in
its artificial redirection____To try to balance our books once a month
or once a year with every nation with which we trade would stifle rather than expand trade."
Diefenbaker stuck mainly to pleasantries. He disclosed that a Canadian had been present on the platform at Lincoln's Gettysburg address: William McDougall, a future father of Confederation had immediately recognized the speech as being famous, and written home that the president's words would live through history.
With Ike present, there had to be the obligatory reference to golf, and Diefenbaker managed to combine that theme with the omnipresent undefended border motif: "The intelligence service informs me after diligent inquiry that you come bearing no arms and carry no armour other than a brassie and a putter. May I, sir, as an aside, express the wish that under clear skies and fairways not too narrow you will be able, while here, to use this armour and add to your list of victories." The prime minister was puzzled by Ike's obsession with the game. He would llinch during White House visits at the sight of him swinging irons on parquet floors and chipping balls through the open back door of the mansion onto the lawn. Kennedy later showed the prime minister the damage Ike's hobby had wrought—chip marks and holes in the White House iloors.
One of the supposed accomplishments of the Ottawa visit was the establishment of a joint cabinet committee on defence to supplement other combined efforts on defence cooperation. But it was this—the continental closeness demanded by Washington on defence matters— that was to trigger the rift with the Diefenbaker government. In External Affairs minister Howard Green, Diefenbaker had an intransigent nationalist and a close confidant. In letters from the public, which began to come in slowly in 1958 and faster in the ensuing two years, Diefenbaker had what he thought was evidence to support Green, evidence of a brewing anti-Americanism. Diefenbaker put disproportionate stock in the letters. He fancied himself as a man of the people, a man to represent the small, single voices. One of his models was Franklin Roosevelt, whose successes he considered the result of an ability to appeal directly to the people, to be one with them:
On .June HO, 195!), I >iefenbaker told ambassador' Hceuev I hat lir
178 « THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS__
was getting too much pressure from Washington ibr cooperation on military concerns. Requests were coming in for overflights of U.S. aircraft, for special alerts, for extended cooperation in respect to the newly created North American Air Defense Command. The prime minister said he was not prepared to meet them all. Heeney was surprised; Eisenhower and his men had been more cooperative recently, he felt, than ever. A conscious decision had been taken in the White House, he told Diefenbaker, to meet Canada wherever possible on all issues. That didn't assuage the prime minister. Heeney left feeling there would be trouble in the months ahead. He saw Green and told him that the U.S. requests were merely normal suggestions for the improvement of joint defence. Green replied that the prime minister had political considerations to keep in mind.7
Green's views and those of his boss hardened with time. But although Diefenbaker was not afraid to be blunt in dealing with Eisenhower, on issues such as Washington's threat to curb lead and zinc imports, he would not confront him personally on the large questions responsible for what he privately termed an anti-American "avalanche" in his country. Had he done so, some of the problems of the early 1960s could have been pre-empted.
In June 1960 as Diefenbaker prepared for a visit, the State Department informed the president that the question of locating nuclear warheads in Canada had sparked a domestic political controversy. But there was no suggestion that Eisenhower go slow on defence cooperation: "It is hoped that you may be able to influence the Prime Minister toward the desirability of maintaining strong and united defenses. It is suggested that you attempt to secure his assurance of Canada's approval of the planned joint exercise Sky Shield to test North American air defenses."8
The briefing papers contained a personal appraisal of the prime minister: "After three years in office, Mr. Diefenbaker has lost none of his self-confidence and vigor which are among his most striking characteristics. His reputation as a shrewd politician remains undiminished. He maintains a tight rein on his cabinet and reserves all important decisions for himself...
"Mr. Diefenbaker is a little deaf in his left ear and is somewhat sensitive about it. He is intelligent, shrewd, serious but also emotional and sentimental. He is a devout Baptist, a Freemason, and a teetotaler, although he docs not mind others imbibing."
COUNTRY COUSINS: IKE AND UNCLE LOUIS • 179
The meeting of the two leaders turned into a triumph. Notwithstanding the anti-American avalanche, the prime minister told the president that Canada-U.S. relations had never been so wonderful. Delighted with the appraisal, Eisenhower repeated it at a toast: "The one thing that I want to take the privilege of repeating to you that the Prime Minister said to me this afternoon is this: 'In the last two and a half years, Mr. President,' he said, 'the relations of Canada and the United States have reached a height of friendliness, cordiality and true cooperation that has never before been attained so far as I know.'"
Then the Chief chimed in: "I come into your country. You come into mine. Wc don't always agree. We sometimes have our differences but I will always look back on this day as one that represents, to me, the embodiment of those great and eternal principles of liberty. We
get together. We discuss. We are not at all afraid____We speak freely.
We understand each other."
The nice words bore no resemblance to reality. Eleven weeks following the visit, Diefenbaker called in Heeney and laid out the real story. "In his judgment," Heeney observed in his diary, "anti-American sentiment was now worse than at any time in his lifetime or mine.... This was causing him the greatest concerns."
Heeney asked the reasons for the bad feelings and the prime minister gave him four: "the widespread impression that the U.S. was 'pushing other people around'; distrust of the U.S. military and anxiety over the Pentagon's real intentions; the economic aggressiveness of U.S. interests; and the adverse trading position." An alarmed Heeney said he didn't realize the feelings ran so deep, that he had regarded the Canada-U.S. alliance as "our most precious asset."
The next day Diefenbaker had him back for more. He pulled out a sheaf of letters and showed Heeney one from a young Conservative denouncing Eisenhower's nuclear policies and economic aggressiveness. "The letter had been read with care," noted the ambassador, "and marginal comments made by Mr. Diefenbaker. It was quite clear the letter had made a deep impression on him." Diefenbaker read Heeney several others, all promoting Canadian neutrality. The sampling was only a tiny portion of what he was getting, he said, and surely Heeney could now understand what he meant.
The question was what to do. The prime minister wasn't prepared himself to say anything but suggested that Heeney start telling the
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authorities in Washington. The word was put through to Secretary of State Christian Herter. In a few weeks, Green was in town personally to tell Herter that the heart of the problem was that Canadians "were notjiearly so worried about the Russians." But he had no suggestions toward a possible solution and, in the end, tended to play down the split. A man who seemed to think most Americans were inherently evil, Green was amazed to find that Herter was actually a nice guy. A fine man, he told Heeney, "completely the opposite of what Canadians expect an American to be." A meeting with Vice-President Richard Nixon had also stunned Green. Even Nixon appeared to be nice and Green criticized Heeney for not warning him in advance that this was the case. "To this I could only reply," said Heeney, "that not all Americans had horns."
Diefenbaker and Eisenhower met for the last time on January 17, 1961, three days before John Kennedy moved into the White House. The meeting was a ceremony to mark the signing of the Columbia River Treaty, a pact giving joint control over hydro-electric power from the Columbia. It was Eisenhower's last major foreign responsibility as president, and he gave the royal treatment to his Canadian friend. He spoke of the glorious bilateral relationship, and Diefenbaker reciprocated: "My hope is that in the years ahead this day will be looked back on as one that represents the greatest advance that has ever been made in international relations between countries."
Any clash over the reality of the bilateral relationship would have to await the arrival of the "young pup," as Diefenbaker called him. As is normally the case, it was easier for Diefenbaker to get tough with someone he didn't like than with a close acquaintance.
"I felt that we were friends," he wrote Ike, "and as friends could Speak with frankness regarding the problems of our two countries. Indeed whenever matters of disagreement, actual or potential, were brought to your attention they were acted upon by you to the last extent possible."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The
Diefenbaker^Kennedy Schism
IN 1952 WHEN John F. Kennedy was just another New England senator, the Canadian issue, the St. Lawrence Seaway, was up for a vote again. Massachusetts lobbyists warned him that the Seaway would harm state railroad and port interests. Hundreds of people would lose their jobs. Others argued that national gain outweighed parochial pain. Kennedy was faced with the politician's classic dilemma: Should he back the interests of his constituency or the interests of the country? Without much hesitation he voted parochial. He voted against the Seaway.
In 1954 when he faced another vote on the project, the young senator asked his assistant, Theodore Sorensen, to do an objective study. New England, Sorensen reported, wouldn't be hurt as much as alleged and the nation would be better off with the Seaway. Kennedy had his aide write a speech in support of it and he said he would decide in the morning. That night, he was restless. "Years later he would make far more difficult and dangerous decisions without any loss of sleep," observed Sorensen, "but this was in many ways a turning point for the 36 year old senator. He had no obligation to vote for the seaway and endanger his political base. He was not required to speak on either side. A quiet vote of opposition would have received no attention."
The next day, said Sorensen, he hesitated. "Then with a shake of
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his head—a shake I would often see, meaning 'well this is what I must do for better or for worse'—he walked over to the senate floor and delivered the speech."
"I am unable to accept such a narrow view of my function as a United States senator," Kennedy announced and strongly endorsed cooperation with Canada. Sorensen was besieged by the press for copies, and although the Boston Post accused Kennedy of "ruining New England," his bold stand won him new respect in the Senate and in the country. In Sorensen's view, it was a significant step in Kennedy's march to the presidency.1
On Inauguration Day, January 20, 1961, Canadian ambassador Heeney had a seat among the dignitaries, from which he could see the "New Frontier" face of Kennedy juxtaposed against the tired 1950s visage of Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was an intensely cold day; the white snow was wind-blown, piled high, and the sunlight kissed it. Clean, pure, and shining, it was a day meant for departures. As he watched, Heeney marvelled at Kennedy: "Tall, serious, young and really very strong." For the ambassador there wouldn't be more memorable moments; there was the feeling that something was being born. To him, when the new president spoke, "it really seemed to rank with Lincoln."2
The ambassador, like so many others, was caught up in the idealism John Kennedy embodied. The first Catholic president was capturing the imagination of Canada as much as he was that of the United States. In Hamilton, Ontario, a precocious fifteen-year-old high school student was so moved that he formed a club to exalt Kennedy and to chase his dreams. Within a few days, dozens of youths had joined the group, which called itself "The Muckers," and soon there was a clamouring waiting list. The Muckers wore Kennedy sweatshirts to class, made a pilgrimage to Washington, went on a sixty-mile walk in his honour and became the dominant social force at the school. To Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, their own leader, they paid scant attention. Kennedy was their man and long after his death The Muckers lingered to cherish his memory.
For Diefenbaker, had he been informed of them, The Muckers would have been repugnant. A person could have diligently searched the Canadian landscape in 1960 and had trouble finding many who strongly disliked Kennedy, but the prime minister was the exception. John Diefenbaker developed a dislike for Kennedy well before he met
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him. He was suspicious of his wealth, youth, and arrogance. More importantly, he feared that his own star was being eclipsed by Kennedy's.
No politician had entranced the Canadian population like Diefenbaker in his record-smashing, landslide victory of 1958. He was the spellbinding orator, the champion of the little man, the great raconteur, and the outstanding parliamentarian. But suddenly it was Kennedy who was galvanizing the political world and reaching out to Diefenbaker's own countrymen, displacing him in their affections. Under the circumstances it was hard for a man like Diefenbaker, whose rancour was often rooted in the petty, not to be jealous. He told people that he had originated the "New Frontier" slogan in speaking of his vision of the north, and that Kennedy had stolen it. He told Heeney as the 1960 campaign opened that he preferred Nixon to Kennedy and after the Kennedy victory, it was apparent to many that there could be trouble. "For all the promise of the incoming team [US]," Basil Robinson of the Prime Minister's Office wrote Heeney, "there is no doubt that the absence of a personal relationship is going to introduce an incalculable factor into relations with the United States. It is disturbing that the Prime Minister seems to have formed some rather unfavourable early impressions. I just hope these can be erased."
Heeney met with Dean Rusk, the new secretary of state, prior to inauguration. Rusk, an old friend of the ambassador's, asked immediately why Canada felt it should have special status with the United States. Why shouldn't it be treated like any other foreign country? Heeney said that the status was a natural consequence of continental and historical association. Moving away from business, Rusk mentioned that he sometimes took his son fishing to Canada. In the future, Heeney suggested, stop by Ottawa for talks on such excursions. Rusk was enthusiastic and Heeney forwarded the news to the prime minister's office. The response was a sign of the times. Heeney's suggestion, in his own words, was "dismissed as one more indication that the Americans thought of Canada only as a place for fishing and hunting."
Canadian issues hadn't figured in the election campaign but Kennedy was mindful of the country's importance to him. In the selection of ambassadors he told Rusk he wanted no political hacks for Canada. For his choice of first foreign visitor, Kennedy selected Diefenbaker, and lor his choice of first li ircign visit lie selected ( lanada.
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For a president who had generated as much anticipation as Kennedy, they were not small compliments.
The new president could hardly have found a better way of tarnishing first-visitor honours however, than by getting the guest's name wrong. As Diefenbaker had spent three years as Canada's head of state, as he had an ego sometimes bordering on megalomania, and as he was a man who cherished his own status, his reaction to Kennedy's announcement that "Mr. Diefenbawker" was coming to town was one that did not require speculation. It was further evidence for him that the heralded chief executive was an arrogant upstart. It was the start of the road to disaster.
Three days before their first of only three meetings, the Washington view of the Diefenbaker government was set out for Kennedy by Secretary Rusk who reminded the president in his first sentence that it was "Deefen-BAKER." The appraisal was lucid and incisive, defining clearly the disparity between Canadian and American attitudes and lashing out at Howard Green as the bad guy.
"The primary problem the United States faces in its bilateral relations with Canada," Rusk told Kennedy, "lies in an evolving Canadian attitude of introspection and nationalism. The magnitude of neighboring U.S. wealth and power has long engendered a Canadian inferiority complex which is reflected in a sensitivity to any real or fancied slight to Canadian sovereignty. Thus the essential element in problems involving Canada tends to be psychological.
"On the one hand there is Canada's wish to be known as truly separate, independent and different. Many Canadians are persuaded at times that they somehow face the threat of being engulfed culturally, economically and ultimately politically by the United States. They wish to preserve and promote a Canadian national identity, an objective as old as Canadian confederation and still considerably unfulfilled. On the other hand the Canadians desire, and believe themselves entitled to, a privileged relationship with the United States."
Diefenbaker's appeal in 1957 and 1958, the memo said, was to "Canadianism," with some strong anti-American overtones. Now, "Canadian support cannot be taken for granted and there will most probably be a variety of Canadian suggestions and initiatives, some of which will be most annoying to the U.S., but which will probably not be fundamentally damaging. The fact remains thai basically most of
the Canadian people are favorably disposed toward the United States and believe that each country inescapably needs the other."3
But Diefenbaker was looking to bolster his waning popularity, Rusk warned, and therefore could place a renewed emphasis on nationalism. The major problem, Rusk asserted, was defence. Canadian cabinet splits, stagnant defence budgets and general indecision were producing the possibility of "a drift toward a kind of unconscious neutralism."
This, Rusk said, was something the United States could not afford: "The fact of Canadian military dependence upon the U.S. is admitted, no matter how much it may annoy, but Mr. Diefenbaker also knows this dependence is reciprocal. Loss or diminution of U.S. use of Canadian air space and real estate and the contributions of the Canadian military, particularly the RCAF and Royal Canadian Navy, would be intolerable in time of crisis."
For Howard Green, the British Columbia-born External Affairs minister, there was no mercy. "He has exhibited," Kennedy was told, "a naive and almost parochial approach to some international problems which was first attributed to his inexperience but which is now believed to be part of his basic, personality."
Hitting out at his extreme sensitivity "to any implied interference with Canada's independence of action" Rusk called Green self-righteous, stubborn, less flexible than Diefenbaker and almost pacifist. He was suspicious, too, about Green's devotion to the United Church of Canada. Reflecting back on his experience with the tall, earnest man, Rusk mused, "When people start mixing politics with God, I get nervous."''
The president and the prime minister had never met. But the signs pointed to discord. Diefenbaker was suspicious and jealous of Kennedy. The anti-American letters were still landing on his desk. He was extremely sensitive to them. And in his trusted lieutenant, Mr. Green, the fires of nationalism raged.
Kennedy was a man of a different generation, a different sense of humour, a different style. He knew little more about Diefenbaker and his government than what the briefing papers told him. And what they told him was not complimentary. Kennedy wanted an expansive alliance with Canada and they told him he was not likely to get it.
The first meeting, one month after Kennedy took office, did not please the president. He found Diefenbaker insincere, and did not like
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Or trust him. "Diefenbaker, who felt at home with Eisenhower," recalled Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a top Kennedy adviser, "had been uneasy with the new President."
Bui strangely the prime minister had an entirely different view. He thought the talks went splendidly. On the way to the airport he told I ieeney how he was impressed by the informal and genuine atmosphere Kennedy created. Back in the House of Commons the same day, he was laudatory: "To me this was a revealing and exhilarating experience. The President of the United States has the kind of personality that leaves upon one the impression of a person dedicated to peace, to the raising of economic standards... and to the achievement in his day of disarmament among all nations of the world."
On substantive issues there were no fireworks. Diefenbaker gave assurances Canada would continue with negotiations for acquisitions hI nuclear warheads for its weapons systems. The government has to be more than just "birdwatchers," he told reporters. Kennedy, inter-esiingly, had personally ordered a report on Canadian civil defence progress shortly before the discussion. Canada was behind, he was informed, but could soon move ahead of the United States. During the talks, the matter received minor attention.
One thing that bothered Diefenbaker, one of the little things, was a Kennedy-installed White House portrait of the War of 1812 which suggested the Americans were the clear victors. This was intolerable lor I he prime minister and he tried to secure a picture illustrating the opposite to be sent to Kennedy. But perhaps a more foreboding footnote to the first meeting of Kennedy and Diefenbaker was the melancholy ending. That night, Diefenbaker's mother died.
Three months later Kennedy arrived in Ottawa for what would I " k 'Hue the most controversial of all Canada-U.S. summits. Kennedy had no great cause for being in a cocky frame of mind when his plane touched down at Uplands Airport on that May 14. Only a month i ailiei he had been the architect of one of America's mosl humiliating li)iii;;n policy exercises. W'ashington-backed Cuban exiles attempting i" ■ >\ crthrow the Castro regime were erased in a matter of hours at the Bay of Pigs.
It was a liasco, but White House officials didn't really need Howard < iieen in nib their faces in it. Green fancied Canada, and therefore himself, as .1 leading middle-power mediator in the world. Leave this I 1.S.-Cuba problem 10 us, he publicly suggested in one of diplomacy's
more gratuitous incursions, and everything will be fine. His statement, made in Geneva, came only a few days before the Ottawa meeting: "The more Cuba is pushed the greater becomes her reliance on the Soviet bloc. Of course Canada is farther away from Cuba than the United States and so it's easier for us to seem more dispassionate. But we would hope to be able to solve this problem when the situation slows down and eases a bit."
The best and the brightest were not pleased. The State Department cabled its consulates in Ottawa and in Geneva: "President is concerned over these statements which, assuming Green correctly quoted, reflect distressing lack of awareness of facts in Cuban situation. Therefore request that you speak with Green in effort [to] bring him to greater awareness of what is really going on in Cuba.... In the meantime we are calling in Canadian ambassador Heeney to inform him of planned approach to Green, express our unhappiness over Green's alleged statements and present facts in Cuban situation as we see them."
Heeney got nothing but cold wind. Schlesinger cornered him at a cocktail party and "with unrestrained sarcasm" asked whether Canada had "arrived at the position where we put Castro and Kennedy on the same footing."
The president, meanwhile, was receiving briefing papers for the Ottawa trip which were even more negative about John Diefenbaker than the notes for the first get-together. "His rhetorical gifts, which tend toward the emotional, enable him to promote his vision of Canada's national destiny with evangelical fervor. Since becoming Prime Minister however he has demonstrated a disappointing indeci-siveness on important issues, such as the defense program, as well as a lack of political courage and undue sensitivity to public opinion." The State Department believed that Diefenbaker had no basic prejudice against the United States but would use anti-Americanism for political expediency: "His government's waning popularity... may lead him to continue to exploit issues which have a nationalistic political appeal."5
A low-key drama was brewing that May over whether Kennedy should pressure Canada to join the Organization of American States, the U.S.-Latin American alliance for hemispheric defence and economic cooperation. A clash of serious consequence, it started one month before the visit, when Livingston Merchant, reappointed as Ottawa ambassador by Kennedy after a successful stint in the 1950s,
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was asked to do an immediate draft of Kennedy's speech to Parliament. Merchant gave the job to Rufus Smith, one of his top men and a diplomat who would earn a distinguished reputation while working almost twenty years in capacities dealing with Canada-U.S. relations. "I drafted the speech," said Smith. "Stayed up all night to do it. Thought it was great stuff."6
A White House instruction had been to include a line calling on Canada to join the OAS. But Smith left it out. He and Merchant were certain the prime minister would take great offence to such a sugges-I ion. They explained their reasons for the deletion in a separate note. In Washington, however, Heeney and embassy officials were meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Walt Rostow. They told him the opposite. Ottawa would not object to a discreet recommendation. Rostow then wrote a memo to Kennedy saying: "They would hope that you might tactfully encourage the growing sentiment within Canada to join the OAS and to assume increased responsibilities in the hemisphere." He added a harpoon shot at Green: "I take it they are prepared to join on grounds other than 'mediating' between the U.S. and Cuba."
Hearing of the developments, Merchant made a twelfth-hour bid to change Kennedy's mind. He went to Washington and then flew back to Ottawa with the president, warning him on OAS: Don't do it.7
But Kennedy was sold on his popularity in Canada. The Bay of Pigs had not disfigured his stardom. State briefing papers emboldened him, saying he had "stirred the imagination of Canadians" and must take advantage. "This particular lime therefore affords the United States a superb opportunity to advance our objectives with the Canadian public and government because even those who resist American influence in Canada are now impressed by the new administration and their criticism is muted."
< >n the old Canadian complaint about not being consulted, Kennedy was told to go on the attack: "It is useful to remind Canadians that they sometimes do not consult us about matters of great import a nee to us and that their criticism of us... is often levelled from the position of bystander."
Kennedy heeded the advice. The controversies started as soon as he landed. Diefenbaker, in his introduction, went through the painful ritual ol saying a lew words in French, His French had always been awful. ( hire during a campaign stop in Quebec he was introduced to
a gentleman to whom he said "bonjour." The gentleman then introduced the prime minister to his son or, as the gentleman said in French, "'manfik." Diefenbaker, happy to be introduced, said, "Bonjour Monsieur Mm Fits." At the airport he was typically abominable. Kennedy's wife Jacqueline was fluent in French, but the president himself a novice. When his turn came, Kennedy broke into a wide grin and said that "after having had a chance to listen to the prime minister," he was now encouraged to try French himself. The audience howled, Jackie leading the way. It was a typical example of Kennedy's sardonic sense of humour, a facet of him, Rusk remembered, which Diefenbaker couldn't understand.
But the ridicule of the French was just an opener, one of several Kennedy jabs which would have tested the forebearance of any host head of state. The second occurred in Diefenbaker's office. The prime minister, who had brought in a rocking chair for the visit because he knew the president liked them, was a proud fisherman. On the first visit he had told Kennedy about his finest catch —a 140-pound blue marlin. In the interim he had it mounted on his office wall and now he was expecting a glowing tribute from Kennedy. But the president wasn't impressed. Caught many larger ones myself, he so much as said. Diefenbaker did a slow burn. Of all the things that rankled him about Kennedy, the blue marlin mock was a leader. Long after he had left the prime minister's office he told and retold the story about what the "boastful young son of a bitch" had said about his fishing.
When the office discussion moved to the OAS, Diefenbaker made it clear that Canada was not interested in joining at this time. Kennedy had been warned by his ambassador. Now he was getting the word from the prime minister himself. The next day he addressed Parliament: "Your country and mine are partners in North American affairs; can we not become partners in inter-American affairs?...I believe that all the members of the Organization of American States would be both heartened and strengthened by any increase in your hemispheric role.... To be sure it would mean an added responsibility, but yours is not a nation that shrinks from responsibility."
Kennedy was ignoring the wishes of the host government and going over the head of the prime minister to the Canadian people. An act of gall, it shocked Canadian officials like senior diplomat Ed Ritchie, a future ambassador to Washington. "I shuddered when I heard him say that."
The president wasn't finished. He called for a larger Canadian
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contribution to foreign aid and NATO, instructions the prime minister could have done nicely without. He poked fun at the Canadian Senate: "There are many differences between this body (Parliament) and mine. The most noticeable to me is the lofty appearance of st a tesmanship which is on the faces of the members of the Senate who realize that they will never have to place their case before the public again."
The address contained some of the Kennedy word-magic. "Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economies has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder. What unites us is far greater than what divides us— Our alliance is born not of fear but of hope."
But there was not a word of praise or even pleasant acknowledgement for the prime minister. Diefenbaker, despite his inner mistrust, had at least made some effort with Kennedy. He had publicly praised him after the first visit, he had brought in his favourite chair, and now in his own speech before Parliament, he lauded Kennedy as a scholar, author, and statesman. Citing an Irish poem, the prime minister gave 11 a Kennedy twist.
"When I was in Ireland a few weeks ago—and Ireland is the rock from whence you were hewn, sir—I was told something of your ancestry, shown the arms of the O'Kennedy's of Ormonde and of the Fitzgeralds, renowned in Irish history as the Geraldines. And I was shown a poem...
These Geraldines! These Geraldines! Rain Wears away the rock And time may wear away the tribe That stood the battle's shock; But ever sure while one is left of all That honoured race, In front of freedom's chivalry is that Fitzgerald's place."
Then, picking up on "In front of freedom's chivalry," Diefenbaker said: "That is your place today, Mr. President."
In fact, however, Diefenbaker was seeing far less than chivalry in Kennedy's performance. His French ridiculed, his fishing ridiculed, his name wrong, his policy on the OAS brazenly repudiated, the
prime minister was hard pressed to do so. Kennedy was also spending too much time at receptions, in Diefenbaker's view, with Opposition leader Pearson. The media didn't please the prime minister either because it was predictably lavish in its praise of the visitor. "Kennedy was a Smash Hit and His Lovely Young Wife a Wow" declared a Toronto Star headline.
All the insults were outdistanced, however, by the infamous missing-memo affair. A one-page document prepared by Rostow instructed Kennedy on what to "push for." Never intended for Canadian eyes, the memo contained phrasing less delicate than the average diplomatic note:
"WHAT WE WANT FROM OTTAWA TRIP"
1. To push the Canadians towards an increased commitment to the Alliance lor Progress. Concretely, we would like them to have at least an observer at the July IA—ECOSOC.
2. To push them towards a decision to join the OAS.
3. To push them towards a larger contribution for the India consortium and for foreign aid generally. The figures are these: they have offered $36 million lor India's Third-Year-Plan, we would like $70 million from them. Over-all their aid now comes to $69 million a year; if they did 1% of GNP the figure would be $360 million. lake the rest of us, they have their political problems with foreign aid; but we might be able to push them in the right direction.
4. We want their act ive support at Geneva and beyond for a more effective monitoring of the borders of Laos and Vietnam.
Rufus Smith, for one, could understand how a prime minister, particularly one as sensitive about being bullied as Diefenbaker, could find it abrasive. The memo was left behind on the table in the cabinet room. Diefenbaker found it. And he did find it abrasive. At the time he chose not to make it public, not to return it or a copy of it to the White House, nor to inform the American officials they had left it behind. Instead he chose to use it as an excuse to seethe, then a year later, as a threat, and then, a year after that, as a real weapon.
The public was unaware of the problems developing between the president and the prime minister. From its perspective, from the limited perspective the press could provide, the summit was another
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splendid manifestation of bilateral bliss. But even something as innocent as the ceremonial presidential-tree plant turned out to be a disaster on this ill-fated tour. Kennedy was handed a gleaming silver shovel to plant two red oaks. Standing erect, with the spade at arm's length, he shovelled with great enthusiasm, unable to resist after about twelve throws the line—"I wonder if this is symbolic?" He handed the shovel to Diefenbaker who grinned and stood with it. Then it was Jackie's turn. Looking like the queen of a senior prom a shovel did not become her, and after three dainty, tablespoon scoops and a giggle, that was that. But for the president it was the beginning of months of pain. A few hours after his hard exercise, he felt a twinge in his back, and later, an acute ache. As a senator he had experienced severe back problems. Now, the tree plant reactivated them. For six months after the visit he would suffer, sometimes terribly. In the last month of the year, he would visit Bermuda where his schedule also included tree work. But this, as the Bermudan authorities described it, was a "modified tree planting." All the president had to do was snip a ribbon hanging from the bark. "A very good way of doing it," Kennedy remarked. "Much easier than in Canada."
The Ottawa visit failed to accomplish anything substantial. The points on the Rostow memo that Kennedy was to pursue were made in his speech and in private talks with the prime minister. A joint statement given to the press listed topics discussed but contained no hard conclusions. Despite this, despite the beginnings of new back problems, Kennedy, charged by the glowing reception of the Canadian press and public, left the city in upbeat spirits. On the flight home he invited Heeney to join him and his wife in the front cabin and immediately inquired as to the ambassador's opinion of his first foreign visit. Heeney said it was great. Delighted, Kennedy turned to a large stack of paperwork. Intermittently, he handed Heeney a memo or cable on a foreign affairs matter and asked his advice. "That's how it went all the way back to Washington," remembered Heeney. "No small talk. No pleasantries after the first almost perfunctory exchange. The President was addressing himself to his business and paying me the compliment of assuming I would understand that its importance transcended lesser conventions."
He didn't mention it to Heeney but Kennedy, with all his style and savoir faire, had decided that John Diefenbaker was boring. He informed his colleagues of this view and the word spread and soon it
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got to 24 Sussex Drive. The prime minister of Canada now had more reason to dislike the man and the bilateral relationship had more potential for plunging, as it would, into its worst state of disrepair in the century.
At a press conference after the visit, Diefenbaker decided to go on the attack. The United States took Canada for granted, he said. The president's suggestions on foreign aid were unacceptable. American press coverage of Canada was totally inadequate. "We know a great deal more about you than you know about us," the prime minister said to a U.S. reporter.
The next month a controversy arose over Canadian wheat sales to China. Eisenhower had made a strong point of telling the presidentelect that one initiative he would staunchly oppose would be any accommodations with China. Rusk never felt that Kennedy was personally against rapprochement, but Ike's advice, combined with the fact that Kennedy was operating on the narrowest of election mandates, stopped him.8 In the Canadian case, American loading equipment was being used lor the wheat and the Kennedy administration wished to block purchases of the equipment. After consultations with Ottawa officials, however, the president decided not to do it. Diefenbaker, in later years, would use the case as a prime example of how he refused to be bullied. He and Kennedy engaged in an all-out shouting match, he told Southam's Charles Lynch. "When I tell Canada to do something I expect her to do it," Kennedy had thundered, according lo the Diefenbaker- version of the conversation. "I will not be talked to that way," the prime minister shot back. "You can't have the loaders," shouted Kennedy. "You release those loaders," cried the Chief in the winning volley, "or I'll. ..go on television and tell the Canadian people what you are doing to us." Unfortunately for the Canadian ego the only supporting evidence for the Diefenbaker version was his roomy imagination.
After the personality problems between the two men had been well-established, the issue problems quickly began to mount in the summer of 1961 with the nuclear weapons dispute in theforefront. Ambassador Merchant had asked Diefenbaker prior to the Ottawa trip if his government was prepared to take nuclear-equipped F-lOlBs. Diefenbaker said caution was required because opposition in Canada was coming from more than just "Communists and bums"—those whom Douglas MatkiKss, the prime minister's Defence minister, had sug-
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gested. But the "intimation was clear his sympathies lie with us," Merchant cabled Rusk. "...I am certain we have a strong ally in Prime Minister as well as Harkness." This was significant news. It had been as recent as the end of February that Merchant had wired: "As you know the greatest single outstanding problem between us and Canada is Canadian failure to face up to question of nuclear warheads." Now Diefenbaker added a word of warning to Merchant to keep his new views quiet. Don't tell anyone in External Affairs, he said, because the initiative would then run the risk of "being flattened before it even got off the ground."9 The fear was in keeping with Diefenbaker's near paranoia about the department being stocked with Liberals working against him.
But the conversation with Diefenbaker, who said his cabinet was about to make a final decision, took place before the Kennedy visit. After, his attitude had changed. On August 3, no news from Ottawa having arrived, Kennedy wrote to the prime minister suggesting that it would be nice if there was some movement. The purport of the letter was then carried in an article by Harold Morrison of the Canadian Press, the suggest ion being that Diefenbaker was being pressured into an early decision. The idea of Kennedy forcing his hand was the last impression Diefenbaker would want given to anyone. The American embassy knew it. "Press story reported Embtcl 316 cannot fail," it wired home, "to be quite disturbing to Prime Minister and others in Canadian Government who are seeking to arrive at decision we want—In our opinion both decision [Canadian] and timing have obviously been considerably complicated by totally unnecessary publicity resulting from conversations by US government officials with Canadian reporters in Washington."
The U.S. embassy was fully aware of the sensitivities of not only Diefenbaker but their number one Canadian enemy—Howard Green. Shortly before the news of the letter broke, Green fired off another undiplomatic broadside in the Commons with the rallying cry—Nobody is going to tell us to jump through hoops. "One of the least effective ways of persuading Canada to adopt a policy," he said in reference to the OAS, "is for the President or the head of state of another country to come here and tell us what we should do.... I am rather surprised that the honourable member [Liberal Paul Martin] would suggest that we should at once have jumped through the hoop when the President of the I biitrd Stales made this suggestion."
On the nuclear warheads decision, the embassy conjecture was accurate: there was none. Despite mounting pressure, both domestic and from Washington, Diefenbaker delayed through the rest of the year and through 1962. In the spring of 1962, one of the least-known, but one of the most bitter elements in the Kennedy-Diefenbaker feud opened over the question of a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. The Canadian position was that a treaty with only limited verification clauses was better than none at all. Kennedy, less trusting of the Soviets, didn't want an agreement unless the means for verifying were failsafe. "For some t ime I have had an uneasy feeling," he wrote the prime minister, "that perhaps the positions of our two countries were becoming increasingly disparate on the nuclear test question." He urged Diefenbaker to oppose a proposal before the United Nations because "there is no safety in it for any of us." The prime minister initially went along, but changed his position a few months later, promising support for a move toward an unverified moratorium on tests. Livid, Kennedy sent a word missile to Diefenbaker beginning, "To my distress...." He said that just like the Soviet Union, "with its complete lack of moral scruples," Canada would be voting in favour of a moratorium. Should Canada go ahead, "it will be tantamount to Canada's abandoning the western position at Geneva on this issue. This will be seen by the Soviet Union as a successful breach of the western position."
The hot prose poured forth: "I can assure you most strongly Mr. Prime Minister that the United States will not agree to end tests unless we have reasonably adequate assurance that the Soviet Union will not carry out such tests."10
Kennedy was presumptuous enough to feel that he knew what was good for the Canadian population. "A mere Soviet promise is not satisfactory either to me or to the Canadian public," he said.
The letter was written on October 19,1962, when Kennedy was in the throes of perhaps the most difficult decision in his life. Soviet missile sites had been discovered on Cuba. Three days after writing the letter, he would announce to the world that he was embarking on a game of showdown with the Russians: Move your missile sites ofithe island or we'll move them off for you. In the context of the times, his letter to the prime minister could hardly have been expected to take anything but a hard line. The concluding paragraph? "Mr. Prime Minister, I cannot overemphasize my concern in this matter and, for
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the reasons I have advanced above and in the interest of a vital Western solidarity on this testing issue, I hope you will reconsider this decision to cast an affirmative vote for a resolution which can only damage and damage seriously the Western position on an essential issue of Western security."
Diefenbaker, in effect, told him to pound sand: "I am fully aware Mr. President that there remains a risk that low yield underground tests could be carried out in secret. Such a risk should not be judged in isolation and should be weighed against the graver dangers which will continue to exist as long as an agreement is not reached and the tests go on."
"In the opinion of the Government of Canada the resolution of the non-aligned nations represents a genuine effort to achieve a compromise position on the question of nuclear tests." There was no response from the White House. "I recommend against a reply," Carl Kaysen, a senior security official scribbled on a memo. "Why thank him for nothing."11
The autumn confrontations were preceded by the first of two Canadian election campaigns in which Diefenbaker was convinced he was fighting against three parties—the Liberals, the NDP, and the White House party. A few days into the spring campaign of 19(32 Kennedy hosted a dinner for Nobel Prize winners at the White House. The star of the show was none other than Liberal Party leader Lester Pearson with whom Kennedy talked for forty minutes before the dinner began. The effect at Tory headquarters in Canada was the appearance of collusion. The popular president was putting Pearson in the spotlight for public relations bonus points. White House officials later claimed that the dinner had been arranged weeks earlier and thai no thought had been given to any Canadian election at the time. A few days before the dinner, the possibility of a controversy was discussed by top Kennedy officials, but the decision had been made to go ahead. As for the long chat before dinner, the president had hoped to have seen Pearson in New York weeks earlier but their schedules failed to coincide. So he chose to spend time with him on Nobel night.
Kennedy genuinely liked Pearson, as did many in the Washington establishment "A special relationship," said Dean Rusk "had de-velojx-d between Mike Pearson and the United States." For Diefenbaker) ii was far too special. The dinner, the one at which Kennedy made (he crack    "Never has so much talent been gathered in one
room since Thomas Jefferson dined alone" —stirred the fuels of vengeance in him. He didn't admire Pearson and was forever bothered by his winning the Nobel Prize. The day after Pearson's death in 1972, journalist Stu Macleod visited Diefenbaker in the hopes of evoking some fond words from the Liberal leader's chief adversary. Big snow-flakes were falling in Ottawa and Diefenbaker was cozy in a large chair beside a crackling fireplace. When Macleod raised the subject of Pearson's most noted accomplishment, Diefenbaker paused for a few seconds, fixed his glare on the reporter, and pacing his well-weighted words in the dramatic cadence that only he could affect, said slowly: "That man should never have won the Nol>el Prize."12
So angered was the Chief over the Nobel dinner that he decided to play his cheap card. Ambassador Merchant was leaving his Ottawa posting but before he could get out of town, the prime minister had something to show him — the Rostow memo. Threatening to make its contents public, Diefenbaker bore down on Merchant, accusing his country of trying to push Canada around. Because of the dinner and because the White House was working to help Pearson win, Diefenbaker said he had little choice but to release the document so that the Canadian public would know what had been going on. Merchant was shaken. Diefenbaker was almost out of his mind with rage, he reported to the White House. McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser and George Ball, Rusk's deputy, told Merchant to inform Diefenbaker that Kennedy was not going to be told of the threat; that out of respect for the dignity of Canada it would not be wise; that the United States would not tolerate blackmail.
Of course, the president had been informed and, furious at the prime minister's attempted intimidation, he told Sorensen: "Just let him try it!" The White House and the State Department had l^een stunned at the impropriety Diefenbaker had demonstrated by not returning the document when it was discovered. "The handling of that by Diefenbaker was scandalous," said Rusk. "An almost unbelievable discourtesy. That kind of thing you just don't do. You don't do that with the Russians."13 Kennedy wondered why the prime minister "didn't do what any normal friendly government would do... make a photostatic copy and return the original."14
Merchant reported the Bundy-Ball reaction to the prime minister. He found him st ill fuming I >ut correctly predicted to his superiors that he didn't think Diefenbaker would use the memo in the campaign.
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Charles Ritchie had just been appointed the new Canadian ambassador in Washington. Rusk, a man respected by Canadians for the class with which he carried out his difficult duties, stepped out of character one evening, leaned into Ritchie, and with a four-letter-word flurry blasted the Diefenbaker government for its singularly uncooperative attitude. At the obligatory presentation of his letters to the president, Ritchie found Kennedy purposely cool and platitudinous. The subject of the memo was not raised. Kennedy was "far too canny" for that. Concluding fifteen minutes of discomfort, Ritchie headed for the door whereupon he heard the president shout, "Shoo!" Ritchie froze, thinking that he was being told to make haste for the streets. He turned and noticed that young Caroline Kennedy had entered through another door, bringing with her the family's pet donkey. Ritchie was relieved to discern that Kennedy's remark was aimed at the donkey, not at him.15
During the campaign Diefenbaker gained further evidence that Washington might be trying to help the Liberals. Merchant briefed a hand-picked group of Ottawa reporters at the home of one of the U.S. embassy officials. He explained the U.S. position on the nuclear issue, clearing up misconceptions. No dramatic revelations were made but many, including the prime minister, later considered the timing of the briefing inappropriate. Merchant, however, showed little evidence of being enamoured of the Liberals. He wired the State Department during the campaign, outlining the defence and nuclear policies of the Grits and concluded: "In short while Liberals justifiably charge GOC [Government of Canada] with confusion and indecision, their platform is no more decisive."
Kennedy replaced Merchant with the pompous Walton Butter-worth after Diefenbaker was returned with a minority government. But Merchant, who was back at the State Department, soon had another Canadian assignment. Kennedy, well aware of the frigid relations between Merchant and the prime minister, sent him to Ottawa on October 22 to deliver this message:
"My Dear Prime Minister... I am asking Ambassador Merchant to deliver to you the text of a public statement I intend to make today at 1900 hours Washington time. It is occasioned by the fact that we are now in the possession of clear evidence which Ambassador Merchant will explain to you that the Soviets have secretly installed offensive nuclear weapons on Cuba, and that some of them may be opera-
tional. ...I am sending Chairman Khrushchev a personal message making it clear that these latest actions constitute an unacceptable threat to the security of this hemisphere."
Earlier in the day, Kennedy had telephoned Defence Minister Pierre Sevigny, informing him that Merchant was on his way and asking if the meeting with Diefenbaker could be set up. The president hadn't phoned Diefenbaker directly because the two men weren't speaking to one another.
Diefenbaker heard Merchant out and convened a cabinet meeting. "Then," Sevigny recalled, "something happened—one of these ridiculous little things which have such an effect. President Kennedy announced on his own that he had the full cooperation of the Canadian Government."
To the prime minister it was another blood-red example of presidential presumption. "That young man has got to learn that he is not running the Canadian Government," he told Sevigny and others. "What business has he got? There is no decision which has been made as yet. I am the one who is going to decide and I am the one who has to make the declaration. He is not the one."
Merchant had shown Diefenbaker aerial surveillance photographs of the missile sites to establish the legitimacy of the Kennedy charge. But after hearing the president's statement on cooperation, the prime minister, trading swipe for swipe with Kennedy, went before the House of Commons with an expression of doubt and suggested that further evidence was required.
The only western ally not to accept Kennedy's word at face value, Diefenbaker told the nation: "What people all over the world want tonight and will want is a full and complete understanding of what is taking place in Cuba.... The determination of Canadians will be that the United Nations should be charged at the earliest possible moment with this serious problem.... As late as a week ago the U.S.S.R. contended that its activities in Cuba were of an entirely defensive nature.... The only sure way that the world can secure the facts would be through an independent inspection."
Although long painted as a villain in this episode, Diefenbaker had the support of the opposition parties, neither of which were prepared to jump through hoops either. Pearson said that international verification was the best idea and New Democratic party leader Tommy Douglas was customarily blunt in putting the situation in fairperspec-
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five. "We have only the statements oft he Americans____Before we get
too excited we should remember that for 15 years the Western powers have been ringing the Soviet Union with missile and air bases."
Much of the Diefenbaker strategy during the missile crisis was orchestrated by one of Canada's most heralded civil servants — Xorman Robertson. "It seems," he told Howard Green, "that the United States took a deliberate decision not to consult any of its allies in order to achieve maximum surprise and impact on the Soviet Union. The question arises for Canada whether the existence of NORAD presupposes special obligations which entitle Canada to special treatment over and above that accorded the other allies of the United States."15 For him and f(7r Diefenbaker the answer was yes.
Following the rebuff to Kennedy in his speech, Diefenbaker stalled on putting Canadian ibrces at the level of alert Washington desired. His attitude, said Sevigny, was that "it is no use to alarm people unduly," and it was an attitude apparently shared by British Prime Minister Macmillan. During cabinet Diefenbaker received a call from Macmillan and returned to tell his colleagues his version of what Macmillan said. "Whatever you do don't do anything to encourage that hothead in Washington. Cool it. Because the more we make Kennedy provocative, the more difficult we make it for Khrushchev."17 If the Soviet leader was forced into a corner, they feared, he might do anything. As it turned out, Kennedy was acutely aware of this possibility throughout the crisis. To try to leave Khrushchev in a position where he could save some face was a guiding imperative pushed hard on him by brother Bobby.
Nobody, Dean Rusk remembered, was more conscious of the horrors of a nuclear confrontation than the president. Rusk would never forget the time shortly after inauguration when he and the president were given a full day's briefing on the extent and destructive power of the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals. The news was that the bombs could turn the continent to rubble and make the rubble bounce. Kennedy, drained, wanted to see Rusk in the cabinet room. As Rusk entered the doorway, the president stopped him. His face covered in gloom, he looked at the secretary of state. "And they call this the human race," he said.18
(lanada had no crucial role to play in the crisis, but it was important to the While House that the Dominion and the Western allies be uniformly supportive of the president's stance. "Had Khrushchev
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seen a lot of dissension," said Rusk in respect to Diefenbaker, "he could have misjudged the entire situation." From the other allies, the support was solid. Charles de Gaulle accepted the president's word on the existence of the missile bases without even asking to see the aerial photographs. Bobby Kennedy would tell that to Dalton Camp and others as a way of emphasizing how the White House viewed the effrontery of the wavering Diefenbaker.
The prime minister was still reading his anti-American mail and still listening to Howard Green. "If we go along with the Americans now," Green told the cabinet as it debated putting the forces on alert, "we will lx> their vassals forever."19 Through the critical days of the crisis, however, the government presented a sputtering, confused picture to the public, many officials yelling yes, many yelling no with the overall impression one of indecision and chaos. When Kennedy won the showdown, emerging daring and gallant, he was vindicated and the doubting Diefenbaker made to look doubly bad in his non-support. Intensifying the defence debate in Canada, intensifying the question of whether Diefenbaker had mismanaged relations with the United States, the Cuban missile crisis sped the Tory government into a crisis of its own, a crisis from which it never escaped.
At this time Diefenbaker had yet to make a determination on equipping Canada's weapons systems with nuclear warheads. His Defence department had increased its stockpile of Bomarc missiles, Honest John aircraft, and Voodoo fighters to the value of $685,000,000. The hardware was generally considered useless without nuclear warheads, meaning that Ottawa was outfitting itself with empty cannons. A compromise proposal was offered by Diefenbaker; Canada wouldn't accept the warheads on a permanent basis, but in emergencies would allow the Pentagon to ship them in. While studies showed this plan to be viable, the transportation and installation taking only a few hours, Washington balked for two reasons. One was its firm belief that Diefenbaker had committed himself to the permanent placing of nuclear weapons on Canadian soil in NORAD and other decisions shortly after he took power. The other was that the Cuban missile crisis demonstrated that his compromise plan would be ineffective. A last-minute movement of warheads would only tip the Soviets off to American intentions.
Kennedy and Diefenbaker hadn't met for a year and a half. There was no intention that they would ever meet again. They collided
202 » THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
inadvertently, however, a week l>efore Christmas in Nassau. Kennedy and Macmillan were meeting there, Kennedy giving the British leader the shocking news that the United States was cancelling development of the Skyboll missile, a nuclear weapon that was to be a staple of the British arsenal. Diefenbaker had arranged to see Macmillan after the president. But the Kennedy-Macmillan talks spilled over to the day Diefenbaker arrived and, out of courtesy, the prime minister was invited to join the other two leaders for lunch. Kennedy initially wanted to duck the meal. Macmillan argued for him to stay and enjoy some good shellfish. "I can get all the good shellfish I want in Cape Cod," the president shot back, "without having to stay here and eat with Diefenbaker."
The animosity between the Canadian and American leader was well known at this time, so well known that at Diefenbaker's pool side press conference in Nassau a reporter from Edmonton had no qualms about asking: "Is it true that the President hates your guts?" The prime minister was not categorical in his reply.
With Macmillan dejected by the Skybolt decision, and with Kennedy and Diefenbaker having a mutual loathe-in, it was a trilateral which wasn't exactly up to the mirth of the King-Rooseveh Quebec Conferences. Kennedy later described the atmosphere to friends: "And there we sat, like three whores at a christening."
The big Canadian news from Nassau would remain cloaked for a month — until such time as Diefenbaker was sufficiently riled by other events to defy Kennedy again. In Ottawa, on January 3, 1963, General Lauris Norstad, the recently retired supreme commander of NATO, held a press conference as pari of his round of farewell courtesy calls. The courtesy he did Diefenbaker was to state unequivocally that the Canadian government had, in fact, committed itself to provide its NATO squadrons with nuclear weapons and that therefore the government was not fulfilling its obligations. The statement, believed by some to be orchestrated by Washington, complete!) undermined Diefenbaker's already shaky position. Norstad looked at Defence Minister Sevigny in a lounge afterward and said: "Now I am afraid I have embarrassed you a bit." Sevigny agreed and Norstad said, "I have deep regrets." But Sevigny thought he "couldn't ■ an less."
A few days later there were more shock waves. Pearson, in a dramatic reversal, announced that a Liberal government umild accept nuclear warheads until such time whin new arraugi mi ill
THE DIEFENBAKER-K.ENNEDY SCHISM • 203
could be made. The decision drew the lines between the Grits and the Tories, and drew out the prime minister on Nassau. Onjanuary 25 in the Commons came his "I was in Nassau" and "I formed certain ideas" speech. The certain ideas were remarkably convenient because they were a vindication of his non-policy on nuclear weapons. Of the cancellation of Skybolt and a renewed emphasis on conventional forces, Diefenbaker said: "That is a tremendous step—a change in the philosophy of defence; a change in the views of NATO." There is, he said, "general recognition that the nuclear deterrent will not be strengthened by ihe expansion of the nuclear family." With the ever-changing defence needs of the west, "this is not a time for hardened decisions that cannot be altered."
The statements prompted concern in France, Germany, and elsewhere that a major revision of NATO defence had been plotted at Nassau without consultation. The White House phone lines were hot with angry diplomats. Reporters, particularly Canadian correspondents, pressured the State Department for a response. Peter Trueman of the Montreal Star, a young journalist who would play a major role in the Diefenbaker follies, wrote a strongly worded letter to the State Department detailing the confusion and recommending that a clarifying statement be issued. In Ottawa the acidic Walton Ihitterworth, feeling that "we had to set the record straight," drafted a response to the Diefenbaker declaration. The draft was sent to Washington where it was worked on by George McGhee, George Ball, McGeorge Bundy, and Secretary Rusk. President Kennedy was not shown the final version that would go to the press. But, as Rusk remembers, "I probably had a telephone call wilh Kennedy on it."20 11 was thestatemeni which, in the written words of Bundy, "knocked Over" the Diefenbaker government. It baldly rejected several of the points in the prime ministers speech and castigated the Canadian di fence performance. "The Canadian Government has not as yet proposed any arrangement sufficiently practical to contribute effec-iiwlv id North American defense," the press release said. "The agreements made at Nassau have hern fully published. They raise no question of the appropriateness of nuclear weapons for Canadian
I.....'s 111 fulfilling their NATO or NORAD obligations____The provi-
lion nl inn It.ii weapons to Canadian ibrces would not involve an i sp in imi nl independent iim leu capability or an increase in the inn Ii .11 i lull."'
flu   repudiation sparked imirage in Ottawa and criticism in
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Washington. Theobjections were not against the points made but the method of making them. Shock press releases kicking the other guy was not the Ganada-U.S. way of doing things.
The NDP's Douglas Fisher said: "It is an insult to me as a Canadian. I see the next election between Diefenbaker and Kennedy and Kennedy's going to lose."
Pearson thought the release inappropriate. Tommy Douglas was more pungent: "I think the Government of the United States should know from this Parliament that they are not dealing with Guatemala."
Diefenbaker boiled. "Quite apart from the terms of the statement, this action by the Department of State of the United States is unprecedented and I weigh my words when I say that it constitutes an unwarranted intrusion in Canadian affairs.... The Government of Canada does not consider that open public pressures by way of press release or otherwise are appropriate methods of exchanging views l>etween equal sovereign nations or allies."
The prime minister took the unprecedented and yet to be repeated action of recalling his ambassador. It was a signal that Canada was not going to put up with satellite treatment. A problem, however, was that ambassador Ritchie didn't want to come home. His absence wouldn't make any difference to White House officials, he argued. "I told h im they probably wouldn't even notice."21 He ultimately obeyed the order but after a few days in Ottawa was back at his Washington post.
Diefenbaker was convinced the press release was further evidence ofWhite House collusion with Pearson. He glared at the Liberal leader in the Commons. "When are you going back for further instructions?"
In the raucous House, Defence Minister Harkness defended his government's approach to military matters, saying to a chorus of laughter that "we have followed a clear and responsible policy for the last five years." When Pearson challenged him, Harkness was splendidly derisive, explaining that no matter what is said, "the Leader..I the Opposition will refuse to understand.... Only God will put sense in that head." Social Credit leader Robert Thompson advocated a somewhat softer approach to the Americans as he unleashed one nl the classics of bilateral history: "The United States is our friend, whether we like it or not."
In Washington, Dean Rusk attempted to tranquillize tension*,
issuing this half-apology: "There is a strong tradition of fair play in both our countries and our friendship is too close for a misunderstanding of this sort. I wish to say to all Canadians that we regret it if any words of ours have been so phrased as to give offense, but the need to make some clarifying statement arose from a situation not of our making."
President Kennedy had jumped into momentary rage on being apprised of the details of the press release and its full impact. But his concerns quickly abated as did those of others in the White House. Buttcrworth cabled from Ottawa on February 2. "Initial resentment at United States 'intrusion', as was to be expected, widespread but by no means universal. Strong swing now clearly appearing in direction [that]... this overridingly important matter had to be brought into open and United Stales had long been patient and forebearing.
"Man on street interviews carried by press and radio reflect strong sympathy lor United States position...,
"United States case has also had full and sympathetic presentation by most Canadian press representatives in Washington particularly stories by Creery of Southam News, Trueman of Montreal Star, and Bain of Globe, and Mail. All stress long period United States patience with GOC indecision.
"Major political cartoonists concentrating their ridicule on Prime Minister Diefenbaker."
While other Americans were sorry, Butterworth had l>een in favour of the press release tactic all along: "We decided we had to set the record straight. There was too much at stake. We decided to do it that way because Canadian statements had not come in polite notes, through channels, but on the floor of the house. If you want to play rough then we'll play rough too." Bundy was privately apologetic, taking the responsibility for the action. It was a "case of stupidity," he said, "and the stupidity was mine." Years later. Rusk would be a bit Surprised at all the uproar. "Re-reading it, it doesn't seem all that Ii.iish in me."
It was harsh enough, however, to crush the Conservative government in Canada. As the Butterworth memo accurately surmised, ..hi inn nt soon began to shift behind the Americans. Diefenbaker's inet, already split on defence policy, split wider. Harkness resigned, non-confidence motions filled die air, and, in a series of well-iI.h mi.k nil < I events, i he I )i. I< i il ..ik.i government died on ;i I louse
206 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
vote decrying its ineptitude in handling American relations. In one of his most remembered speeches, Diefenbaker got in some last lashes before the vote: "I cannot accept the fears of those who believe we must be subservient in order to be a good ally of any country in the world—When I hear some saying that the fact that one dares to speak out will endanger Canada's economy, I wonder what the future of this country would be if those who have such fears and those who
are of little faith held office in our country____I believe in cooperation,
in the closest cooperation, but not in the absorption of our viewpoint by any other nation. I believe in the maintenance in spirit and in fact of Canada's identity with the right to determine her own policy without extramural assistance in determining that policy." The speech was interrupted thirty-five times with applause but the confidence vote was lost 142-111. At the White House, they laughed and joked about DiePs demise.
The prime minister now had to face his second election campaign within a year. In 1962, the anti-American issue was present but not paramount. In 1963, it would dominate like it had in 1891 and 1911. Diefenbaker told his colleagues that the great Conservative Mac-donald had been victorious with an anti-American campaign and that the good Tory Borden had won on the same and that now it was his turn.
The first salvo came from south of the border with the publication of a .ft'ewsweek magazine cover-story on Diefenbaker. It was a crucifixion, a hatchet job of astonishing proportions for a respectable publication. The cover picture of the prime minister made him look like he had no control over his face. It was frightcningenough to make a baby cry. The first paragraph of the story quoted anonymous sources in the British House of Commons as saying: "It would be too flattering to dismiss him just as a superficial fellow—he's really much dimmer than that."
Announcing that he ran the country like a tantrum-prone county court judge, the article then ridiculed his appearance. "Diefenbaker in full oratorical [light is a sight not soon to be forgotten; then the Indian rubber features twist and contort in grotesque and gargoy le-likc grimaces; beneath the electric gray V of the hairline, the eyebrows beat up and down like bats' wings; the agate-blue eyes I >la/r forth n >l< I fire. Elderly female supporters find Dielenbaker's face rugged, kind, pleasant and even soothing, his enemies insist that it is sullii unl grounds for barring 'lory rallies in < hildtcn under 16."
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At his next press conference, the prime minister faced reporters carrying copies of the magazine. "We held them in front of our faces," said Southam's Charles Lynch. "Just for fun." Diefenbaker thought the story was just another facet of the White House plot to finish him. His suspicions were fueled further when, late in the campaign, he came into possession of a letter allegedly written by Butterworth to Pearson congratulating him on his switch to a pro-nuclear position. The U.S. embassy and the Liberal party declared the letter a forgery and the evidence seemed to be with them. But Diefenbaker never thought so, carrying the letter virtually everywhere in his suit-jacket pocket. He disliked Butterworth more than he had disliked Merchant. In private conversation he referred to him as "Butterballs." Sent in by Kennedy as a tough man to stand up to a tough prime minister, Butterworth was one of the most unpopular envoys to Canada. Almost everything he did was "offensive to somebody," said the Liberals' Pickersgill. Charles Ritchie was enjoying a ride to Uplands airport one day when Butterworth tore into Ottawa, declaring it "appallingly provincial" and adding that those "like Norman Robertson who think themselves the least provincial are the most provincial of all." Diefenbaker found him so suspicious that he always felt like asking him, "What's your racket?" In reports back to the State Department and the White House Butterworth demonstrated that the feelings were mutual. On March 27, he filed an update on Canadian defence developments, listing nine statements by the prime minister and concluded: "Every one of above statements made by I 'h lenbaker is inaccurate."
The Conservative campaign took on a feverishly nationalistic tone. I say this to our friends across the border," Alvin Hamilton, the popular cabinet minister declared. "Don't push us around chum!" I'u king on Central America, as had Douglas, he added: "They [Americans] don't even know we're a sovereign country up here.
They think we're a Guatemala or something." Diefenbaker, an orator Iiii could fire and brimstone with the best, cried out in Chatham, < Intario, "We are a power, not a puppet." His patriotic blood roared. "I want Canada to be in control of Canadian soil. Now if that's an i llriise I wanl the people of Canada to say so." Always there was the In i it i if 11 ic ■ "invisible inmgniiew" working in Washington against him. "There an- great interests against me—national and international."
I In ti Ins lav.....ili' "Everyone isanaiiisl me — Iml the people."
Id received what he Imped was a bi^ break toward the end of
208 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
THE DIEFENBAKER-KENNEDY SCHISM • 209
campaigning when the House of Representatives released secret testimony of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The testimony revealed that one of the purposes of Bomarc bases in Canada was to attract the fire of Soviet missiles which would normally be targeted at American locations. "This is what I've been saying all along," declared a jubilant prime minister, "This is a knockout blow.... Happy days are here." Lashing out at Pearson's support lor the Bomarcs, he said that it was obvious now that the Liberal leader would make Canada "a decoy duck in a nuclear war." At Dorion, Quebec, he asked, "Are they going to make Canada into a burnt sacrifice?" The McNamara testimony embarrassed Washington. Looking back, Rusk observed that "it was unlikely there would lie a nuclear attack that didn't involve both our countries." Defence cooperation from Canada was important, he said, but whether or not Canada had nuclear weapons as such was "not such a big deal."*2
With the April 8 voting day approaching and prospects dim, Diefenbaker grew desperate. The case of President Kennedy's misplaced memorandum of May 1961 had not been made public. On a western swing two weeks before election day, Charles Lynch was leaked the guts of the story. "Secret Paper Discloses U.S. Pressuring Canada," the Ottawa Citizen headline shouted. "Prime Minister Diefenbaker is understood to have in his possession a document that is the root cause," the first paragraph said, "of much of his bitterness toward the United States and a number of his supporters think he proposes to make it public in the closing days of the election campaign."
The prime minister initially denied he had the paper but sources confirmed that it indeed was in his possession and he wished to disclose it. He was being blocked, the reports said, by cabinet members who, fearful the anti-American campaign was backfiring, were threatening to resign if he did.
In Washington, live days after the Lynch story, M'lvm'cek reporto Ben Bradlee had dinner with Kennedy. The talk was about travel, Jackie saying she preferred a holiday in Morocco over Ireland. Kennedy switched suddenly to the subject of Diefenbaker. He told Bradlee that the story about the stolen document was at the root ol all Canada-U.S. problems. Bradlee said he would love to heat tin details. Wait until the election, said the president. If Dielcnbakei Inst.
he said, Bradlee could have the exclusive. And if he won? asked the future editor of the Washington Post. "Well then," said Kennedy, "we'll just have to live with him."2-1
The matter stood until the night of April 4 when, at about 8:00, Peter Trueman got a new break on the story. On the controversial memo, he was told, there was a note in the margin written by the president. It called Diefenbaker an S.O.B. The full line supposedly was: "What do we do with the son of a bitch now?"
Trueman's source had not seen the memo himself. He had only talked to two people who said they had seen it.21 Trueman's deadline was approaching. He faced the dilemma every reporter faces. Is the information solid enough to go with the story? Should the source be lielieved? In a decision he regrets to this day, Trueman decided to forego seeking further confirmation and write the story. The Montreal Star gave it dramatic display although leaving the quasi expletive out. That part was left to the reader's imagination. But the next day, the Washington Post chose to be less reverential. In a front page account reporter John Maffre wrote: "I learned that the expression deleted from The Star's published story was the famous S.O.B. once used with reverberating effect by former President Harry S. Truman."
In Hamilton Ontario, Diefenbaker neither confirmed nor denied the report, fudging forth with the response that he was "not getting mixed up in anything like that." Kennedy press secretary Pierre Salinger got on the phone to Trueman and hotly denied it. Other Canadian reporters scrambled to chase down more information. One, Max Freedman, stuck his head in Trueman's office door and said nngrily: "That story is wrong. I've checked it out. It's a fabrication, lineman.''
Time magazine's Hugh Sidey had an appointment with Kennedy in get a photograph. It was shortly after the story appeared. "I i' member he was very irritated, the President was, that morning and Ik -.lid, 'Come on now, what do you want?' He was very gruff about it hi Ins office. He said, 'Let's go over. Where do you want a picture?' I Wanted it from Harry Truman's balcony. He said, 'Come on,' and then as he went out the door he said to Mrs. Lincoln, "tell one of our pin iingi aphers to come over here in case Sidey doesn't have any film
in llis < .unci a
\in I as we got i mi ihere and walked along the arcade, I remember
210 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
THE fflEFENBAK ER-KENNEDY SCHISM • 211
the first thing he said. 'Now I want you to get this damn thing about Diefenbaker correct. I've been in this damn business long enough to know better than that.' He said, 'there are a lot of stupid mistakes I make but that isn't one of them. I didn't do anything.' And then he kind of chuckled and said, 'Besides at the time I didn't know what kind of a guy Diefenbaker was.' The clear implication was that he felt
he was an S.O.B. but he had not learned it at that time____And then
he also said, 'Someday, it can't be told now, but someday you'll know just all the difficulties we've had in dealing with this man."'25
The alleged name-calling, the McNamara revelation, and the alleged Butterworth memo, could not help Diefenbaker. In 1891 and in 1911, when election campaigns had been won on anti-Americanism, a larger threat loomed over the Canadian electorate—the threat of annexation. In those years, no president was as popular in Canada as was John F. Kennedy. In those years, the Canadian party leaders running on anti-Americanism were not encumbered by their own records of indecision and ineptitude the way John George Diefenbaker was in 1963.
The Liberals won 129 seats and the Conservatives 95. As promised, Kennedy had Bradlee to the White House to tell him a few things about Mr. Diefenbaker. The president denied he had scribbled the nasty notation in the margin of the memo. "At that time," he told Bradlee, "I didn't think Diefenbaker was a son of a bitch. I thought he was a prick."
The S.O.B, story, though absolutely false would live through the years as one of the most notorious in bilateral relations. The public would come to believe it because it was a nice story to believe. Only the principals would know it wasn't true, Diefenbaker himself writing that it wasn't. Trueman would go on to become one of Canada's top journalists but the memory of the one story would bother him. He would keep hoping for evidence that Kennedy had done such a deed but none would appear.
He had not met the president personally before his memo story was published but was confronted with the moment of anxiety after the election. The president was hosting Lester Pearson and Canadian correspondents in Hyannis Port. The pleasure of working wit It a new prime minister however was such that even the sight of Peter IVueman didn't bother Kennedy greatly. It was a time when, with the Diefenbaker devil exorcised, joy was returning to the continental partnership.
"The advent of a new Government in Canada," McGeorge Bundy wrote in a memo, "has naturally stirred all branches of the government to new hope that progress can be made with this most important neighbor on all sorts of problems. It is the President's wish that these negotiations should be most carefully coordinated under his personal direction."
'Bt.'RLKSQL'E UIRCU.V: LBJ AND LESTER PEARSON « 213
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
^Burlesque Circus': LBJ and Lester Pearson
ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, Air Force One landed in the dreariness of Andrews Air Force Base carrying a different president from the one with whom it had departed. Lyndon Baines Johnson descended the steps and tried to reassure a nation whose suffering was too deep to be reassured. After a few words, he moved slowly through the dignitaries, placing his huge hands softly on their shoulders, spreading what little comfort could be provided.
Charles Ritchie, the tall, lean, properly educated Canadian ambassador, waited. Like other politicians, diplomats, ordinary people, instinct had taken him to Andrews. Now the new president, his look that of a big, sad bear, was upon him. "Pearson," he said gently. "Your Prime Minister. My best friend. Of all the heads of Government, my best friend." He would be dependent on his best friend's help, Johnson said. Very dependent.1
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Pearson was preparing a eulogy for Kennedy, a president far closer to him than Johnson would ever be. In the evening, in an address viewed by millions of Americans as well as Canadians, he paid tribute to a man whose appeal was "not to the comfortable but the daring."
"Listen," said Pearson, "to these words from his inaugural address;
'Now the trumpet summons us again. Not as a call lo bear anus,
though arms we need. Not as a call to battle though embattled we are. But a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.'
"These words were the measure of that man," said Pearson. "For him the burden has now l>een tilted, but for us that trumpet still sounds."
The words produced hundreds ofletters from thankful Americans, many of whom said they were brought to tears. But it might have been wise for Pearson to curtail his Kennedy tributes thereafter. Like Diefenbaker, Johnson was a man who harboured deep resentment of the Kennedy allure. John Kennedy's shadow stalked him. Robert Kennedy's person stalked him. And although he was politically judicious in keeping many from the former president's staff, Johnson desperately wanted to dispel the shadows. So when "best friend," Pearson visited him two months after the assassination, stood under
i lie White House portico, and went on at length in his speech about John Kennedy's greatness, Johnson was not impressed.
Pearson was compelled to commit this, one of his lesser offences ngainst LBJ, out of genuine respect and admiration for Kennedy. He w;is only in office eight months while Kennedy was president but his compatibility with Kennedy and the respect they shared for one .mother gave their relationship a promise that no others had.
(Jiven time, their partnership could have engendered a continental harmony and cooperation comparable to, if not surpassing that of the K ing-Roosevelt period. That time denied, Pearson was left with an Opposite, with a man whose hillbilly style, whose hawkishness and mpe rsensit ive ego were too hard to bear. Even M ike Pearson, one of I he world's greatest diplomats, a man trained, tested, and victorious in the .ni of getting along, could not brook the excesses of LBJ. The
.....Ic, capable president would drive the prime minister to his most
undiplomatic act ever. The president would reciprocate in kind, ■ ii ikith\ ,iny future constructive dialogue impossible, making Ottawa
ii In veil by the arrival of a new president, even if it was Richard N i unn, mid making Lester Pearson's memory of his few months with John Kennrdy larger.
Kennedy admired men of accomplishment. Pearson had been a
214 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
BURLESQUE CIRCUS'. LBJ AND LESTER PEARSON «215
world-class diplomat. He had won the Nobel Prize and he had defeated Diefenbaker. He would store nuclear weapons on Canadian soil. He had wit. He wasn't boring.
Kennedy had reviewed Pearson's 1959 book, Diplomacy in the Nuclear Age, delighting the author with wholehearted praise of the person and the content: "Mike Pearson has been the chief architect of the Canadian foreign service, probably unequalled by any other nation— He has been a central figure in the growth of the Atlantic Community and NATO.... He has been a superb interlocutor between the realms of statesmanship and scholarship."
"It seemed to me," Pearson half-jokingly commented on the review, "that anyone who valued my literary efforts must possess some special quality." What he liked about Kennedy was his stimulating personality and the "toughness and clarity of his mind. When talking business with our advisers around the table he did not waste any time but went right to the heart of the problem____"8
He discovered this in Hyannts Port where, with Pearson staying in Bobby Kennedy's residence, the two leaders met only a tew weeks after the prime minister took office to try and stabilize the destabilized relationship. In the late months of Diefenbaker's stewardship, meaningful Canada-U.S. dialogue had virtually halted. The bilateral cabinet committee on defence hadn't met since 1960, and the committee on economic affairs hadn't met in eighteen months, Canadian officials found no access in Washington, American officials found no access in Ottawa and a stack of issues awaited action; defence production sharing, the test ban treaty, balance of trade problems, Columbia River Treaty revisions, territorial jurisdiction in east coast waters, trans-border air travel, Great Lakes shipping, and Canadian acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Distinguishing himself from many predecessors and successors, Kennedy came prepared. Working with a man he liked, he showed none of the arrogance and one-upmanship he had with Diefenbaker. On the issues he and Pearson had a four-hour, heavily detailed session in front of a fireplace. It marked a welcome change for Pearson because Truman couldn't talk four hours on Canadian issues, nor could Eisenhower nor, in the future, could Johnson. The prime minister's further commitment to stationing nuclear warheads in Canada grabbed the headlines. Working groups were set up to solve other problems, including the question of an equitable air route
agreement for trans-border flights. The problem here was in finding a non-partisan to do the job, and who better embodied the duality than the Canadian-bred Harvard man, John Kenneth Galbraith? "Recalling that I had frequently identified myself as a Canadian, Kennedy appointed me the Canadian representative. Recalling the same, Pearson, a friend of many years, said I would do as the Canadian representative."
What struck Dick O'Hagan, the Pearson press secretary, about the prime minister and the president at Hyannis Port was the genuine flavour of their relationship. "It made you feet," said O'Hagan, who saw many summits, "that nothing was unresolvable in Canadian-American relations because you had two compatible guys."
O'Hagan organized a reception for the Canadian media with Pearson, a move which led Bill Lawrence of the New York Times to
.....iplainal ioiiI t lie Americans being overlooked Asked by (.)' Hagan
if they could attend, Pearson inquired, "Do we have enough booze?" Then President Kennedy got in on the crash-1 he-Canadian-part y act and with Old Fitzgerald bourbon heading the roster, a delightful party followed, the feature act being a mock replay of Kennedy's n 11 ,s 11 ig memo. A document containing information on t he Kennedy-Pearson talks was moving through the drinks toward the president when it slipped from someone's hand, getting momentarily lost among I In- wing tips. David Broder, a young reporter making a name for himself with the Washington Star, was quick to fire off an allusion to ílu S.O.B. memo. Kennedy, who gave reporter Peter Trueman a ii<-cly glance during the reception, was within earshot. Pearson then l(ol In ill I of the missing document and cracked: "I'm just going to
.....kc some marginal notations on it." He handed it to a smiling
jiii'Milcni. adding, "I just happened to find this on the iloor."
Proud of his knowledge of baseball, Pearson wanted to show l i i n n i lv he had more than a political dimension. David Powers, a
I.......ilv adviser, an old friend and a baseball nut was on hand.
I >.i\i\ itic Prime Minister claims to be an expert in baseball," said Knini'ily, "Test his knowledge." Batting and earned run averages
..... tossed hack and forth, A question arose about a pitcher who
iliiiwn no-hitler through seven innings but was pulled and his team i" i tin game. Powers wanted to know the name of the hurler. "Ken Mm ki'ii/ic," snapped Pearson. Powers had someone look it up, Pi h '11111 was \.....id in lir correct and Powers and the president were
216 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
BURLESQUE CIRCUS': I.BJ AND LESTER PEARSON « 217
impressed. They didn't know that the decisive question they put was distinctly advantageous to Pearson. Ken Mackenzie was one of the few Canadians to ever play in the big leagues. He was also from Pearson's riding.
At the close of the visit it began to rain hard while Kennedy, wearing neither hat nor coat, escorted Pearson to the helicopter. Pearson insisted that he return. "No, I want to give you something when we get to the helicopter," said the president. Earlier Pearson had presented Kennedy with a 120-year-old rocking chair from Lanark County which had the quintessential Canadian distinction of having occupied a room with a large beaver painted on its ceiling. At the end of the driveway, Kennedy, getting thoroughly wet, lowered the presidential flag, rolled it up, handed it to Pearson and asked him to keep it. In the few future months of the Kennedy presidency they would communicate frequently by phone and letter but the handing over of the flag was the last time they would see one another.
With Johnson, during his first visit, it was at the gift exchange where Pearson got the impression that the president wasn't in the best of humours, that maybe he wasn't happy with the prime minister's speech which had lauded Kennedy. When presented with an English saddle, a gift hard to explain given the fact that LBJ rode western, Johnson grumbled about it having no pommel and suggested somewhat ungraciously that maybe Lady Bird could use it. Lady Bird, in fact, thought it was great. "Just like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police use," she noted in her diary. "Those men who were always the symbol of romance and daring adventure in my childhood."
But if an English saddle for Johnson was inappropriate, a silver cigarette box for Pearson was the same. Ten days earlier the Surgeon General had issued a scathing report linking smoking to lung cancer. Johnson was not a president who cared much for gift-giving and the surrounding persiflage. Later in one of his more earthy moods, he presented Pearson with a box containing something like a chandelier.
"I don't know what the f--k it is," he said, "or what the f--k
you're going to do with it."
Whether it was the tribute to Kennedy or whether there wan something more, Pearson found Johnson disturbed and distracted through most of their first two days together. .Johnson didn't know much or care much about the bilateral issues and his speeches and toasts consisted primarily of knee-jerk undefended lx>rder pulp, Some
in the media scorned his effort, the Toledo Blade saying he had used "a threadbare and irritating cliche that ought to be banned by law.... The famous unguarded border fogs our thinking about Canada."
Lady Bird had her own thoughts on the matter. "Thank God there's one border in the world that, as of now, we don't have to worry about," she wrote. "I gather they too in Canada have their difficulties with minority populations, with the French province actually talking of seceding Irom the Dominion. Certainly nothing could conceivably come of this, could it?"
When the time came to talk about the Canada-U.S. issues, the discussion in the cabinet room had just begun when Johnson announced that he preferred to let the experts deal with the problems. I lc escorted Pearson outside where, "using some rough and very profane words... treating me as if I were a friendly Congressional visitor," he talked alxjut multilateral problems that he knew something about. De Gaulle had recently signalled that it was the intention
■ pi fiance to recognize the People's Republic of China. Pearson had ret ently visited the French leader and Johnson wanted to know if the ft i ion was being taken to specifically irritate the United States and what might be done about it. De Gaulle's mind wouldn't be changed, Prarson advised, and the action was not anti-American in purpose. Let it stand.
The Canadian leader told about de Gaulle asking him a question. "Yon are always boasting you Canadians that you know the Ameri-
■ mm bettcrthan anyone else____" De Gaulle said, "What do you really
think of them?"
"My feeling about the United States is this," replied Pearson. "To llvi .ilniigside this great country is like living with your wife. At times ii i litln nil to live with her. At all times it is impossible to live without hn."
I'« .uion was dismayed by Johnson's ignorance of his country. Hi i haps these were the only facts about Canada in the Texas school
i.....I     but ,\t least, he wrote, "the President did not pretend. He
nil i ii i led he knew nothing about us. "s There was some satisfaction for
I1' iix......i ili.il be got to know Johnson better and there were no
iin Is   The only thing disputed, he told reporters, was whether ii n\ llniudml lexas was a belter quarterback than San Francisco's \   \  little Hut the prime minister didn't leave without a prophetic » ..id dI warning He recalled i ii it el icing t i it it ized lor saying the days
r
218 ' the presidents and the prime ministers_
of easy and automatic bilateral relations were over. "But so they are," he told Johnson. "I don't know how easy or automatic they used to be, but I know that in the future we are going to have problems and difficulties."
In the fall the presidential election campaign began, and Bill Moyers, Johnson's highly influential adviser, received a memo. "It would of course be extremely effective," it said, "for the President to mix dedication ceremonies and other events that dramatize the action achievements of this administration wherever possible." Heading the suggestion list was a trip to Canada to do another dedication ceremony on the Columbia River project.
A memo went to the president: "Over the past several years since its Senate ratification, there have been several public ceremonies on the Columbia River Treaty.... However Mr. Bundy and I feel that the next step... is the most significant in making the enterprise a reality. It has a lot of political pluses and we believe you may want to give it a major build up."4
"... The political pluses," the memo continued, "include: 1. Generally a big day in US-Canada relations, with flood control and many benefits for Canada, the same plus power in the US Northwest. Z Private utilities as well as Bonneville get big benefits in low cost power— Benefits go to all four Northwest states and California as far south as Los Angeles. 3. Flood control benefits for entire Columbia basin."
Johnson was on his way. For him, like so many other presidents, Canada was a good place to visit during an election year. It was no coincidence that the number of general election visits and mid-term election visits to Canada far exceeded those in the off-years. In Canada, polls showed that LBJ was a ten-to-one favourite over super-hawk Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, whose name had become attached to such quotes as "Let's lob one into the men's room of the Kremlin." In Vancouver and at a border stop, Johnson took advantage, pumping every Canadian hand available, kissing babies, clutching cheering teenagers.
The partnership with Canada, he said at the International Peace Arch at the border, rested on four pillars—peace, freedom, respect, and cooperation. "Difficulties that divide others have united us,,. Wood row Wilson said 'you cannot be friends upon any other basin than upon terms of equality.' We maintain with each other the
'burlesque circus': lbj and lester pka
relationship that we seek for all the world; cooperation amid diversity." Johnson poured on the praise: "Pericles said of a state that was mm li smaller than yours: 'We have forced every sea and land to In ihi highway ofour daring,' In the founding ofthe United Nations, in the Middle East, in the Congo, in southeast Asia, the world has responded to Canadian daring. You have followed not the highway ol empire which helped destroy Athens, but you have followed the more difficult path to peace which can save the world."
The campaign exuberance was followed by two of the must I ti/.arrr.' summits in Canada-U.S. history, Pearson would find himself being cursed with names that made Kennedy on Diefenbaker sound like birthday greetings. He would be called the wrong name Ix-fore a national TV audience, he would have unwanted bourbons shoved at btm, and unwanted dinner guests at the table. Johnson would be shocked and stung that his "best friend" from "little 'ole Canada" would come south and criticize him. Relations between the coum r n as a result, would be thorny for another four years.
Nothing so illustrated the contrast in characters ofthe two leaders as i be culture-shock ci inference a1 the LBJ ranch near Aust in, lev is in 1.1 unary, 1965. The purpose was the signing of the auto pact, nn enormously important trade agreement striking down barriers on ,i 111 omobiles and parts, Johnson signed, knowing practically nothing iboul it and would soon snap at ambassador Charles Ritchie: "You K i e wed us on the auto pact!" Secretary of State Dean Rusk, t he oi her I ii iwerful presence at the signing, knew nothing about it either. 11 was part of his aversion to the world of trade and finance. "I still think i ■ onomics is a dismal science." The result was that agreement, to I'e.irson's chagrin, became a sidelight to the wild weekend's uthn I,,,,- —|x)Oľ.e, gossip, raucous ranch tours, pyjama talk. In RltctuVl phrase, it was a "burlesque circus."
I'earson might have arrived better prepared for the occasion. It was /<> ľ tit the ranch and O'Hagan, knowing Johnson and figuring hr i mild well show up on a horse with Marlboros, suggested that the prime minuter change into something more comfortable. Pearson . i. , i m. 11 the advice, opting lor black homburg, heavy three-pin c suit, polk.i dni lie, and hoiitniinieie. As predicted, Johnson showed up I. „ .1. mi' like lie was headed lur A 11 n lei,, .mil I'e.USOll Was distill! I K dl 11 ni plm i I fe wasnnls there a minute when ihe presu lení mileji ■> led In ......Li ».iiii in change The prime minister sail I he was line. wheieu|ioii
220 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
BURLESQUE CIRCUS': LBJ AND LESTER PEARSON « 22]
Johnson introduced him to his dog. "Here's a man you've been waiting to meet," said the president. Recalling Johnson's habit of putting guests on horses, Pearson cracked, "I don't have to ride him, do I?" Johnson, in front of the whirring TV cameras then called Pearson "Mr. Wilson" and not realizing his mistake (British Prime Minister Harold Wilson had been a recent visitor), called fur a convoy-style expedition of the ranch lands.
The cavalcade across the homely, dry country entailed golf carts, convertibles, jeeps, and helicopters. A helicopter for the leaders, a helicopter for the wives, a helicopter for the security people and, as Pearson remembered, "another helicopter for the liquor—The United States is a great power." Shortly after take-off, Johnson turned to Pearson and said: "It's four-thirty, we'll have a bourljon and branch water." Pearson accepted, but only to be polite. Johnson fired back helicopter bourbons and jeep bourbons every twenty minutes whereupon he would demand that everyone have another. After one unsettling shot on the chopper ride, Pearson begged off.
While Pearson thought the Texas landscape was bland, Johnson referred repeatedly to its unbelievable beauty. The president would gun his jeep over a hill and say, "Now there's a line buck." In the next breath, it would be, "Now on the subject of Vietnam." Then he would be on the phone to Saigon, to the Congo, to Austin, and to wife Lady Bird who, in her own raging motorcade with Maryon Pearson, was delighted in "seeing at close hand three armadillos."
At six o'clock, still out on the plains, Johnson barked through his phone, "Lady Bird, let's have the Connallys to dinner with the Pearsons." With a whole list of bilateral topics to be covered and a historic agreement to be signed the next morning, the prime minister was not overly enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing Texas Governor John Connally, But there was no choice. Lady Bird initially protested: "Don't you think it's a little late dear?" But LBJ was on the phone to the governor's mansion. "John, I want you to meet the Pearsons. I'll have a helicopter there in 20 minutes. Bring the wife, Okay?" Immediate agreement wasn't forthcoming but the president soon settled the matter. "You've lots of time."
Amid the afternoon mayhem, something was accomplished, although inadvertently. On the golf carts someone mentioned die serious problem brewing over the Soviet Union's refusal to pay iti U.N. dues. The Soviets were threatening wit lulrawallrum the United
Nations and the issue would move to a head unless Washington took decisive action such as making an exceptional loan to the body. Johnson hadn't indicated his leanings, but in response to questioning from the Canadians, he declared: "Well hell we can't break up the United Nations just because the Russians won't pay a few million dollars." Rusk, who recalled seeing Paul Martin flinch, asked Johnson if he was serious, Johnson said he was damn serious, even though it was apparent it was an off-the-cuff remark. At the ranch house there was more discussion and the president eventually went ahead with the loan. "The talk on the golf cart was the turning point," Rusk remembered. "Sometimes that's the way policy is made." The power was there to be used and loved. Rusk used to enjoy dropping a casual remark and watching the aidesjump. "But, Mr. Secretary, that's not our policy," they would say. "Well, it is now," Rusk would reply and relish telling the story years later.
It was dinner time, and for Pearson, "dining with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson at the ranch in Texas was like dining in the old farmhouse in
(Ihinguacousy township north of Toronto____It was all very homey
.tin I unprcsidcntial, perhaps a little too much so, even for a ranch." So many were wandering around with telegrams and important messages that Pearson was never sure whether he was looking at a valet or an nssistant secretary of state. The women, to the Prime Minister's mirprise, were let in on all the secrets. Pearson and Martin were hnnded the hottest telegrams coming in from Vietnam and asked to 11 iimnem. "Let's have a look at this,"Johnson would say. "Let's have it look a( this."
11 w,is "quite unlike," said Pearson, "anything that could have Imppened ai any other place in any other meeting between the leaders ill government." In a way he found it a compliment to Canadians in ihrtl it was "a reflection of the special relationship we have with the United States." But it was also "very dangerous because there's »lu.iv. ,t possibility you are taken pretty much for granted because you ,ni mP i Iiim -i!< miitI."
Following a dinner of steak and catfish on the same plate, Johnson
1......11 on several TV sets, one for each network. Unwisely he had
ilrudi'd lie wanted to see the news reports of Pearson's arrival. When I i>tw himself pronouncing greetings upon Mr. Wilson he was bullied. ItrwililtTed, and painstakingly apologized. Pearson had his I........ly, "Think nothing of it. Senator Goldwater." He called him
222 • the presidents and the prime ministers
burlesque circus': lb] and lester pearson » 223
senator for the remainder of the stay. Weeks later he received from the president a picture of the arrival with the inscription, "To my dear Iriend, Mr. Wifson."
At 5:45 the next morning, a restless Paul Martin ambled into the kitchen to check out the refrigerator. He was there only a minute when he turned and saw lumbering toward him a towering figure in voluminous white pyjamas and no socks. The president of the United States made coffee, put in calls on Vietnam, discovered that American planes had bombed some of their own people, and talked with Martin at the kitchen table about almost everything except the auto pact.
Despite the bad war news, which prompted a call to Defense Secretary McNamara, Johnson was in good spirits, pouring down coffee after coffee until Martin had had enough and Pearson arrived to take over.
At last it was time for the anticlimactic formal business. The dignitaries moved out to a picnic table in the yard and, in freezing temperatures with reporters looking on, signed the auto pact. A ground-breaking agreement, it was an experiment in one-industry continentalism which Pearson felt might be extended to embrace other industries in the future. For him it was the "beginning of something big and important," and he was doubly delighted in that he felt Canada was getting the better of the deal. But Pearson was discouraged in many respects by the two days. He had been unable to talk meaningfully with Johnson on Canadian concerns. He had been discomforted and sometimes shocked by the sheer coarseness of the man.
Fittingly, the strange visit ended on a strange note. It was Johnson's custom to have his guests sign their names in a wet concrete slab. Martin signed his slab 1964 instead of 1965. Then someone accidentally stepped on it anyway.5
At this time there were some Canadian rumblings over U.S. policy in Vietnam, but no open wounds. As early as 1954, a Canadian prime minister had stuck his head in the Vietnam business. St. Laurent at that time urged Eisenhower, privately, not to get involved militarily following the surrender of the French to the Communist-led Vu-i niiuh at Dien Bien Phu.6 President Kennedy had asked Pearson what In would do about Vietnam were he the president, and Pearson replied. "I'd get out." "Any damn fool knows that," said Kennedy. "Tin question is, how?"
In May 1964, Pearson met Johnson briefly in New York and said some things about Vietnam that the Americans would not soon forget. "He stipulated," said the State Department's report on the conversation, "that he would have great reservations about the use of nuclear weapons, but indicated that the punitive striking of discriminate targets by careful iron bomb attacks would be a 'different thing.'" The Johnson administration had solicited assistance from Canadian diplomat Blair Seaborn who undertook six peace-seeking missions to Vietnam. The State memo continued: "He [Pearson] said he would personally understand our resort to such measures if the messages transmitted through the Canadian channel failed to produce any alleviation of North Vietnamese aggression."7 By early 1965 the Seaborn missions had failed to produce any such alleviation.
At the end of February 1965, Johnson unveiled Operation Rolling Thunder, a heavy, continuous air campaign designed to bomb North Vietnam to the conference table. For Pearson, despite the previous words, this was the wrong way lo go. He feared it could escalate the conflict to frightening proportions. He thought Washington should have l>een making a greater effort toward ceasefire and negotiation.
The views were made known to the White House through a variety nl channels. Paul Martin had warned well before the Johnson announcement that Canada would oppose heavy bombing. Ambassador Ritchie saw Rusk frequently. Rusk would respectfully hear him out and, in effect, say 'well, that's nice.' "Nothing that we said was gelling to anybody," Ritchie recalled. "If it did, il was ignored."
Canadian academics and journalists began ranting against Rolling Thunder and Pearson came under considerable pressure to take a sluing public stance against the bombing;. Several close to Pearson, iii< lulling his External Affairs minister, were decidedly against any ii< h move. Martin had diplomats still pressing for a ceasefire with Hanoi. Their credibility, he felt, rested on the supposition that < i.mada's influence in Washington was high.8 If Pearson publicly Hi.n ked Johnson, the foundation for influence would crumble. "I mid Pi arson myself, 'what would be the point?'" Said Martin: "But Miki vn.micd in show lhat he was a man of great courage."
f inn "' Kail, ihe American undersecretary of state, had been invited Id » il m Toronto to explain Southeast Asia policy. Because of the Volatility nl I he issue in (lanada, and because (lanadian ullicials li-lt 11 '   mnlctsHiiid I he Auici ii .in st.u n r, Ball was nil nil. Marlin advised
224 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
BURLESQUE CIRCUS': LB) AND 1.ESTER PEARSON » 225
him in a phone call not to come. The feeling, a feeJing which the White House would soon find extremely ironic, was that a U.S. official should not come into Canada's backyard and try to make points on the sensitive war issue. Ball, oddly enough, was a behind-the-scenes dove on the war. The only prominent man in government along with Hubert Humphrey to offer dissent, he warned the president in a memo: "Once on the tiger's back, we cannot be sure of picking the place to dismount." He was probably closer to the Pearson position than anyone.
The prime minister prepared to speak on April 2, 1965 at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he was to receive the school's second World Peace Award. His last contact with President Johnson had been a positive one. On February 9, Johnson telephoned tosay he was sending a message to Congress asserting the American need for Canada to avoid excessive borrowing from the United States. He told Pearson the wording that would be in the speech, asking if it was suitable. Pearson checked it with financial advisers and won Johnson's approval for a few changes. For the prime minister it was a wonderful example of the special Canada-U.S. cooperation. He had put "credit in the bank" with Johnson the year before by way of the quick deployment of Canadian forces to serve on a U.N. peace-keeping mission in Cyprus. "You'll never know what this has meant, having those Canadians off to Cyprus and being there tomorrow," Johnson had told him. "Now, what can I do for you?" Pearson thought the balance-oi-payments phone call was part of the pay-back. But in memos exchanged l>etween Johnson and his men prior to the call there was no impression that he was seeking to do Canada any favours. "You might point out to him," said Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, "that unless you can make such a statement the pressures to fix a dollar limit for Canadian borrowings might prove irresistible....Such a conversation may well produce the results we desire. If not, it will certainly pave the way for any future action we may feel compelled to take."9
Feeling deeply worried about the bombing attacks and feeling the domestic political winds, Pearson decided to use the Temple spcei h In call for a halt to Rolling Thunder. Ritchie asked him if he would .it least observe the tradition of giving the White House a copy of the speech in advance. "Of course not," Pearson replied. "He knew," said Ritchie, "that if Johnson saw it early, he would go into one ol In*
fabled arm-twisting routines to foil it. It was quite deliberately held up. It was Mike's own doing. He knew there would be a blow-up."
The day before the speech, the prime minister received a letter from the president. It congratulated Pearson on the award he was about to receive. "Your long record in the struggle for peace needs no repetition from me, but I want to bear witness to the wisdom and courage that you have brought to bear on every question affecting world peace that you and I have worked on together in sixteen months of the closest cooperation."
The night of the speech, the wisdom and the courage took on an entirely different aspect: "The dilemma is acute and it seems to be intractable," said Pearson. "On the one hand, no nation — particularly no newly-independent nation—could ever feel secure if capitulation in Vietnam led to the sanctification of aggression through subversion or spurious 'wars of national liberation,' which are really wars of Communist domination.
"On the other hand, the progressive application of military sanc-lions can encourage stubborn resistance rather than a willingness to negotiate. So continued and stepped-up intensification of hostilities in Vietnam could lead to uncontrollable escalation. Things would get imi ofhand.
"A settlement is very hard to envisage in the heat of the battle, but )«» the battle grows fiercer, it becomes even more imperative to seek .mil tind one."
The lirsl condition for a settlement, Pearson said, was a ceasefire. "Only then can there be negotiation with any chance of success. In this connection continued bombing against North Vietnam beyond a ■ el lain point may not have the desired result. Instead of inducing (minorities in Hanoi to halt their attacks on the South, it may only
II u den their determination to pursue and even intensify their present i mil M n| ,u lion. Modern history has shown that this is often the result Mid one that we don't intend when we take massive retaliatory
nil."
Lyndon Johnson had a rule, a "kind of code of conduct" for pnhiii ft! leaders, Dean Rusk remembered: "He would never let us i mi ii i/i■ ,\ loreign political leader by name—De Gaulle, Khrushchev
III imynnc eke 11<- also felt that one political leader should not make Ihiulili In!......iliei puliiii ;il leader iii that other fellow's backyard."10
I In i odeol conduct I wing broken by an act which Pearson realized
226 * the presidents and the prime ministers
■BURLESQJIF, CIRCUS': LBJ AND LESTER PEARSON ■ 227
was audacious, Johnson called the prime minister to Camp David and proceeded to administer the whipping. Ambassador Charles Ritchie, having viewed the spectacle with shock and amazement, wanted something done about it. While Johnson bellowed at Pearson on the porch, Ritchie had engaged in a spat with McCeorge Bundy. With their leaders at war the two of them stepped into the surrounding trees and, circling the cabin many times, contested the merits ol the Pearson speech. Ritchie, becoming exasperated with the "my best friend" and "my own backyard" stuff told Bundy that the prime minister had every right to make the Canadian policy statement, that a distinguished awards dinner was the appropriate place to do it and that if the president couldn't get along with Mike Pearson, who could he get along with? Back at the cottage, he saw Johnson grab Pearson by the shirt and became "outraged at seeing such a tone adopted against a Canadian Prime Minister." Ritchie flew back to Ottawa that evening with Pearson but couldn't relax, feeling Johnson's behaviour was insufferable and asking himself—"Who the hell do they think they are?" Finally he decided to telephone Pearson. He congratulated him lor having the conviction to make the speech in the first place but suggested that it would be wrong to sit back and absorb the treatment Johnson had doled out. On the surface Pearson sounded calm but Ritchie got the feeling he was "quite shaken."11 Pearson rejected his advice however, deciding against escalating the matter further and choosing instead to defuse it with a conciliatory letter to the president.
"I assure you that my proposal, carefully guarded, was meant to be helpful; neither critical nor obstructive.,. I want you to know that I appreciate, as much as any person could, the crushing nature of the problem, domestic and international, that you are facing with such
courage and wisdom____But Canada is a political democracy too, with
an active and often divided public opinion, sensitive that its leaders do not appear to be merely echoes of the United States but anxious, I believe, to back up their neighbour when required to do so, as an independent friend should."
The prime minister realized, as is noted in his memoirs, that "we would have been pretty angry, I suppose, if any member nl I In American Government had spoken in Canada on Canadian Government policy as I had spoken in Philadelphia."
This perhaps explains why Pearson went so far as to thankJohnson
in the letter. "May I add that your exposition of the American case for planned and limited air retaliation, designed to do the job intended, with a minimum of loss of life and without provocation to China and Russia was reassuring and impressive. I am grateful to you for it as I am for your kindness and for your consideration in speaking to me so frankly last Saturday."
"Thank you for your thoughtful letter," Johnson replied in a business-like note. "I was glad to have your full account of your thinking."
The president was not alwut to let the incident fade in the memory. "LBJ's view," Rusk recalled, "was that if Pearson had made that speech in Canada, it wouldn't have mattered so much." He said that neither he nor the president ever "expected Canada to fight with us in Vietnam. But we expected understanding and support. To put it mildly, we did not have major political support from Canada. That .....de it more difficult for us."
Weeks alter the storm at Camp David, Johnson had Ritchie and the West German ambassador to the White House for lunch. Barely into the main course, he began heaping praise on West Germany for 11 ie ewperation it was according the United States. Then the president tin ued to Ritchie. "But Ohhhh, those Canadians. They're so clever. I fey ran come into your own backyard and tell us how to run the war. They're so clever." His voice was booming, Ritchie was dumb-Ibunded. "Ohhhh, those Canadians," LBJ continued, ticking off in ' in which they tried to outdo the United States. "They got an
......pact and they're screwing us on that. They're so clever. Ohhhh,
those Canadians." Ritchie attempted rebuttaLs but they were scattered in i he wind by the president's power and bluster.12
I \ 11 a ordinarily sensitive to the media and public, opinion, Johnson krpt i lose track of his standing with the Canadian public. Lengthy Wliii. House memos detailed shifts in the north country's views, hum the spring of 1964 to the spring of 1965, his standing dropped Mi'lu points. "We would think this is almost certainly caused by ilepped up U.S. action in Vietnam," a memo reported. "Of course, I'n hi lent Johnson is not the Canadian leader. Nonetheless, Canada is I • I" < ilb ami neighbor. He wants their friendship and support. He ' that ii|>|Kiii from Canada's leaders and Canada's people. ■Hit! frankly, we expected a greater loss of support in Canada on
\ i. i Mill 11 '.I- poll! v,"
228 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
■BL RLESQIT; CIRCUS-: LB[ AND LESTER PEARSON • 229
Having first-hand evidence of how Vietnam was beginning to eat away at the man, Pearson felt as early as 1965 that the war could doom him. "The crisis over Vietnam is going to be a great test for LBJ," he recorded in his diary. "I'm not now certain that he is going to be successful in mcetingit.... There is no doubt that the President is tired, under great and continuous pressure and that he is beginning to show it. He is more willing about U.S. policy in Vietnam than he is willing to show. His irritation at any indication of lack of full support for his policy; his impatience with criticism and his insistence that everything is working out in accord with a well conceived plan: All these really indicate a leeling of insecurity about the situation, rather than the reverse. As the President said: 'It's hard to sleep these days. I'm beginning to feel like a martyr; misunderstood, misjudged by friends at home and abroad.'"
Canadian prime ministers naturally wanted to have as much influence as possible at the White House. Pearson, clearly losing his, sought to regain it. Ambassador Ritchie was sent in to give a sales pitch to Jack Valenti over lunch in late July. He stressed Pearson's contacts throughout the world, his Nobel Peace Prize status, his personal affection for Johnson. Valenti forwarded a memo to the president:
"The Ambassador voiced his concern over the fact that the President may still be a bit unhappy with Prime Minister Pearson.
"____It is the hope and desire of the Prime Minister that he can be
useful to the President in behind-the-scenes talks, probings and searchings which have as their objective unconditional discussions."
Pearson's status in the world, Valenti reported Ritchie as saying, "would allow him, if the President determined it wise, to quietly seek out ways to bring the matter offihe battlefield and into a meeting hall.
"It was the desire oithe Ambassador that the President know that the Prime Minister is at his service in any way or in any form that can be beneficial to the President and to the objectives of the United States."
Johnson had sent letters to Pearson and other leaders on the Vietnam situation. Pearson wanted to release the texts in ordei in clear confusion in the House of Commons where he was being attacked, strangely enough, for insufficient opposition to the preiii lent on the war. But Johnson turned down the request. Valenti, i low I following Canadian developments, gloatingly told his Ih>ss a lew < U\\
later: "Pearson is getting beat over the head from the opposition who have accused him of lying about what he told the President."
Early in 1966, Albert Edgar Ritchie, undersecretary of state for External Affairs, took over from Charles Ritchie as Washington ambassador. He hadn't been seated a moment in the Oval Office to present his letters of credence when Johnson instructed: "Now would you tell your Prime Minister that we're not bombing any civilians in Vietnam?"13 The president had been to Vietnam and wanted Pearson to understand that he had checked out the facts with "my own God-given eyes." He used the phrase repeatedly as he did "my own hackyard" again in referring to Pearson's unforgettable transgression.
Johnson was given the latest opinion survey results from Canada on his handling of the war: 35 percent approved, 34 percent didn't, and 29 percent had no opinion. Defense Secretary McNamara, preparing to speak in Canada, was provided some tips on what to say from Rostow, an irrepressible hawk. "Despite its violence and dillicultics, our commitment to sec it through in Vietnam is essentially a stabilizing factor in the world," said Rostow. "Should we fail," he added simplis-tically, "the world would become much less—not more—stable with i In- fate of Southeast Asia and the flank of the Indian subcontinent immediately endangered, and the Chinese Communist doctrine of 'wars of national liberation' vindicated for application everywhere."
Edgar Ritchie knew Rostow well, having gone to Oxford with him. He would meet with Rostow frequently in an office in the White I louse basement. Rostow, who informed Johnson daily on developments in the war, would be sitting, legs tucked under him on the sofa, lining the latest body count. "What does it mean, Walt?" Ritchie win i Id ask. Rostow would point to the figures and say they meant that North Vietnam was losing.14
The president and the prime minister finally got together again in August 1966, a year and a half after the Camp David debacle. Johnson's primary motivation was political. The mid-term elections wi re in November. The public reason was the less-than-urgent necessity litr a cornerstone to he laid at a partially built public washroom oid office unit at the Visitors' Centre at FDR's old home in Campo-IH llo International Park.
I i.inklin Roosevelt l>eing the theme, the prime minister quoted him to support his argument against the war and the president quoted him lo support his argument in favour of the war. Pearson, who
230 - THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
■burlesque circus': lbj and lester pearson « 231
deleted a line from his speech expressing the Temple-type hope that "the bombs may cease to fall," said he hoped that discussion, negotiation, and agreement, "the processes in which FDR, the captain of Campobello so passionately helieved and skilfully practiced,..may soon replace the fighting and killing."
Johnson countered: "No man loved peace more than Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was in the marrow of his soul and I never saw him more grieved than when reports came from the War Department of American casualties in a major battle. But he led my nation and he led it courageously in conflict—not for war's sake, but because he knew that beyond war lay the larger hopes of man." Then the clincher: "And so it is today."
He indirectly asked for more Canadian help. "The day is coming when those men will realize that aggression against their neighbors does not pay. It will be hastened if every nation that abhors war will apply all the influence at their command to persuade the aggressors from their chosen course."
The two leaders had a blunt one-hundred-minute talk that failed to narrow their differences, but the visit ended with good cheer. After lunch in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Johnson went into the kitchen to congratulate the women bakers on the Canadian pie—the best pie he ever had, he told them. "Mr. President, you're the most adorable man in the world," one of the women said. Pearson stepped outside to meet the press: "1 have a very important announcement to make. The President had two pieces ol pic for dessert."
Johnson raised a personal problem—the deer on his ranch, They were ill, and since they were from Alberta, the president asked Pearson for medical advice from Canadian authorities. "I'd sure appreciate it, Lester."15 (Despite frequent reminders from Stale officials that he didn't like "Lester," that the name was Mike, LBJ almost always called him Lester.) Pearson agreed, and for weeks State and External Affairs exchanged expertise on the deer problem.
At the State Department, Canada was finally gaining more bureaucratic status. A report on bilateral affairs by former ambassadors Hecney and Merchant, which recommended Canada-IKS. problems be settled out of the public view in quiet corridors, also called for the establishment of an office of Canadian affairs in ihc department. Canada had previously been part of an archaic grouping with Scandinavian countries in the department'sad mi nisi rat ion. I In
new office, under Rufus Smith, brought it only a step closer as Canada was now placed under the jurisdiction of the assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, a situation which remains today. Johnson would have liked an assistant secretary for Canadian Affairs alone but because congressional ratification was required, and because the White House was already burdened with complaints that the bureaucracy was oversized, the idea was scrapped.
Johnson's willingness, however, reflected an interest in Canada which, had the dialogue not been poisoned by Vietnam, could have produced an unusual closeness. His appetite for information was voracious, his prodigious intellectual capacity amazed the likes of Rusk and, although he started from almost nothing wilh respect to Information on Canada, his performance demonstrated that it was not due to a lack of concern. Personal memos from his staff members informed him of all the significant developments in the neighbouring Country in considerable detail. The controversial Walter Gordon budgets, lor example, warranted three or four page memos from the < li.iirman of the Council of Economic Advisers Gardner Ackley.
I lie economic and budget outlook all had a familiar ring," he wrote |"liuson on Gordon's 1965 effort. "Only the words 'Canada' and 'Canadian' give away the fact that he was talking about Canada and not i he United States!"
There was admiration among the president's economists for i Miawa's willingness in 1967 to battle inflation with higher taxes and nil backs in government expenditure. Finance Minister Mitchell Sharp and C Canadian politicians generally were more impressive than
.....grcssional counterparts in dealing with the problem, economist
\i i liurOkun told Johnson:
"While Canadians haven't earned a perfect score for managing lii" 11 policy, they deserve credit for their willingness to raise taxes s\ hen necessary. Of course, the parliamentary system makes a differ-■'» ' once the cabinet decides to raise taxes, there is no serious problem ol legislative resistance. But political attitudes also seem to be
a'.....ilightened: the Canadians apparently recognize that tax med-
.......ii.n be a necessary antidote to the poison of inflation and tight
......ii \
Mm  White I louse wasn't impressed, however, with Canadian
..........iii pnlii v -i ii affected American banking. Pearson's resistance
tut Ittlb.itik ol New York's bid In ennl nil i he small ( laiiadian Met can-
232 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
■BURLESQUE CIRCUS1: LB J AND L.ESTER PEARSON • 233
tile Bank touched oil one of the sharpest quarrels of the Johnson-Pearson period. After Citibank's James Rockefeller ignored Ottawa warnings and acquired Mercantile, the Liberals brought in legislation calling for Citibank to sell at least 75 percent of its shares in Mercantile to Canadians. The action sparked strong-arm tactics by Rockefeller and the State Department to prevent the move. After what Pearson termed almost offensive representations from officials. Rockefeller visited him personally and was told there would be no change in policy. Walton Butterworth, still the American ambassador and still one of Canada's least favourite people, entered the fray, firing off one of the toughest diplomatic notes Ottawa had received. His message was straightforward—either back down or face retaliation. "For its part," the note stipulated, "USA Govt, continues to hold view that it is not, repeat, not reasonable to expect that privileged position now enjoyed by Cdn. banks in USA would continue unimpaired if only USA-owned hank in Cda. is subjected to retroactive and discriminatory treatment... USA Govt, has under exam, a number of other courses of action consistent with very serious view it takes of issue."
A half-compromise, one which did not please Citibank, was reached, with Mercantile getting a temporary five-year exemption from the Canadian ownership provisions of the Bank Act.
With President Johnson, Pearson had to get used to the heavy-fisted attempts to push Ottawa into subservience. Another clash came over Canada's move toward a bilateral air agreement with the Soviet Union, which would allow Soviet airlines to make stops in Newfoundland on the way to Cuba. Johnson sent Averell Harriman, the renowned diplomat, to Ottawa to tell Paul Martin and Jack Pickersgill that the United States would not tolerate such an agreement. The Harriman message, delivered in a Chateau Laurier suite, was so stern and uncompromising that it disgusted Pickersgill. "That sounds to me," he shot back, "like the type of message that goes from Moscow to its eastern satellites!" Harriman courteously explained that the word* used were not his own. He had been ordered to use them by the W hit! House.16
Even American journalists got in on the shoving, or the attempted shoving, of Canada. After the Canadian move to recognize the People's Republic of China, ambassador Ed Ritchie was startled Ml receiving a stinging telephone rebuke from columnist Joseph Al»o() "What are you doing crawling on your bellies to Peking:'" Aliup
demanded. "It will get you nowhere." Ritchie told him that his own government would be the judge of that.
In Canada's centennial year, an unhappy one lor bilateral relations, Ritchie got the cocktail parly treatment from Rusk, who unloaded on him at a Nepalese reception. The relationship was headed toward more trouble. Rusk said hotly. On the secretary's order, a meeting was called to air the grievances. A wave of anti-Americanism had hit Canada, Rusk complained. Canada was acting like a neutral power on the International Control Commission in Vietnam. The United States was "shaken," he said, by indications that a U.N. proposal for a bombing halt in Vietnam with nothing in return for Washington would be supported by Canada. Canadian officials were not backing the president's foreign policy speeches the way they should. Rusk continued. Canadian complaints that they were not being consulted on major questions were inaccurate. Riichie fought off the barrage as best he could but noted in a memo to Martin that the meeting had been essentially a one-man show—Rusk's.17
In the less-than-promisingclimate, Johnson and Pearson met for the last time during the president's whirlwind, disinterested tour of Expo 'n7. Johnson had promised to go, but kept putting it off. Ottawa U.ii Igered him with little success. Rostow complained to Rufus Smith, unying Johnson had more important things to do. "Why does he have i" go at all?" Because, said Smith, he has made a commitment to the (ii ivcrnment of Canada and it's an important commitment. Rumours krpl Hying about a possible quickie trip and finally on May 24, Smith wns luld by the White House that Johnson would likely be going to ()llnwfi the very next day. Smith, the man responsible for all the I it i paratlons, said it was crazy to think that a presidential visit could l h u ranged on such short notice. "You don't know this President," he
, told.18
Smith had invited ambassador Ritchie to dinner that evening. I In illy, gi'ttiugconlirmalion in the early evening that the visit was on,
In |il......-i I home to say thai he would be a little late because of some
I..........le business. The Ritchies and Mrs. Smith went ahead with
lite iiumI. Smith finally arrived at 10:30 P.M. whereupon he casually llmp|m-<l ibe news to Ritchie that the president would be going to i Hindu in ihe morning. The ambassador immediately telephoned mi, who had heard only thai (he visii was a possibility.
Il.ntib picparcd, the visit was just as hastily executed. At the
234 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
•BURLESQUE CIRCUS-: LB| AND LESTER PEARSON « 235
flag-raising ceremony officially declaring U.S. day at the American pavilion, a star-spangled banner was hoisted with about ten missing stars. Somehow, a large hole had been made in it. As hundreds of dignitaries along with the president and the prime minister looked on in embarrassment, the forty-star tlag was lowered and a new one raised. With war demonstrators plaguing him, shouting "hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" and other slogans, the ill-prepared Johnson stumbled through his speech. Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau was pronounced "Drape-O" and Expo commissioner Pierre Dupuy became "Doo-Pee."
The president rushed through the American pavilion without pausing for the obligatory words of high praise for the exhibits. He Hew to Pearson's cottage at Harrington Lake, telling Pearson that if he withdrew the United States from the war it would create domestic tumult worse than in the McCarthy era. After his helicopter tore down a few tree branches on landing at the collage, he stepped out and told Pearson: "I hope I didn't tear up your trees."
The talks featured Vietnam again. Pearson pushed Johnson to stop the bombing unilaterally, but the president said that if he did that, the Communists would just go on killing "our boys." He was polite to the prime minister in the response which was made in private. But when they rejoined the other officials, he vigorously denounced the idea. Pearson then suggested that the United States stop all fighting and allow the pope or the U.N. secretary-general to try and set up peace talks. That was rejected also and the day left Pearson depressed about prospects for the war and prospects for Lyndon Johnson.
He noticed that the president had "an intense human emotionalism about the conflict." This "does him credit as a man," Pearson wind . "but could be a great handicap in dealing with international political strategy. He is emotional and warm but tough and obstinate. He seemed to take an intense satisfaction in the steps taken...to ensuie that the bombing was so directed as to do the minimum damage to civilians: spare the people even if it meant sacrificing some effectiveness and planes. This is highly laudable but has helped hardly at all in reducing criticism of the bombing as cruel and heartless. All it hi meant is that the Americans are getting the worst ol both worlds. The President won't stop bombing hut he wants it to l>e hunwnt bombing."
He was concerned about whether the president was able In make
independent decisions: "I wonder whether he really has control over these matters or whether—to keep the military from going full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes from China or anywhere else — he has decided not to interfere in any of their existing military tactics."
In the spring of 19b"8, three weeks before Pearson would step down as prime minister, Johnson shocked the country by announcing that he was going to step down as well. With the president's announcement came some long-awaited good news for the prime minister. Johnson also revealed that, in an attempt to stop the war, he was calling for a halt to all bombing north of the twenty-ninth parallel.
Pearson wrote a farewell letter to him. It contained both commiseration and congratulation.
NIXON AND TRUDEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL • 237
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nixon and Trudeau:
Ending Something Special
A WANDERING, PART-TIME lawyer in the 1950s, Pierre Trudeau, seeking to educate himself, travelled to China and the Soviet Union to talk to their peoples. To American authorities of the time, a time of McCarthyist, anti-communist hysteria, this was perverse behaviour. This was mixing with communists and did not the young man realize that the communist hordes were bent on world conquest, that the dominoes were starting to fall, that these people were repressive and evil? It may have been fine for Americans of the time to repress their own people by forcing blacks to the backs of the buses, by barring them from white restaurants, white washrooms, white voting booths. But did not Pierre Trudeau understand the true nature of the enemy?
For his travelling sins, the wealthy, young, well-bred Trudeau was barred from entering the United States. In the early 1960s, when he became politically active, it was not surprising then that his attitude toward the country was not overburdened with love and respect, Although a Liberal, he sided with the anti-Americanism of John Diefenbaker on nuclear weapons and shared the Tory leader's suspicions that the White House plotted his government's downfall. I n 11i< Canada-LI. S. relationship, he did not find too much that was special.
By 1968, when he became prime minister,the banning experience was further behind him and he could admire some of the progress Washington had made on civil rights in recent years. His contrariness
had softened somewhat but a detachment remained. His attitude toward the Linked States was that of a distant pragmatist. He understood and was sensitive to the overwhelming power of the neighbour and appreciated the restrictions it placed on his elbow room. But it was imperative for him that the Canadian sense of identity endure, and if possible, strengthen.
In respect to U.S. relations the situation Trudeau inherited in 1968 was as ominous as any prime minister faced in the century. He inherited eight years of strained and frequently acrimonious relations between the countries and between the presidents and the prime ministers themselves. He inherited a nationalistic storm over U.S. economic domination which demanded that he confront the White House. He inherited the continuing Vietnam War with its corrosive effect on the bilateral climate. He inherited a situation which would see the United States, already emotionally torn over the war, hurled into a series of other crises — balance of payments, Watergate, OPEC—crises which would push Canadian issues further into the realm of the abstract. Lastly, Trudeau inherited Richard Nixon, an antagonistic opposite.
Trudeau was a Harvard man, an intellectual, an internationalist, an athletic, cultured man with a playboy aspect. For John Kennedy In would have been splendid—shining intellect matching shining Intellect, savoir vivre matchingsavoir vivre. But it was Trudeau's misfbr-I line to face a streak of incompatibles and near-incompatibles—LBJ, Nixon, ford, Carter, Reagan. Among them Nixon held out the most I k it cut ial lor disaster because not only were he and Trudeau a dreadful blend <>l personalities but, as in the case of Diefenbaker and Kennedy, ill- ii [x-rsonality differences converged with issue differences.
I an kily there was one thing Trudeau and Nixon had in common. It wns a proclivity to Lie direct, realistic, blunt in appraising the Canada-I S relationship. What each saw was a situation in which the »mi ■. 111111; bilateral rhetoric of the past had created overblown expecta-lii ms, What they decided was that rhetoric and expectations should be H 11 n<l .iway. They decided, in effect, that the countries coufd become nu ii v i list aul friends, that it might Ik* in the best interest of each to start Li Ihgone aunt hei less I bxagrecable acquaintances that Trudeau and hi weir, (lies were able to agree to disagree. It was about the only I llíng i hi which i hey ei ii ii uned, but il was .1 unii-an ord of significance.
In .nice also was a trail 111 the (lanadian prime minister lew
238 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
nixon and TRUDEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL • 239
would have expected. The early images pictured him as gamesome, unconventional, nervy, a man who didn't suffer fools gladly. When he went to the White House for the first time a pretty newswoman asked, "When are you going to slide down a bannister or stand on your head?" But with the presidents of the United States, Trudeau was usually the opposite of the pictures. He was respectful, orthodox, pro forma. Although it was evident that, had he wished, he could have run cerebral circles around Ford and particularly Reagan, one-upmanship was not a game Trudeau frequently played with presidents. "One thing about Trudeau," said Don Jamieson, "he's not contemptuous of ordinary mortals." With Indira Gandhi, he once had to get testy. She had a habit of staking out an overly partisan position in negotiations and waiting in dead silence, the strategy being that the other side would tend to be more accommodating for want of something to say. Well aware of the tactic, Trudeau let her state her case and chose not to respond. The duel of silence lasted five minutes, Gandhi impatiently waiting for the prime minister to talk. Finally it was Gandhi who said something.1 But she was not a U.S. president. With them, the key word for Trudeau in negotiations, although Reagan would put great strain on his patience, was respect, no matter what the personal feelings. In keeping, there was in Trudeau, unlike Pearson at Temple University and Diefenbaker everywhere, a great reticence to publicly criticize a president's foreign policy. Trudeau chose most often the quiet, diplomatic channel. It was a policy ol non-escalation and in the Nixon years, it was needed.
For his first nine months in office, Trudeau dealt with the outgoing, lame-duck Johnson administration. To say he dealt with it is perhaps an overstatement because the contacts were minimal. "We got the impression Trudeau didn't want to have anything to do with us," said Dean Rusk. "The attitude was hell, those guys are on the way out anyway."
While those guys moved out, Trudeau set in motion a reexamination of Canadian foreign policy from which emerged a new internationalism. Increased foreign aid, closer contacts with the Si ivici Union and Latin America, recognition of communist China, and H relaxation of military commitments to NATO: they were the harbin gersof his third option—the move toward less reliance on I he I nilcd States.
With Washington, the first major issue fating Trudeau was i In American decision to deploy an anti-liallislic missile system Tin
ABMs, defensive missiles designed to knock out incoming Soviet rockets, captured Canadian concern because the Soviet missiles would enter the United States via Canada. The explosions caused by the ABMs could conceivably take place over Canadian cities. Ottawa had not l>een consulted to any meaningful degree on the move to build the system. "We were notified of the decision," said Trudeau two months after Nixon came to power, "but there was no consideration in the sense that we might have been in a position to change the decision." NDP leader Tommy Douglas was moved to protest that Canada was again being treated like "a hunk of geography." American Defense Secretary Melvin Laird argued that the Pentagon briefed Ottawa officials in 1967 but acknowledged that Canadian objections may not have been meaningful. "In other words," said the irrepressible Senator William Fulbright, "If they don't like it, they can lump it."
The ABM problem topped a broad agenda of bilateral questions M hen Trudeau visited Nixon on a wet March 24, 1969. Briefing documents for Nixon prepared by the State Department informed the president that Trudeau was "worried about what is happening in the major cities of the United States because of the potential spill-over effect into Canada." Nixon was provided with a quotation from the piime minister saying "...in my scale of values, I am perhaps less unified now about what might happen over the Berlin Wall than whal might happen in Chicago, New York and perhaps in our own 11 cities in Canada." Nixon was advised simply to respond to Trudeau's concerns by giving "a candid, realistic acknowledgement ill i Ik- seriousness and urgency of these problems."
The president would later slap a huge tarill on Canadian imports I>ot in 1969 he was instructed to say that "we wish to increase and further liberalize trade with Canada...we take a dim view of the
.....Ii in y to move toward quotas and other methods [of protection-
......I " Nixon would later forget but he was also told in 1969 that
i.n l.i is also our largest trading partner."
' »n the 1965 auto pact, there was a glowing assessment of the
I.....In derived by Canada and a mistakenly optimistic forecast. "We
I" hi ve Ih<- Canadian industry is now able to stand alone and will
.....litnii  to grow and prosper. We believe there have also been
' i "in......      Iirin-liis for the U.S. but they are more difficult to identify
1»' in i ol ill. much larger size of our industry and our market .....ipniril wilh thai ol (lanada."'-'
Inidi.iii was tin  Insi loicign leader to be greeted by the new
240 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
president, Canada again getting the honour, and on the first day, meeting his first president, Trudeau was reserved and timid, not daring to follow the adviee of the Toronto Star's Stephen Clarkson: "Pierre baby, you've got to sock it to him. Drop the passive I'm here to learn pose and come on talking. You've got two days to penetrate those Republican gray cells with a single, simple message. 'Canada thinks differently. Therefore Canada is different."'
Trudeau had to wear an identity pin with a number on it. "Can you imagine De Gaulle putting up with that?" a newsman cracked. While a tanned, confident Nixon trotted out all the right colloquialisms in a four-minute introduction, a pale, unrelaxed prime minister read fawningly from a script, emphasizing how he was looking forward to receiving "the information and the wisdom that you will want to impart upon me in your talks."
Senator Fulbright, who couldn't imagine Canada "becoming powerful enough to become unfriendly," waved a forefinger at the prime minister at a follow-up reception at the State Department. "All the wise men in the country aren't here in the State Department," he said. "Come over and see us on Capitol Hill. We know a lot about ABMs over there." At a boring White House dinner featuring Robert Goulet, a Canada-U.S. hybrid, Trudeau threw out some rare praise for Richard Nixon, calling him an honest man. "We are the kind of friends who do tell the truth to each other. We told the truth this morning and we will in the future." Days later in the Commons, he said Nixon was a "warm and understanding friend of Canada, a man with whom I shall be able to speak on behalf of Canadians in a frank yet genial fashion."
On the second day of the summit, Trudeau became Trudeau—self-contained, epigrammatic, pungent, philosophical, dashing. "At limes in our history," he said at the National Press Building, "we have paused to wonder whether your friendly invitations to 'come and stay a while' have not been aimed at Canada as a political unit rather than at Canadians as individuals." He alluded to article IV of the 1781 American Articles of Confederation which was an exclusive invitai U n i to Canada to join the Union. Any other territories would have to obtain the agreement of nine of the original states to become a member. All Canada had to do, the article said, was say yes. "Si >," said the prime minister in a deft touch, "we have always had i favoured position."
____NIXON AND TRUDEAU; ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL » 241
The reputed wit was on display when he was asked when De Gaulle, who had stunned Canada with vive le Quebec fibre, was returning for a visit. "I believe you have invited him to visit your country," Trudeau said. "We will see what he does if he goes to Louisiana and then we will report."
But the line to be remembered from the press-club speech was the elephant analogy. "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant: No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."
A newspaper cartoonist took the comparison a step further, making it an elephant and a mouse and much to the dismay of Ivan Head, the author of the Trudeau line, the cartoonist's exaggerated version is the one that has lived.
Head, Trudeau's foreign policy advisor, came to overshadow External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp on American policy the way I lenry Kissinger overshadowed Secretary of State William Rogers on ill foreign policy. Unlike some other people in Externa], Sharp reacted nobly to Head's ascendance. Sharp's role was to deal with Rogers. "You never kidded yourself," said ambassador Ed Ritchie, "that Rogers was going to change the world." Head bargained with Kissinger and when the president and the prime minister sat down, ih' v were usually the only two other people in the room. They didn't interject often because in Trudeau and Nixon, they had two pros.
t :.inadian officials wondered from the beginning if Nixon, as Sharp put il, "had any principles" but one thing they didn't doubt was the in hi s ability. He was well briefed, crafty, and extraordinarily bright. Ih 11 n 11 it have Carter's mastery of detail but was more incisive and 1» in i schooled in foreign policy. He didn't have Ford's degree of good ■ ommon sense but dominated him in insight. He towered over Reagan in ill pih, perspicacity, and knowledge.
In the first summit Nixon was ingratiating to Trudeau and his WIih.  House demonstrated a courtly deference. What impressed
I '    I iiHI Kissinger at this and future meetings was the skill with
11 ill*- two men camouflaged any personal animosities. "It cannot 1» - in I   Kissinger remarked with considerable understatement, "that
II ml an ami Nixon wen- ideally suited for one another." However, "win ii 111• \ were together Trudeau treated Nixon without any hint of
n i"ii and Nixon ;u corded Trudeau both ies|X'<T and attention  I lie\ uoiked together without visible strain. They settled the
242 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
NIXON AND TRUDEAU; ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL • 243
issues before them and did not revert to their less charitable comments until each was back in his own capital."3
On the first visit, although both men spoke of the wonderful rapport established, they didn't settle many issues. Nixon gave Trudeau more information on how the ABM system could impact on Canada but Trudeau did not pose a stiff challenge on the issue, believing it would be fruitless. With the pragmatism that marked his relations with Washington, the prime minister told the Commons in May: "We are not enthusiastic about the system but this is a defense system being built in another country.... It is not likely that any moral judgment we enunciate will have a great deal of effect on the United States position.... If the Canadian Government had power to make decisions in this area I think we would suggest that the ABM system should not be proceeded with."
But had Trudeau lodged a vociferous protest on the ABM in the first meeting, would it have affected events in the fall? In September, again without prior consultation with Ottawa, the Nixon Administration announced that a one-megaton nuclear device would be exploded near Canada in a 4,000-foot hole on the Aleutian Island of Amchitka. Radioactivity could vent, so the scientists said, and spread over Canada. Worse, an earthquake or tidal wave was possible from the test.
The Canadian protestations were vehement, from the government, from the media, from the population. Insane risk, the newspapers cried. Thousands of students marched and at the British Columbia border, booed American cars. But the president didn't listen. The test went ahead and fortunately for Canadians and lor relations with the United States, harmful side-effects did not result.
Sandwiched between the ABM and Amchitka episodes was a ceremonial meeting of the president and the prime minister in Mas-sena, New York, and Montreal to mark the tenth anniversary of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The occasion did not include discussion <>l substantive issues but Nixon marred it nonetheless by absent mindedness. Trudeau at the time was one of the world's most cell brated and eligible bachelors. As he looked on in amazement in Massena, Nixon, throwing out obligatory bilateral praises, said wilh great sincerity that he particularly wanted to [bank "the Prime Minister and his lovely wife." Trudeau appeared on the podium and, as nimbly as possible, explained that he wasn't married.
It was another example of the slights and oversights which all Canadian prime ministers had to get used to in their dealings with the Oval Office. The ignorance of Canadian issues and the ignorance about Canadian people was particularly prevalent in a new president's first year and it particularly bothered Head, who lbund that as each new president entered office, the information process had to start from ground zero. In the Canadian system, the top political figures changed with elections but the bureaucratic forces remained essentially intact, meaning there was some degree of continuity. In Washington a change in government meant a change in thousands of the major public service positions. By 1981, the Trudeau government had viewed live such changeovers, the degree of frustration varying with each.
But while the prime minister's office had a right to be irritated with some of the developments in the early Nixon years, so too was the White House understandably affronted by some of the Trudeau thrusts. The threat to withdraw from NATO was a sore point. The eventual major reduction in the Canadian forces commitment to the Organization was a symbolic setback. The ease with which draft dodgers and deserters spilled into Canada irritated Nixon. Trudeau's I ii ish for sovereignty in the Arctic was unwelcome as was his adoption Of the Diefenbaker script in two areas: first, the removal of virtually all nuclear armaments from Canadian soil, and second, the effort to hi lirect trade away from the United States.
After Trudeau and Nixon's first two years, it was apparent that in ilhci side was looking to do favours for the other, that good-iii ii;lil>our policies were nostalgia, that the chemistry was wrong.
Nonetheless Canadians were not prepared for August 15, 1971. Mming to arrest a balance of payments crisis, Nixon startled the ■ i' ii mi i tie world by moving the United States off the gold standard Mini imposing a 10 percent across-the-board import surcharge. His-
'.....alb, (lanada had come to expect immunity or partial immunity
I......'an Ii sweeping trade strokes. Historically, ample advance con-
■iill h i' hi would preceed such a bold bilateral move. This time, there W 1 neither. ( lunada was the largest trading partner of the United Mil.   ( :inse in 70 percent nl Canadian exports went to Americans.
I 1.....'I'"" Mireharge stood to hurt Canadian interests more than
III ■ ol am i>t her country. Yet Canada, a member of the lamily, was A '    en Inn warned, mm h less exempted.
Iinili iu and Finance Minister Edgar Benson were out of the
244 • THE PRESIDENTS AMI THE PRIME MINISTERS
NIXON AND Ti<l I:i VI    ENDINO SOMETHING SPECIAL • 245
country, leaving the attack to the lead of Mitchell Sharp. In the American embassy, Rufus Smith fired off a telegram to the secretary of state. "Subject: President's Economic Program: GOC to ask exemption from import surcharge." Canadians were hot and on their way to the capital, the telegram said. The reason? "Canada's floating exchange rate, determined only by market forces cannot be labelled 'unfair'. Neither, Sharp said, can GOC trade policy provoke complaint, since Canada raises no obstructions to US exports."
A delegation led by Benson arrived in Washington and was told to go home. Trudeau, indignant, grouched before a nation-wide TV audience that the American trade problems were not Canada's, that the surcharge would cost the country thousands ol jobs. With estimates saying Canada would lose $300 million in export sales, he developed an $80 million patchwork program to help companies maintain existing employment levels. "It was a very big blow," Sharp recalled. "About as unhappy a period [with the Americans] as we've had."4
A month after his announcement, Nixon stung Canadians further at a press conference in Washington. "This is a time for our friends around the world—and they are all competitors—to build a new system with which we can live so that we don't have another crisis in a year. With regard to the Japanese incidentally, I think I can best summarize our dilemma in this way: After the Japanese were here I found that, both from the information they gave and the information we had ourselves, that Japan is our biggest customer in the world."
The error was egregious. Japan ranked nowhere near Canada as best customer to the United States. American sales to Canada exceeded sales to Japan, West Germany, and Britain combined. But making the mistake far worse was the timing. It was now apparent that Nixon made his major trade policy statement without even knowing the volume of trading with Canada, or how seriously his measure would impact in Canada. The press conference statement amounted to "total ignorance," said Head. "It wasjust stupidity. He didn't know."
Trudeau was hot. "When the Americans look at what they're doing, they say: 'well, you know, we're doing this to the Japanese and we're doing this to the Europeans,' but they don't seem to realize wh;it they are doing to Canadians. If they do realize what they're doing and if it becomes apparent that they just want us to be sellers of natural
resources to them and buyers of their manufactured products... we will have to reassess fundamentally our relations with them—trading, political and otherwise."
The special relationship with the United States, declared Conservative leader Robert Stanlield, was past history. "Far from being given special consideration it is obvious now that Canada is out in the cold as far as the special privileged relationship... is concerned."
Declaring the Nixon people insensitive and uninformed, Sharp announced in a New York speech that the government was undertaking a fundamental review of economic policies because of the U.S. actions.
In Washington, the Canadian outcry was viewed with composure. "The assumption here," remembered Rufus Smith, "was that it [surcharge] wouldn't have much effect in Canada. And our assumption was correct—It was something of a shock in the Canadian Government more so than anywhere else."5 Smith and the other officials at the American embassy had not been asked for prior Information by the White House on the possible effect on Canada of the surcharge or the anticipated reaction. They weren't informed of the measure until the day it was announced. They were disappointed thai it came on a day when the prime minister was out of the country. "Had Trudeau been in Ottawa," said Smith, "the Government's H net ion wouldn't have been as sharp."
Briefing papers given to Nixon a few months after his announce-
.....« alleged that the Canadian reaction was excessive. "As Canadians
realized that no exemption was forthcoming, a wave of shock and
.....ertainly took hold. In a round of speeches in September and
1 ••ml mi, high Canadian officials did rather little to explain why the I  S 11.ii I to redress its balance of payments and the consequent need
1 ......peration, but played up the theme that the U.S. was treating
' Inn,n l,i unfairly."fi
V. in indication of why concern should be limited, the memos told N m hi that i he (Janadian government estimated job losses owing to t In .in i barge at up to 90,000 for one year. "It has recently revised its 1 itiin '......ibout hall that figure."
I'm1 n ratlin ptesi Hut warning foi the president was included. The Ii hi government was not to establish the Foreign Investment Mi v h i* Vgency lor more than a year. The Nixon briefers told him it
246 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
was on the way. "A new and more restrictive policy may take the form of screening new foreign investments, particularly those involving 'takeovers' of Canadian firms."
A Trudeau-Nixon meeting had been scheduled for the spring of 1972 but events demanded an earlier summit. Canadians, the prime minister said, wanted to know, a few things: "Have the Americans stopped loving us? What are they going to do? Are they going to gobble us up? Are they going to leave us out in the cold? There certainly have been a lack of reassurances as to the American disposition toward Canada, and I think this is particularly accentuated since mid-August when President Nixon announced his new economic policy."
A lack of reassurances about the Canadian disposition to the Americans existed as well. One of Nixon's major problems with Trudeau was his feeling that the prime minister was soft on communism, Trudeau fortified t he impression in Moscow during his 1971 trip to the Soviet Union. Sidestepping tact, the prime minister declared: "Canada has increasingly found it important to diversify its channels of communication because of the overpowering presence of the United States of America, and that is reflected in a growing consciousness among Canadians of the danger [to] our national identity from a cultural, economic and perhaps even military point of view." The words amounted to an indirect criticism of the United States by its supposed best friend in the land of America's worst enemy.
Nixon demonstrated his considerable hostility to the prime minister in this period in preparing his plans to open a dialogue with communist China—a development which would be a landmark achievement of his administration. In some ways the Canadian recognition of China helped open the door for the Nixon initiative. Several countries followed the Canadian lead, making a United States move num palatable to more people. Ottawa also provided important early information to the White House on the climate of opinion of the Chinese leadership to the possibility of a breakthrough. But Nixon, suspected by some Ottawa officials as being annoyed with the ide;i . I Trudeau sharing in any credit, made certain the Canadian role ilid not broaden. Kissinger acted as Nixon's secret go-between in setting the plans for the Peking trip but a third party intermediary was a 1*0 required. Choose anyone you want, the president told Kissinger, with one exception — Pierre Trudeau.
NIXON AND TRUDEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL ■ 247
When the two leaders met in Washington on December 7, Trudeau, following discussions of multilateral topics, explained the ramifications of the import surcharge on Canada, He wondered if the new protectionism was a signal that the Americans wanted a permanent surplus trade balance with Canada so that they could always export capital to Canada. The details on the table, Nixon "just about dropped his upper plate," said Ivan Head who attended the meeting. "He'd never seen the issue in those terms."
His response to the capital export question, as Trudeau remembered it: "No. We, the Americans, we were in that position before the First World War. We depended on European capital and we wanted to free oui-selves of that dependence, and we understand perfectly that Cana-diansare in the same position, and we will do nothing to prevent them from not feeling in any way that they are a colony of the United States."
Trudeau and Head were almost euphoric. "This to me was a fantastically new statement in the mouth of the President of the I 'niled Slates," Trudeau declared, "and it was said with utmost simplicity and not at all in a grudging way....
"He said, 'Just take what you want [of our capital], and if we can In Ip, we will. If you want less, take less.'
"For Canadians, I think this is the ideal position."
Irudeau placed a grand interpretation on the statement, viewing it ii bestowal of economic freedom on Canada, a grant of maneu-vi i ability without fear of reprisal from Washington. Nixon, presaging in mnouncement that he would make in a few months, was saying
11........liries should feel free to move further apart, to become more
lliili pendent. Throughout the century, the presidents had pulled in I In opposite direction—toward further integration. The Nixon re-vi i ..iI was therefore extraordinary to Trudeau, even if the rhetoric |........iled i.. mi ire than the reality.
\ ......e immediate concern for Trudeau was the 10 percent sur-
■ Inn i" While he and Nixon talked, high government officials from liiitli ulis, ini ludingjohn Connally and Simon Reisman, the Cana-
■ li in depun fin.nice minister, engaged nearby in crackling verbal minimi < "iin.illv, in Kitins Smith's description, was Canada's "bete
l"i ni.idians, including many of the officials who dealt with In i\ |iiIn <I tin horn headed, ugly American. At the meeting, his 1 "i........        iiie.i......• mi I lie surtax lit tempers. "The blood in there
248 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
NIXON AND TRUDEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL • 249
was knee-deep," said Head. Reisman, not renowned lor being low key, pressed the Canadian side with vigour. "It was a case of saying, 'Mr. Secretary, I think you haven t got the whole picture'... We simply had to tell them what the facts were and in a situation of that kind, that's tough." But unlike his colleagues, Reisman was the type who could respect Connally. Equally arrogant, equally obstinate, they became liriends after the boardroom battles and went fishing together.'
At their meeting, the surcharge clash was inconclusive and the Canadians went away unsatisfied. But in the meeting of the big two, Nixon informed Trudeau that he was planning a phase-out of the measure and assured him that Canada wouldn't have to suller for long. The catch was that it couldn't be announced yet. Trudeau and Head appeared before the press overjoyed but couldn't explain the full reason. They touted the part about the assurance of economic independence but it was not such a big seller, being effectively zapped by NDP leader David Lewis. "I suggest it is humiliating for Canada and Canadians that the leaders of their country should have to go to Washington to lie reassured about Canada's independence, to be reassured by the President of the United States that he does not intend to treat us like a colony... I say to the Prime Minister that Canadians do not need assurance from the President... regarding the independence of Canada. They need to be assured by this government that it will not continue to sell Canada out to the multinational corporations and so destroy our independence."
Nixon gave no indication to the media that anything unusual had occurred. His big event with the press was the dispensing of presidential pens in the Oval Office. Showing a rare bit of wit, he aimed a barb at the hyper-sensitivity of Canadians. "Did I get everybody? I want to make sure I have so that I don't discriminate against our neighbor to the north. You will all get the Presidential pen. But with it, you can write anything you want."
Trudeau's excitement with the results of the December visit did not mean bilateral relations had suddenly become harmonious. Owl I if contrary the lisi ol disagreements grew. Ottawa was blocking I In- I 1 S, wish to have oil from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, transported down tin coast by tanker. Washington was angering the Canadian government with the proposal to establish the Domestic lnleriialioiial S,il. s ( lot poration. Canada was holding back on uranium sales to its neighl" nit There were problems wilh defence- pn n li i< tion sb.u ing all iingeuirtlU,
the auto pact, U.S. policy in Vietnam and Trudeau's accommodation of the Soviets.
As his April 1972 state visit to Ottawa approached, Nixon was unusually blunt about the prospects. "I would have to say quite candidly," he told a press conference, "that we have had very tittle success to date in our negotiations with our Canadian friends, which shows, incidentally, that sometimes you have more problems negotiating with your friends than you do with your adversaries____We will
find that we have some very basic disagreements probably after the meeting as before."
Trudeau and Head anxiously awaited the visit, however, l>ecause Nixon had agreed to state publicly what he had told them privately regarding Canada's economic independence. The word leaked in Ottawa about a pending watershed event in Canada-U.S. relations, but in Washington, where the president and the media were preoccupied with a new offensive in South Vietnam, there was barely a mention of relations with Canada. Fear of mass protests over the war led to a cancellation of the Toronto leg of Nixon's visit. Although en niniriic matters were high on the agenda, Treasury Secretary Connally decided against joining the party. Trudeau had suggested he would not be welcome. "With friends like Secretary Connally," the pi nne minister said, "who needs enemies?"
Nixon arrived in Ottawa April 13, 1972 in an evening rain. On the iv a v to the podium to say some words of welcome, he took a piece of I lit per from his pocket and glanced at it briefly. Without notes, he then "poke flawlessly for five minutes, Mitchell Sharp looking on with Oil miration at such ability. At the governor-general's mansion the .one evening, he was expected to say only a couple of minutes worth ol pi isi dinner pulp. But Nixon riveted his audience for twenty Mi It n tics, Again no notes. Again not a misplaced word. "A brilliant peili 'i i nance," said Sharp. "Remarkable," remembered Rufus Smith. I   r sell I. in seen anyone hold the audience in the palm of his hand
lilo Mis.....lid in thai speech in Ottawa. It wasn't just platitudes. It
i»    I iinat kable."
Iii Inn talk, Nixon recalled a time in 1957 when, as vice-president, i.  l.nl Msiled I'ieion, ()niario. A local bartender thought he recog-I tin tin e ami bel someone that he was the vice-president. On his Nixnn heard the bartender, live dollars richer, say: "Nixon n'l look neai Iv .is bail in person as he docs in his pictures." I't i It.i) i 11 i .illini..: i he story I M'.....m- i .1 t lie i lainage be felt thai television
250 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
did to his career, the president told the Ottawa audience that everyone looks better in real life than in pictures.
Sharp remembered well the time when he sat next to Nixon at a dinner for NATO foreign ministers in Washington. The president was about to give a major speech and Sharp, realizing how difficult Nixon found small talk, scratched his head for aimless chit-chat. Finally he began telling him about Gordon Sinclair's celebrated radio broadcast heaping praise on the Americans. Nixon reacted as though he hadn't heard of it but took a place-card on the table and wrote a note of thanks to Sinclair. "The perfect thing for a politician to do," said Sharp. The president then stood, said "I'm not going to say very much tonight," and delivered a perfect full-length foreign policy speech, without a script, without a scrap of paper. "I don'L think there is any politician in this country who could match that," said Sharp,8
The president surprised most Canadian onlookers in Ottawa with his sense of humour. He wasn't supposed to have one. He was supposed to be a man whose spirit was only one colour—dark.
But the top prize for wit and repartee undoubtedly belonged to his secretary of state. When Watergate was in full storm, Kissinger shared a dinner table with Trudeau and Gerard Pelletier, cabinet member and friend. President Nixon was speaking, throwing out some obligatory mush about the behind-the-scenes workers who had made some important agreement possible. The analogy was to builders. Some of the background people, said Nixon, could be compared to carpenters as they had set the framework. Some were the electricians for providing the spark. "Yes," said Kissinger in an aside to Trudeau, "and we're the plumbers."
The main act of the April summit, the Nixon speech, was the most extraordinary address of a president in Canada. The presidents were not always trite and colloquial in Canada. Franklin Roosevelt committed the United States to protect Canada from invasion. Dwighl Eisenhower gave a bare-knuckle defence of the American posit ion on several bilateral sore points. John Kennedy did things his way, stump* ing Diefen baker into the ground. But Richard Nixon took all-the clothes off the bilateral relationship and held it up under a spotlight for inspection. Since Warren Harding's first eloquent oration Id Vancouver in 1923, forty-nine years of cliches had gathered, virtually unchallenged, even when the circumstances called Ibr < hallciiKC, Even through the bad times of Kennedy-Dielcn baker and Johnson*
NIXON AND TRUDEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL
251
Pearson, the leaders paid lip service during their visits to the special relationship. Now Nixon, while still laudatory in part, was telling Canadians that most of what the other presidents said was erroneous, that the special nature of the relationship was essentially rhetoric, that it was time to recognize a new reality.
In discussing that relationship today, I wish to do so in a way that has not always been customary when leaders of our two countries have met. Through the years our speeches on such occasions have often centered on the decades of unbroken friendship we have enjoyed and our four thousand miles of unfortified frontier. In focusing on our peaceful borders and our peaceful history, they have tended to gloss over the fact that there are real problems between us. They have tended to create the false impression that our countries are essentially alike. It is time for Canadians and Americans to move beyond the sentimental rhetoric of the past. It is lime for us to recognize that we have very separate identities; that we have significant differences; and that nobody's interests are furthered when these realities are obscured.
Our peaceful borders and our peaceful history are important symbols, to be sure. What they symbolize, however, is the spirit of respect and restraint which allows us to cooperate despite our differences in ways which help us both. American policy toward Canada is rooted in that spirit. Our policy toward Canada reflects the new approach we are taking in all our foreign relations, an approach which has been called the Nixon Doctrine. The doctrine rests on the premise that mature partners must have autonomous independent policies; each nation must define the nature of its own interests; each IMl ion must decide the requirements of its own security; each nation must determine the path of its own progress, What we seek is a policy which enables us to share international responsibilities in a spirit of international partnership. We believe that the spirit of partnership is sin ingest when partners are self-reliant. For among nations, as within ii,a ions, the soundest unity is that which respects diversity, and the tin ingest cohesion is that which rejects coercion____
An we continue together our common quest for a better world on ler, let ns apply the lessons we have learned so well on this continent: 111.ii wr can walk our own road in our own way without moving I hi tin i apart; that wr can grow closer together without growing more hIIIm . ilia peaceful competition can produce winners without pro-
il......n losers; ili.il s.....ss li,i some nerd not mean sit hacks lor the
...... i hill it rising title will lift all our Iwats...
252 * THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS___
The president, as the prime minister had hoped, repeated the pledge of December on economic independence. "No self-respecting nation can or should accept the proposition that it should always be economically dependent upon any other nation. Let us recognize for once and for all that the only basis for a sound and healthy relationship between our two proud peoples is to find a pattern of economic-interaction which is beneficial to both our countries and which respects Canada's right to chart its own economic course."
To laughter from the Parliamentary benches Nixon corrected a previous error. "Canada is the largest trading partner of the United States. It is very important that that be noted in Japan, too!"
The speech read as if it had been written in Canada, designed to appease the economic nationalists, designed to give the Liberal government leeway to carve out the direction it chose. Because of the interdependence of the two countries, it was usually impossible tor one to make a strikingly new departure, economic or otherwise, without creating shock waves in the other, if not in the initiating country as well. In effectively calling for the closing down of the special relationship, Nixon was suggesting that Canada could climb out from under the wraps, could move in whatever direction it wanted without fear ol being called traitor to a friend. If you don't want to be a satellite, the Nixon rhetoric proclaimed, don't be a satellite. Given the new freedom, the search of the Trudeau Liberals for the remainder of the decade and into the eighties would be for the alternative, for a way ol shedding to whatever degree was realistic the satellite status, for a way of creating a society more distinctively Canadian.
The licence to get out from under the yoke was what Trudeau and Ivan Head, his brainy foreign affairs adviser, had sought. In fact pans of the Nixon speech were written by Head and approved for incorporation into the main draft weeks before delivery. Trudeau knew rm > i everything Nixon would be saying. He had discussed it with Head. The White House and the prime minister's office agreed cntireb < m its thrust.
This unusually collaborative form of cooperation owed itself in pul to the relationship Head had developed with Henry Kissinger 11« could telephone Kissinger most any time and get him. It was sihiii thing the Canadian ambassador couldn't do and somcihing Mitt hi II Sharp didn't try often. Jealous of Head's power, ambiissndoi 1 mockingly called him "The Prolcssor" and othci hxHTnal Allan-
_MXi )N AND I Kl DEM    ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL » 253
career officials derided his ability. Head's strategy, one they did not wish to follow, was to make a greater effort to ingratiate Canada at the White House so that Canadian issues could gain a higher profile, so that benign neglect would be limited, so that there could be the type of cooperation that existed in Nixon's landmark speech on Canada.
On Canadian concerns, Kissinger possessed the pivotal power bul for the most part he didn't have the time or inclination to deal with them. "He didn't take Canada seriously," said Dick O'Hagan, echoing the views of many. "I could understand it.... He felt, Tm a big league guy and I can settle big league problems.'" Canada was arguably the most important country economically and strategically to the United States but it was not a big-league problem. Kissinger backed the Canadian cause on some occasions however. He moderated the excesses of Connally. He worked to get Canadian partici-pation in the western economic summits. And while many in the Nixon White House were prepared to treat Canadians like minions, Kissinger, a diplomat who admired the Trudeau intellect, showed respect. On the Nixon visit to Ottawa, he took the Canadian side against Bob Haldeman, the president's chief of staff and the most powerful figure next to Nixon in the executive mansion. After a gruesome gala at the National Arts Centre featuring unknowns from every region of the country, Haldeman had scheduled a meeting on the Vietnam war and other issues that dwarfed Canadian ones. The 11 in lean party had scheduled a fancy buffet dinner in an adjoining union. Haldeman, the White House tough guy, was a man who Usually got his way. His cold drill-sergeant demeanor did not hide a h n m heart. Once he had received a memo urging that the president In instructed to place a sympathetic phone call to the family of a Hi pul il 11 an senator who was on death's doorstep. Seeing more politi-• id \ aim- in a later call, Haldeman scribbled on the memo: "Wait Until lit- (lies."
Ilul as Kd Ritchie looked on in admiration, Kissinger challenged li in.ui, arguing stitlly that whether the president and the chief of ■i ill liken hi not they were guests of the Canadian prime minister and 11111x1 show respect for the host's wishes. Nixon reluctantly decided
11 I......        'In  Indict and Haldeman was furious. He stood in the
ill nil wa\ nl l he sali ii i like a storm cloud. He glared at his watch, made ii Is issuigcr and. with mosi of I lie dignitaries aware of what was "■<|"|........ .....it.....'d repeatedly thai il was lime lo leave. "My friend
254 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
MXON AND TRUDEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL • 255
isn't very happy, is he?" Kissinger said to his table guests. He repeatedly conferred with Haldeman to calm him down but with the chief ofstaff growing more obnoxious by the minute, Kissinger began to get anxious. "This is very serious," he said to Ivan Head. ''Haldeman can make trouble for me."
Nixon, at least on the surface, appeared to be enjoying himself and his lobster. He had telephoned the prime minister on Christmas Day to congratulate him on the birth of his first son Justin and now he raised his glass and said: "Tonight we'll dispense with the formalities. I'd like to toast the future Prime Minister of Canada—Justin Trudeau." Should Justin ever become prime minister, Trudeau replied, "I hope he has the grace and skill of the President."
Charlotte Gobeil, Kissinger's Canadian date, was enjoying her champagne and with it, her conversation became uninhibited. She lashed out at Kissinger on his war policies, and noticing that his finger nails were bitten to the point of bleeding, inquired, "Why do you do that?" "If you had to send in the B-52s," replied Kissinger, "you'd be biting your nails too."
Haldeman, still fuming, had at last succeeded in getting the president to leave, and in the parking lot, Nixon was brisk with Trudeau, saying that he had done him a favour and would expect one back. Kissinger, continuing to be courteous to Canadians, followed Miss Gobeil's noisy insistence that he drive her home, only to find a nude man in her bedroom.9
Kissinger's considerateness toward Canada was complemented by a comprehension of the Canadian situation that was not without insight. "Canada," he wrote, "was beset by ambivalences which, while different from those of Europe, created their own complexities, It required lx>th close economic relations with the United States and an occasional gesture of strident independence. Concretely this meant that its need for American markets was in constant tension with iih temptation to impose discriminatory economic measures; its instun t in favor of common defense conflicted with the temptation to si,i\ above the battle as a kind of international arbiter. Convinced ol the necessity of cooperation, impelled by domestic imperatives inward confrontation, Canadian leaders had a narrow margin lor maucuvri that they utilized with extraordinary skill."10
Nixon had said it was in the clear interests of the United States i< n Canada to seek greater independence in the relationship. N-.\% ihl
Trudeau government, taking advantage of the infusion of continental liberty, came forward with two bold initiatives: the third option and the Foreign Investment Review Agency. In relations with the United States, three avenues were possible: the status quo, a closer union, or a move away from dependency. In choosing the third, Trudeau wanted increased trade with western Europe and Japan, stronger diplomatic relations with countries other than the United States, and a more visible Canadian cultural identity. The question was whether a shift was viable. Diefenbaker had called for a dramatic trade shift in the late 1950s. His officials, including Simon Reisman, did a study and determined it was a non-starter—disruptive, extremely expensive, unwise. The advantages to the already established trade patterns on the continent were too great to alter. Now, fifteen years later, the same top financial mandarin looked at the idea again and concluded the same—that it was garbage. "Theatrical, mystical, idealistic...You know, we're a north American country,"11
In Washington the third option was not greeted with enthusiasm. Nixon had said go ahead but when Trudeau did just that, Rufus Smith, still running Canadian affairs at the State Department, found many unhappy people. The third option was viewed as retaliation for the import surcharge. "But I didn't see anything new in it," said Smith, "Diefenbaker had been saying (he same thing."
As a component of the third option parcel, Trudeau established I-' [RA to act as a check against American investment and takeovers. "When I discovered Booth Fisheries in Newlbundland was owned by Wonder Bra," said Donjamieson, "I began to get a little upset."12
FIRA, though largely ineffective, came to anger the White House ii it iic than the third option's intended trade thrust. But the low point of the Trudeau-Nixon relationship had nothing to do with Canadian economics. Nixon and his men, preoccupied with Vietnam, W i iiTgate, and the actions of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, never got around to thinking much about or caring miii h al ioui establishing a new relationship with Canada to replace Nixon's announced demise of the ofd special relationship. What I Liikled them most in their six years of dealing with the Trudeau
H"ve.......in was the approval of a resolution in the Parliament con-
uVinmng the I >ci ember 1*172 bombing raids in Camlxxfia. Kissinger
thought I'm li.iiiiciit\ ■„ lit.....prt'liciisible. Nixon ranted and raved
itmiil Tiudeau. Not much had changed since Johnson's days in
256 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
respect to Oval Office sensitivity over Canadian statements on Vietnam policy. The irony was that Trudeau, unlike some predecessors, had made a conscious elfort to refrain from public criticism of American foreign policy in Vietnam and elsewhere. But if his behaviour had been considerate, there was no appreciation in the White House. When the word on the resolution, a motion that was not Trudeau's making, came in, the orders went out: Cut Canada off. For months, the doors were closed to ambassador Cadieux. Phone calls Írom Ottawa were not returned. The administration sent low-level officials to Canadian functions which clearly warranted top people.13
Oval Office anger increased when Canada announced—earlier than the president wished—withdrawal from its role in the International Commission of Control and Supervision in Vietnam. "They were trying to do all they could to create the impression they had not been defeated," said Sharp. "We knew it would be a farce in the long run." Rogers unsuccessfully put pressure on Sharp for a delay on the announcement. Annoyed, Kissinger said he would talk to Sharp. Rogers told him not to bother because the Canadians were not alxnit to change their minds. Kissinger telephoned anyway and Sharp told him there would be no reconsideration.
It was at this time, the beginning of spring 1973, that Nixon pinned an unfortunate label on the prime minister. The president was in his office at the Executive Office Building which sits next to the White House and, with Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and John Mitchell present, was preparing to phone the prime minister on the question of the supervisory commission. "I'll take care of Trudeau," Nixon declared at one point in the taped conversation. Then, in reference to a previous action of the prime ministers, he said: "Th.u asshole Trudeau was something else."
A tape was provided to the jury in the Watergate cover-up trial and because of the poor sound quality, a dispute occurred over what bad actually been said. Haldeman lawyer Frank Strickler told Jm lee |ohn Sirica: "It was the President speaking and the statement made wil 'asshole Trudeau' and that's the way it should read." After iiuiic-debate it was decided that the official version should include "wBI something else."
Pinned by reporters during a recess, Ehrlichman said of the pr«l« dent's remark: "I'm not aware of any problem between them Ii was
rather more a figure of speech." Trudeau, on the spot for I........
said that he'd been called worse things by worse |H-oplc 1 |e anil If id
NIXON AND TKl'ÜEAU: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL • 257
were not surprised at Nixon's words. The president had used profanity in their company before. It was Nixon's way of trying to show that he was one of the boys.
As the Watergate scandal heated through late 1973 and 1974, contacts with the Canadian government dwindled as they did with others. Ottawa secured more hostility in the capital with the announcement that it was cutting back on oil exports to its oil-short neighbour. Additional strain came with the imposition of a special export tax on oil.
The moves infuriated many congressmen and though the Administration was less exercised, there was considerable pressure to force a changeof position. Julius Katz, the deputy assistant secretary of state, put up an agreeable public front. "We cannot expect Canada to play the major role in the resolution of our oil problem," he told legislators. But in private, in dealing with Jack Austin, Trudeau's principal secretary, he was dogged and harsh. "If they think they can bully you oil a position," said Austin, "they'll try."
In the final months of Richard Nixon, Trudeau had no contact with him. But as he watched the man collapse, there was a touch of I i impassion. "I wasn't Nixon's kind of guy," he would say later. "Nor was he mine."14 But he was genuinely impressed with Nixon's foreign policy, saying in respect to it on the day before Nixon's resignation, that he "led his country in a direction which I thought was, by and I.ii-ge, good for the world." And he still thought that the Nixon pledge i il more independence for Canada was marvellous. "President Nixon's I ii Inies and our bilateral relations have always been, I think, fair and in i lor Canada."
Following the president's resignation, the prime minister wrote a l< Her of sympathy to him. Nixon, who had been impressed by few iliiin-s about Trudeau aside from the War Measures Act, responded ■■ ■ a i inly. Seven years and three presidents later, Pierre Trudeau would "II peak highly of Richard Nixon. "The record will show' that Nixon > '   11 * 'in the Canadian point of view, a good President."15 Nixon
.......nl "red another prime minister more fondly. After the death of
Jiihn 1 lirlenbakcr, he was one of the first contributors (3500) to a
in........ il luud lo turn the former conservative leader's house into a
I   Ii ni.aker museum.
'ílu* < »v.il Oilier successor, Cerald Kurd, became vice-president l.ii m i Spim Agnew resigned in disgrace and president U-eause
258 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
ninon and  iki i'i.ai    enuing something special • 259
Nixon resigned in disgrace. His ascendancy was attributable to fortune only and one of the prices was vulnerability to the charge that he was unlit for the job. Canadians, with their intellectual prime minister, quickly gathered around the conventional wisdom of Ford as lightweight. Unhappily, the ibrmer Michigan football lineman was to nourish the image. He asserted that eastern Europe was not dominated by communism. On hearing of some extraordinary statement, he made a rather extraordinary one himself: "If Abe Lincoln were alive today," said Ford, "he'd roll over in his grave." Although physically adept he managed to compound his image problems by shanking golf balls which injured spectators, by tumbling down stairways, by ramming his head into door frames. Cartoonists soon took to ridicule, one picturing Ford strapping on a football helmet while getting set to dive into a swimming pool.
Still, his incompatibility with Pierre Trudeau did not obstruct a friendly relationship from developing between them during Ford's two and halfyears in the Oval Office. Although intellectually distant, the two men had something in common—skiing, and other athletics— which gave them something to talk about besides the frequently boring bilateral spats, and something to make them feel easy in one another's company. Measured against the absence of bonds of commonality between other presidents and prime ministers, the small link was noteworthy.
When presidents and prime ministers get along, as did Ford and Trudeau, as did Dielienbaker and Eisenhower, and King and Roosevelt, it takes the edge off controversy. With Ford and Trudeau, bilateral problems, though there and though serious, were left most often to the care of lower-level officials. The president and the primi minister managed to keep a happy face on the bilateral relationship even though the end of the special relationship was being proclaimed again — this time by Canada.
"The fact is that in both Canada and the United States," Extei nil
Affairs Minister Allan MacEachen declared in 1975, "there ha i.....
a growing awareness that the special relationship no longei irrvi either of our best interests. What is being developed is a more mat HIT relationship. It is one which permits us to maintain close in i
cooperate fully on bilateral and multilateral matters, is of u.......I
benefit and yet leaves each country free to pursue its ii.ilion.il inti n I
"It is plain that Canada and the I miled Slates have enten d ■ new period of bilateral relations.... Each government will hnv '
make hard decisions in line with its own perception of the national interest—decisions with which the other may find it difficult to concur."
Ford wrote Trudeau shortly after Nixon's resignation promising to continue the "close consultation and cooperation" that was supposedly existent under Nixon. They met first in December 1974 when West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was also in Washington. The question as to which leader would get the plush Blair House accommodations and which would be relegated to a hotel was settled when Schmidt took Blair House. The Canadian decision to phase out oil exports to the United States was the hot topic but Trudeau immersed it, asking Ford what he would do if the shoe were on the other foot and getting no reply. Trudeau encapsulated the meeting and the casual tone he had established with Ford, telling the press, "we had a great visit. They make good coffee here."
Kissinger, still on the throne at the State Department following Nixon's demise, had the misfortune to make another trip to Ottawa. He didn't encounter Charlotte Gobeil this time but the trouble was elsewhere. Microphones left on the table at a banquet picked up his gossipy private chatter, transmitting it to reporters in another room. "What I never understood," Kissinger was caught saying, "is how he [Nixon] became a politician. He really dislikes people. He hated to meet new people." Nixon had "barely governed" during his final i ighteen months, said Kissinger. He was an "artificial," "unpleasant," mill "odd" man. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was "sexy" according 1« the secretary of state. "A hard woman who knows what she wants."
The embarrassment was ill-timed because Kissinger had been w< ii king Ixdiind the scenes to augment Canada's international stature. I hi In .1 of the western economic summits was soon to open in France Nliil Kissinger was lobbying to get Canada a seat. "Canada is no Imii'ii ,i minor partner," he said in Ottawa, "but a country which in lnliillv lakes it place in the economic and political councils of the Ii I flu- country's presence at the summit was "crucial" fie said. We have (loser consultation with Canada than with any other
mt......       We share more common problems and we share the need for
IMialli I solutions on a whole range of issues." Canada was not ad-M»tii< 11 to the first summit but with the help of Ford and Kissinger
..... ' pari ii ipant in year two. The subject of intense media focus,
mii ml h i si lip was ii bin in to Canada's prestige.
W nli foul i asii.il and abov e the liav. the polemic on (Canadian
260 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
NIXON AND TRUDEAC: ENDING SOMETHING SPECIAL ■ 261
relations was left to ambassador William Porter who did the heavy spadework in protesting Canadian energy policy and who made an altogether inglorious exit from the lovely mansion that is the Ottawa envoy's. Common practice entails that the ambassador have a final audience with the head of state and leave quietly. With three phone calls Porter failed to get a response from Trudeau's office. Finally he chose to leave via a Saturday night on-the-record cocktail party for Canadian reporters. It was a parting-shot party, Porter condemning deteriorating Canada-U.S. relations and pinning most of the blame on Canada: gas and oil policies, FIRA, the provincial takeover of the potash industry in Saskatchewan, Ottawa legislation effectively blocking U.S.-border TV stations from obtaining Canadian advertising. To many observers, the outburst was largely unfounded, the laundry list of bilateral irritants not terribly unusual or provocative, particularly in light of the new un-special character of the Canada-U.S. relationship. "We ran the story," said Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. "But I don't think most people down here have changed their perceptions of Canada. I for one don't really care if Buffalo TV stations continue to get Canadian ads. I don't use potash so nationalization doesn't bother me much; and you've raised your prices for gas and oil but then so has everybody else."
Trudeau told a buzzing Commons that Porter's views were not the views of Ford and Kissinger, that he was out of line. In Europe Kissinger, to Porter's lasting annoyance, said that he felt bilateral relations were "excellent." "My friend Kissinger noted which way the wind was blowing," Porter later recalled, "and said I had spoken without State Department clearance which of course was not true. I am not a fool." Trudeau chose not to have his farewell audience Ibl Porter and most cabinet ministers snubbed him by refusing to show up for his farewell reception. Although MacEachen said relation! were better than ever before, the State Department later endoi < •! Porter's remarks and an official added they had been cleared t hrough the White House. Expecting and arguing for a reprimand for Porter from Kissinger and a demotion in his next assignment, Ollawa 11 if It i i get it. Porter was appointed ambassador to the oil-rich hot spot, Sat Arabia,
The uproar did not uproot theTrudeau-Fnrd entente. ( limsiiltt.......
and cooperation with the Ford White House remained briin lm Trudeau than with the other presidents he had laced and would ......i
face. One reason was National Security Adviser Brent Skowcroft who made a determined effort to erase a chronic Canadian complaint — lack of advance consultation with Ottawa on major developments.15 Skowcroft set the National Security adviser record for long-distance calls to Ottawa.
In June of the American bicentennial year, four months before Ford's defeat, Trudeau and the president had a happy meeting on the Potomac, preferring to sidestep prickly bilateral matters in favour of aimless chatter. Despite Porter's outburst, it was Trudeau's view that bilateral problems at this time were not of major consequence. With Ford, who would invite the prime minister on ski trips long after his presidency ended, he wanted to relax. For the bicentennial, he presented Ford with a picture book of the great undefended Canada-U.S. border. Cliches were in abundance and for a while, it was like the old limes of "special" relationship. Trudeau was introduced to the skipper of the Canadian schooner Bluenose. "Had the pleasure," said the skipper, "of entertaining Bryce Mackasey [Postmaster General) for two hours some months ago." "Oh," said the prime minister. "Was he able to walk oif by himself?"
On the Sequoia, standing beside Ford and Kissinger, Trudeau waved a white handkerchief to reporters. "Surely not surrender nlready," someone shouted. "No," said the prime minister, raising a glass to his hosts. "It's the colour of my soul."
JIMMY CARTER AND SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS • 263
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jimmy Carter and Shattered Expectations
IN THE BACK of his long limousine, festooned with Canadian bunting, sat Don Jamieson, the portly cigar-smoking External Affairs minister of Canada. He was attending the 1977 London economic summit and waiting Ibr his driver to take him from his hotel to 10 Downing Street. Just as the chauffeur touched the gas pedal, Jamieson heard it tap on his window and that sincere southern voice: "Can I hitch a ride?" Jamieson looked. "Jesus, it's the President!" An aide practically somersaulted into the front seat to make room for Jimmy Carter. Al the limousine made its way, spectators lining the streets saw a I ng Georgian smile in the car of Canada.
Car pooling was not out of character for Jimmy Carter, the non imperial president and in Canadian eyes his modest plain rather endearing, something Canadians didn't see often in president! but something with which they could identify. Those were, alter all, Canadian characteristics and there had rarely been a president who had shown them. The low-key, unassuming style of Jimmy Garlrr wHI one of the reasons the Canadian hopes for his presidency and lot ih« bilateral relationship were unbounded.
He arrived at a favourable time. Watergate had passci I, \ »11 had passed. The dark spirit of Richard Nixon had been cxon iicd In the bilateral context there was a feeling that Pierre Tnnleaii W Jimmy Carter would be in harmony, that despite the obvinti ■
ences in the men, the respect for intellect, values, and vision would be mutual. In Canada, a separatist government in Quebec had been elected in the same season as Carter, the victory sapping any tendency toward moral and political superiority among Canadians. It was a more insecure Canada as 1977 opened, a country more willing to be closer to the United States. Following the distressing years of Kennedy-Diefenbaker, Johnson-Pearson and the distant co-existence ratified under Trudeau-Nixon, hope was considerable in the 110th year of Canadian Confederation that a new era of understanding and cooperation would begin.
On a cold February day, only a month after Carter moved into the White House but a few days after Mexican President Lopez Portillo made his First visit, the optimism increased as Trudeau and the Georgia Democrat met Ibr the first time. With a Canadian cheering section on the White House lawn, with a national TV audience back home, with Margaret Trudeau resplendent in a blue coat with fur trim, with a green-caped Amy Carter waving a Canadian flag, Trudeau, the veteran statesman, cut a strong figure in the crisp air while Carter, the rookie, was deferential. "He was genuinely saying, 'Look, I want to learn,'" remembered Jamieson. "He respected Trudeau." The External Affairs minister had been whisked away on arrival Ibr a secret session with top administration officials to clear up list-minute trouble spots on the bilateral agenda. "They wanted to in.ike sure that nothing spoiled the party." The Carter people discovered Trudeau liked Harry Belafonte, so Belafonte was brought in to entertain. They thought he might enjoy meeting Elizabeth Taylor, Hi she was brought in. They worried lest not enough congressmen greet I he prime minister on the hill and worked hard to get them out. ( latter himself prepared for the meeting like no other predecessor. A president who would gain the reputation of being waist-deep in detail, Curler assimilated facts on complex bilateral matters that dazzled < in,ii lun officials. He studied the background history of Trudeau's dilviscrs sii thai when he met Ivan Head he could talk knowingly hInhiI Head's family and his education and leave Trudeau's foreign pnln \ ad\ iii leeling even more important than he already did.1 [too developments set the summit apart, giving it a look of impor-lew others attained. The election of René Levesque vaulted in.iil.i in the American perspective to the level of a quasi-crisis .....ry < lanada couldn't be taken Ibr granted to quite the same
266 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
JIMMY CARTER AND SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS • 267
Margaret Trudeau glittered, turning heads with a knee-length frock that sparked controversial headlines. "They said I wore a short skirt to the President's dinner last night because I had great legs," she said. "Well, why not?" Margaret and Liz got as many column inches as the main players. The president, drawing an analogy to the Trudeau statement that living next to the United States was like sleeping with an elephant, toasted the prime minister. Elephants being the symbol of the Republican party, donkeys the symbol of the Democrats, Carter said, "well, the elephants are gone, the donkeys are here and the donkeys are much more companionable beasts, I think." Don Jamieson, circulating merrily, enjoying his martinis, taking in the beautiful people, was impressed. "Ah, I like this kind of thing,"3 he said. "Had talk with Vance [Cyrus] today about maritime boundaries. I said, 'look, why don't we settle things this way?' He said, 'okay'. So we did, easy as that."
It was that type of a visit, successful in almost every respect. Carter stickhandled nicely the Quebec question, saying he didn't want to interfere but leaving no doubt as to the U.S. position. "I am not going to make a prediction about that but... if I were making my own preference, it would be that the Confederation continue. A stability in Canada is of crucial importance to us." The only marginal disagreement involved Trudeau's reluctance to support Carter's sweeping attack against the Soviets on human rights, the dilference represent iim Canada's traditional, less paranoiac view of the Soviets. The prime minister returned home to rave reviews and 117 Liberal MPs wort red roses to mark his triumph.
As the personal relationship between Carter and Trudeau open' rl with promise, so generally did bilateral relations. The two countnfl signed an agreement to undertake the continent's largest private project in history—the construction of the multi-billion dollar AlaiWjjj natural gas pipeline, a plan which would move the energ\ resi from Alaska through the Yukon, British Columbia, and Albert a to tl lower forty eight states. In the unusually cold winter of 1977. < >' i if approved the emergency export of oil and gas to help tin I rilit
States through severe shortages. "I am all the more appn......
Carter wrote Trudeau, "because I know that Can.id,i too has Imt»i experiencing a particularly hard winter." The I 'niied Slates a|(Nffl to stall construction on the Carrison Diversion pmjcM i, an n ■ umiihM scheme in North Dakota which, Manilobans le.ued, would pull ill
the rivers of their province. The two sides reached an interim agreement to ease territorial disputes in the east-coast lisheries.
Not since the 1950s had the bilateral relationship and the relationship between president and prime minister been so comfortable and so promising. The so-called "special relationship" had not been resurrected in official terms but for all practical purposes it was in effect. The third option remained on the Trudeau policy books but with the Washington relationship so much better, the pressure to try to implement a third option waned.
As a favour to Carter, Trudeau journeyed to Washington to be present for thesigningof the Panama Canal treaty. The ratification of the treaty in Congress marked a major victory for the president and he wanted as much pomp and power lent to the occasion as possible. Trudeau however would remember the day for another reason. In his limousine on the way to the Mayflower Hotel, he was seated next to a man who had one hand in his coat pocket and another on an ear plug. To Trudeau's astonishment, the man, who the prime minister assumed was a security guard, kept attempting to enter into a heavily detailed discussion on Panama and other Central American issues. In the hotel elevator, Trudeau related the story to Jamieson, commenting on the man's wealth of expertise. "He was the strangest damn secret service agent I've ever run across." Jamieson finally interrupted. "I hate to tell you this, Prime Minister. But that was no security guard. That was Our ambassador to Latin America."
One of Canada's more colourful ambassadors, so to speak, was Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan. A KaLstalf of Canadian politics, Whelan's barrel-belly protrudes happily over his belt buckle and his head is so large, someone said, that if the rest of his l>ody was in proportion, he'd be eight feet tall. Whelan came to a seminar on World hunger in Washington in 1978 and, following some unsatisfactory grazing at the breakfast buffet, had the gall among the hunger pmielists lo publicly denounce the offering. "Lousy," he blurted. " flies had no scrambled eggs or sausages. Just some old buns. I tinui|{ht ii was going to be like the MPs' breakfast in Ottawa. We get ii i afeteria there and you get to pick out your scrambled eggs or wli.itevei \oii want." When the Agriculture minister's complaints ived lioni page treatment in a major Canadian newspaper, Whel.in ciii ihc reportei a note complimenting the accuracy of the
llOIN
268 ■ THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
JIMMY CARTER AND SHATTER Kl) EXPECTATIONS • 269
He sparked another flap when Tom Enders, the American ambassador to Ottawa, began promoting the ageless idea of a free-trade agreement with Canada. Whelan cried that he was "sick and tired" of hearing about it and that it was about time the Americans dropped it. Trudeau had to Issue a statement in Enders' defence in the Commons, saying the ambassador had every right to express his views. The towering Enders, like most everyone else, was enjoying the early enthusiasm of Canada-U.S. relations in the Carter years. He was detecting a massive shift in Canadian public opinion toward the Americans.
But as the popularity of Jimmy Carter evaporated, as his effectiveness diminished, as crisis upon crisis manhandled him, the Canadian optimism rapidly faded. It soon became apparent that Jimmy Carter could not translate his good will into good deeds, that the piety of his pronouncements bore no resemblance to actual results. He became a president lurching from crisis to crisis with only a loose grip on the wheel. Energy shortages led to gas lines. Inflation roared on, unemployment plagued him, SALT II was lost, the Soviets encroached without an American response, mini scandals involving his family and friends stained his image, Afghanistan was invaded, Iranians took Americans hostage, Congress rebuked him time after time.
Lost amid the mass of more urgent problems were Canadian questions and promises he had made. Relations with Canada soon fell into their rightful historical state at the White House—the obscure, Consultation with Ottawa on major multilateral development* became minimal. Bilateral issues were handled by the White House in an ad hoc fashion. Accomplishments Ottawa had expected to make in the Carter years were not made.
Carter didn't lose his good will toward Canada or toward PirrrP Trudeau nor did the prime minister lose the same toward Carter, Trudeau became sympathetic toward the president, respectful ol hi integrity, his motivations, his mind, but disappointed with tin- lai k i results. Others would be less charitable, Ivan Head would find dealiilU
with the Carter White House an utterly futile exercise, n.....      i"1 tin
than with Nixon or Ford. Peter Towe, the urbane Canadian amlm i dor to Washington, would be found standing in his ornate livin office before a young group of si udenis from 'Ibn-nto em-.ie. <l <■. il
unlikely pursuit of practically cheering the arrival ol H.....|
Reagan—aright wing. Republican hard-liner, an aiililhesisol l'n
Trudeau in almost every respect, a man to whom Canadians felt no affinity. But such was the disappointment with Carter. He had created such high expectations and with high expectations comes the risk of deeper wounds.
The essence of the Carter problem was in his inability to exercise the levers of power with any authority, a problem that was brought about by his inexperience in Washington, his lack of an overall sense of direction, his mediocrity with the television medium, and his feeble relations with a Congress that was becoming increasingly vulnerable to the pressures of special interest groups.
The latter problem, the president and Congress, emerged in the 1970s as a major obstruction to healthy Canada-U.S. relations. In previous decades the presidents exercised stronger authority over Congress meaning that if a treaty was negotiated with Canada, the Canadian government could be reasonably confident that the treaty would clear the Senate and enter into the law books. But during the late sixties and early seventies, changes in the operations on the hill, changes in election financing, the proliferation of election primaries, and the rise of single-issue groups all contributed to a breakdown in political party discipline. Parties no longer possessed the clout to sway their members to vote the party line with the regularity they did in the past. They could no longer finance members' campaigns, control key committee appointments to the same degree or select the nominee for president in the backrooms. Getting legislation passed, even lor a president who had his party in majority in Congress, was becoming doubly difficult. Single issue groups such as the anti-abortionists, the environmentalists, the gun owners, were gaining sometimes more control of the elected party representatives than the president. This dispersion of power meant that the Canadian case in Washington had to In- sold not just to the White House but to the congressmen individually and to other groups in the capital. Compounding the problem was the tradition in Washington which held that foreign diplomats were to do their lobbying at the Executive Mansion, not on the hil
For Canada, the new problems with Congress and the problems i be Carter administration were symbolized by the case of the ' ' •" " 1 i lis her ies follies. The dispute over the rich fishing area began d i die American revolution in 1776, continued with the Grant-lili dini.tlil dispute Inflowing the birth ol (lanada in 1867, and was
270 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
still a thorny problem in the 1970s. Though not an issue of national ramifications for Canada in the Trudeau years, though certainly not an issue which galvanized public opinion in Canada, it nonetheless stirred the rancour of Canadian officialdom, encapsulating for Ottawa the frustration with the Carter years and occasioning pronouncements from the likes of Peter Towe that the pendulum of Canada-U.S. relations was swinging again in the wrong direction.
The two sides signed a treaty early in 1979 establishing a management commission to set quotas for Canadian and American fishermen in the waters and sending the question of the ultimate boundary line to international arbitration. For the treaty to take effect senate ratification was needed, meaning that the treaty first had to be approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But local New England interests, feeling that Canadian diplomats had out-negotiated their own, vigorously protested the pact to the senators representing their region, in particular Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.
The Foreign Relations Committee took its time in taking up the treaty. Issues such as SALT II had more priority than Canadian scallop quotas in the Georges Bank and despite complaints from Towe who declared that Canada could not "cry loud enough to be heard" the committee didn't look at the treaty until a year after it had tieen signed. It became obvious when it did reach the panel that the Carter White House had signed the treaty without ascertaining how it might stand with the committee members. Kennedy, Pell and others indicated they wouldn't pass it without significant changes. Pell wondered what the Canadian fuss about delays and objections was all about.
"It's a completely parochial matter on both sides____This is not of
national concern to Canada____We've got along for many years with-
out a treaty and life is going on."4 Because of the chemistry of congressional committee politics, the New England senators con« trolled the foreign relations panel on the fisheries question. Deals were worked out whereby in exchange for helping defeat the Canadian treaty, the east-coast senators would give promise of support toothi i members on their constituency imperatives. A Canadian diplomat discovered how the system worked when he tried lobbying a ( "in mittee member on the fish pact. "Listen," said the senator, "I don'l bother him [Pell] on the fish and he doesn't Ixithcr me on the cm n End of lobbying elfort.
_JIMMY CARTER AM) SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS « 271
Trudeau's office, aware of the outlook, pressed Carter to put some weight behind the treaty, first just to get the committee to look at it, second, to get it to pass it. Bundled under his pile of crises. Carter had little time for a big effort on the fish. To argue the case for the treaty one of the people he put before the panel was Warren Christopher, the usually adroit deputy secretary of state. But either Christopher had lost his usual adroitness or hadn't (bund the time to prepare his argument. His sole thrust was that the treaty had to be passed to preserve the wonderful relationship between Canada and the United States. Jacob Javits, the veteran New York senator, sawed his case in half, saying that the United States does not go about signing treaties that are not in the best interests of the United States just because it is a good friend of the other country.
With the lobby ing effort of the local interests, with the New England senators holding the sway, with the White House effort unconvincing, the fisheries treaty was swept aside by the committee, never getting to the full Senate floor for a vote. Mark MacGuigan, Trudeau's new External Affairs minister, complained bitterly, saying that in future Canada would require prior assurance from the White House of senate support l>eforc signing a treaty. Such an assurance, American officials pointed out, was difficult since it would run counter to the intent of the Linked States constitution.
By 1979, seven years had passed since a president had visited Canada, the last trip being Nixon's. The absence was the longest since i he presidents began coming to Canada. In the context of the new, nothing-special arrangement, it was only in keeping. But given the high expectations with Carter, it was a significant slight that he hadn't found the time to visit Canada. Repeated feelers from the prime minister's office were turned back because bilateral problems weren't i Icerned urgent enough and because Carter was too busy. In the past, li*ue disputes were not the major motivating factor for bilateral iniiiiiis. It was not intended that real friends should only get together In ii there were differences to settle. The summits were displays of Iih ndship, reassurances of friendship.
I n i.i IK . as he filtered I he last year of his stewardship and, without
•......idem e, as die election campaign opened, Carter decided he
Would visit ( )ttawa. His advance people were sent into the capital Willi inmiim lions to In scrupulously polite. They were told by senior I )e|).u Imenl ollieials about the bulb treatment ol Haldeman's
272 « THE PRESIDENTS AND THK PRIME MINISTERS_
henchmen in preparing for Nixon's 1972 visit and how it had insulted the prime minister's officials. In the bowels of the State Department the memory had lingered.
But five days belbre the scheduled November 1979 visit, Iranians stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held Americans captive. Carter cancelled the one-day Canadian excursion and, never willing to reschedule it. became the first president since Hoover to serve a full term without visiting the northern neighbour.
In the hostage crisis, on the response to the invasion of Afghanistan, on other major developments and on bilateral matters there came to be what Ottawa never expected from the Carter administration: in Towe's words, "a marked lack of consultation." It was difficult for Canada, said the ambassador, to support American policies which were never explained. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Adviser, was schooled in Canada, extremely bright, and the most articulate man in the administration. But he alienated Ottawa. Hawkish in style and statement, he usually led talks with "ajab to the nose" as Head put it and his unsubtle, tough-line approach — a Connally of foreign policy — was unwelcome. Ottawa officials were eventually convinced that Brzezinski had no great love for Canada or its prime minister. Pierre Trudeau's upper-class upbringing in Montreal contrasted with Brzezinski's youth in the same city, setting the two men apart in style and outlook. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was viewed differently in the Canadian capital. Reliable, understated, without arrogance, he was, in the Canadian perspective, the class person on the Carter team. Jamieson, who felt he had a beiiei relationship with Vance than any Candian had with any secretary of state in modern times, particularly enjoyed his no-frills nature. I )i n me negotiations in Africa on the Namibian question, Jamieson called it late-night meeting and Vance appeared at his door in pyjamas, overcoat, and no socks. In his few dealings with Trudeau, Vance fbi i ■ i< I a depth of mind he was not used to finding in others. Leaving (In prime minister's residence one day following talks on arms limital ion he remarked to Jamieson: "I wish European leaders and oilier In ,n I of state had as strong an understanding of what's involvci I
Tbsi value of the warm rapport with Vance was ollsei howevrt by the Brzezinski cold front. "Big /,." as he was nicknamed, was haul Inn Vance soft-line, and Carter somewhere in between. The ami us • l nl foreign policy which resulted added lui llni In lln disi oiiiagemenl III
___JIMMY CARTER AND SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS » 273
the Trudeau government which, by the time it was temporarily replaced in the spring of 1979 by Joe Clark's Conservatives, had experienced enough in the way ol exasperation with the Carter gang and was gaining a renewed interest in the third option.
On the night Joe Clark was elected prime minister, the Canadian embassy in Washington held a $12,000 reception for officials and journalists from both countries. Although the election results were being piped in via a closed television feed from the CBC, ambassador Towc decided that CBC reporters would not be allowed to file live reports from the reception. He reasoned that the reactions of partying diplomats to the elect ion result might not serve as appropriate viewing material. He was right. As the Clark victory became obvious, a gloomy atmosphere gripped the salons. Clark jokes, ridicule of his speaking style, and mocking references to his world tour increased with the drinking, and by the time of his victory speech, some of the lingerers were whistling abuse.
The image of Clark in Washington was little different from that in Canada. Because he was new, because he had a background that was not illustrious, because he had been elected due to dissatisfaction with Trudeau and not satisfaction with himself, and because of his shallow grip of issues as displayed on his world tour, he was regarded as a lightweight. Some, such as Senator Moynihan, professed the belief openly. The Americans had come, slowly at first, to respect the Intellect and style of Trudeau. The impressive image he had carved out, despite his marital difficulties, made him a difficult prime minister to follow in the foreign affairs arena.
( Hark didn't receive the customary quick invitation to see the president alter his victory, the need lessened by the pending Tokyo 11 onoiuic summit where they would see one another along with the Ittln i leaders. At the summit the fear that the new prime minister Would make a fool of himself was not realized, Carter officials reporting thai he held up well. At this time the president was in the throes of an..1 li< i energy crisis and political opponents such as Connally, Ki iiiu.lv, and California Governor Jerry Brown were proposing a NiM'tli A merit an common market for the pooling of energy resources. I In nit i i n\ isaged ihe United States getting more Canadian and
Mi s.....        nil  mil natural gas in exchange for other benefits. The
i |.< o|i|t ii ,di/ed I he idea was a non-Matter in both countries,
274 » THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS_
Canadians feeling it was an energy grab, Mexicans the same. The president was also under attack because the pipeline project with Canada was faltering due to lack of confidence among private financiers. In a speech in Kansas City, Missouri, liefore four thousand, the president, mentioning Canada for one of the few times out of his many hundred speeches, scolded the critics of his energy relations with Canada and challenged the pipeline companies. Oil producers, he said, "have dragged their feet in helping to finance the pipeline. I have instructed the Secretary of Energy to drag them in and get them going." His voice rising in intensity: "And I will insist personally that this gas pipeline be built." The weak relations with Canada amounted to "misinformation being spread among the American people." But the jaw-boning of oil producers by a president as enfeebled as Carter was to have minimal effect, the case of the pipeline becoming another example, in the view of the Canadian government, of a president failing to live up to his promises.
Clark was the first Tory prime minister to pursue closer relations with the United States. Macdonald, Borden, Meighen, Bennett, and Dielenbaker had all favoured maintaining or strengthening the link with Britain. The Clark government was essentially continentalist in its approach. Free trade became a hot topic. The Clark planners adopted the American idea of mortgage interest deductibility on income taxes. J. Duncan Edmonds, an influential Clark consultant, proposed a treaty of North America embracing further integration. James Gillies, a key Clark adviser and a former professor at UCLA, was examining the American model for more ideas. But Clark lasted less than a year and it was a year in which Carter was caught up entirely in crisis management—energy shortages, SALT II, [ran, Afghanistan and his own re-election prospects. There was no time I. a new departures.
The Iranian hostage drama, blown many times out of proportion 10 its real importance by an ABC television soap opera entitled I mi mil Held Hostage, featured the only major involvement of the (ilark gn\ ernment with the Carter White House and witnessed a short revival oftheCanada-U.S. kindred spirit. While the embassy was overt.il • " six American diplomats escaped and eventually sought relugi in Tehran at the Canadian embassy which then hid the est a|p< • ■■ uiilll
they could be spirited out of the country via pi.....r\ Can.iilmil
passports. With the Americans'destitute al t lie <li >or in a I nut-< il. i l»l(
_JIMMY CARTER AND SHATTERED EXPECTATIONS » 275
the Canadian assistance was less an act of great, altruistic friendship than one of natural, humane response to people in trouble. It could hardly have been expected that Canada or any western country would have thrown the diplomats to the wolves when they came calling for help. But given the stressful American emotional climate, the Canadian deed produced an unprecedented out pouring of thanks from Americans to Canadians. "Thank You Canada" signs were the order of the day. There were take-a-Canadian-to-lunch days, Canada appreciation weeks, free tows for any Canadian who got stranded on highway 81 in West Virginia, motions of gratitude introduced in most legislatures in the country, and thousands upon thousands of letters to the Canadian embassy and consulates.
Carter telephoned Joe Clark, who was in an election campaign, his government defeated on a non-confidence motion. "I want to call... publicly and on behalf of all the American people Joe to thank you and Ambassador Taylor and the Canadian Government and people for a tremendous exhibition of friendship and support and personal and political courage. You've probably seen the tremendous outpouring that has come from the American people on their own volition and it is typical of the way we feel." The Trudeau Liberals feared that the sagging Tories would get a tremendous boost from the story but although theepisode proved of some help to him, it was too late for Joe Clark to be saved.
The Liberals were back and so was the third option. There was initial hope that the Canadian caper would produce something in the way of a quid pro quo. Trudeau supported Carter on the Olympic boycott in response to the invasion of Afghanistan and provided •1 In. i.mi assistance on the grain embargo. But nothing was forthcoming from the White House on the major Canadian concerns—fish 111 uty, auto pact alterations, pipeline. Garrison Diversion, consultant .u mi multilateral developments. About all Ottawa received in response lor its hostage rescue was an embarrassing cover story in W   lr,w\, < Canada's national magazine, entitled "Losing to the Yanks" anil impugning the government for submitting to domineering in allium at the hands of the Americans. There was, in the last few »>'' I  I ' I, ,11 Garter's humiliating defeat, a bilateral accord reached. Il n iii in ilie loi in nl a iiieniDiaiidum of intent to curb the trans-border pii.LI. m nl acid rain, or as some Americans preferred to call it, ■ li 11.....       | ."Mm ii hi  Ilie two eon nit i' ; agreed to enforce exist ing pollu-
276 » THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS_
tion standards with greater vigour while putting working groups to the task of working out details of a treaty-John Roberts, the Canadian environment minister, hailed the agreement as "an extraordinarily important step forward." Ottawa could at last boast of some cooperation with Washington. Ed Muskie, the new secretary of state, was there, smiling, and Douglas Costle, the highly effective head of the Environmental Protection Agency praised the accord as a significant first step in tackling a problem of dramatically increasing importance. Then, as if the Carter years hadn't been frustrating enough for Canadian interests, he declared in an aside: "Of course all this goes to hell if Reagan gets in."
Before Reagan got in, and while the Carter White House was preoccupied with losing the election, the Trudeau government chose the perfect time to quietly take another new and most important advance in the growth of the third option. FIRA, the first step, which limited American investment, had been followed by Bill C-58 which limited the American cultural invasion by making it more difficult for publications like 'Time magazine and Reader's Digest to do business in Canada. Now, the National Energy Program proposed the reduction in the American control and ownership of Canadian energy resources from 75 percent to 50 percent. As well as limiting new investment in Canada through FIRA, the Canadian government was now proposing to remove existing American investment. The move toward less dependence on the United States, the move away from the special relationship with the United States, was continuing in significant stride. The Carter-Trudeau period, so auspicious in its beginning, had turned into another in a long series of relationships that corroded i In Canadian government's desire to be close to the United States.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Moving Backward
THE RELATIONSHIP BEGAN in 1867 with the president, the prime minister, and their countries remote and threatening. Slowly, very slowly, the distance shortened, Canada's fear of annexation disappearing, the belief in the wisdom of continental closeness strengthening. In the late 1930s, the president, Roosevelt, and the prime minister, King, two men in harmony, brought their two countries together in spirit and outlook, forging a psychological bond and lhaping a Canada-U.S. relationship which was held up to be the best in the world.
But after a honeymoon which witnessed the American adoption of llie Canadian economy, the entire process began to reverse itself. Slowly, very slowly, the relationship cooled, Canadians doubting the ,ii Iv is. 11 >ility of economic and cultural partnership with a domineering giiint whose leaders treated them like givens. In the early 1960s, the |iii'sidi'n(, Kennedy, and the prime minister, Diefenbaker, discordant linn, split the Ixmd. By the early 1970s the diflierences were such that tin special relationship was declared dead and by the 1980s the ' hi tdi.in search for another option was quickening. The countries,
ugh welded by forces making separation seem unthinkable, were mi; ,i|mi t .is il bound lor the distance from which they began.
In it the forces that drew the countries together—economic mid i nliiii.il mil ii.iiion—were the forces that were pushing them
278 » THE PRESIDENTS AXD THE PRIME MINISTERS_
apart. On being so close Canadians began to regret the overwhelming American influence and the dwarfing of their own identity. In addition there was a growing sense of disillusionment with the partner they had chosen. It was easy, in the period 1940-1960, to embrace the United States. In those decades, the United States was the greatest country in the world, the most powerful economically, the most powerful militarily, the strongest morally. The incentives for Canadians to merge were irresistible. The country next door was the best.
Before 1940, when Great Britain was dominant and the United States less significant, Ottawa had maintained the British connection. In the elections of 1891 and 1911, Canadians had rejected closer union with the United States. Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier found then that "the best and most effective way to maintain friendship with our American neighbours is to be absolutely independent of them."
In the years after 1960, the decline of the United States l>egan and simultaneously the decline in the Canada-U.S. relationship began. The wounds suffered in American pride in the sixties and seventies were grievous—Vietnam, racial riots, assassinations, Watergate, economic decline, Soviet advances. Canadians and their prime ministers weren't so sure they wanted to associate so closely with a falling giant. The incentive to look elsewhere climbed and it wasn't surprising that having moved away from Britain, w4iich was once number one, and looking to move away from the United States, whose number one status was being threatened, the Canadian government now chose the new emerging world economic leader—Japan. Japan became Canada's second largest trading partner in 1972, replacing Great Britain, and in the following decade Canadian trade with Japan tripled, Ottawa seeking not just a trading relationship but an ccon< >mi< partnership. In addition the Canadian government began reaching out to the new4y industrialized countries—Venezuela, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Algeria.
Canadian officials preferred to call the third option develop!.....H
not a move away from the United States but a move toward nilici countries. American officials viewing the trend preferred .uiuihri description of Canadians — fair-weather friends.
Ronald Reagan came to power with a policy designated to In back the great days of the old partnership. He had I wen lookm fall of 1979 for a fresh idea with which to km k oil Ins run liti I hi Republican nomination. He needed something thai would pi a «......
_MOVING BACKWARD « 279
on a platform that was essentially a collection of 1950s bromides. What he found was the idea of a North American Accord, an agreement that would provide for a new blend of cooperation on the continent, leading to a greater sharing of its resources for the mutual benefit of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
It was a difficult vision to criticize. In western Europe the countries had come together first economically in a common market, and later politically in a European parliament, and they were realizing the advantages of closer cooperation. In North America a different story was lx-ing written and Reagan's idea for addressing the situation seemed timely.
But what would happen to North American Accord, what would happen to the good intentions, what would happen yet again in the relationship of the president and the prime minister, would only serve to suggest that the trend in the Canada-U.S. relationship was not going to be easily overturned.
On the campaign trail, Americans greeted the Reagan projxjsal with indifference. Rarely a serious concern of Americans through history, Canadian relations, though troubled, bored his audiences and soon Reagan dropped the accord plan from his speeches, leaving it quietly in the platform books.
In Ottawa, the government discourteously dismissed the accord plan as an attempted energy grab, compelling Reagan to deny he had such intentions.
Eventually, by the time Reagan won the election, the accord was viewed only as an informal concept meaning closer cooperation. To luster it, Reagan wanted a series of meetings with Trudeau at regular' intervals, beginning with an unprecedented visit to Canada before his inauguration. But even this minor manifestation of good will was foiled, Trudeau already having committed himself to a world trip on the dates Reagan wished to see him.
binleau harboured early suspicions about Reagan's capabilities. Karly in the former California governor's campaign for the nomina-IMhi, the prime minister remarked privately that he found it difficult In inn lei stand how the Americans could be serious about making kengan president. Bui reflecting the early inclination of most presi-ili til  mil prime ministers, Trudeau was initially prepared to show
e.....I l.in11 ,iud was quickly given ilie opportunity.
W In n l\i Iran i .uiic In ( )ltaua in March of 1981, il was the first
280 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
MOVING BACKWARD • 28]
visit by a president to Canada in nine years, the longest absence since the 1920s and in itself a sign of deteriorating relations. Strangely however, the supposedly well intentioned Reagan chose the week before the visit to lay a miserable foundation for it. The east-coast fisheries treaty, dropped by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the Carter years, still wallowed in the capital, Canadian diplomats hopeful that Reagan, with the help of a new Republican majority in the Senate, would resurrect it. But on the day Ixrfore his trip, discerning that the pact had no chance with the legislators, Reagan officially withdrew it from consideration. Weeks earlier, weeks later, the move might have made more political sense. Also on the visit's eve the State Department sent a letter to Ottawa protesting Trudeau's National Energy Plan. It was so scalding in tone that upon finding out the details, Secretary ofState Alexander Haigapologetically retracted it. At the same time, the White House retreated on its support for the Law of the Sea Treaty, an agreement governing the world's seabeds which was years in the making and which Canada, having high stakes, strongly supported.
The atmosphere created was not exactly a new accord one and Reagan found out as much on the gray, snow-sprinkled day In arrived. Out of respect, and many times out of admiration as well, Canadians virtually always provided United States presidents with warm if not wonderful receptions. Harding, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy all went away delighted with their Canadian welcomes. One of Johnson's appearances and Nixons's visit met with protests amid the applause but the demonstrators wen not yelling about Canada-U.S. relations. They were denouncing thl presidents on a multilateral issue—the Vietnam war.
Reagan faced a different situation. No war or multilateral issm i ■! immediate alarm drove hundreds of Canadian protesters to I'.u li i merit Hill. The motivating factor was bilateral relations, most spri ill cally the environmental problem of acid rain. While thou supporters turned out for earlier presidents, President Reagan loiind virtually none. Those in attendance who were riot demons! i.niiiu against him were quiet. His reception, though not poor in eoinpai rum to how American presidents are somel inns receivei I inol bei counti n was an embarrassment by Canadian standards, the worst ,\ \>m nli til had ever been given on Canadian soil.
When Reagan spoke, the cries nfniigci Irom tin ise ran ying pli.....I
were so disrespectful and disruptive that Prime Minister Trudcau, visibly irritated, decided that as good host he must retaliate. The day before the visit, attacked by the Opposition over the Reagan fish treaty decision, the prime minister had responded in a conciliatory vein. "This Government is putting importance on maintaining good relations with the United States." Now, with Reagan relieved to have made it to the conclusion of his remarks, Trudcau grabbed the microphone and admonished the noise-makers. "Hey guys, when I go to the United States I'm not met with these kinds of signs. You know, the Americans have some beefs against us too but they receive us politely. So how about a great cheer lor President Reagan?" There was no cheer, only some polite applause overpowered for the most part by jeers.
For the remainder of the visit, the prime minister maintained an outward posture of respect for the fortieth president, leading Reagan to pronounce, "I like him." But Trudeau was discovering through his talks with the seventy-year-old president that some of his suspicions about the man's ability were accurate. When Reagan expounded his views on the Middle East, in one session, he seemed to sound so simplistic that his American colleagues were embarrassed. Canadians present practically dropped their jaws in amazement. A superb script reader who had the ability on television to appeal to the lowest common denominator, like most top ranked TV programs, Reagan possessed a wonderfully pleasant style and personality. But many (lauadians considered him the most uninformed and shallow man to 01cupy the Oval Office in decades. Ralph Nader's description of Keagan — "he owns more horses than books"—was deemed harshly appropriate. Top Washington observers who weren't sure about his depth soon had their worries confirmed. David Broder was startled by I lie ignorance displayed by Reagan in some press conferences. James Kesiou, who had seen so many presidents close up, was appalled. The le.ii was that Trudeau would not have the patience to tolerate the new ... idi ut
Aside from the chasm separating the two leaders in mental fire-|iowei, there was a stark difference in the direction they wished to mi >\ e their own countries. The United States had always espoused the
In.....ei prise ideology to a greater degree than Canada, which had
......ili i NDP provincial governments, and Liberal federal govern-
i whii h i hose to ili* kit with i he economy more than American
282 • THK PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
administrations. But the Reagan election of 1980 and the Trudeau re-election the same year polarized the neighbouring countries. Propounding a 30 percent reduction in taxation in his first term, Reagan sought nothing less than a conservative fiscal revolution, moving income in great bulk from the public to the private sector. In contrast, Trudeau, in an interventionist mode, was seeking to reinvigorate nationalism and protection ibr the Canadian economy with NEP and with a plan to strengthen the Foreign Investment Review Agency.
Reagan and Trudeau clashed on philosophies ibr third world development, the president favouring free enterprise to great doses of foreign aid. On the Soviet Union, Reagan, an unmitigated cold warrior, opened his dialogue with the Kremlin leaders labelling them liars and cheaters while Trudeau paraded his more progressive view in response to the declaration of marshal law in Poland. Possibly thinking of what the White House might do in a similar situation with the shoe on the other foot, Trudeau, who once declared the equivalent of marshal law in Quebec, asserted that the Soviets were acting with restraint.
Perhaps there had never been as many differences between a president and a prime minister. On acid rain, the hot bilateral issue from the Canadian standpoint, Reagan was hardly riveted, reporter* wondering shortly before his Canadian visit whether he had n< i heard of it and a spokesman replying that he wasn't sure. Willi comments like, "if environmentalists had their way we'd all be living in rabbits' holes and birds' nests," Reagan left no mystery to hit pro-business bias. He made the remarkable comment during I hp campaign that trees caused more pollution than automobiles  I hi
line quickly became a subject of ridicule. On passing beautiful I.....
reporters on his campaign bus would chastise the foliage for In im   ■ i menacing to society. Campaigning at a college in California, Keayan was met by a banner students had strung across a beautiful on1' "Chop Me Down Before I Kill Again" it said. For his ceremonial i plant in Ottawa, reporters asked White House officials if the si would be of a non-polluting variety.
But the issue constituting the major source of aggra\ .u.......||
eral relations as the 1980s opened was the National F.nen", American big business got to Reagan and iis i lamoui n\c discriminated against in the Canadian market was he.ml I
MOVING BACKWARD • 283
throughout the bilateral history, it was the small power country, Canada, fighting the actions of the big power, the United States, on such items as fish and tariffs—issues that to most Washington politicians and Americans were generally inconsequential. Less often, much less often, as in the case of the National Energy Program, the small power country would make a stroke bold and daring enough to capture attention in the big power capital. Canada, as William Fulbright asserted, wasn't really powerful enough to be unfriendly but occasionally it tried and then it was the presidents who were outraged by the impudence. Grant was ready to "wipe out" Canadian commerce after John A. Macdonald's authorities arrested American fishermen. Kennedy heaped scorn on Dielenbaker Ibr having the gall to talk back. Johnson battered Pearson for speaking out against Vietnam,
The National Energy Program was as philosophically abhorrent to Reagan as it was philosophically compatible to Trudeau. Seeking to have the plan modified or eliminated, the Reagan White House opened a vituperative rhetorical campaign from the State Department, the office of United States Trade Representative Bill Brock and the ambassador to Canada, Paul Robinson. Ottawa refused to flinch under the pressure, its effort led by Allan Gotlieb, the new ambassador 10 Washington, who in the space of a few months earned the reputation as one of the toughest and best diplomats Canada ever sent to the American capital. When the New York Times ran a business column •uggesting that Canada be allowed to "freeze in the dark" because of its ill-advised treatment of American oil companies Gotlieb fired off a i e ponse making the Times column look like it was written in a mental vacuum. Gotlieb's outspoken wife Sondra was finding many Americans in a mental vacuum on the subject of Canada. "For some reason i I'laze passes over people's faces when you say Canada," she told the limes. "Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something." Gotlieb served as undersecretary of state for External Affairs and In experience and astuteness contrasted that of the ambassador Reagan i hose Ibr Canada. Robinson was one of the least qualified Canadian ambassadors in decades. A Chicago businessman with a
11.....i\ .11 in Soviet bent, he was given the posting following his work
«» an Illinois fund-raiser for Reagan. Possessing neither diplomatic PNpei leiice nor a sound knowledge of Canada, he was quick to • I......H irate his short i innings. He s| x >kcol the prospects ol a Canadian
284 « THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS_
political party that no longer existed, he wrongly listed Yugoslavia and Albania as being under Soviet domination, he lectured Canadian newspaper editors commanding that they run more anti-Soviet stories on their front pages, he denounced Canadian frugality on arms spending and, clearly stepping out of bounds, he ventured into the realm of Canadian domestic policy, complaining that Canada was spending too much on social services.
But Robinson, who entered his post warning of bilateral storm clouds on the horizon, was only reflecting the new climate of Canada-U.S. relations. He was doing little more than the Reagan While House wished him to do. By the summer of 1982, the president and the prime minister, after only a year and a half, had given up on each other. Reagan's good intentions had collided head-on with the reality of the next-to-impossible situation: two dramatically different leaders taking their countries in dramatically different directions. Trudeau's patience with Reagan, impressive at first, evaporated. In a meeting prior to the Ottawa economic summit in 1981, he didn't, as some reports suggested, truculently lecture Reagan but he came close, making a pointed, unyielding affirmation of his energy policy which left Reagan irritated. Then, with the president looking on, he gratuitously told the media that he, not Reagan, would be running the summit agenda and that Reagan would have ample opportunity tl1 have his say when Washington held the summit. At a NATO meeting the following year, the prime minister, departing from his norm <>l avoiding public criticism of the presidents, lashed out at Reagan'l high interest rates and hawkish foreign policy which presumptuously allowed that serious arms reduction talks with the Soviets would I" predicated on good Soviet l>ehaviour. Then Trudeau threw a personal insult into the mix. While he and other leaders posed for photogi aplt an American journalist shouted a question at Reagan who had gained, by this time, a reputation for knowing very little about international affairs. Hearing the question, Trudeau pointed at Sc< n • tary of State Alexander Haig and advised the reporter: "Ask Al."
The little war was on. In theCanadian-U.S. lexicon all fight < little ones, barely noticed by the United States media and, hc< an I the great assumption of the bilateral relationship, hanlK uoi about by the average citizen. The great assumption was that I" ■ • the countries needed one another so much, because th< \ in common, all disputes between them would lie mi essat ily shoit In i and the wonderful friendship would I « nei essai il\ i> ■ t..r« d
_MOVING BACKWARD « 285
By 1982, with the accord idea a Hop, with the president and the prime minister on the rocks, with the governments of the two countries on divergent paths, with the Canada-US. modus civendi having become blisters as usual, the great assumption was in worse trouble than at any time since before the war. The drift toward animosity that began in the early 1960s was accelerating and Canada now had two exploratory tools it did not have in those days. One was a new constitution, imbuing a stronger sense of national pride and independence. The other was the third option. The latter had l>cgun with mincing steps in the 1970s and by the end of the decade Canada was still as economically dependent upon the United States as it had ever been. But by the summer of 1982, with MacGuigan speaking of "intense stresses" in the relationship, the third option—though not used frequently by name for fear of offending the Americans — had suddenly taken on a new, meaningful life. The realization was clear that if Canada was to make a significant break from the United States, if it was to fashion a truly different society from the American one, it first had to take steps to diminish its overwhelming economic dependency on the United States. A renewed third option, the National Energy Program being one of its cornerstones, was a major step. For Americans who cared enough to listen—and there still weren't many by 1982 ("We're thought to be boring," declared Gotlieb) — it was a warning that Canada was seriously willing to look elsewhere. It was a warning that the great assumption could no longer be accorded blind faith.
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE
1. Description of Camp David scene compiled from interviews with Charles Ritchie, Rufus Smith, Dick O'Hagan, Dean Rusk, A. E. Ritchie, and others. Also from Mike: The Memoirs oj the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), and an article by Charles Ritchie in Macleans magazine, January 1974.
2. Interview by author with Dick O'Hagan.
3. Memorandum from Dick O'Hagan to Lester Pearson, April 19, 1965,
4. Interview by author with A. E. Ritchie.
5. Memorandum to Lyndon Johnson from McGeorgc Bundy, May I, 1964.
6. Curtis speech at seminar on Canada-U.S. relations, Harvard Univer* sily, April 27, 1982.
7. Interview by author with Dean Rusk.
8. From the diaries of Hamilton Fish, Library ofCongress, VVasliin.ii D.C.
9. From the diaries of Arnold Heeney, Public Archives of ChiUII Ottawa.
10. Interview by author with Dean Rusk.
11. Ibid.
12. Interview by author with Charlotte Golieil.
13. Ibid.
14. Interview by author with Ivan Head.
NOTES • 287
CHAPTER TWO
1. Fish diaries.
2. Ibid.
S, John A. Macdonald papers, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
4. Ibid.
5. James S. Young, The Washington Community: 1800-1828 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1968).
6. Macdonald papers.
7. Bruce Hutchison, The Struggle for the Border (New York: Longmans, 1955), p. 390.
8. Donald Creighton, John A. Macdonald: The Old Chieftain (Toronto: Macmillan, 1955), pp. 70-102.
9. Macdonald Papers. 10. Fish diaries.
papers in
CHAPTER THREE
1. All Brown quotations are from his letters in Volume 9 of his the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
2. Fish diaries.
3. Letters of Thomas Bayard, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
4. James Morton Callahan, American Foreign Policy in Canadian Relat (New York: Macmillan, 1937), p. 412.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Compiled from Chicago and New York newspaper accounts, October 1899.
2. The Globe, November 15, 1897.
S. Minto papers, letter from Laurier to Minto, Vol. 7, p. 39, August 21, 1899.
4. Compiled from Toronto, Chicago, and New York newspaper accounts. (). lobn 1899.
5   Franklin I). Roosevelt quotations are from his letters, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C. Ii   M.n ken/ie King quotations are from his diaries. Public Archives of
( !.in.nl.i, ( >llawa
288 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
NOTES • 289
CHAPTER FIVE Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft (Farrarand Rinehart, 1939), pp. 47, 123, 124, 963.
Message from Taft to House of Representatives, January 26, 1911, Library ol'Congress, Washington, D.C
Correspondence to and from the president and his staflTrom the Taft papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Compiled from New York and Washington newspaper accounts.
Septcmljer 1911.
Ibid.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Robert Laird Harden: His Memoirs, Vol. I & II (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1938).
2. The best account of background events in Canada that led to independent foreign policy may be found in: John S. Galbraith, The Establishment of Canadian Diplomatic Status at Washington (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951).
3. From the papers of Woodrow Wilson, Library ol'Congress, Washington,
D.C.
4. Ralph Allen, Ordeal By Fire (New York: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 188-191.
5. From thediary of Robert Borden. Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
6. The Cabinet Diaries ofjostphm Daniels (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), pp. 557-58.
7. King diaries.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man (New York: Macmillan, 196'»] p. 283.
2. The New York Times Magazine, January 15, 1928.
3. The Memoirs oj Herbert Hoover (New York: Macmillan, 1952).
4. Ibid.
5. Compiled from Vancouver, New York, and Washington ncw»piUHM reports.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hoover papers, Herbert Hoover Library, West Branch, Iowa. Hoover papers, MacNider memorandum to Assistant Secretary of State William R. Castle Jr., October 14, 1930.
Hoover papers, memorandum to Under Secretary of State William Phillips from subordinate on strategy to be employed in Bennett visit.
CHAPTER NINE
1. All Mackenzie King quotations in this chapter are from his diaries and correspondence unless otherwise indicated.
2. Roosevelt's experiences at Campobello compiled from: Frank Friedel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Ordeal (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954), pp. 92-105; Finis Farr, FDR (New York: Arlington House, 1972), pp. 42, 126-133; and several newspaper and magazine accounts.
3. Roosevelt quotations in this chapter are from his correspondence in the Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York, unless otherwise indicated.
4. Roosevelt papers, Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.
5. King diaries.
6. Roosevelt papers.
7. Interview by author with Jack Pickersgill.
8. Interview by author with Paul Martin.
9. Interview by author with James Rcston. 10. King diaries. 1). Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Roosevelt papers.
14. King diaries.
CHAPTER TEN
Harry Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.
2. King diaries.
3. Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester R. Pearson, Vol, I (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), p. 240
I Ibid.
290
THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS,
notes • 291
Ibid.
King diaries. Rcston interview.
Interviews by author with Simon Reisman, J. L. Granatstein, Jack Pickersgill, A. E. Ritchie. Also from State Department correspondence and the King diaries. 9. Pickersgill interview.
10. King diaries.
11. John VV. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, Vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 145.
12. Quotations and description of meeting from notes taken by Truman adviser David Bell who was in attendance. Papers from Harry Truman Library.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1. Martin interview.
2. Lester B. Pearson, Mike, Vol II, p. 69.
3. Ibid.
4. Pickersgill interview.
5. Eisenhower Library, Abiline, Kansas.
6. Interview by author with Eugene Griffin.
7. From the diaries of Arnold Heeney.
8. Eisenhower Library.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1. Theodore G. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row. I9M pp. 58, 59.
2. Heeney diaries.
3. From the president's papers, Kennedy Library, Boston, Ma.
4. Interview by author with Dean Rusk.
5. Kennedy Library.
6. Interview by author with Rufus Smith.
7. Ibid.
8. Rusk interview.
9. Kennedy Library.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Interview by author with StU Macleod.
13. Rusk interview.
14. Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1975).
15. Interview by author with Charles Ritchie.
16. J. L. Granatstein, A Man of Influence (Ottawa: Deneau, 1981), p. 353.
17. Peter Stursberg, Diefenbaker: 1962-1967 Leadership Lost (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), p. 17.
18. Rusk interview.
19. Peter C. Newman, Renegade in Potter (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. 1963), p. 337.
20. Rusk interview.
21. Charles Ritchie invervicw.
22. Rusk interview.
23. Interview by author with Benjamin Bradlee.
24. Interview by author with Peter Trueman.
25. From transcript of interview with Hugh Sidey in oral history, Kennedy Library.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1. Charles Ritchie interview.
2. Lester B. Pearson, Mike, Vol III, p. 100.
3. Ibid.
4. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.
5. Story of visit to ranch compiled from interviews with Paul Martin, Dean Rusk, Dick O'Hagan, Charles Ritchie, and Pearson memoirs.
6. Martin interview.
7. Roger Frank Swanson, Canadian-American Summit Diplomacy, 1923-1973: Selected Speeches and Documents (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975), p. 241.
8. Martin interview.
9. Johnson Library.
10. Rusk interview.
11. Charles Ritchie interview.
12. Ibid.
IS. A. E. Ritchie interview. II Ibid.
15.  Rufus Smith interview. 11'   I'm keisgill interview.
292 • the presidents and the prime ministers
17. Pearson papers. Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
18. Rufus Smith interview.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1. Interview by author with Ivan Head.
2. Nixon memoranda obtained through U.S. Freedom of Information Act, U.S. State Department.
S. Henry Kissinger, While House Years (New York; Little, Brown and Company, 1979), p. 383.
4. Interview by author with Mitchell Sharp.
5. Rufus Smith interview.
6. Memoranda obtained through U.S. Freedom of Information Act, U.S. State Department.
7. Interview by author with Simon Reisman.
8. Sharp interview.
9. Story of Nixon's and Kissinger's evenings in Ottawa compiled from interviews with Ivan Head, A. E. Ritchie, Charlotte Gobeil, Rufus Smith, and others.
10. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 383.
11. Rcisman interview.
12. Interview by author with Don Jamieson.
13. Smith interview.
14. John Hay, "Still Sleeping with an Elephant," Mat lean's magazine (January 26, 1981).
15. Ibid.
16. Head interview.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1. Head interview.
2. Jamieson interview.
3. State dinner atmospherics from Val Sears in the Toronto. Star, February 23, 1977.
4. Interview by author with Claiborne Pell.
Abbott, John, 52
Anti-ballistic Missile system (ABMs) 238-39, 240, 242
Acheson, Dean. 109, 155, 172
Acid rain, 275-76, 282
Ackley, Gardner, 231 Adams, Henry, 51 Adams, Sherman, 172 Afghanistan, 272 Agnew, Spiro. 257 Mctbam claims, 12, 23, 26 Alaska boundary dispute, 52, 54-65. 83, 85
Alexander, Governor-General, 158 Allingham, Cheslcy, 117 Alsop, Joseph, 232-33 Alverslone, Lord. 62-64 Amchitka. 242
Annexation, 12, 22-25, 37, 40, 72-81, 86
Appleton, Henry, 77
Areiir sovereignty, 243
Armistice Day, 153
Armour. Norman, 117, 120-21
Arthur, Chester, 38-39, 94
Arl li les nl I he Confederation, American.
240
Aximilmlion of French in Quel>er, 139-40
Associated Press, 10, 106 Atherton, Ray, 151, 156 Alllec, Lord Clement Richard, 148, 150, 151, 153
Atomic energy, 149-51, 153-54. See also
Nuclear weapons Austin, Jack, 257 Auto pact, 219-22,227,239 Aylesworth, A. B., 62-63
Bain, George, 3-5, 205
Baker, Newton, 86
Ball, George, 197, 203, 223-24
Bank Act, 232
Bay of Pigs. See Cuba
Bayard, Thomas, 40-41, 83
Belafontc, Harry, 263
Bell, David, 165
Bennett, E. H., 115
Bennett, R. B.: admiration for Hoover, 16, 101-07; contempt for FDR, 108-12, 120
Benson, Edgar, 243-44
Bering Sea dispute, 49, 54, 86
Berlin Wall, 239
Bill C-58, 276
HI.une, James G: annexation desire, 38,
iii. presidential nomination, S9;
294 • the presidents and the prime ministers
reaction to Cleveland's embargo. 43: secretary of state under Harrison, 16-49 Hhenose. 1 17. 261 BOMARC missiles, 208 Borden, Laura, 83, 86 Borden, Rotiert: contempt for presidents, 16: friend ol Teddy Rooseveli, 65; prime minister, 80, 82-83, 85-89; reciprocity, 73, 76; unveiling of portrait, 158 Bostock, He win, 100 Boston Past, 182 Boundaries (Canada-U.S.), 25 Boutwell, George, 27 Bowell, Mackenzie, 52 Bradlee, Ben. 208-09, 210, 260 Britain: Alabama claims, 12, 23. 26; control ol "Canadian foreign policy, 13, 15-16, 24-32; end of control, 13, 34; meetings between leaders ol and U.S. presidents, 5; military Contributions to NATO, 9; preparation lor WW I, 130-34; withdrawal of Canadian fishing privileges, 25 British Columbia, 124 British Commonwealth Air Training
Plan, 139-40 Brock, Bill, 283 Broder, David, 215, 281 Brooklyn Citizen, 44-45 Brooks, Arthur. 99 Brown, Anne, 34 Brown, George, 33-36 Brown, Jerry, 273 Bryan, William Jennings, 56, 87 Bryce, James, 66, 76, 85 Brzczinski, Zbigniew (BigZ), 272 Byrd, Harry, 167
Brynes (American secretary of state), 150 Buffalo Evening .Wears, 64 Bundy, McGeorge, 6-7, 197, 203, 205, 211,226
Burns, General (Canadian; Suez Crisis), 173
Butterworth, Walton, 198, 203, 205,207, 232
Cadieux, Marcel (Canadian ambassador to U.S. under Trudcau), 252, 256
Calder, John, 116 Camlxxlia. 255-56 Camp, Dalton, 201 Camp David, 1-5, 16,226-27 Campobello International Park, 229-30 Campobello. New Brunswick, 8. 111-17. 229
Canadian constitution, 285 Canadian embassy, establishment of. Ml
Canadian Legation, establishment of, 88-92
Canadian Mercantile Bank, 231-32 Candian Press. 1. 191 Caron, Adolphe, 'M Carter, Amy, 263 Carter jimmy, 15, 241, 262-76 Carler, Rosalynn, 265 Castle, William, 104-05 Chamlwrlain. Joseph, 41-42 Chappie, Joe, 98 Chevrier, Lionel, 165 Chicago Tribune, 175 China. People's Republic of, 193, 217, 232. 246
Christie, Ambassador (Canadian), 133 Christopher. Warren, 271 Churchill, Winston, 130, 131-34, 138, 143
Citibank of New York, 231-32 Clark. James Beauchamp, 72-73, 80 Clark, Joe. 273-75 Clark, Lewis, 154 Clarkson, Stephen, 240 Clcmcncrau, Georges, 83 Cleveland, Graver, 12, 37, 39-42, 4<M« "Code of Conduct," 225 Cold War, 174
Columbia River Treaty, 180, 218-18 Connally, John, 220-21, 247-48, !24»,
273
Coolidge, Calvin, 13,90-92, I (HI Conscription, 143-44 Corby case, 152 Conines, Adolfo Ruiz, 171 Cosilc. Douglas, 276 Crerar, Thomas Alexander, 1412 Cuba, 186-88, 195-96, 198 'ill Council of Economic Adviicrt, 211 Curt in, John, 119
Curtis, Kenneth, 7-h
index . 295
DafbcJ. W., 62
Daniels, Joe, 89
Darin1 J. Adaim. 39-40
Davis, Norman. I 17
Declaration on Atomic Energy, 154
de Gaulle, Charles, 5,201,217.240,241
De Grey, Lord, 30-31
Democrat it Rrririt', 24
Dennett. Tyler, 61
Diefenbaker, John: contempt lor Kennedy. 16, 18-19; damaging press release, 6, 203-06, 236; prime minister during Eisenhower administration, 11, 175-80; prime minister during Kennedy administration. 11, 18, 181-210, 283; Nixon contribution to memorial fund, 257
Dillon, Douglas, 224
Diplomacy in tht .X'utlear -1,1/, 212
Douglas, Tommy, 199-200,204,207.239
Drapeau.Jean, 234
Duflerin, Governor-General, 37
Dulles, John Foster, 15, 170-72
Dunn, James, 86
Dupuy, Pierre, 234
Early warning systems. 156 East-coast lisheries Irealv, 269-71, 280-81
Economic independence, 245, 252
Eden, Anthony. 173-74
Edmonds, J. Duncan, 274
Ehrli< hman, John, 256
Eisenhower, Dwight: friendship with Diefenbaker, 18. 175-80; ignorance about Canada, 9, 11, 15; president, 166-80, 182, 250; Prime Minister St. Laurent, 16, 166-75; return of i he Republican party, 11-15; WW II, 138
Edward (king of England), 126 Eisenhower, Mamie. 169 Elizalx'th (queen of England). 176 Embargo Canada bill (1888), 43-46 Enders, Tom, 268
Environmental Protection Agency, 276
Espionage, 151, 152-54
Evans, John, 265
Evans-Novak column, 4
Evans, William, 38
lnpo'67. 233
External Affairs, Department of, 85
Fassen, Senator (Republican), 43 Fenians, 28
Fielding, W. S.. 70, 79. 89
Fisheries jurisdiction disputes, 22,25-32,
38-42, 54, 86, 283. See aim East-coast
fishing treaty Foreign Investment Review Agency
(FIRA), 245-46. 255. 276. 282 Fish, Hamilton, 23-32, 34-35 Fisher, Douglas, 20-1 Ford, Gerald. 241, 257-61 Foster, John J.. 78 Free trade agreement, 12-13, 16 Free Trade treaty attempt, 35-36 Frost, Leslie, 165 Fulbright, William, 239, 240, 283
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 215
Gait, Alexander, 83-81
Gandhi. Indira, 238
Garfield, James, 38
Geddes, Auckland. 90
George, Lloyd. 83, 86-87
George VI (king of England), 119, 129-30
(ierlrudt [hebauil, 117
Gettysburg Address, 177 Gillies. Jim, 274 Gladstone. William E., 22-32 Glazcbrook, George, 15, 172 Globe and Mail, 2-3,205 Gobeil, Charlotte, 20-21, 254, 259 Gold water, Barry, 218 Good Neighbor policy, 128 Gordon, Walter, 231 Gotlicb, Allan. 283, 285 Gotlieb, Sondra, 283 Goulet, Robert, 240 Gouzenko, Igor, 151 Grant, L'lysses S.; Alabama claims, 12, 23, 26; desire to annex Canada, 22-25, 36; fisheries jurisdiction issue, 22, 25-32, 283; free trade treaty attempt, 35-36
Great Britain. .Sec Britain Great Depression, 10 1-05 Green, Howard, 177-78, 18-1-88, 194, 200
I .Ii-\ I rOVC......       (t> ini.il, 64-65, 67, 7(1
296 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
INDEX ■ 297
Griffin, Eugene (Ottawa correspondent
tor Chicago Tribune), 175 Group of Seven, 141-42
Haig, Alexander, 280, 284 Haldeman, Bob, 19-20, 253-54, 256 Halibut Treaty, 90 Hamilton, Alvin, 207 Hamrnarskjold, Dag, 171. 173 Hammond, John Hays, 75 Hanson, R. Ii. 142 Harding, Florence, 93, 98-99 Harding, Warren G., 13-14, 89, 93-100, 250
Hartncss. Douglas, 193-91, 204-05 Harriman, Avcrell, 232 Harrington Lake, 11-12, 234 Harrison. Benjamin, 46-49 Harvard University, 118, 119, 123, 215 Hay, John, 55-56, 59-64, 84 Hayes, Rutherford B„ 12, 37-38 Head, Ivan, 241-57 passim, 263, 272 Heenev, Arnold, 6. 15, 170-79 passim,
182-87, 230 Henry, William, 37-38 Hepburn, Milch, 111 Herridge, William, 107-09 Herter, Christian, 180 Hickerson, Jack, 161 Hilles. Charles, 76, 77-78 Hitler, Adolf, 131, 134 Hiroshima, 149-50 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 62 Hoover, Herbert, 13, 16, 92, 95-98,
102-107 Hoster, William, 77 Hughes, Charles, 90 Hull, Cordell, 120, 128. 144 Humphrey, Hubert, 224 Huntington, L. S., 83 Hyde Park Agreement, 136, 149, 159
Ickes, Harold, 122 Immigration into Canada, 66-67 Import surcharge, 243-45, 247 Industry and Humanity, 122, 124 International Commission of Control
and Supervision in Vietnam, 256 International Joint Commission, 85 International Monetary Kund, I IV Iran. 272, 274-75
Jackson, A. V., 1 11-42
Jamieson, Don, 238. 255, 262-64. 266,
267, 272 Japan, 10. 66, 124, 244, 252. 278 Javits, Jacob, 271 Jcllerson, Thomas, 197 Jette, Sir Louis, 62-63 Johnson, Andrew, 24-25 Johnson. Lady Bird. I. 216. 217. 220 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 1-5, 11-12,
219-35,238,283 Jordon, Hamilton, 265 Juliana (princess of the Netherlands), 136-37
Katz, Julius, 257 Kayscn, Carl, 196 Kecnieyside, H. L., 131, 132 Kennedy, Caroline, 198 Kennedy. Edward. 270. 273 Kennedy, Jacqueline, 189. 259 Kennedy, John: attitude toward Die-
fenbaker, 18-19; mispronunciation <>l
Diefenbaker's name, II, 18, 184;
president, 181-211,212-16. 250, 283;
treatment by Diefenbaker, 16, 167;
upset of Dirfenbakcr government, ip.
203-06
Kennedy, Rolxxt, 200-01, 213 Khrushchev, Nikita, 199-200 King, J. H„ 96 King, Tom, 91
King, William Lyon Mackenzie: inn tempi for free-trade package, 16; Japanese immifrralion issue. 66-67, prime minister, 91-92, 93-100, 101,
117-46, 147-62; special n I........ fii|
with FDR. 8-9. 14. 1 13. I 17- lii p cial relationship with Truman, II, 147-62
Kipling, Rudyard. 79
Kissinger. Henry, 20-21, 21 252-56, 259
Knox, Philander, 73-74, 78, 127
Korean Commission, 160-61
Korean war, 163-64
Krork, Arthur, 6
La Kollette, Robert, 77
I..,ml. M. Kmi :•]'> bank, N......an III I IV
Lansdowne, Governor-General. 45
Lansing, Robert, 86, 89
Lapoinle, Ernest, 90
Laurier, Wilfrid: contempt for presidents, 16; creation of Department of External Affairs, 85; free-trade fetish, 37; prime minister, 16, 51-67, 68-81; reciprocity. 18, 68-81
Law of the Sea Treaty, 280
Lawrence, Bill, 215
Lcacock, Stephen, 78-79
League of Nations, 87-88, 125
Lee, Arthur Hamilton, 58
LeHand, Marguerite (Missy), 127-28. 130
Levesque, Rene, 263-64 Lewis, David, 248 Lincoln, Abraham, 24, 55, 117 Lincoln, Mrs. (Kennedy's secretary), 209
Lippmann. Walter, 2, 168
Lodge, Cabot, 171
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 41, 60, 62
London f'\fne.w, 64
London Morning Post, 58
London Saturday Revieu, 62
Low, Maurice, 58
Lynch, Charles, 193, 207, 208
MacArthur, Douglas, 163
McCarthy era, 175
MacDonald, Bruce, 3
Macdonald, James A.. 69-70
Macdonald. John A.: anti-annexation, 38-40; contempt lor U.S. presidents, 16; fisheries jurisdiction settlement, 22, 25-32, 283; prime minister, 22-32, 33-50; reaction to Cleveland's embargo, 43-44; tariff reaction, 47-50
MrDoiigall, William, 177
MarEachem, Allan, 258, 261
McGhcr, George. 203
Mi Govern, George, 265
M.h l iiugan, Mark, 271. 285
Mil kasey, Bryre. 261
Mi. kenzie, Alexander, 32-39, 84-85
M.h kin/ie. Arch, 4
Mackenzie. Ken, 215-16
M. Kinky, William, 16, 17. 51-57,84
\ltulnin'\ maga/inr. 275
Macleish, Archibald. 134-35 Macleod, Slu, 197 Macmillan, Harold, 200, 202 McNamara, Robert. 208, 222, 229 MacNider, Handford, 105-07 Mallre, John. 209 Malcolm, James, 103 Manifest Destiny philosophy, 23-25 Marchand. Jean, 20 Marion, Ohio Star, 94 Mariscal, Don Ignacio, 56 Marshall Plan, 149
Martin. Paul: anti-American attitude,
17-18; King-Roosevelt relationship,
123; Lyndon Johnson, 222. 233;
Organization ol American States.
194; United Nations. 171, 220-21;
USSR, 220-21, 232; Vietnam, 223 Massey. Vincent, 90-92, 103, 109, 156 Means. Gaston. 99 Meighen, Arthur, 89 Merchant, Livingstone, 6, 9, 187-207
passim, 230 Minto, Governor-General, 54. 56 Missing-memo affair. 191-92. 197, 208-
10,215 Mitchell, John, 256 Monroe Doctrine, 125 Montreal Gazelle. 112 Montreal Slanrtarrf, 87 Montreal .War, 79. 203, 205, 209 Morrison, Harold, 194 Movers. Bill, 218 Moynihan, Senator, 273 "The Muckers," 182 Muskie, Ed, 276
Nader, Ralph, 281 Nagasaki, 149-50
National Energy Program (NEP). 276, 280, 282-85
NATO: Canadian military contributions to, 9; Martin, Paul, I 71; nuclear weapons for Allies. 6-7, 202-03; Trudeau threat to withdraw, 243, 284; USSR, 220-21
Nehru, Prime Minister (ol India), 174
New Deal (Roosevelt), 110-12
New Deal, Mini (Bennett), 112
Newfoundland, 138,232
"New I*'........i.'' 183
298 • THE PRESIDENTS AND THE PRIME MINISTERS
INDEX • 299
.Veitsweek magazine, 206-07, 208 New York Herald, 27 Mew Moon, 114 New York Star, 33
New York Times, 6, 42, 70, 115-16, 123, 168-69,215
Nixon, Richard: April summit speech, 251-52; Canadian trade importance, 10, 244-45; Diefen baker memorial lund, 257; end of Canada-U.S. special relationship, 19-21, 213, 245, 252, 258-59; name for Trudeau, 12, 256-57; president, 236-57; vice-president, 180
Nobel Peace Prize, 196
NOR AD, 200-01, 203
Norman, Herbert, 175
Norris, Congressman, 73
Norstad, Lauris, 202
North America Accord, 279, 285
North American Air Defense Command, 178
Noyes, Frank, 106
Nuclear weapons issue, IM 198.201-06, 214,237, 243
Ochs, Adolph, 115
Cgdensburg pact, 149
O'Hagan, Dick, 3, 4-5, 215, 219, 253
Onassis. Jacqueline Kennedy, 259. Set
also Kennedy, Jacqueline O'Neill, Tip. 264, 265 Operation Rolling Thunder, 1, 223-24 Organiza t i on ol American S l a les (O AS),
18-19, 187-91, 194 Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), 237, 255 Osbom, Charles, 79 O'Sullivan, John, 24 Ottawa Citizen, 208 Oxford University, 229
Panama Canal, 10, 94
Panama Canal Treaty, 267
Paris Peace Conference, 10, 16, 83, 86
Pearson, Lester (Mike): anti-American attitude of Canadians, 17; atomic energy concerns, 153, 202-04, 207; Canadian ambassador to t' S , 139-57 passim; Cuba, 199; Hyaniiis, 210, 214-16; Kennedy eulogy, 212-13;
Nolx4 Peace Prize, 196; prime minister, 1-5,9, 11-12, 15, 16,210-35, 283; speech writer, 110-11
Pearson, Maryon, 220
Peffer, William, 58
Pell, Claiborne, 270
Pelletier, Gerard, 250
Pentagon, 155-56, 201, 239
Pepper, Charles, 76, 77
Pericles, 219
Perkins, Frances, 122
Permanent Joint Board on Defense. 133-34, 144
Phillips, Bruce, 4
Phillips, William. 103, I 11, 121
Pickersgilf Jack: anti-American altitude of prime ministers, 17; as aide to Mackenzie King, 123; Korean commission, 161; as aide to St. Laurent, 165, 171, 172; atliiude toward Buttcrworth, 207; Soviet air rights, 232
Pierrepont, Moffat J., 133, 138 Poland, 282 Porter, William, 260 Portillo, Lopez, 263, 264 Power, Charles G. (Chubby), 142 Powers, David, 215 Presidents. Set specific names Prime Ministers. See specific names
Quebec, separatist government, 26 I 68 266
Quebec conferences, 141-43, 150 Queen's Universiiy, 127
Ralston, J. L„ 132
Reader's Digest, 276
Reagan, Ronald, 15, 241, 278-85
RCAF, 185
Reciprocity, 37, 48, 68-81 Reedy. George, 1
Reisman, Simon, 160, 247-48, 255 Republican party, I4-Ir> Renten, James, 123, 157, 168. 281 Richard, S. R., 76
Ritchie. Albert I I <l , '., IM'I. '.-."I
232-33,241,253 Ritchie, CharlM, 2.19, 198, 207.212-W
passim
Robert*, John, 276
Robertson. Norman. 151-52, 175, 200 207
Robinson, Basil, 183 Robinson, Paul, 283-84
Rockefeller, James, 232
Rogers, William, 241, 256
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 14, ] 15, 119, 128
Roosevelt, Elliott, 116, 126
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano: Campomelic, 8, 69, 114-17, 229-30; pledge of American military support, 73, 127, 250; president, 108-12. 113-46; special relationship with Canada, 8-9, 14
Roosevelt, James, 123
Roosevelt, Theodore: Alaska boundary dispute, 52, 58-65; Canadian attitude toward, 17; Canadian representation, 84; desire for annexation. 12, 75-76; Japanese immigration. 66; reciprocity under Taft, 71-72; president, 51. 69, 82; irip to Panama, 10, 94; WW I, 8<i
Root, Elihu, 65-66
Ross, G. VV.. 55-56
Rostow, Wall, 188, 191, 229, 233. See
also Missing-memo affair Royal Canadian Navy. 185 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 54 Rusk, Dean: anti-American attitude of Canadians, 17-18, 19; mispronunciation of Diefenbaker's name, 11; secretary of state, 183-205 passim; 221-33
Sackvilk-Wesi. Sir Lionel, 41, 46, 85
Saint John Telegraph-Journal, I 17
St. Laurent, Louis: Korean Commission, 160-61; prime minister during Eisenhower, !6, 166-75; prime minister during Truman, 10-11, 162-65; St. Lawrence Seaway, 16
St. Lawrence Scawav, 16, 92, 102-08, 118, 164-65, 181-82,242
Salinger, Pierre, 209
Salisbury, Lord, 56
San Francisco Chronicle, 30
Schlcsinger, Arthur, Jr., 186-87
s<■hiiiidi. Helmut,259
Seal.......      Blair, 223
Segi-ptli, Donald, In
Sequoia, 153, 261, 265
Sevigny, Pierre, 199-200, 202
Sharp, Mite hell, 231, 241-56 passim
Sidey, Hugh, 209-10, 265
Sifion, Clifford, 53. 62
Simpson, Wallis, 126
Sinclair, Gordon, 250
Sirica, John, 256
Skowcroft, Brent, 261
Skybok, 202-03
Sky Shield exercise, I 78
Smalley, George, 59
Smith, Adam. 104
Smith, Bob, 21
Smith, Rufus, 188, 191,231, 233,244-55 passim
Smoot-Hawley tariff act, 120, 144 Sorenson, Theodore, 191, 197 Sotitham News, 193, 205, 207 Soviet Union. See USSR "Special relationship," 19-21, 213, 245,
252, 258-59 Stalinjoseph, 143 Stalwarts, 38 Stanfield, Robert, 245 Statute of Westminster (1931), 149 Stephen, George, 48 Stettinius, Edward, 146 Stewart, John, 78 Stimson, Henry, 105, 107, 134 Strickler, Frank, 256 Suez crisis (1956), 172-74
Taft, Annie, 68-69
Taft, Charles, 68
Taft, Horace. 71. 77, 80
Taft, William Howard: annexation fear, 72-81; free-trade agreement, 12-13, 16; Mexico/Panama Canal visits, 94; reciprocity. 37, 68-81
Taylor, Elizabeth, 263, 265-66
Taylor, Kenneth, 275
Teapot Dome scandal, 96
Temple University, 224, 238
Thant, U. 10
Third option, 255, 276, 278, 285 Third world development, philosophy
of, 282 Thompson, John, 41, 52
Thompson, Robert, 2(H II......Mm, Will, 64