Diefenbaker: Leadership Lost 1962–67 9781487584306

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DIEFENBAKER: LEADERSHIP LOST 1962-67

PETER STURSBERG

Diefenbaker: Leadership lost 1962-67

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS TORONTO AND BUFFALO

© University of Toronto Press 1976 Toronto and Buffalo Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018 ISBN 978-1-4875-7342-3 (paper)

Contents

PREFACE PROLOGUE

vii

ix

1 Leadership crippled

3

2

The fatal nuclear issue

13

3

Clandestine meetings

35

4

The plot that failed

5

The caucus after

49 71

6

His finest election

89

7 Leadership threatened

101

vi Contents

8 The last hurrah

123

9

The Munsinger case 10 Camp's campaign

143 163

11

Leadership lost EPILOGUE

199

APPENDIX

203

INDEX

207

179

Preface

This is the second volume of my living history of the Diefenbaker era and, as in the case of the first volume, I had the close cooperation of the Public Archives of Canada. Once again, I should like to thank Leo La Clare, head of the historical sound recording section, for his invaluable assistance and advice. His enthusiasm for the project helped to keep it moving at a critical time. Although I made full use of the Archives' small studio in Ottawa in taping the fifty-six interviews 'in-depth' on which this book is based, Leo and I had to cross the country to talk to some of those involved in the events and the times, and these interviews were recorded on the sound section's portable equipment which Leo lugged around from Fredericton to Victoria and places in between. Several persons were interviewed specifically for this volume, and, together with those already recorded, they present a broad and varied view of John Diefenbaker's leadership during the hectic period of its decline from 1962 to 1967. A list of the interviews, the dates on which they were recorded, and their duration is included as an appendix to this book. Interviewing is but the first process in oral or living history. The second step is transcribing the tapes, and Leo La Clare saw to this part. Some idea of the magnitude of his task can be gathered from the fact that there were almost 120 hours of recordings - more than a million words. Mrs Sylvia Carriere, who typed most of the transcripts, was remarkably adept in the special skill required to punctuate and paragraph conversation. Leo La Clare checked, corrected, cut up, and arranged the excerpts according to subject heads. Only some fifteen to twenty per cent of the interviews were

viii Preface used in the two volumes. The cooperation that made this work possible was a result of the vision of Dr W.I. Smith, the Dominion Archivist, who sees beyond the passive role of collecting and preserving our history to that of going out and creating the record of it. (There were also nineteen hours of interviews that I had with John Diefenbaker, which we were not able to use because of his commitment to his publisher. Thus, this book is about Diefenbaker as leader, as he was regarded by those who were involved - his associates, his opponents, and the political insiders of the period.) All the photographs in this volume were taken by the noted Ottawa news photographer, Duncan Cameron, and are from the Duncan Cameron collection in the Public Archives. I should add that most of the photographs in the first volume were from the same comprehensive collection in the Archives. Mr Cameron was kind enough to go over some of the film with me and helped me to make a suitable selection. Mrs LaRose of the Archives' picture division expedited the enlargements. This is a new type of book in that it is a new application of the modern technique of oral or living histoty, and I was fortunate indeed to have the University of Toronto Press as my publisher. I should like to reiterate my thanks to Marsh Jeanneret, director of the Press, and to Ian Montagnes, general editor, for their encouragement and support. It was a pleasure to work again with Patricia Lagace on the editing which is of such importance in this type of book; her suggestions for rearrangements and clarifications helped to make understandable a very confused if exciting period in Canadian history. I am grateful to Keith Martin, Mr Diefenbaker's executive assistant, for his assistance. Finally, I owe a great deal to my wife, Jessamy, who had to put up with my untidy working habits during the long labours on the two volumes of this book, and who helped in the proofreading and indexing. Publication of this volume was assisted by the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council under their block grant programs.

Prologue

Success in politics did not come easily for John Diefenbaker. He was defeated five times before becoming, against his will, the Conservative candidate for Lake Centre, Saskatchewan, in the 1940 federal general election, and being elected a Member of Parliament. Later he contested the leadership of his party three times. It was a long, hard, and sometimes bitter struggle, and Jacques Flynn, one of his Quebec ministers, wondered whether it had not seared his soul and made him overly suspicious. From his boyhood days, Diefenbaker's ambition had been to be prime minister of Canada. He said that he ran for public office because he wanted to, and was contemptuous of those who asserted that they had been pressed into being candidates, that they had been convinced that it was their duty to run. Such cant was not for him. Nor could he sympathize with those who had been taken from bureaucracy and business and given safe seats so that they could become ministers. They would never know politics; nor, in his view, would they understand Parliament. He has always been a man of strong principles and convictions. He had to be, to be a Conservative in Saskatchewan when the Jimmy Gardiner machine ran the province. Tommy Douglas quoted him as saying that the only protection the Conservatives had there in those days were the game laws. He grew up on a prairie homestead ( the wooden shack is preserved as a national monument in Wascana Park, Regina), which should have been a distinct advantage in the West. Yet, he wasn't elected to Parliament until he was in his mid-forties, and he didn't become leader until he was sixty-one.

x Prologue Jacques Flynn, Tommy Douglas, Vic Mackie, and Allister Grosart were among the forty persons I interviewed for the first volume of this book, Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained 1956-62; the others included Howard Green, Donald Fleming, George Hees, Leon Balcer, Davie Fulton, Ellen Fairclough, and most of the surviving members of the Conservative cabinet, as well as party bigwigs like Grattan O'Leary and R.A. Bell, and such political aides as Merril Menzies, Gowan Guest, John Fisher, and Roy Faibish. The views of Mr Diefenbaker's opponents Paul Martin, Jack Pickersgill, and Lionel Chevrier were also recorded. All of them were participants in the period and they tell the story, in their own words, of the rise of John Diefenbaker, how he became the Chief, his great electoral victories, his government, and his near defeat in the 1962 election. Theirs are first-hand accounts, living history, summarized briefly in the next few pages. It was a foregone conclusion that John George Diefenbaker would succeed George Alexander Drew when the latter had to retire because of ill health - after all, Diefenbaker had already run for the leadership twice before, and, as George Hees said, was immensely popular among party members. However, the Tories who kept a hospital watch on Drew hoped that they could come up with an alternative, anybody but Diefenbaker. They represented the Ontario establishment and, as Allister Grosart said, John Diefenbaker was a Westerner and an anti-establishment figure. He did things differently. For instance, he insisted that he be nominated at the 1956 convention by George Pearkes from the Pacific Coast and Hugh John Flemming from the Atlantic Seaboard. It angered the Quebec delegates that he didn't have any French-speaking proposer or seconder, and, led by Leon Balcer, some of them walked out of the convention. Gordon Churchill wondered why the Conservatives had been so unsuccessful for so long. He studied the election results as far back as Confederation and wrote a couple of papers suggesting that the party should reinforce strength ( which was a good military axiom - Churchill was a soldier who had served in both world wars) and, therefore, concentrate on English Canada. This was interpreted as meaning that they could win without Quebec. He was ignored by the party; the only encouragement he got was from Diefenbaker. However, with the 1957 election, Churchill had a chance of putting his theory to the test. He was helped by the fact that the electoral tide was turning. The strategy worked. Even in Quebec, the Tories did better than before: Pierre Sevigny tricked Diefenbaker, and secured the support of Premier Maurice Duplessis and his powerful Union Nationale party. The results came as a shock to the Liberals, who didn't believe that

Prologue xi they could lose, and Jack Pickersgill described the dreary time they had at Prime Minister Louis St Laurent's home in Quebec city on election night. Just ten days later, on 21 June 1957, John Diefenbaker was sworn in as prime minister; little more than six months had passed since he had won the leadership. Michael Starr, who was to become the first minister of Ukrainian origin, and Ellen Fairclough, the first woman minister, drove to Government House in the same taxi. They and others recounted the hectic scenes as Diefenbaker made up the first Conservative government in twenty-two years. William Hamilton learned that he was to be postmaster general only on his way to be sworn in. Starr had difficulty finding his office in the Department of Labour. Donald Fleming wanted the External Affairs portfolio but got Finance. George Hees expected to be minister of trade and commerce but became minister of transport. Gordon Churchill, who had no desire to succeed C.D. Howe, was given Trade and Commerce and received a frosty reception from Mitchell Sharp and the other top officials when he went to take over the department. The first Conservative minority government was an active and innovative government and, in the view of Dick Bell, one of the best the country ever had. John Diefenbaker appeared to be a dynamic prime minister in contrast with the tired Louis St Laurent, who was soon to announce his resignation as leader of the Liberal party. It was taken for granted that the mantle would fall on Mike Pearson, who had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; however, Paul Martin decided to contest the leadership at the January 1958 convention, although he said that he knew that he would not win. As his first act on becoming leader of the opposition, Pearson moved a non-confidence motion that would have had the Conservative government resign and the Liberals take over without an election. Jack Pickersgill admitted to being the author of this extraordinary amendment, which provided Diefenbaker with material for a slashing attack on Pearson. Then, even though the motion had been defeated, the prime minister went to the governor general and obtained the dissolution of Parliament. Allister Grosart had been pressing for an early election. He knew that unemployment was growing but felt that the Progressive Conservatives would not be blamed for it as long as they were not in power for more than a year. From the beginning of the campaign, French Canadians were told that Diefenbaker was going to win and that they might as well join the bandwagon. They did so in such numbers that the Conservatives finished up with fifty seats in Quebec, and with 208 of the 265 seats in the House of Commons - the greatest majority in Canadian history. George Hees, Howard Green, and Tommy Douglas, among others, agreed in retrospect

xii Prologue

that the worst thing that could happen to a political party was to win such an overwhelming majority. It was too great a triumph. Monteith recalled that it was Diefenbaker himself who warned the first Progressive Conservative caucus after the 19 5 8 landslide that there was no place to go but down. The decline in Tory fortunes began with the scrapping of the Avro Arrow (a supersonic interceptor) in February 1959. Besides throwing thousands of aerospace engineers and technicians out of work in the Toronto area, it shattered a Canadian dream. The violent public reaction came as a shock to the prime minister and, in William Hamilton's view, made him want to avoid any such issue in the future. This was one explanation of why Diefenbaker appeared so cautious and indecisive when he had the greatest parliamentary majority in history after appearing so strong and resolute while leading a minority government. But there was also the fact that a majority government could not put off the pressing problems of the day. As time went on, the prime minister seemed constantly to be seeking a consensus at cabinet meetings. This, as Alvin Hamilton said, gave the lie to charges that he was high-handed and ran a one-man government. However, it did mean that there were never-ending cabinet meetings, and ministers were not able to devote enough time to their departments. The Tories were haunted by the spectre of R.B. Bennett, the last Conservative prime minister before Diefenbaker, and the thirties. Davie Fulton felt that they could not stand another depression and believed that unemployment, which was between seven and eight per cent for much of the time they were in office, did more than anything else to beat them. They made every effort to get out of the slump - including several kinds of makework programs - but Merril Menzies found that they were battling an establishment which was obsessed by inflation and was opposed to expansion. Furthermore, the cabinet itself was badly split between the Progressives, as he called them, and the Conservatives. Menzies asserted that the decisions on scrapping the A vro Arrow and the conversion loan were based on bad advice. Most of the top government officials cooperated; some did not. Donald Fleming described his clash with James Coyne and the struggle he had to dismiss the rebellious governor of the Bank of Canada; the inept manner in which this issue was handled contributed to the government's near defeat in the 1962 election. Yet the Diefenbaker government had some notable accomplishments, and Angus MacLean and Walter Dinsdale were among those who pointed to them. Despite the economic downturn, which was called a recession, much was done in the way of resource development. There were the Roads to Resources, including the Pine Point Railway which was the fulfilment of

Prologue xiii Diefenbaker's 'Vision,' the creation of a National Energy Board, the building of the South Saskatchewan Dam and of the Beechwood Dam in New Brunswick, and the establishment of aids to agriculture such as ARDA. Tommy Douglas credited the Conservatives with laying the foundation stone for medicare. An agreement was reached with Quebec on a formula for university grants and other joint projects. In international affairs, the prime minister played a prominent part in keeping the white supremacist government of South Africa out of the Commonwealth, and his regime negotiated the first big wheat deal with the People's Republic of China. The Bill of Rights and the introduction of simultaneous interpretation to the House of Commons, which revitalized Parliament and made it a truly bilingual body, were other accomplishments. Eugene Forsey believed that the verdict of history might 'very well be that the Diefenbaker government did a lot of awfully good work, solid work, and helped to get the country through a very difficult period with a reasonable degree of success.' His assessment of Diefenbaker was that he was a much better prime minister than most people gave him credit for being. When Parliament was dissolved and an election called ( for 18 June 1962), most observers believed that the Conservatives would lose seats but would be returned with a comfortable majority. They had been hurt by recession and unemployment, and the myth of Diefenbaker's political invincibility had been shattered by the mishandling of the Coyne affair, but their majority was so enormous that few believed the government could be overturned. Then came the devaluation of the Canadian dollar in the midst of the election campaign and its pegging at 92½ us cents. The prime minister had to agree to this, and did so reluctantly, telling the finance minister, Donald Fleming, that it would cost them the election. All the seats along the American border were lost, and the PCs were reduced to a minority government with 116 members. Still, as the first volume ended, John Diefenbaker could claim to be the first Conservative leader since Sir John A. Macdonald to win three elections. This second volume, which covers the period 1962-67, is based on the forty or so interviews made for the first volume and a number of extra interviews with such persons as Dalton Camp, Eddie Goodman, Judy LaMarsh, Lucien Cardin, and John Bassett, who, while they had been part of the political process during Diefenbaker's rise to power and the period of his majority government, did not come to the centre of the national stage till later. I also talked to David Lewis, Robert Thompson, Real Caouette, Guy Marcoux, and Gerard Pelletier, who were not elected members of Parliament until the 1962 election or after, as well as B. T. Richardson, and

xiv Prologue Tom Van Dusen and Greg Guthrie who were Diefenbaker's last aides as leader, and Robert Stanfield who succeeded him. I have tried to record the memoirs of all those who played a major part in the unfolding of events from the time of the bitter near-defeat of the Conservatives in the 1962 election to the 1967 convention where John Diefenbaker lost the leadership. Since this is a book of political recollections, I did not interview any of the top officials and public servants in Ottawa. There were undoubtedly some left out who should have been included, but I did attempt to achieve a balanced account. One or two politicians turned down my requests for interviews, but most were glad to cooperate as they wanted to have their views set down and preserved for posterity. All those interviewed were told that the purpose of the interviews was to provide material for this book. I tried to act as a prompter more than a questioner, encouraging the speakers to recall the events and the parts they played. I asked about Diefenbaker and got them to give their impressions of the Chief in triumph and in travail (mostly, in this volume, in travail). There was a regular format for the interviews, which varied in length from an hour to more than four and a half hours. As happens in conversation, and even in sworn testimony, mistakes were made in dates, places, and facts; most errors could be checked and corrected but the greatest care was taken not to change the intent of what was said. The real challenge of this work was to convert the spoken word into the written word and yet at the same time make it seem, in the mind's eye, as if the person quoted was actually speaking. Needless to say, the two volumes are not the full story of the Diefenbaker era. However, they do present a broader picture of the period, if only because the story is told not by one person but by many. It is as if the reader were hearing about what happened to Diefenbaker in the mid-sixties from the lips of those who were involved. Sometimes their accounts vary, especially when they deal with controversial issues such as the clandestine meetings and so-called conspiracy that preceded the fall of the Conservative government and its defeat in the House of Commons. There are different interpretations of the party's annual meeting in November 1966 when the Chief was deposed. No attempt is made at a judgment: that is left to the reader. If there is one thing that living or oral history demonstrates, it is that there is no simple explanation, no single truth. In the course of this work and other projects, I have recorded interviews with a hundred or more people, and it has been my experience that a person who is not a professional writer is likely to be much more frank and

Prologue xv interesting when talking, when telling a story, than when writing. There is something about the act of putting pen to paper that makes for caution, dullness, and officialese. The average person is more comfortable in conversation, even in the presence of a microphone. As a technique, oral or living history is as modern as the latest generation of portable electronic recording devices. Furthermore, at a time when few people keep diaries or write letters, and cabinet papers are leaked and state secrets seldom kept, it is, as Dalton Camp has suggested, our only political history.

DIEFENBAKER: LEADERSHIP LOST 1962-67

1

Leadership crippled

For Prime Minister Diefenbaker, the results of the 1962 election brought bitter humiliation. He lost the greatest parliamentary majority in Canadian history, yet remained in power at the head of a weak and querulous minority government. The people who had worshipped him only four years before seemed to turn against him. On 18 June, the Conservatives fell from 208 seats at dissolution to I 16, the Liberals rose from 50 to JOO, the NDP from 8 to 19, and Social Credit from none to 30 - 26 of them former PC seats in Quebec. Worse still was the drop in the percentage of votes: the Tories went from a record 53.6 per cent in 1958 to 37.31 per cent in 1962, slightly less than the Liberals' 37.36 per cent. Diefenbaker was morose. Then, as if to make his mental anguish physically apparent, he tripped while walking at his country home at Harrington Lake and broke a bone in his ankle. He was distraught, crippled at a time when he should have been active. Roy Faibish , who had returned to Alvin Hamilton's office after working with Diefenbaker during the election campaign, saw the summer of 1962 as a critical period in the leader's life. ROY FAIBISH

The prime minister had just gone into an election which it was clear to me he didn't want. He was unhappy about the way it had been conducted. I think he was unhappy with himself in some respects, but essentially he was unhappy about the whole thing, and he came out of it depressed. And he wasn't very ecstatic about the results. I guess he felt let down, too, by some of the team. So he went into the first noticeable depression that I had ever

Prime Minister Diefenbaker on crutches during swearing-in of ministers, August 1962

4 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

seen; he went into a kind of semi-seclusion. Then he tripped over a gopher hole and broke his ankle. That made him sessile, so to speak. He was stuck there, he couldn't move around, he was depressed, he was still under severe attack on economic policy and fiscal policy, and he was almost incommunicado. If it weren't for the Honourable Gordon Churchill, who was in Winnipeg most of the time but was in touch with him every day by telephone, it would have taken a massive effort to get him out of the despondency he got into that summer. I think Churchill alone, single-handedly, rallied him and brought him around, by long distance telephone calls and also by coming down to Ottawa. Nobody else seemed to be effective. Churchill was the only one who seemed to be able to bring him around. But a great deal of time, in my view, was lost that summer in moving forward on policies to meet the economic problems. It was a very bad summer. Shortly after the 1962 election, Dalton Camp, who had worked for Diefenbaker in every campaign since he became leader and had organized many successful provincial Tory campaigns, attended a meeting of the Conservative party's National Executive Committee at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa. DALTON CAMP

Diefenbaker launched into a long self-pitying tirade in which he told us that Mrs Diefenbaker had sent back her credit card to Eaton's. In that election, Eaton's, for the first time in its history apparently, did not contribute to the national party. He also said that she had cancelled her subscription to Maclean's and he said to us we should all do the same - cut off our credit at Eaton's and cancel our subscriptions to Maclean's. And he was shaking, and he was terrible. We were terribly uncomfortable. When it was over and we came out, Finlay MacDonald said, 'He's certified mad. We've got a prime minister who's a lunatic.' Diefenbaker's morale had never been so low, as most of his colleagues agreed. ANGUS MAC LEAN

I think he was psychologically unprepared for defeat to the point where I think he felt that the electors had made a mistake, that they hadn't intended to do it, and that all he had to do was bring on another election and they would rectify their previous mistake - almost to that extent.

Leadership crippled 5 R.A. BELL

What it did to his morale was ghastly, and when he coupled that with the unfortunate sprained ankle which immobilized him, kept him lying on his bed - it was a period of his life which I am sure he wouldn't want to live again, and his colleagues wouldn't want to live through again with him. There were charges that he had misled the electorate. You see the crises : the first was the devaluation, then the crisis that developed on the day after the election which really began on the Friday before polling day with the run on the Canadian dollar. I think he was made aware of it on the Friday evening shortly before he was to make his final television appeal. With the media to close [for the forty-eight-hour ban on electioneering], he chose, I think wisely, not having really at that stage any basic facts in front of him, not to make reference to it. Then, Monday was election day, and Tuesday the speculators were really hammering at the dollar. It troubled him that suggestions were coming from both inside and outside that he had knowledge prior to the closing down of the media, and ought to have taken the Canadian people into his confidence, and had thus misled them. This festered in his soul. He kept saying that since he was being accused of deception his utility as a prime minister had disappeared. This was during the period of immobility with his leg up. It was a most unfortunate fracture or whatever. The crisis was resolved by a loan from the International Monetary Fund, the conditions of which involved the imposition of an austerity program, so-called, which involved a civil service freeze, both of size and staff, and a surtax of ten per cent on imports. The conditions of the loan were pretty tough. There were some, however, who did not see m.uch change in the prime minister during that summer. ROBERT STANFIELD

Mr Diefenbaker had made a commitment to [William] 'Bull' Marsh, who was the president of the UMW, and to the other coal-mining people in Nova Scotia, to meet them immediately after the election. He did, although he must have been very tired indeed. I went up to Ottawa at the time and took part in the meeting. I found no difference in Mr Diefenbaker, except that he no longer had the big majority, and his position was of course a very troublesome and difficult one in those circumstances in the House. I remember very much admiring the way he was carrying on. He made no attempt to put off this promised meeting with Marsh and his people

6 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

despite the fact that he was tired and that they might very well have accepted a postponement of two or three weeks or something like that. LEON BALCER

He was not very antagonistic as far as I was concerned, and he didn't blame me for the fact that we lost seats in Quebec, at least not in front of me. On the other hand, he was very suspicious of everybody at that time. I had some close friends in the Press Gallery whom I would see often. If any of them would write anything that was happening in the Conservative party, then the next day I was blamed for what had been written. I had the feeling that he considered me an informer to the press. This was the subject of a lot of discussion between him and myself. Take Arthur Blakely, who was an old friend of mine; whenever Blakely wrote anything, right away I was supposed to be the man who supplied him with the information. One of Diefenbaker's first tasks after the election was to reconstitute his cabinet. Five ministers had been defeated, among them Jacques Flynn, who had been his confidant on Quebec affairs, and David Walker, his close friend. It was a difficult task, and he put it off as long as possible. In forming his new cabinet, Diefenbaker had the chance to shake up the government, a government which had been rejected by a majority of the voters, and to remake it more in his own popular image. But he refused the challenge. The only strong new minister appointed was a Toronto businessman, Wallace McCutcheon, who was made a senator and minister without portfolio. Malcolm Wallace McCutcheon was born in London, Ontario, in 1906. After studying at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall, he became a corporation lawyer. However, he soon gave up the courtroom for the boardroom and became secretary and assistant general manager of the National Life Insurance Company of Canada. He was a brilliant businessman and was soon scaling the heights of Bay Street as E.P. Taylor's right-hand man. He was appointed managing director of the Argus Corporation, the holding company which came to embrace such industrial giants as Massey Ferguson and Domtar. Senator William Brunt, Diefenbaker's friend and closest adviser, suggested that McCutcheon be taken into the cabinet. The financier had long been a Conservative, and his appointment, Brunt argued, would help win back the cities, especially Toronto. However the government fell before McCutcheon had a chance to prove his worth. ALLISTER GROSART

I would say that at that time there was evidence that the business community had lost some confidence in the government, which of course it always does.

Leadership crippled 7

If the government doesn't give the business community what it wants, it loses confidence. There hasn't been a government in history that hasn't lost confidence, somewhere along the line. Of course that applies to the labour movement and everybody else. But it was visible, noticeable, and certainly being commented on in the press that the business community was starting to say, 'Well we have suspicions about that Prairie radical.' So it seemed an obvious answer to get a man who was a life-long Conservative, as Wally McCutcheon was, a very successful businessman, and a man who had a tremendous record of good public works. I remember he was chairman of the Red Feather campaign, he was president of the Canadian Welfare Council, he had a tremendous record. He appeared to be the ideal man, just as Sid Smith did as the minister of external affairs. But you never know. There is no way anybody can know until a man's third week in the cabinet whether he is going to make it or not. You see the fellows who are accident-prone; it shows up early and you're very seldom wrong. It's the same with this business of fumbling, a fellow who fumbles, fumbles. I am not saying that was so of Wally. He didn't perhaps have time to fit into it, but nobody would say he was a great minister of trade and commerce. He certainly had more experience, far more background, and a much better track record in business than George Hees, but he wasn't half the minister of trade and commerce that George Hees was. You never can tell. Perhaps if the government had stayed in, Wally would have come through, because he had a tremendous brain and great ability. Certainly he had the confidence of the business community without being a fellow who would give it all to business. He had a good balance. But he never had a chance, because the government didn't last that long. In the cabinet shuffle after the election Donald Fleming lost the finance portfolio to George Nowlan and replaced Davie Fulton as minister of justice. DAVIE FULTON

I knew Diefenbaker felt that he had to make some changes in his cabinet. He felt, I believe, that even if there were no great new men brought in, no substantial new influx, that it would be refreshing and perhaps good for the cabinet itself and have a good public appearance and a good public impact if what appeared like some major changes were made. I don't know whether Donald Fleming - I have never asked him this and I don't think I ever would - wanted to leave Finance. But whatever his feeling in that matter may have been, the prime minister's decision was that he should leave Finance. He didn't feel, I take it, that he could ask Howard Green to leave External Affairs and, I want to use my words carefully - no

8 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost ministry as such is senior to any other ministry in the constitutional sense, but in the practical sense I think there are some senior ministries, and Justice is one of them - this therefore would be, I presume, an acceptable move for Donald Fleming because, while perhaps Justice doesn't rank as high as Finance, I think it is certainly not a demotion, it is a move sideways, and if down, only a little bit down from Finance. So it was a thing that Donald could properly be asked to accept, and I am only putting two and two together; that's my conclusion as to why the prime minister wanted me to move out of Justice. I tried not to think that moving to the Department of Public Works was a demotion. Public Works had some very interesting responsibilities at that time; it was responsible for housing, responsible for the Trans Canada Highway, although that was coming to an end, and it is a senior portfolio. It was not an appointment which I welcomed, but I felt, in view of the prime minister's over-all responsibilities and his decision as to the constitution of his government, that it was not one about which I could say, 'This is beneath me and I wouldn't take it.' Dick Bell was made minister of citizenship and immigration, and Ellen Fairclout:h became postmaster t:eneral, the portfolio that she liked the best. She had held the immigration portfolio longer than anyone else and had found it burdensome. Frank McGee was one of those whom Prime Minister Diefenbaker spoke to when he was rebuilding the cabinet. There were only three Conservative members from Toronto who survived the 1962 election : Donald Fleming, George Hees, and McGee, who represented York Scarborough, a monstrous riding which had 400,000 electors before being broken up by redistribution. In the great Diefenbaker landslide of 1958, it gave him a majority of 35,377, which was a record up to that time. While McGee was said to be typical of the up-and-coming young family man in this huge suburban constituency he himself said that his home and Ii/e style were indistinguishable from others in central Scarborough - his family background was not ordinary; his great uncle was D'Arcy McGee; his grandfather was John J. McGee, clerk of the Privy Council; and his father-in-law was Grattan O'Leary. Diefenbaker called McGee to 24 Sussex. FRANK MCGEE

Of course he'd lost some cabinet ministers, and I was a candidate. He said that he had a dilemma, and I asked, 'What was that?' He said, 'I can't take you into the cabinet and put Grattan O'Leary into the Senate at the same time because it will look like nepotism,' which I thought was a kind of funny

Leadership crippled 9

argument, but I didn't quarrel with it. I said immediately, 'Look, I'm thirtysix and I've got a long life ahead of me.' Grattan at that time was seventythree, and I said that it was far better to put him into the Senate than me into the cabinet if that was his problem. Interestingly enough I found out later that when he talked to Grattan about going into the Senate, he told him the same story, and Grattan said, 'Well, never mind about me, put McGee into the cabinet.' Anyway, Grattan did go into the Senate, and I was appointed a parliamentary secretary that summer; I was parliamentary secretary to Dick Bell who was minister of citizenship and immigration. I told Diefenbaker about what issues I thought were hurting most - lack of attention to housing and to urban issues generally. The impression in my riding was that if a western wheat farmer sneezed, half the bloody cabinet would get on a plane with a box of kleenex and head out to look after it. This was almost today's western disorientation in reverse. I felt as heavy as anybody the impact of the cancellation of the Arrow, because a lot of the support industries were located in the Scarborough Golden Mile area, and most of the people lived close by. There were still some bitter memories about that. The other thing in '62 was all that damned nonsense about the foreign exchange devaluation of the dollar right in the middle of the election campaign. Paul Martineau, who had been the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, replaced Jacques Flynn as minister of mines and technical surveys. Theogene Ricard, the member for St-Hyacinthe-Bagot, took Martineau's job. PAUL MARTINEAU

We met informally after the swearing-in ceremony, which took place at the prime minister's residence rather than at the governor general's because of the mishap to Mr Diefenbaker's leg. The meeting was in his bedroom, and he dressed me down. I'd told him that the reporters were after me to get some statement as to what he would do towards Quebec. His answer was very curt. He said, 'Look, you didn't make too much trouble before you were in the cabinet; I hope you're not going to start making trouble now.' These kinds of incidents began to change the nature of our relationship from a very trusting and a very admiring relationship, as far as I was concerned, towards Mr Diefenbaker, to one in which I began looking at the man in a much more realistic light. Once in the cabinet, Martineau sensed that a change had come over Diefenbaker. He seemed to have lost control and was much more irascible.

10 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost PAUL MARTINEAU

Like many of my colleagues, I saw the writing on the wall. I could see very clearly that Mr Diefenbaker was. losing control of government. His leadership qualities were certainly fast deteriorating, and he was becoming more and more prey to his emotions and fears. It seemed to me that this situation, especially with the minority condition in the House, couldn't long be prolonged, and it wasn't. Ellen Fairclough found the situation so tense that she nearly resigned. ELLEN FAIRCLOUGH

I think that he got to the place where he thought that everybody was 'agin im'. There were many things said and many things done that shouldn't have been said and done and they rankled. Three times I had made up my mind to resign. I think the thing that was the balance that kept me in my position was that I had too many people dependent on me, my personal staff - I knew that if I went they were all immediately out of jobs. I couldn't do that to them after having invited them to back me up, so I suppose I actually took a great deal more dirt, if you want to call it that, than I would normally have allowed myself to take. But this one occasion was so serious that I didn't see that I could do anything but leave. I called Gordon Churchill, who was a rare friend and confidant. He came down to my office, and I told him what I thought I should do. He said, 'Don't do it, stay where you are.' He just begged me. I told him that I thought there was a limit to what one person should take. I am not thin-skinned, in fact I think that I have the hide of an elephant, and I was not exaggerating the seriousness of the situation. Gordon turned to me and said, 'Look,' words to this effect, 'Who do you think you are? After all, we are all going through this. We are all taking this. You are no different from the rest of us.' I thought to myself, 'That's right, who do I think I am that I can't put up with this stuff,' and so I did put up with it. I know that Howard Green talked me out of one resignation, and Gordon Churchill the other, and the third one I think I talked myself out of simply because of a sense of responsibility to my staff. But these are things that happen. The four months between the 1962 election and the opening of Parliament were a very bad period for Diefenbaker and the members of the Conservative cabinet. Alvin Hamilton thought that when the House met, however, Diefenbaker's political instincts revived him. Hamilton viewed his leader's broken ankle as a blessing in disguise.

Leadership crippled 11 ALVIN HAMILTON

I said something to him at that time which was personal but was true, that lying in bed by himself he could begin to put the pieces together. I pointed out to him that during the five years that we had been in the cabinet together I had only really talked to him twice and I reminded him of those two times. Now this seems very strange for me to say because the mythology is that I was very close to Diefenbaker; but we got along best by staying quite a bit apart. The first time we had talked was when Sidney Smith had died, and he was asking each one of us for our recommendations for a new minister of external affairs. I had no hesitation in recommending Howard Green and Davie Fulton, as being the only two people who, I thought, were competent in that field. Diefenbaker, I suppose, talked to everyone. The other case was when we were in trouble with Agriculture. I said that we had to get rid of Harkness, get him into another portfolio, and get somebody into Agriculture who could preach the policy and who believed in it, and, of course, by accident it ended up that I was the minister who had to do that. By the fall of 1962, Judy LaMarsh had had two years in Pa-rliament in which to observe Prime Minister Diefenbaker. She noted divisions within the government. JUDY LA MARSH

I don't think that Diefenbaker knew where he wanted to take the country. So the government just fragmented, because the kind of Conservative he was, which was a Prairie radical, is quite different from, for instance, Donald Fleming, who's a Toronto Conservative, and even from Leon Balcer, who is perhaps an old-line French Conservative but with streaks of liberality in it. I just don't think that those people meshed in any way. I think that it really wasn't a team. John Diefenbaker had been a loner. A lot of those people violently disliked him, and he had no liking for them. He had to make up his cabinet out of people he knew had been opposed to his leadership. It should have been incumbent on him to make great efforts to have those people make a personal commitment to him. Instead of that, he went out and made a great public effort and got enormous support from the public while even more disaffecting them. The people who were really behind him, like Mike Starr and Gord Churchill, didn't represent anything very important in Toryland outside of the House of Commons, so that when the crunch came they weren't able to bring any large measure of support to him except in the caucus.

2

The fatal nuclear issue

It was not until fourteen weeks after the 1962 election, on 27 September,

that Prime Minister Diefenbaker finally met Parliament. His reduced circumstances were all too apparent in the House of Commons: the 115 Progressive Conservative members - one Alberta Tory, Marcel Lambert, had been elected Speaker - had to share the benches on the government side with a band of 18 New Democrats who were without their leader and nineteenth member, Tommy Douglas - the former premier of Saskatchewan was unable to win the Regina seat from a Conservative, Ken More, and was waiting for a byelection in the safe British Columbia riding of Burnaby-Coquitlam which Erhart Regier had vacated for him. The Liberals had doubled their numbers to 100 and with the 30 members of the revived Social Credit party filled the benches on the other side. It was, as the new leader of the Socreds, Robert Thompson, liked to say, a House of Minorities. There was room for political manoeuvring - the Conservatives could survive with the support of either the New Democrats or the Social Crediters but Diefenbaker did not seem to be interested in winning friends or making deals to stay in power. From the opening debate on the Speech from the Throne, the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, Lester B. Pearson, had a bitter excha-nge of speeches. The new finance minister, George Nowlan, did try to get some business done, although he never brought down a budget, but most of the members expected another election to be called shortly and were in no mood for anything hut politicking. So, the divided Parliament sounded more like the hustings than a legislative assembly. Then, came the Cuban missile crisis, which had within it the seeds of the Conservative government's final destruction.

Harkness on his way to the House after his resignation. Art Smith, a Calgary MP, is with him

14 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost On 22 October President Kennedy revealed in a television broadcast that American aerial reconnaissance had discovered that the USSR was setting up offensive missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba. These missiles were capable of destroying most of the cities of the United States - and of Canada. He charged the Soviet Union with a 'clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace,' and ordered what amounted to a naval blockade on future shipments of offensive military equipment to Cuba. By the early evening of 23 October, the president had received the unanimous support of the Organization of American States. On the following morning, Wednesday, 24 October, the naval blockade began. That afternoon, the UN Security Council met, with the American and Soviet representatives accusing each other of threatening world peace. President Kennedy did not consult with the Canadian government before he made his speech, although he did send a special envoy to Ottawa to tell Prime Minister Diefenbaker what he was going to say that night. The associate defence minister, Pierre Sevigny, was the first to know about it; he answered a phone call meant for the defence minister, Douglas Harkness, who was out. PIERRE SEVIGNY

It was Kennedy on the phone. I heard 'The office of the president' and then that voice. He said, 'Look, we have sent a special envoy, Mr Livingston Merchant, who is on his way to Canada, and he must speak to your prime minister immediately. Could you arrange a meeting?' I said, 'Certainly.' So I called Diefenbaker and Howard Green and I went to get Merchant from the airport. Merchant met with Diefenbaker and Green - Harkness wasn't there - and explained what was happening. A cabinet meeting was immediately convened and the serious situation described. Then 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. This was never described before but I am telling you this. Well the only one who had spoken was me, saying that I would relay the information that Merchant was coming and would arrange for the meeting. Kennedy took it upon himself to jump the gun and say this, probably because he believed that he had the full cooperation of Canada. At any rate, Diefenbaker got mad and said, 'That young man has got to learn that he is not running the Canadian government,' and so on. He said, 'What business has he got? There is no decision which has been made as yet.

The fatal nuclear issue 15

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.' The prime minister described President Kennedy's speech on 22 October as 'sombre and challenging,' but the Canadian government took no action. There was growing criticism from within and without the country, and on 24 October the Canadian components of NORAD were put on De/con 3 state of readiness. Not until the 25th did Diefenbaker tell Parliament that the government supported the United States in this situation. PIERRE SEVIGNY

We had in those days various stages of alert, called Defcon [Defence Condition]. When you were Defcon 1, that was normal times; Defcon 2, that meant to warn the Navy of some trouble; Defcon 3, that alerted everybody in the 'defence forces; Defcon 4, that was really an emergency state; and Defcon 5, you armed the weapons and you were at war. So, immediately we were put on Defcon 3, the third stage. Some people got over-excited and wanted Defcon 4. Diefenbaker said, 'No, it is no use to alarm people unduly.' Up to a point he was right. After all, I mean, why mobilize everybody? But this anger of his at the United States was interpreted as a lack of decision and as a big quarrel. All this could have been settled in one telephone call to the president saying, 'Look, if you don't mind, from now on let us make the decisions.' But no, he didn't do that. 'We will see. We will meet tomorrow.' The next day, 'We will meet tomorrow,' and three days passed and Harkness was under pressure. Some people really exaggerated the importance of this thing, and then the press picked it up and the criticism started. GORDON CHURCHILL

I think adequate defence steps were taken with regard to the Navy and with regard to the Air Force, and so we weren't in a stage of unpreparedness. There was some accusation that we hadn't cooperated as quickly as some people thought we should. I do know this: that we were not informed early enough by President Kennedy. He had informed Harold Macmillan of the United Kingdom, and why our prime minister wasn't taken into confidence at a very early stage is incomprehensible to me because we were part of the NORAD agreement, we were on the North American continent, we would be subjected to attack if war broke out, and we thought we were the closest ally of the United States. Why were we not informed immediately? I don't know the reason. I think Mr Diefenbaker was justly incensed over that.

16 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

As a member of the cabinet, when defence matters are up, having participated in war, I have some knowledge of what I think should be done. We were taken for granted by President Kennedy, and that's not right, never right. Then there was some dispute or some nervousness naturally about the whole situation. Was there adequate evidence that the Russians really intended to make a missile attack on the United States? I am not sure that the full story of that has yet been told. There are some Americans who have claimed that President Kennedy had ample information much earlier than he made use of it. But it's one of those confused episodes which perhaps we won't ever get the exact information on. But there is no question about it, the crisis loomed very large and it was a very difficult period. Whether more rapid action should have been taken by the Canadians or not, I don't know. What effect would it have had anyway? R . A. BELL

There was resentment in cabinet; certainly I resented the fact that a faithful ally and friend like Canada should be treated by this irresponsible young man who was president of the United States in such a shabby way. The government suffered greatly as a result of this. The press was virtually unanimous in believing that the government ought to have said 'Ready-ayeready' and to have sent the message the same night. I think the reasons for the delay were lack of knowledge, lack of adequate briefing, views being expressed by other allies that the situation was in balance and that any additional provocative act might result in an immediate war. The views clearly expressed by Harold Macmillan - and Britain didn't say 'ready-aye-ready,' although their government got by without anything like the criticism that our government did - were entirely in favour of moderation. Apparently Harkness and Green have no recollection of a trans-Atlantic telephone call between Diefenbaker and Macmillan. I have a very vivid recollection of what Diefenbaker told. I know not what transpired in the conversation ; I know what Diefenbaker told. Macmillan urged that there be no additional provocative act because his sources in Moscow, which sources were better than ours on the whole, were that it was completely in balance and that war might come immediately, and anything that upset the balance was unwise. Cabinet was divided. For the first time the differences of view between Green and Harkness became sharp. Green was resisting, as the prime minister was also, any additional action. The prime minister was deeply hurt by the defection of his young friend, George Hogan, who had been his tour conductor on each of his election

The fatal nuclear issue 17

campaigns and a vice-president of the PC Association. Friday, November 9, there was spread all over the front page of the Globe and Mail an attack upon the government. It was a report of a speech which Hogan made to a PC study group in Toronto, and this caused great emotional upset on the part of the prime minister, who almost wept about the defection of the man he had treated as his son. It involved a temperamental outburst of the type which became increasingly familiar from there on. He threatened to resign. This was one of the defence mechanisms that he built up for himself. I say defence mechanism, I don't know what his objective was. But it was one of the occasions when 'there will be a new prime minister by six o'clock' became a familiar phrase. Dalton Camp spoke to George Nowlan about the Cuban missile crisis. DALTON CAMP

I said, 'For God's sake, how can we be so wrong? We just haven't won anybody, haven't pleased anybody with our posture and our reaction to the Cuban crisis. The most popular man in the world is John F. Kennedy.' Nowlan said to me, 'Young man, if you only knew what you were talking about.' I said, 'Well, George, tell me, what am I talking about?' He said they had had a cabinet meeting, and while they were discussing what the Canadian response would be, Howard Green being very militant against supporting the American initiative and so on, and the others all or most of them wanting to support it, Diefenbaker was called by Macmillan and he left the room. He came back and reported to the cabinet, according to Nowlan, that Macmillan had said to Diefenbaker words to the effect that, '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.' So Macmillan's advice was translated into the response that Canada made. Now, my own historic view of that is that Diefenbaker did not report the conversation accurately. Or else Macmillan doublecrossed him, which is doubtful. In his first statement to Parliament on the Cuban crisis, on the night of 22 October, Prime Minister Diefenbaker suggested that the eight unaligned nations of the disarmament committee which was then meeting should be asked to make an on-site inspection in Cuba to ascertain the facts, a request which was interpreted by some of his critics as casting doubts on the accuracy of the American claims about the Russian missiles. Then, on 24 October Howard Green went on national television and, in his best avuncular man-

18 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost ner, urged Canadians to keep calm. He wouldn't reveal the government's position on the United States military quarantine of Cuba. Diefenbaker officially put the country on the state of alert known as Defcon 3 on 24 October, two days after the defence minister had done it unofficially, but, according to Diefenbaker, President Kennedy had asked him to declare a state of na-tional emergency, which he refused to do. The prime minister was incensed at this demand because, he said, the president would not declare such a state of emergency in his own country for fear of international repercussions. The Diefenbaker-Kennedy clash which was so evident in cabinet made Hugh John Flemming afraid of a deterioration in relations with the Americans. HUGH JOHN FLEMMING

I was worried that we might get out and say, 'Look, we're going to run Canada and we don't want any help from them. We're running our own show.' You know, make a big fuss about that. Of course, we are. Of course, we should. No question. But, you know, there's a lot of things that you feel in your heart that you must have a perfect right to do, that you don't necessarily proclaim from the housetops. That's my point. PAUL MARTIN

I think Diefenbaker's attitude on Cuba was wrong. I think that was one of the real tragedies of his foreign policy - his failure to recognize that our NORAD commitment at least imposed on us an obligation to do more than we did on that terrible night when Howard Green went on television for half an hour. I'll always remember that night. At a time when one of his ministers knew the whole story, had been forewarned by NORAD, Diefenbaker was saying that he knew nothing about it, didn't know what was involved. He knew all about it. I think that he knew all about it through Harkness, and I can't believe that Harkness didn't tell John. What was John doing there? He knew that there were a lot of peaceminded people in the country who didn't like nuclear weapons, who would admire a government that was non-nuclear in its approach. And so, he said, 'I'm not going to get myself into this.' Even though it meant that we would not have joined with our neighbour in the most challenging situation that had developed in our relations with the Soviet Union. A government has to take strong, tough decisions that run counter to one's inclinations, to one's programs, where security is at stake. And that was the situation then, and all events since proved that. Well, I don't think a truly great prime minister would have allowed himself to get into that position.

The fatal nuclear issue 19 DAVID LEWIS

As far as the missile crisis itself was concerned, I thought Diefenbaker handled that not too badly at all. I thought there was an appreciation of the dangers. His annoyance with Washington for not being informed was perfectly justified. It was an expression of Diefenbaker's lifelong, instinctive Canadianism. I suppose I should put it more accurately: his instinctive Canadianism which derived from his absolute commitment to the British Empire and the British Commonwealth and the British Crown. He was the British Empire Loyalist of the twentieth century, if you like. All my colleagues were with him. Certainly I was. I objected as strongly as he appeared to do to just saying 'aye' because Washington wanted something done. I'm pretty sure that Tommy Douglas and Andrew Brewin and myself, who were the three speaking on international affairs, and the rest of us, we rather sympathized with Diefenbaker. I have a memory of an evening in the House of Commons, just in the midst of the crisis - it didn't last many days - a very tense evening when Diefenbaker explained what had happened. His minister of external affairs, Howard Green, who was a very gentle-sounding person, also spoke. I thought he handled that [the Cuban missile crisis] as a Canadian would. DALTON CAMP

I remember speaking to Bobby Kennedy about the Cuban crisis. He told me that, of course, they sent ambassadors all over the world, people to brief all the heads of state. They went to see de Gaulle, who they thought would be troublesome, and whoever briefed de Gaulle - I think it was Dean Acheson - said to de Gaulle, 'We have the photographs of the missile sites.' De Gaulle said, 'Well, if a great nation like the United States in these circumstances says they have the proof, I don't have to see it.' De Gaulle indicated he'd support the American initiative. When they came to Canada, Diefenbaker wanted blow-ups. He wanted all the evidence and he didn't believe all he saw. He suggested United Nations inspection, confirmation, and all this stuff. Bobby Kennedy told me that when his brother heard that, he was just dumbfounded. That of all the nations in the world, the only one that gave him any trouble was Canada. One Conservative reacted to the Cuban missile crisis as a family man, as well as a parliamentary secretary and member of the government. FRANK MC GEE

The Cuban crisis scared the hell out of me and my wife and everybody else. It underlined the lack of leverage and lack of importance of Canada in the

20 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

world scene. We were not consulted. We were looking on as spectators watching a rather terrifying game unfold. I remember my wife phoning from Toronto and being more than somewhat upset, wondering what, if anything, we were doing. I really wondered at the time whether I should leave the House of Commons. If we were going to be in a nuclear situation, I probably should have been at home, which pointed out a pretty fundamental clash of loyalties and priorities when you're in government: where does your first duty lie if you have a position in government? Do you stay there and let your family cook somewhere else? Do you go to the bomb shelters that are presumably available to members of Parliament and other selected officials and let your family be submitted to a nuclear bomb? There are some pretty terrifying implications to that. Although much ill feeling was created over the state of alert maintained by Canada's armed forces during the Cuban crisis, there was little in the country's arsenal that would deter an aggressor. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

What precipitated the whole nuclear matter was the Cuban crisis. Here we were in Canada with the CF-101 Voodoos and the Bomarcs essentially unarmed. So then I became absolutely insistent that we should immediately conclude the arrangement with the United States and secure the warheads for these systems. The cabinet, I think, unanimously except for Howard Green, agreed that we should start negotiations with the United States immediately to secure the warheads, and we did start negotiations, but then once more they were stalled - stalled by Howard and the External Affairs people. Eventually it came down to a situation where it was clear that there was perhaps going to be an election fairly shortly, and I was insistent that this question had to be settled, that I couldn't go through an election campaign and attempt to defend defence policy in which we had spent all this money for these weapon systems and then refused to put effective warheads on them. The matter became more and more acrimonious, but for some months beforehand I kept on saying whenever the matter was up for discussion, which was very frequently, that unless we came to a decision on this matter and completed the agreement with the United States and got the warheads, I would have no option except to resign. I couldn't possibly continue. No one doubted Douglas Harkness's courage. During the war, as officer in charge of troops aboard a ship that was torpedoed in the Mediterranean , he

The fatal nuclear issue 21 organized the rescue of the men trapped in the mess deck by the explosion. He and another soldier had to tear two men away from pipes to which they were clinging in terror and only got them free and into the sea minutes before the ship sank. He won the George Medal, one of the highest awards for bravery. It was as lieutenant colonel, commanding the Fifth Anti-Tank Regiment, that Harkness ended the war. He was nominated as the Conservative candidate for Calgary East while taking part in the final battles west of the Rhine and came home to win the seat in the 1945 election. He was re-elected in 1949, and after the 1952 redistribution he won Calgary North. He held this seat until he retired in 1972. Douglas Scott Harkness was born in Toronto in 1903. At an early age, he moved with his family to Alberta. After receiving a degree from the University of Alberta, he spent most of the prewar years as a teacher and part-time farmer. The controversy in which he was embroiled over nuclear warheads had its genesis in the 1959 decision to scrap the Avro Arrow [a Canadian-made supersonic fighter plane]. Once that had been done, a new weapons system had to he found for the armed forces. In /957, the Diefenbaker government had agreed to the establishment of a joint us-Canadian air defence, NORAD, and, a few months later, to a new role in NATO. As part of NORAD, Canada obtained the Bomarc missiles and the CF-101 Voodoo interceptor planes, while for its NATO forces it secured the CF-104 Starfighters. The nuclear issue came to a head when these new weapons were delivered, because they had to be armed with warheads to be effective. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

Our equipment, the CF-100, was becoming obsolete. If we were to continue to provide the scale of support for NORAD and for NATO which the government previous to our taking office had agreed to provide, then it was necessary to get some replacement weapons. There was quite a long period of discussion and consultation with the commander of NATO, and with the United States people in regard to NORAD, as to what replacement weapons would be secured. Eventually the proposition was put to cabinet by my predecessor, George Pearkes: that we should, as far as defence against bombers in Canada was concerned, secure two Bomarc squadrons which would be supplied really by the United States - the cost to us would be relatively small, a matter of building the facilities really; and that we should secure, as far as defence for Canada was concerned, the most up-to-date American intercep-

22 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost

tors, the CF-1O1 Voodoo. As far as our air contribution to NATO was concerned, to replace the squadrons of Sabres and of CF-1 00s in the air division in Europe, the proposition was to secure the CF- I 04 Starfighter. The decision was finally taken along those lines. It was made quite clear that they would have nuclear warheads and that, as far as the Bomarc and the Starfighter particularly were concerned, unless they did have nuclear warheads they wouldn't be effective weapons. Whether all members really understood the implications or not, I don't know. But certainly there was a lot of discussion in cabinet in the latter part of 1958 and in 1959 over whether we would secure these weapons. At the same time, it was also agreed to purchase an Honest John [ground-toground] battery for the Army Brigade in Europe. The decisions had been made certainly by the end of 1959, and the orders placed, which was all prior to my becoming minister of defence. Negotiations were going on to secure a certain number of Voodoos from the United States, and they had not been completed at the time I became minister; but as far as the others were concerned, the Bomarc bases were built, the Honest John battery had been purchased and people were sent for training on it down in the United States, and the Starfighters were under construction by Canadair. It was explained at the time that an agreement would have to be made with the United States for joint control of atomic warheads which would be required for all four of these weapons systems. This was the situation when I became minister of defence. Prior to that for some months, I think, there had been a considerable amount of disagreement between General Pearkes and Howard Green over the matter of securing these nuclear warheads, and there had been delay as far as making the agreement with the United States over their joint custody was concerned. When the original decisions were made and the orders were placed there was cabinet agreement that we would secure these weapons systems. Whether Howard Green realized that these weapons systems were to be equipped with atomic warheads and what the implications were, I don't know. Probably he didn't, and probably a considerable number of other members of the cabinet didn't. But in any event it had been accepted by cabinet, and the weapons systems were being secured. So, as far as I have ever been able to look at it, this should have been the end of the thing really. HOWARD GREEN

When I became secretary of state for external affairs in June of 1959, the United States and the Soviet Union were carrying on a series of nuclear

The fatal nuclear issue 23

tests which, of course, were polluting our atmosphere. Canada is in one of the worst fallout zones in the world, so the Department of External Affairs was very much interested in this development. At the UN General Assembly in the fall of 1959, our main initiative had to do with a resolution providing for better means of collecting information about radiation, which we were able to get through with the help of quite a few co-sponsors. At the same time we became very deeply involved in the question of testing and we decided to take a stand against nuclear testing. We became very very heavily involved in these questions during my whole four years as the minister of foreign affairs. Canada, in fact, was as much a leader as any other nation in this field, and we had very good support from the Americans too because they were very much interested in winding down the arms race. Well, being so deeply involved and being out in front as a leader, Canada would be put in an impossible position - at least so I thought and so my department thought and so I still think - if she brought nuclear weapons on to her own soil. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

In my view, Howard, after he had been in the position of secretary of state for external affairs for some time and had attended a number of meetings at the United Nations, and at the disarmament conference which was going on all this time in Geneva, developed really an obsession in regard to nuclear weapons. HOWARD GREEN

Now the Defence people take an entirely different view; they want all the military hardware they can get and the most up-to-date hardware. I would think, generally speaking, they regard questions of disarmament and preventing any spread of nuclear weapons as a futile exercise and one in which they were not very much interested. So you start off with a divergence of interests in the Defence and External Affairs Departments. This was true in the United States just as it is in Canada, and I think from time to time the Pentagon and the Defence Department put their heads together and decided that they wanted a certain policy followed and the Pentagon could work on the State Department of the us government and the Defence Department here could work on the Canadian government. Mind you, External Affairs and Defence have a great deal of business to do together and got along very well together really. I knew something of the Defence Department because during the first eight months of our government, in addition to being minister of public works and house leader

24 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

and chairman of the caucus, I was acting minister of defence production and we were buying all the equipment the Defence Department required, so that I had very close contacts with the Defence Department. Essentially there is this difference in approach. There is today, I am sure, and there will be probably until the end of time. We were taking one angle and the Defence Department was taking the other. Finally Mr Diefenbaker came down on the side of not bringidg nuclear warheads to Canadian soil. Remember during all this time we were being egged on by the Liberals under Mr Pearson. He was shouting his head off about not bringing warheads on to Canadian soil, and in effect blaming us for being too hesitant about deciding that we would not bring them on to Canadian soil, and generally criticizing us for being too warlike. The NDP, of course, were even stronger than Mr Pearson in insisting that the weapons shouldn't be brought on to Canadian soil. Then overnight Pearson changed his policy and came out and demanded that Canada bring nuclear warheads to Canadian soil. I never will understand why he did that, why he threw principles out the window as he did on that issue. When he did that, of course, then we were in an impossible position because we had people in our own party who were against preventing the weapons coming to Canada. We had hawks, shall I say, in our own party, and we had resolutions brought in by them at an annual meeting, which were disposed of satisfactorily to my point of view. But Pearson just opened the whole can of worms, so to speak, that put us, put me certainly, in an impossible position. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

What brought about my resignation was the hopeless situation that things had got into, as far as this question was concerned. I had for two and a half years been responsible for the defence policy. I had been making speeches both in Canada and in other countries stating what our defence policy was: this involved the use, in the event of general war or air attack in Europe on the part of the Russians, of our nuclear equipped weapon systems - and also by this time we had spent some $700 to $800 million to acquire these weapon systems. We had trained our personnel in the use of these weapon systems, and it was an indefensible position as far as I was concerned then not to conclude the agreement with the United States for the joint custody of the warheads and to put the warheads on the weapons. Right up to a week or so before I resigned, Mr Diefenbaker was still

The fatal nuclear issue 25

assuring me that eventually we would get these nuclear warheads for these weapon systems, but the time wasn't right. This had been the same story that I had been getting for the previous approximately two years, because, after I had been minister of defence for about six or eight months, I looked into the whole situation pretty carefully, and it was quite apparent that we should then conclude the arrangement with the United States and secure these nuclear warheads. Mr Diefenbaker took the position at this time that, 'Well, we haven't got these weapons systems yet. They are still making the planes at Canadair. The Bomarc bases aren't completed yet.' And by this time we had got the Voodoos but they had a conventional armament also, and there was no need to get them immediately, and the time wasn't ripe, and it would be better to delay until everybody was trained in their use, and so forth. In other words there were always reasons being produced why we wouldn't proceed with securing the actual warheads at that time. PIERRE SEVIGNY

Diefenbaker was getting letters from people saying, 'Look, we are against nuclear weapons and we should not have nuclear weapons in Canada.' Diefenbaker started saying, 'The grass roots don't want nuclear weapons, the grass roots are against this.' Well, the grass roots understood nothing of this particular thing, and still don't, and could not care less because these things are way beyond the comprehension of the man on the street. But we were pressed at Defence and at External Affairs by the Americans saying, 'For Heaven's sake, let's present a united front.' Harkness was being pressed really very severely, much more than me because I was in charge of administration at the department. But he was the minister, and furthermore Harkness is a military man and for him defence was sacred. He is not the most imaginative fellow that existed but the finest fellow you can find. He is cut and dried. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

During all that period, the Voice of Women and various of these so-called peace organizations were carrying on a great campaign against us securing these nuclear warheads. They were sending in thousands of letters to Diefenbaker - and he has always been very prone to give a great deal of importance to the letters that people send to him. He didn't seem to realize that this was an organized campaign and that the letters coming in did not represent the feeling of the majority of the people of Canada to any extent at all. He became convinced that the majority of the people in Canada were against our having any nuclear warheads and that if we actually got them at this

26 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost particular time the result would be electoral defeat at the coming election. This is my own assessment of what his reasoning was. In actual fact, the Gallup polls which were taken during the period showed that the majority of Canadians believed that we should secure these nuclear warheads. Of course, the subsequent election proved the point when the Liberals secured more members than we did and took office, after having changed their view and saying that they would accept the nuclear warheads. Pearson has been attacked very strongly for this by many people, including the present prime minister, Trudeau, at the time, but this was political realism on his part. He realized that the majority of the people were in favour of this course of action and he also realized that it would lead to bad relations with the us, with our NATO allies, if we didn't go ahead on this course. R.A. BELL

It is difficult to say how the government stumbled into the ultimate problems, and stumbled is really the only word. In my view, at this stage, Howard Green was excessively influenced by the Voice of Women and by such organizations. He had the ear of the prime minister in this field more than I think any other minister had. The cabinet was of the opinion, until too late, that effective and consistent negotiations were going on with the government of the United States which were going to lead to a compromise solution of the problem of nuclear warheads on Canadian soil. It came as a great surprise, a shock, to me to learn some time in January that, in fact, there were no negotiations going on. I recollect having spoken rather bitterly on this subject to Green personally and in cabinet. I told Green point blank that he had misled us. Now it would be difficult to say, looking back, that on such and such a date Green said negotiations were going on, but we were all of the view that they were and that they were likely to have a successful result. That's why we in effect stumbled into it quite unprepared for the outcry that suddenly came when we learned that negotiations had not got under way and that perhaps our unrealistic expectations of being able to settle with the United States were not going to be fulfilled. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

As a result of the Cuban crisis, I was absolutely insistent that we should finally resolve this matter and secure the nuclear warheads. In order to do that we had to have this agreement with the us, so I got cabinet approval to open negotiations immediately with the United States in order to secure the warheads.

The fatal nuclear issue 27

We had a series of meetings over this in which Howard Green and myself and senior members of our respective departments and United States people had discussions. During these discussions Howard Green and his people were putting up various schemes under which we would enter an agreement but the nuclear warheads, as far as Canada was concerned, would be held in the United States and then, in the event of an emergency developing, they would be flown up and put on the Bomarcs and made available for the Voodoos in Canada. These were all impractical schemes. However the Americans were very patient over the whole matter, in my view, and in each case they said they would look into this, and they made cost analyses to show what the cost of this would be and analyses as to how much time would be required for bringing the warheads up and get them placed, how many people would be required, how many planes would be required to be kept always on the alert for this purpose, and so on - and the costs were extremely large. Also it was quite apparent that the way a crisis was likely to come on there just wouldn't be time to do this sort of thing. So these were not practical propositions. Nevertheless the negotiations dragged on. In my view, these were delaying tactics again on the part of External Affairs people. Finally the meeting in December of the NATO ministers was to take place in Paris, and Howard and I went over. The negotiations were supposed to continue. GORDON CHURCHILL

I said, 'Let's get rid of the problem with regard to the Honest John and the Air Squadrons in Europe because they are under NATO, and if NATO says they should have nuclear weapons, the responsibility rests with NATO. Let's get rid of that and let's concentrate on the situation here in Canada.' I was appointed to meet with Doug Harkness and Howard Green to see if we could reach an agreement with regard to this problem. I didn't find them as far apart as the stories that were being written said. We met with the Americans to determine what we should do with regard to arming our air squadrons in Canada, the Voodoos they were, with the nuclear weapons and the Bomarcs. I think that had we had one further meeting we would have cut that problem in half, too. Mr Walton Butterworth came up here as us ambassador, and Mr Butterworth, as I understand it, was a hatchet man who was sent up here to do a job, and he refused to have another meeting. I pleaded with the second man at the United States Embassy to have another meeting, but he said no. The more difficult problem was what to do with the Bomarcs? How

28 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost

could you deal with them? My purpose was to narrow the thing down, but we didn't achieve that although I thought I had worked out a compromise on the NATO situation in Europe. There was to be a meeting of the NATO ministers in Ottawa in May of I 963. I suggested that we defer the final decision with regard to arming our forces in Europe with nuclear weapons until the NATO ministers met. If they said we had to have them armed with nuclear weapons, OK, we would agree. Mr Harkness said that that was ineffective because defence ministers would not appear at that meeting in May, only the external affairs ministers. But the defence ministers from the various NATO countries did come in May, as well as the external affairs people. That was a compromise that I suggested for our forces in Europe and the prime minister seized on that immediately. He thought that was a good idea. But Harkness wouldn't accept it. Once Mr Butterworth came up here, the issue as far as the Americans were concerned was ended. There was no more consultation. We were to do what we were supposed to do, if the Americans said so. Then they brought Norstad in and everything went up to a climax. But it was a phony, phony issue, the whole thing. The Bomarcs were never intended to be a protection for Montreal and Toronto. They were intended to intercept bombers, as were the Air Force in Canada and the United States Air Force in Newfoundland and Labrador, to give a chance for the strategic air divisions of the United States to prepare their counterattack. It had nothing to do with the protection of cities. But that's not the way it was played up. The negotiations on the nuclear warheads had taken the pressure off the Diefenbaker government, but on 3 January 1963 General Lauris Norstad, the retiring NATO commander, arrived in Ottawa to pay his official farewell call. He said that Canada was already committed to provide nuclear warheads for its Starfighter squadrons in Europe. PIERRE SEVIGNY

I was the minister who received Norstad when he passed through here. I went with Air Marshal Frank Miller who was the chief of staff. And there was a press conference. There should not have been a press conference, and I was against having a press conference, but Diefenbaker said that truth has to be known. For once we made a decision - yes, there would be a press conference. I felt an American general was liable to say the most awful things, but all that Norstad said to a reporter who asked !tim 'Should the airplanes in NATO (because he was retiring head of NATO) be equipped with nuclear warheads?' was, 'Well, yes.' Then the next question was, 'Well if

The fatal nuclear issue 29

these Canadian planes are not equipped with warheads, would they be useful?' Norstad said, 'They won't fulfil the role they are meant to fulfil.' Then the reporter said, 'Well then, do you consider that if they are not equipped that really Canada is playing its role.' Norstad said, 'Well, in due course it will.' That's all; he never said 'No.' But then once again the press saw a good chance to take a good poke at Dief and the Diefenbaker government and they embellished to a great degree. Norstad in the lounge afterwards looked at me and said, 'Now, I am afraid I have embarrassed you a bit.' I said, 'What's done is done but I would have preferred that you be a little more neutral.' He said, 'I have deep regrets.' But he couldn't care less because he was going into retirement. HOWARD GREEN

The Pentagon and the Defence Department obviously work very closely together. Norstad hadn't any business coming to Canada and making the statement that he did. He was a provocative, undiplomatic character at the best. I thought he had a lot of nerve to come here to Canada and try to tell the Canadian government what it should do. Now it may be that he pleased the Canadian defence chiefs; he probably did. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

I was out of Canada in January when General Lauris Norstad arrived here on his farewell trip and had a press conference. Actually the statements that he made at that time, and I think he did this very deliberately and carefully, were exactly the same statements that I had been making publicly for the previous two years. He didn't say a single thing which was really different from what I had been saying. But nevertheless it was picked on by the press, and then taken up by the opposition and by Diefenbaker also, as an attempt to force Canada into this particular course of action. That this should be the reaction was a great surprise to Norstad. I got back from the trip overseas a couple of days after Norstad had been here, to find that all this 'to do' was going on, but I was much more put out to find that, during all the period that I had been away, nothing had happened in regard to the negotiations; they had just come to a dead stop. So I was immediately insistent that the negotiations should be resumed. There was finally a grudging agreement secured that the negotiations would be resumed, but the first meeting was put off some considerable time, towards the end of January, and never did take place. Then I put the question before cabinet and said, 'Here, this delay has become really impossible.

30 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost

The question has to be settled and we have to have a definite decision on the thing. Otherwise I must resign.' I offered my resignation for the first time. This was fairly early in January. On 12 January 1963, Mike Pearson reversed his earlier stand and urged that Canada accept nuclear warheads 'for those defensive tactical weapons which cannot effectively be used without them.' The Progressive Conservative Association met in Ottawa 17 to 19 January, and the nuclear issue was discussed. Eddie Goodman, a prominent Ontario party worker, was chairman of the policy and resolutions committee. E . A. GOODMAN

It was clear from the resolutions that came in that there was a strong feeling across the country that we should accept nuclear warheads and live up to our commitment to take them for the Bomarc missiles, as we'd undertaken to the United States. I was strongly of that view. I didn't think the issue was whether they were a good or efficient weapon or not. The issue was that we had agreed on a continental policy of defence, we'd made certain commitments, the defence of the country required our continued cooperation with the United States, and we should live up to that obligation . And that was certainly the grass roots feeling in the party. We passed a resolution to this effect. Then there was some discussion with Howard Green who at that that time was secretary of state for external affairs. He said that Canada was taking a leading role in certain disarmament discussions, and he was very strongly against the resolution, as he said it would spoil our attempts to play the honest broker. So we amended the resolution, giving them another six months or so for these negotiations to continue, but setting a deadline sometime during that year. Howard gave me the impression - and he certainly was a very forthright fellow, Howard Green, no one would ever suggest that he wasn't - that this was quite satisfactory to him. That was passed, and I then started to get the resolutions ready for distribution. Mr Diefenbaker asked me to come up and have breakfast with him at 24 Sussex. Gordon Churchill, who was doing an organizing role in those days, Dalton Camp, John Diefenbaker, and myself were there. Mr Diefenbaker told me that he didn't want that resolution brought in. I told him that there was no way that we weren't going to bring it in, but he asked me, would I go and discuss it with Howard Green. I said, 'Yes, I'll discuss it again with Green.' I did hold further discussions and made slight modifications with Green.

The fatal nuclear issue 31

But then Mr Diefenbaker instructed Allister Grosart that we weren't to allow this resolution to be distributed. I made my own arrangements for getting the resolutions typed out. I'm not sure but I think I had a little help from Flora MacDonald, who was a secretary over at headquarters at that time. We were then coming, of course, to a head-on confrontation. I was told that I wasn't to have it published or distributed, so I called a press conference. I distributed it to the press the day in advance of the meeting so that there would be no way that anybody could stop me from doing it, because it had been the decision of the Resolutions Committee which wasn't subject to any veto by the leader. I didn't indicate to the press, of course, that there had been any disagreement with Mr Diefenbaker at all. On the contrary, I spoke highly of the efforts that he had been making in this regard for peace, except I went on to explain the rationale and told about the way we changed the resolution to enable Canada to have more time. Next day I went to the meeting. Mr Diefenbaker was smarter than I was, because he shifted the time of his address and he made an impassioned speech to the annual meeting not to tie his hands and not to pass the resolution. I then went on as the chairman of the committee proposing the resolution and made my impassioned speech as to why we should overrule our leader on this particular issue, and what it meant to the national defence and what it meant to the party's credibility in the international world. It was a good vote but Mr Diefenbaker carried the day and the plenary session turned down that resolution. Which was fine with me. They had an open debate. I had the debate with the prime minister, and I lost. And that was fine. I was asked whether I was going to resign, and I said, 'No.' All I wanted to do was to get that debate. DALTON CAMP

I was very much there at the PC meeting and very much determined that we'd survive it. It was a significant meeting. It was after Pearson made his Scarborough speech, changing the Liberal party's position on nuclear arms. I had been going back and forth to Diefenbaker's house quite often, seeing him pretty well regularly. I can remember after the Scarborough speech, on the day of the annual meeting, going out there; a professor from Queen's, called Arthur Phelps, had sent him a telegram saying, 'Pearson has delivered himself into your hands,' indicating support for Diefenbaker's position, whatever it was, which we took to be no nuclear arms. I didn't really get into that issue, but Goodman and Flora were playing some kind of game, and Eddie had written a pamphlet, a policy pamphlet,

32 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

which tried to put forth the party's position on nuclear arms, which was equivocal for, while Diefenbaker's position was equivocal against. I can't remember the whole history of that thing except somehow or other the pamphlet got lost, because Eddie went out to show it to Diefenbaker and Diefenbaker went through the roof. No way he'd accept it. We then had this small group, Hal Jackman, Jim Macdonnell, some of the Toronto people, some of the Montreal people, who were actively trying to make a scene out of this thing. And I was actively trying to stop it. And I did. I mean, there was very little bad that came out of the meeting. Of course, Diefenbaker made the great speech, you know, 'Don't tie my hands.' When Parliament re-assembled on 21 January, the government still had not announced its policy. Jack Pickersgill acknowledged how difficult the government's position was, but he denied that the Liberals, and particularly Ralph Campney who was defence minister before the Conservatives came to power, had agreed to accept nuclear weapons. J.W . PICKERSGILL

Ralph Campney did make a recommendation - and I don't think I am betraying any cabinet secrets - but Prime Minister St Laurent refused to have the matter considered because he said it should not be considered by a government before an election. If there was going to be controversy about a thing of that sort we should see what the public felt about the government before we did that kind of thing. Of course I think this issue was a function of the Conservatives' inexperience and their suspicion of advice and so on (which George Pearkes didn't share). George Pearkes went ahead, and nobody paid much attention apparently. They made these commitments, and, it seemed to me, having made them they had to carry them out. Then there was the division between Howard Green and Harkness over this thing. I think Howard Green is a thoroughly honest man and I have a great affection for him. I didn't think he was one of the world's greatest foreign ministers, but he is a fine man and he had strong convictions and so did Doug Harkness. But I never thought Diefenbaker had much conviction about this business. I thought that he made a horrible miscalculation about the temper of the Canadian people, and, you know, it was a very hard question. It was a hard question for Pearson too. Everybody knows that. This question of whether you should have nuclear weapons and keep your word or not to have them and break your word. I don't say it's an easy question.

The fatal nuclear issue 33

We had real trouble in our party about it. I never had any trouble personally. I believe in keeping my word. We just happened to take the side o.f this question that didn't divide our party, although it ~lien.ated some potenti~I recruits like the present prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, but it did absolutely cleave the Tory party and the Tory government.

3

Clandestine meetings

By December 1962, it was clear that the Diefenbaker government was disintegrating. Its indecisiveness in the face of the Cuban missile crisis and its refusal to come to grips with the nuclear warhead issue had sullied its image. The cabinet was meeting every day and often on the weekends, with ministers taking sides and going over the same ground repeatedly. Very little was accomplished and, in retrospect, many of those who participated felt that it was the most frustrating and confused period of their lives in government. PAUL MARTINEAU

We were sitting as a cabinet almost continuously. We were being called at all hours of the day, either at the East Block or at the residence, 24 Sussex Drive, for special meetings of the cabinet. The missile crisis was discussed endlessly. As a matter of fact, it seemed to me that we were wasting all our time in discussing things and reaching very few firm decisions. This brought about added difficulties, added tension. ANGUS MAC LEAN

During the period of the downfall of the Diefenbaker government I often had a feeling of helplessness in the situation - there seemed to be events overtaking us that I think could have been prevented. I myself frequently felt like a lemming in the middle of twenty thousand lemmings that were about to go over the cliff, because I thought that what was happening meant certain doom for us as a government. And that's how it turned out. The plotting against John Diefenbaker began shortly after the near defeat

Green arrives at 24 Sussex during 1963 government crisis

36 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost of the 1962 election. Reports of an incipient revolt reached the loyalist members, who held a council of war in Gordon Churchill's parliamentary office '1nd were able to stop it before it gathered support. ALVIN HAMILTON

After our setback in 1962 there was a preliminary uprising which no one has ever heard about. In October or November we got wind of someone going around Ontario and Quebec saying that Diefenbaker had to go. Then we got wind of who was doing it. We had a special meeting, first of all two or three of us, and then we gradually spread out to about fifteen or twenty members of the party. It was somebody working for George Rees, and George Rees was then caught making two ditect approaches to two MPs. So when we had the word of people like MPs that George had direct involvement, we met and looked at the eviderice. We asked Earl Rowe, who was a good Conservative, a loyal type, as the senior member from Ontario to tell Rees that he had to repudiate and stop this nonsense or he would be thrown out. Diefenbaker played no part. I don't think that he knew too much about it because George Rees was Diefenbaker's personal favourite. Rees got wind of this action on the part of our group - that either he stop or we wc.:,uld flirtg him out, ask for his resignation from the cabinet and insist on it ~ and issued a statement of his own volition. Rowe never got to him actually. Rees said that he was a fighting fool for Diefenbaker - Diefenbaker was the greatest leader that there ever was, he would be prime minister for the next fifteen years. All that was in the press but without any explanation, so George Rees headed off that action when he rnade that statement. I said, 'oK, let bygones be bygones.' Despite George Hees's declaration of loyalty, there was a great deal of grumbling among many of the other ministers. Most Tories wondered what was happening, and whether they could survive this winter of discontent. They began to talk about their leader, John Diefenbaker, and whether he hddn't changed /tom being their greatest asset to being their greatest liability. They spoke among themselves when they met in the Parliament Buildings or over drinks in each others' offices~ first in low voices, and then more openly. Out of the confersation.r of these worried members grew the clandestine meetings and the Byzantine conspiracies and plots of the dying days of the Conset-vative government. The first two clandestine meetings were in the homes of private citizens -

Clandestine meetings 37

the large stone house of Cecil Morrison, an Ottawa businessman, and the Rockcliffe bungalow of Patrick Nicholson, the political .columnist of the Thomson newspapers -and were held in late November and early December. Their instigator seemed to be Robert Thompson, the newly elected leader of the Social Credit party. These two meetings, in the memory of those who participated, had to do with efforts to make Parliament work. They were discussions between some leading Conservatives and the Social Crediters who held the balance of power in the House of Commons, and they were not concerned with any attempts to get rid of Diefenbaker. At least, not openly. Yet they could be described as the embryo stages of the cabinet revolt. ROBERT THOMPSON

These meetings were really discussions on what could be done to try to make the functioning of the minority Conservative govemment cre.dible so that we Socreds could continue to support them. There was never any talk of coalition. I was completely opposed to that and I refused to go to these meetings if they were anything more than just a talk-over of the situation. LE o N BAL c ER (who was at both meetings) The meeting in Morrison's house was put together by a rightist group of Social Crediters and Conservatives. It was a meeting of conservatives with a small c. Very few people. Robert Thompson was there and Paul Martineau. It was dominated by the spokesman; the master of ceremony of the whole thing was Robert Thompson. Personally I was not impressed at all. We didn't discuss strategy and things like that; it was a pretty nebulous affair, you see. The one at Pat Nicholson's was more fascinating because I remember that Gordon Churchill was present. There we discussed strategy. But after both meetings I was wondering what in the world these people wanted. The invitation we got was that some people wanted to speak about important matters. We were not naive enough to think that it was not a play by the Social Crediters who wanted to have a say in the government and who were giving themselves an awful lot of importance based on the fact that they happened to be the 126th, 127th, and 130th members of Parliament. But as for ideas and political philosophy and all that, it was very very weak and the strategy that was discussed there was pitiful. When I came out, I considered that it was a very naive approach to politics. It didn't disturb me at all. I don't think it had a real importance in this clash within the Conservative party.

38 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

only at the meeting in Pat Nicholson's house) I think Pat was attempting to work out a modus operandi between Bob Thompson and the Social Credit people and ourselves. He called that meeting in his house and Bob Thompson was there and Bert Leboe, as I recall, and Senator Mccutcheon, Leon Balcer, and myself. I am not sure whether George Nowlan was there. We had a discussion, and the burden of the whole thing was that Bob Thompson was of the opinion that the Conservative party and the Social Credit party should work more closely together. But there was no commitment made, it was a sort of exploratory meeting. I was aware that Bob Thompson was not too happy with the continuation of Mr Diefenbaker as prime minister, but he made no demands on that occasion other than just a sort of generalization with regard to working together, as against the Liberals and the NDP. Nothing came of that meeting and I was not at any further meeting of that nature, so I don't know what transpired subsequently. Naturally at a meeting like that you are friendly enough but you are a bit at arms length, you know. When politicians get together there is a slight air of uncertainty, not to mention suspicion. Why are we here? What's behind all this? Have I all the facts? How far can I go? If I say too much and it is repeated, then what position am I in? There is a certain guarded interchange of ideas at a meeting of that nature. So that nobody really committed himself. Go RD o N c Hu R c H I L L

( who was

In between the meetings at Morrison's and Nicholson's homes, Robert Thompson had what he had long awaited, an interview with Prime Minister Diefenbaker. It came about under peculiar circumstances and left the Social Credit leader dissatisfied and thinking that the Conservative cabinet was on the verge of breaking up. ROBERT THOMPSON

The only time that I had an in-depth discussion with Mr Diefenbaker was in the early part of December 1962, when Mr Diefenbaker, through the house leader who was at that time Mr Nowlan, sent word that he wanted to see the leaders of the opposition parties. Mr Pearson, Mr Douglas, and myself agreed to go and see him. But unknown to me, he had cancelled out the two appointments, the one with Mr Pearson and the one with Mr Douglas. So I found myself there alone. This was obviously a strategy or a way of inviting me to have an official conference with him. At that time the pressure of the Cuban crisis was beginning to shape up, and obviously he was under pressure from within his own cabinet. We were well aware of

Clandestine meetings 39

that. But instead of having a discussion between the two of us as to the problems of the day and whether or not we could cooperate - because there really wasn't any desire within the Social Credit party at that time to defeat Mr Diefenbaker; it was the furthest thing from our intention - he lectured me for one hour on what my behaviour should be. We never did get down to any discussion. He tried to accuse me of being a Liberal, but that wasn't the case at all. He knew, as well as I knew, that my sympathies were very much with him. But we were becoming exasperated because we couldn't really find an answer to such questions as the budget, the estimates, a program of work for the House, and a defence policy. These were the four issues. I attempted to tell Mr Diefenbaker that he had to declare a policy, that we were not going to argue about what that policy should be. Finally, when obviously I was the one to be talked to and there was no chance for a discussion, the meeting broke up. There never was another meeting. The fate of the Conservative government was in the hands of Robert Thompson, a neophyte in Parliament and politics. He had been a teacher and missionary in Ethiopia since the war and had come back to Canada in 1959 because of the illness of his children. On his return, he was persuaded to run for Parliament. He has admitted that he joined the Social Credit party because there were no prospects of a PC nomination in Alberta. In 1961, he became party leader. He was elected as the member for Red Deer, Alberta, in the 1962 election, along with twenty-nine other Social Credit MPs; however twenty-six of them were from Quebec and owed their allegiance more to the party's deputy leader, Real Caouette, than to himself. Robert Norman Thompson was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in May 1914 and grew up in Alberta. He was of Norwegian descent. When his grandfather had immigrated, he had changed his name from Aavangen, which he thought English-speaking people could not pronounce, to Thompson . Bob Thompson went to Calgary Normal School, Palmer College, Bob Jones University, and did graduate work in education administration at the University of British Columbia. He became a chiropractor, but most of his life he was a teacher. During the Second World War, he was with the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme as an RCAF officer, and in 1943 led a team of instructors to Ethiopia where he was appointed commander of the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force Academy. After the war he continued teaching in Ethiopia, and became minister of education and adviser to Emperor Haile Selassie. He was called 'Bongo Bob' by members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Another of his nicknames was 'The Preacher' - he was a lay evan-

40 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

gelist with the Lutheran Church. During the last five years that he was in Parliament he was a visiting professor at Waterloo Lutheran University . Robert Thompson was all too aware that at a crucial moment in history, when he held the balance of power, he did not really know what to do with it. ROBERT THOMPSON

You must remember that I was very much of a novice in politics. If I'd had the political experience that I've had since at that time, I would have acted differently. I would have been far more politic. It seems to me that the people who criticize me give me much more credit for being a wise politician who was in to kill the government than I actually deserve. Because I believe l was very naive, and I was trying to do the tight thing, what I thought was the responsible thing to do. I was not being motivated by a drive to get rid of Mr Diefenbaker, because, strangely enough, I've always had a great respect fot that man, and I was heartbroken. The thing was breaking up around him. It's one thing to defeat a person or a party in an election campaign. It's another thing to see a man with a reputation that he'd had have the house falling down around him. The roof then caved in. After Christmas 1962, there were no more meetings in private homes. But when the House of Commons re-assembled in late January 1963, there were frequent meetings of highly placed Tories in the Parliament Buildings, particularly in the office of Senator McCutcheon, and also in the offices of Ernie Ha/penny, the secretary of state and MP for London, Ontario, and of George Hees, the minister of trade and commerce, and others. Although the meetings were held to reach an understanding with the Social Crediters and to retain theit support, they were also concerned with the leadership of the Conservative party. However, some of those who participated denied any suggestion that the meetings constituted a conspiracy. R . A . BELL

I resent the word conspiracy. I think there never was any such thing and that a misinterpretation of legitimate events has become historical fact largely because of the inaccuracies of Peter Newman. The only thing to say on background is that throughout this whole period, from the election day of 1962 to the night the government fell, the morale of the prime minister was bad. He constantly threatened resignation. He cried wolf more often than the little boy ever thought of doing. His temperamental outbursts were beyond description and on a very great number of occasions many cabinet meetings ended up with his grabbing up his papers and rushing out

Clandestine meetings 41

of cabinet saying there would be a new prime minister by such and such an hour. This was background and the only background. This was a matter of discussion in groups of ministers as they got together for a drink before dinner. There was no talk of any kind of which I am aware in the groups of his replacement at all until the day the government fell. I was very regularly in the company of McCutcheon and Nowlan. There were no meetings in Nowlan's office. When we met for a drink, we met in Halpenny's office. Churchill was often with us, and Balcer dropped in from time to time, and other ministers, depending on the time. There was no discussion of any disloyal nature at any of the meetings that I attended and no meetings of which I am aware were ever specifically summoned by any minister or held for the purpose of discussing the dislodgement. Regrets about his moods, regrets about his conduct were certainly bandied about at all kinds of meetings. PIERRE SEVIGNY

It is completely wrong to say that there was a conspiracy. There was no such thing, and I have said that time and again. Of course, nobody has believed me. I will explain why I claim there was no conspiracy because a conspiracy is when people get together to overthrow either a leader or a government. But this was not done. I mean all that happened resulted from the following: Mr Diefenbaker was very nervous, very tired, and if possible had become more indecisive, more lacking in practical solutions to problems than he had been prior to the 1962 election. He was continually repeating whenever provoked or whenever challenged that he was going to resign. His favourite phrase was, 'I am going to go to the governor general.' That was repeated twice and three times sometimes at the same meeting until - after all he was a man of stature - he was taken seriously. So the ministers would get together and say, 'My God, what are we going to do? We have got to think of a replacement if the leader goes. What'II happen?' All of us really had affection for the man. We had been together for years. He led us to power. We had gone through hell and high water with him. We recognized his very true qualities of leadership, his great eloquence, his appeal to the people, and we deplored that state of affairs [his threat to resign]. But eventually matters went from bad to worse. I was present at most of them [the clandestine meetings]. But we were not plotting to overthrow the leader. Far from it. They were meetings where we were discussing the ways and means to bring Diefenbaker to his senses -

42 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

really, to discuss with him, to sort of confront the issues, one by one so that we could carry on in a sensible rational fashion. There was never at these meetings any plot to nominate one against the other. Mind you, certain names were considered as possible replacements, particularly when he insisted on saying that he was going to resign, but a plot to overthrow Diefenbaker was never actually conceived or discussed or coordinated or planned. Never. PAUL MARTINEAU

Diefenbaker was constantly threatening to resign. This was no cabinet secret. He would do it to the caucus. He was always saying that he could leave at any time, that he had fulfilled his personal ambition, that he had no further ambitions, and that if they didn't like something, he certainly would resign. He was crying wolf all the time, but I don't think that he really even considered that he would do it. Saying is one thing, doing is another. As a matter of fact, he never did tender his resignation at any time. He never tendered it as head of the government or as head of his party. He stuck to the end as leader - despite all the opposition that was so manifest, he continued to occupy the post. He didn't leave willingly and in glory, as some people would have said, but stuck to the end, even as a candidate for re-election at that [ 1967] convention. So that, although to my knowledge, he threatened to resign many times, I never took him seriously when he did. Senator Wallace McCutcheon was one of the cabinet ministers becoming disillusioned with the Diefenbaker government. When McCutcheon first joined th-e Conservative cabinet, Prime Minister Diefenbaker was exultant. He told Grattan O'Leary, 'Kennedy has got his McNamara, but I have my McCutcheon.' However, it wasn't long before there was a falling out, and Wally McCutcheon became a ringleader of the revolt. PAUL MARTINEAU

Senator McCutcheon had been appointed to cabinet the same time as I was, and he very quickly took a leadership position, especially in regard to economic and financial matters. He became a very influential member of the cabinet. And right from the outset, an antagonism developed between Mr Diefenbaker and Mr McCutcheon. I remember the first day, shortly after the swearing-in ceremony, there was an informal meeting between Mr Diefenbaker and some of his ministers, and Mr McCutcheon proposed a few things that immensely annoyed Mr Diefenbaker. He almost told him to shut up. I was astounded. After ap-

Clandestine meetings 43

pointing him to the cabinet and choosing him because of his wisdom and insight and knowledge of commercial-financial matters, that he could put him down so quickly was beyond me. They were very ordinary suggestions he had made, but I think that Mr Diefenbaker had taken the attitude that he had spoken out of tum, and that as a newcomer to the cabinet he should be seen rather than heard. LEON BALCER

You had a man like Senator McCutcheon who was an action man and who couldn't stand delays. He wanted things to get going and you couldn't help discussing, with a man of that type, those matters - the delays and lack of leadership. That's the way that I was brought into this discussion group, very informally. It was just that we were more friendly together within a certain group of people. We were discussing how we could get things done, how we could get the cabinet to function better. Senator McCutcheon was very active at the time. He was a man who was very close to Diefenbaker. I mean he could talk with Diefenbaker and he had some grand plans and he was a great organizer. He wanted to get us together behind Diefenbaker with new ideas and new plans. We were not meeting to get rid of Diefenbaker, but to plan a strategy to get Diefenbaker to adopt certain policies, and to take certain attitudes, and get going on certain matters. There was no conspiracy, not to start with. But it ended up by being very antagonistic as far as Diefenbaker was concerned. We were a group of ten or twelve cabinet ministers. Sometimes we were seven or eight and we would meet about twice a week. But there was nothing official or anything like that. It was not planned. Who were they? Senator McCutcheon, George Hees, George Nowlan, Ernie Halpenny, Paul Martineau, Pierre Sevigny, and Davie Fulton. I can't remember too well. ALLISTER GROSART

I am not altogether sure that Wally McCutcheon turned against Mr Diefenbaker. I think he allowed himself to be convinced by others that Mr Diefenbaker couldn't win the next election, or that the party couldn't win the next election with Mr Diefenbaker as leader. He finally came to that conclusion, but I think he was under the influence of some others because I used to talk to Wally in those days and he would tell me the very opposite story. He would say, 'Who are you going to get? Who else?' Then there was talk that possibly George Nowlan would. Well, George Nowlan didn't want it. There is no sense asking me about that period because it was a completely muddled thing. All you have to do is see Mr Die-

44 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

fenbaker today to know what a mistake it was. It had to be a mistake, because there is nothing sillier than people in a party to turn against the leader of the party. I think they were all crazy, they were out of their minds. There is no way of accm,nting for disloyalty. I used to say to them when I was talking to them, 'What is the matter with you? You hadn't a hope in the world of ever being anything but a backbencher in opposition all your life, but because of Mr Diefenbaker you are a cabinet minister, and now you want to be prime minister.' That was the real problem, they all wanted to be prime minister. GORDON CHURCHILL

The impression held by Mr McCutcheon was that it would be advisable for Mr Diefenbaker to withdraw, to resign. He went so far as to say that anybody could become leader of the Conservative party at that stage and be successful. I scoffed at that, but that was his impression - that the Conservative party was strong enough that with a change of leader it would still be successful. He made that statement at an informal meeting in Mr Halpenny's office. I think the people present were Mr Halpenny, Senator McCutcheon, George Nowlan, George Muir from Manitoba, and myself. Their offices were near mine. I used to drop in to see them now and again, just for a friendly chat, not to spy upon them or to participate in any conspiracy. There were frequent meetings of that nature because of the disturbed situation within the party. I was friendly with these chaps, and it was at one of those informal meetings there had been a suggestion that the Chief might be contemplating withdrawing and that was when Mr McCutcheon made that statement which I thought was ridiculous, and an example of political lack of knowledge. You just can't operate a political party that way. But Senator McCutcheon, who was a very able man - I liked him very very much indeed - had not much political experience. There is a world of difference between experience in financial circles and in the House of Commons. At that time, Dalton Camp was in and out of Ottawa, acting as an unpaid, part-time, successor to Allister Grosart who had gone to the Senate. Camp did not become national director but developed his own title for the temporary job he was doing; he called himself chairman of the National Organizing Committee. He visited the Parliament Buildings regularly to keep in close touch with the Conservative caucus, and it was while there that he became aware of the clandestine meetings and the conspiracy.

Clandestine meetings 45 DALTON CAMP

I spent a lot of time with George Nowlan, and my instinct told me that I should spend a lot of time with him if I wanted to know what was going on. One night, perhaps ten o'clock at night, I went in to George's office (he was the minister of finance at the time), and he was sitting in this big office in the Centre Block. All the lights were off except for the lamp over his desk. It looked eerie. I went in there in almost total darkness and sat down in a chair across from his desk. He was agitated. He said, 'There's a meeting going on, and I'm not going to go.' I said, 'What's the meeting about.' He said, 'It's Fulton and these fellows, the damned fools. They're in a plot.' Then the phone rang. George said, 'No, no, no.' There was a knock on the door. I opened the door. Into the darkness, limping on a cane, came Pierre Sevigny. Black, all-black suit. I stood behind the door, and when he came in he saw George, and when he got past me I closed the door. He turned around - it startled him. He limped over and sat down and said, 'George, you've got to come down. Come on, George.' George said, 'No, I'm not going to go down.' The meeting was in an office on the ground floor near the door on the west side. Sevigny left, and Nowlan said, 'Well, I think I'll go home.' I said, 'It's a hell of a good idea, George. Let's go.' I was going to see him out. We walked down the stairs, and he said, 'I think I'd better drop in here a minute.' I said to him, 'George, it's a mistake.' 'Well,' he said, 'I think it's all right just to drop in, say hello.' So he went in to the meeting. DAVIE FULTON

There were, on the basis of the spoken word, some opportunities to accept Mr Diefenbaker's resignation. But the ministers who were at those meetings, and I think they were not formal cabinet meetings, didn't want to accept his resignation. They wanted him to stay and they said so. One of the reasons we did not want Diefenbaker's resignation - and this is why to some extent it is not accurate to say there was a conspiracy; there was certainly great concern, I am not denying that, and there were moves discussed - was that there was no apparent heir to Mr Diefenbaker. Had there been a person in cabinet around whom it was obvious that the antiDiefenbaker forces would coalesce, it might have been a very different picture. There was no such person. No one, certainly at that time, attempted to put himself in the position of the successor. There were a great many discussions, not conspiratorial discussions, when we were discussing the impasse, when someone probably said: 'Who

46 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

is going to take over?' George Nowlan's name was mentioned as a person without apparent ambitions who would perhaps therefore be an acceptable interim prime minister. FRANK MCGEE

I'm embarrassed to say that, when the rumours first developed, I really didn't take them very seriously, in spite of the fact that I was living in Grattan O'Leary's house and of course Grattan was up to his eyeballs in that thing, with McCutcheon consulting him night and day. When it finally broke I was having lunch. My secretary called to say that my wife had phoned from Toronto and the papers and radio and television were full of this great conspiracy story. It was as much of a surprise to me as to a lot of other people. Prime Minister Diefenbaker never seemed to get over the shock of the 1962 election results; he was 'very disturbed,' to quote his good friend, Gordon Churchill, and his repeated threats of resignation undoubtedly abetted the so-called conspiracy. Even his most loyal supporters admitted this; they were to band themselves together as a counter-revolutionary group and hold clandestine meetings of their own. GORDON CHURCHILL

Whenever he mentioned that resignation to me, my response to him was, 'Stand fast.' That's that famous telegram at the time of the CPR troubles when they were attempting to make the final financial arrangement to complete the CPR, and the two leading men exchanged that telegram 'Stand fast' at Craigellachie. That became a motto between Mr Diefenbaker and myself from the summer of 1962 on. I pointed it out to him in Creighton's book on John A. Macdonald and I said, 'That's what you do - stand fast.' When he would mention dropping out I would say 'No,' because I didn't see any successor of his calibre. But other people thought that maybe he was being serious about this. Hence they began to wonder who should succeed him. At one of these little informal meetings, McCutcheon said, 'Well, would you like to be a prime minister, you know, the successor to Mr Diefenbaker.' I said, 'No, that's not my role in life and I don't think Mr Diefenbaker should resign. If he does resign, we will see what happens.' When I realized fully what was going on, I conducted in my office a counter-revolutionary committee which escaped the attention of the beagles of the Press Gallery. Those who attended were all strong supporters of Mr Diefenbaker - chaps like Angus McLean, and Monteith, and Dinsdale, and

Clandestine meetings 47

John Pallett, and people like that, and Alvin Hamilton, other fellows from western Canada and some from the Maritimes. This was a counter-revolutionary committee and we met very frequently to discuss the situation. We kept informed as to other things that were going on in the building with regard to these other chaps who were making their plot. So far as I know our meetings were not known to other people and no member of the press, to my utter astonishment, ever exercised surveillance over my office at that time, but they were watching George Hees's office and Davie Fulton's and others, and watching who went in and who went out. They never twigged that there was an operation going on in my office.

4

The plot that failed

When Parliament returned on 21 January 1963 after the Christmas recess, the Diefenbaker government was still wrestling with the issue of nuclear warheads and had come to no decision. There was an air of desperation about the meetings in the offices of ministers and Conservative members. What could he done? The prime minister was remote and inaccessible and seemed to be doing nothing to save the party from inevitable defeat in the House of Commons. Out of these discussions and cocktail grumblings grew a plot to force the leader to resign by the mass resignation of between six and ten ministers. 1t was a simple plot - the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada was vacant and could be offered to the prime minister hut it didn't work. The reason the conspiracy was such a 'damn bad one,' in the words of Davie Fulton, was that it was in the hands of political greenhorns such as Senator Wallace McCutcheon and Robert Thompson . The first phase had consisted of clandestine meetings and discussions in parliamentary offices during the fall and winter; the second phase of plotting and planning took only a few days and came to a head during the weekend of 2-3 February. On 5 February the government was defeated in the House. HOW ARD GREEN

The main thing that destroyed the government was a rebellion within the party in an attempt to overthrow Mr Diefenbaker. To quite a large degree, the nuclear issue was simply used as a peg. The really serious part of tlie situation was the rebellion - a very foolish, suicidal rebellion. The nuclear arms issue was a bit difficult and controversial, but we had had other issues

Caouette and Thompson during 1963 government crisis

50 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

throughout our term in the government. At the time, we were a minority government and not in a position to withstand any break in the ranks which was almost bound to be fatal. The rebels took this opportunity to seize on this [nuclear] issue to reach their objective, which was to get rid of Mr Diefenbaker. I am not including Mr Harkness in that because he wasn't a rebel. Harkness was very worried about what was going on in the cabinet. In fact, he came to me and said, 'Howard, we've got to do something about it. Some of these fellows are trying to destroy Diefenbaker.' The leader of the rebellion was George Hees, who was the heir apparent. He would certainly have been the chosen leader at that time if anything had happened to Mr Diefenbaker. One of the first actions the cabinet took after Parliament met was the formation of a committee of senior ministers to hammer out a policy on the nuclear arms issue. It was a last-minute attempt at unity and was instigated by Donald Fleming, who belonged to what he called the overwhelming majority in the cabinet - those who believed that the government was committed to provide these weapons. DONALD FLEMING

After a cabinet meeting on Monday [21 January], and after talking to some of my colleagues at lunch that day when we agreed that we were drifting straight into a crisis - Doug Harkness was very unhappy and made it quite clear he couldn't accept any policy except one of carrying through with the provision of those nuclear weapons - I called the prime minister on the telephone. I think that I kept closer in touch with him than probably any other minister did, or perhaps I should put it the other way, he kept in closer touch with me than perhaps any other minister. I said to him, 'This is outside my present field, but I am alarmed. I think we are drifting straight into a crisis. The cabinet is about to fall apart. If you will allow me, and if you will agree not to discuss this subject in the cabinet any more, I will get together the contenders and see if I can't bring about an accommodation, a consensus, to save the government.' He said, 'Go to it.' I called Harkness and Green in and I also asked Gordon Churchill because of his close relationship to the prime minister. That group of four people met in my office. We had ten meetings in two days without the press ever becoming aware. At the end of the two days I had an agreement. I wrote it out in longhand. I have that paper today. No one will ever see it unless I some day write my memoirs, but I still have the paper - it is one small sheet

The plot that failed 51

of paper in which I wrote out the terms we had agreed upon and I had everyone initial it. I went to the prime minister with my report. It had not been easy for these colleagues of mine - they are men of strong views and honest opinions - to make the concessions that are necessary to reach common ground. I had the highest admiration for them for the position they took. The prime minister was impossible. He just wouldn't have anything to do with these terms, and he put on a demonstration of impatience and anger. I came out of that meeting, and Harkness was there with me, feeling that I had done everything possible and nothing more could be done. During those last critical days of the Conservative government, J. Waldo Monteith, kept a diary for the first and only time in his life. The diary began when Parliament returned from the Christmas recess. J • WA L D O MO N T E I T H (diary) January 23 and 24. Business as usual, except external affairs estimates on 24th, and cabinet worried about PM's speech. Churchill, Green, Fleming, and Harkness, committee to hammer out policy on nuclear arms. Doug had said he would resign if not okay. January 25. PM finally gave speech. Met Doug afterwards behind curtain, and Doug said 'thank you very much' and shook hands with Dief. Doug talked to Don Fleming in lobby after, and walked out of lobby with me. Said he was more than happy, and could live very well with it.

DONALD FLEMING

The prime minister was making a speech on Friday afternoon and in the end, although he didn't take my program, I think there were five points to it, four or five,- in the way I had [outlined it], he inserted them in his speech in different places. It was one of those speeches that left some people thinking he was going one way and some another. The things that I put in this agreement were all in the speech, but they weren't in a very clear or a coherent way. When we came out of the House that day [25 January], I hoped that Diefenbaker had satisfied Harkness and we could be a united family again. Harkness was satisfied. We exchanged congratulations, the three of us [Harkness, Diefenbaker, and myself] out in the lobby and parted with, on my part, an enormous sigh of relief. J . WALDO MONTEITH (diary) January 28 and 29. Doug issued his own press release explaining PM's speech, and of course, this just isn't done. Apparently the army got after Doug. Fran [Harkness] upset. Kept Doug up most of one night. Acted early

52 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

Monday AM [28 January] without telling PM, on the press release. on what he had said. Situation becoming very strained.

PM

stood

DONALD FLEMING

Over the weekend Doug Harkness had second thoughts, and he called me first thing on Monday morning [28 January] to tell me that he had given a statement to the press interpreting the prime minister's speech. I said to him, 'Doug, have you discussed this first with the prime minister?' He said, 'No, I haven't spoken to him.' 'Well,' I said, 'I am sorry Doug that you did not speak to him before you did this.' I felt that Doug had taken a fatal step and I said, 'I urge you to speak to the prime minister now even at this late moment.' He did so and the events of that week can be traced in the House - a great embarrassment to the government as the result of the public statement that Doug Harkness had issued, and by the end of the week Doug's position had become very grave, almost untenable. What made Douglas Harkness change his mind and issue that explanation? Some of his cabinet colleagues maintained that the service chiefs in the Defence Department had got to him over the weekend - they had a direct pipeline to the Pentagon - and warned him of American reaction. As well, the press had interpreted Mr Diefenbaker's statement in the House as a rejection of nuclear weapons. The defence minister's doubts and suspicions were aroused. His worst fears were confirmed by the vs State Department's press release which was issued later in the week. J • WA L D O M O N T E I T H (diary) January 30. Harkness, Hees, and [Denis] Coolican's party at Country Club for Fulton [who was leaving the government to seek the leadership of the British Columbia Conservative party]. Word arrived re us State Department release at 6: 15 PM in both Washington and Ottawa. It's a shocker.

The State Department release said that there had been inconclusive discussions on nuclear warheads and the Canadian government was not contributing effectively to North American defence. It denied the Diefenbaker argument that acquisition of nuclear weapons would increase the 'nuclear club.' The release was described as an unwarranted interference in Canadian affairs and was widely interpreted as an American move to destroy the Diefenbaker government. J . WA L D O M O N T E I T H (diary) February 1. With the Harknesses to a party at Eric Morse's house. A wine and cheese and dance party. All seems serene.

The plot that failed 53 ROBERT THOMPSON

The thing came to a head, as far as I was concerned, when our house leader, who at that time was Bert Leboe, and George Nowlan got together for a long session on their own, trying to find out whether or not there wasn't some basis for agreement and some hope of the Conservative cabinet crisis being settled. It was on the Friday [1 February] before the fall of the government that Bert Leboe and George Nowlan and several others met in NowIan's office and made an agreement, after having consulted me. The general discussion meetings had no results because obviously the people at them were no more able to communicate with Mr Diefenbaker than I was. So we decided to deal directly with the George Rees-Senator McCutcheon faction which was involved with the change of leadership and the demand that Mr Diefenbaker had to go, and to talk with George Nowlan. B.T. RICHARDSON

I remember Olive, Mrs Diefenbaker, coming into my office one day and saying, in a distraught way, 'Oh Burt, what is going on around here?' I said, 'A lot of people would give a lot to know, Olive. What do you refer to?' She said, 'There is some kind of meeting going on somewhere.' I said, 'Yes, that is supposed to be the rebels, they are meeting up in so and so's.' I knew they were in Wally McCutcheon's office. ROBERT THOMPSON

Just before the crisis, when the minister of defence, Mr Harkness, resigned, Mr Mccutcheon was ready to give an ultimatum to Mr Diefenbaker, that if this and this and this were not done, there was going to be a revolt. As always, the senator needed to be fortified. I was not the type that imbibed; I never touched this at all. But I fully expected on the night that Mr Harkness resigned that there was going to be an announcement of a formal revolt to the press. There was a little box in Mr McCutcheon's office in which he always kept the containers of the fortifying substance. I sat on the box so he couldn't get to them because we knew we were just in the final stages of something breaking up. However, I couldn't get any satisfaction - there just didn't seem to be the will to go in and knock on the door and say 'this is it,' as far as presenting the thing to Mr Diefenbaker was concerned. So I gave up any hope of there being a real formal revolt within the cabinet. R.A. BELL

Saturday morning, the prime minister had blown up again and he walked out of the Privy Council Office in one of his unbelievable displays of hysterical temperament. The rest of the ministers there were pretty upset about the whole situation since we were facing the crisis of a supply vote on the

54 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

Monday. It was decided, under Howard Green's chairmanship, after the prime minister had walked out, that the ministers should meet that afternoon in the Privy Council Chamber, and they did. I was not present. I was attending to constituency duties. I had invited 400 women to tea at my house that afternoon. Since I was a widower I had to be there myself. I felt I did anyhow. So I did not attend the meeting of ministers that took place that afternoon. My recollection is that the meeting of ministers held that afternoon appointed a committee of three to wait upon the prime minister. The three were Green, Churchill, and McCutcheon, and their instructions were to say to him that they were prepared to follow him through anything, and the whole cabinet was unanimously of that view, but that he would have to pull up his socks, stop emoting, and develop a consistent plan of action for the future. There had to be an end to these hysterical scenes which were upsetting his colleagues so much. I believe they went and they saw the prime minister and they took that message to him. So that as late as the Saturday afternoon before this incident [Harkness's resignation), there was complete unanimity in the cabinet that Diefenbaker must stay. The Press Gallery Dinner that year was held earlier than usual, on Saturday, 2 February, because of the fear that the government would be defeated and Parliament dissolved. There were no speeches; the reason given by Mr Diefenbaker was the death that day of the chief justice, Patrick Kerwin . J. WALDO MONTEITH (diary) February 2. Press Gallery dinner. Wine flowed. People talked. Story of four ready to resign reached PM. Davie's office with piano afterwards. Gordon Dewar said I took physical exception to words against PM. Don't remember but he gave me in confidence it was so. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

Diefenbaker became more cranky and petulant throughout that period and megalomania or his vanity or something finally became involved. One of the most revealing things it seemed to me was that Olive was getting hold of my wife quite regularly during this period and said to her on more than one occasion, 'You know that John just can't allow Doug to get away with anything like this.' These aren't the exact words but this was the general tenor, and 'If Doug defies him or gets his way over this matter, then John will have lost control of the cabinet and he just can't have that.' There is no doubt at all in my mind that a majority of the members of

The plot that failed 55

the cabinet supported my position on nuclear warheads and were anxious to have the question settled - the great majority of the members of the cabinet. ALVIN HAMILTON

Doug Harkness was the guest of Charles Lynch that night, at the Press Gallery dinner. Charles had written a piece in the Southam press to the effect that Doug Harkness had sold his integrity for a mess of pottage, $27,500, the price of the salary of a cabinet minister. If there is anything that Doug prides himself on, it is his integrity. I was sitting at the next table and I could hear this discussion because Doug's voice cuts through the smoke and din like a knife. He was really going after Charles, saying that that was a dirty thing to do and that he hadn't given up one inch of his principles. Charles was putting up a fight too. I knew from other sources that Doug had been under very heavy pressure. His son was a real right-winger, a Barry Goldwater type, and was telling his mother and his father that if his old man didn't stand up and join with the Americans in fighting communists all over the world, he would publicly repudiate him as a parent. He got lectured all day long by the cabinet, because the cabinet was not with Doug Harkness on that Bomarc issue. Four or five of the fellows were, but the great bulk of the cabinet didn't like it. It wasn't a question of being pro-Diefenbaker or anti-Diefenbaker. We didn't like the idea of American troops coming in here and having no responsibility to meet Canadian law. We would be the only nation in the world with foreign troops on our soil not under our jurisdiction. On Sunday afternoon, 3 February, the cabinet ministers met informally at 24 Sussex to discuss the Liberal non-confidence motion which was to be debated the next day. The meeting began quietly. J . W A L D O M O N T E IT H (diary) February 3. Meeting at PM's in afternoon to discuss position on Monday's motion [of non-confidence]. PM and Green thought we should dissolve. Majority thought we should wait for vote and be beaten. Hees called on first and spoke against defence policy, and using any anti-American approach. Some others agreed. No anti-Americanism. Harkness said, 'people of the nation, party, cabinet, and he have lost confidence in the prime minister.' All hell broke loose. PM asked standing vote of confidence. Some, saying misunderstood issue, did not stand. PM left the room, said he was going to governor general. Churchill, Green, and Montieth convinced him to wait.

56 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

had said 'tum over to Don Fleming.' Hees got the idea of quitting then. Seemed to me we'd completely fallen apart and we were going to hand over government to the Liberals. Reconvened under Howard Green, while the condemned man, PM, ate a hearty lunch. It was felt Doug should leave. He did, in sorrowful way. Alvin Hamilton said Doug had never been any good in Agriculture anyhow. Alvin was sorry later and tried to soften it. PM returned. Seemed united again without Doug. Doug had expected others to resign at the same time. Hees, McCutcheon, Halpenny, maybe Balcer, Sevigny. Drove Davie home. Joined by-Hees for drink. He seemed okay. Joined Pat [Fulton] and Mary [Monteith] at our place. Fultons then went to Hees's for dinner. Davie and George to PM's again.

PM

R.A . BELL

The blow up was worse than any that transpired before or since. It arose when Harkness, in the coldest terms, said, 'Prime Minister, it is time you went. The Canadian people demand that you go.' ELLEN FAIRCLOUGH

Harkness told him that he had lost the confidence of the country and of his colleagues. Of course, when everybody else in the room was accused also by Harkness in so many words of having no confidence in their leader, that's when the great uproar started. ALVIN HAMILTON

He went on to make some remarks about Diefenbaker that were personal that he had never trusted Diefenbaker, that Diefenbaker was a liar, that Diefenbaker was this and that and the other thing. It was the speech of a man whose bitterness finally flowed over. All his discretion just disappeared. That was enough for me. I just asked him where his integrity was. I said that I knew a son of a bitch when I saw one and there was only one place for sons of bitches to go and that was out. Either I was walking out or he was getting out. Most of the fellows supported me. In fact he had no friends left in there when I had finished. So I just walked out. I said, 'I am getting my coat and getting out of here, this nest of sons of bitches.' They brought me back, promising that they would throw Doug out. He never had a chance to resign. He was flung out. But we said, in tribute for the hard work he had done for the party as the minister in two portfolios, Agriculture and Defence, as well as Resources for a couple of months, we should get Howard Green to say a word of thanks and then we should throw him out. This thing lasted about twenty minutes.

The plot that failed 57

I started it and I wound it up. I said, 'Look, I have had my say but he still deserves the thanks of this party for what he has done.' They all agreed that what Doug said was unforgivable, even Davie Fulton, his closest friend. We asked Davie Fulton if he would help Harkness write his resignation to Diefenbaker in such a way that would not mention anything about this fight, just simply say that he had gone back to his old issue. Let him resign with his honour intact. But he was a man who broke under pressure. He had lost all rational behaviour, because if he was a man of integrity and if he knew that Diefenbaker was a liar and had been a liar all his life - that is the type of language that he used - that he never had trusted him, my question to him was, then why did you take an oath to join him in the cabinet. DOUGLAS HARKNESS

I suppose in a way maybe I may have triggered it because I told Diefenbaker that in my opinion he had lost the confidence of the majority. Publicly, at least before perhaps the majority of the members of the cabinet, not at a regular cabinet meeting at all, I had said that in my opinion he had lost the confidence of the majority of the members of the party and of the majority of the Canadian people and that for the welfare of the party he should resign. But I said this to him openly. His reply to that was what you might call complete repudiation of such an idea, anger and what not. After the Harkness outburst, Prime Minister Diefenbaker jumped to his feet, banged on the table, and demanded that those who were with him stand up and be counted. ELLEN FAIRCLOUGH

Nobody knew what they were being asked to do. There had been such confusion, you didn't know if you stood up you were saying, yes, you were for the leader, or if you stood up, you said, no, I am on the side of the dissidents. It was very confusing. Mr Diefenbaker announced that he was leaving the dining room, that he was going to the governor general and would nominate Donald Fleming as his successor. J . WALDO MONTEITH

Now I do recall a general feeling of at least the majority - Oh, for God's sake, don't do that! - to Dief when he made this statement about going to Government House. 'Don't resign!' But I wouldn't like to say that I recall anybody forthrightly coming out and saying, 'I'm against Don Fleming,'

58 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

except maybe Alvin Hamilton did. I know he started in to give Don quite a piece of his mind, and Howard Green cut him off, because Alvin was saying unnecessary things at that stage when the thing was complete. But I don't recall personally anybody else saying that they wouldn't serve under Fleming. I remember general discontent at the thought of Dief resigning. I recall Dief going to his little den. Howard Green and Churchill and I followed. So did Davie Fulton. At this stage, Davie was somewhat committed to going to British Columbia, and I recall very distinctly - and there were only a very limited number there: Gordon Churchill, Howard Green, Dief, myself, and Davie - and I recall Dief looking at Davie and saying 'Davie, won't you change your mind and stay with us?' Davie turned to him and said, 'Only if you make me prime minister.' The pro-Diefenbaker cabinet ministers quickly came to dominate the meeting, and, as Ellen Fairclough recalled, there was little support for Harkness. ELLEN FAIRCLOUGH

There was a lot of murmuring and shifting around and I would think that some people were secretly hoping that they could reach a point where they could force Diefenbaker out, but I can't recall that anyone other than Doug was very outspoken. The leaders of the pro-Diefenbaker group were probably Gordon Churchill, and certainly Howard Green who just simply stood up and said, 'I will have none of this kind of nonsense and if Dief goes, we go.' That was it. It was just like that. While all the tumult and the shouting went on in the dining room of 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister sat placidly (Ellen Fairclough's description) in the drawing room having a snack. The uproar that Sunday seemed to have burst the bubble of conspiracy, although the plotting was to go on. Certainly, Douglas Harkness expected other ministers to quit when he did. Years later, he was quoted as saying that they didn't do so because they were frightened of Diefenbaker. Although Harkness did not attend any of the clandestine meetings, he was kept informed about what was going on and he knew about the plan for mass resignations from the cabinet. DONALD FLEMING

Mr Diefenbaker called me that afternoon, asked me to come back, and I spent a good deal of the afternoon and half of the evening at 24 Sussex with Mr Diefenbaker, Mr Green, and Gordon Churchill. The upshot of it was that Mr Diefenbaker was still of a mind to resign and to follow the course as far as I was concerned that he had indicated. Indeed for the next three days, right up until the Tuesday afternoon when we were literally within

The plot that failed 59

minutes of being defeated in the House, he kept saying to me, 'You and I are going across the road to Government House today to see the governor general'; and also, 'Before this day is out you are going to be prime minister.' This went on as I say for three days. I never did anything to encourage Mr Diefenbaker to pursue that course. On the contrary, I felt that my highest duty at that critical moment was to be completely loyal to him. The divisions in the cabinet were plain enough. Two ministers had gone to Mr Diefenbaker on the Sunday night and had urged him not to appoint me. I think there were some personal ambitions involved. Whether he would have followed that course if I had said to him, 'Let's go and see the governor general. I am ready to take on this responsibility,' I don't know. All I can say is that in that crisis I never did anything to depart from the role of a loyal follower. I subtracted nothing from the duty of loyalty that I felt I owed to him in that very trying time. I did my best to hold the cabinet together. Although no other ministers resigned with Harkness at the Sunday meeting, the cabinet was still torn by dissension the day before the government had to face a Liberal non-confidence motion in the House. Some Conservatives tried to retain the wavering support of the thirty Social Credit members. George Nowlan met with Robert Thompson to try to reach an agreement on continued cooperation. ROBERT THOMPSON

We came down to four points that I thought I could sell my caucus and he thought he could sell his caucus. Mr Diefenbaker wasn't going to caucus at that time. Basically, it was simply this: ( 1) That there had to be a statement of defence policy - Mr Harkness having gone, we wanted a clarifying statement, but we didn't attempt to say what that statement should be. (2) That the estimates should be completed within ten days, and that the government house leader should ask for cooperation from the opposition house leaders for this, and it was generally agreed this would be forthcoming. (3) That by the end of February there would be a new budget, because we hadn't had a budget for that current year at all. ( 4) That there would be a formal statement from the government on those bills that they wanted - a statement that gave priority to those bills - so that we would know what we were doing. We were actually coming into sessions following question periods when we didn't know, and couldn't find out, what bills were going to be debated or what was on the order paper for that day. It was our agreement that on Monday morning [4 February] we would

60 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost meet our respective caucuses to see if we could get agreement. I went into a meeting with our caucus at 10 o'clock and some time after noon had agreement on that statement. Mr Nowlan had gone into caucus and had done the same thing. So I came back to my office, and we typed this out in a formal press release and gave it to the press. There had been no great problem in reaching agreement on the four points. But how to get it into Prime Minister Diefenbaker's hands? Thompson and Nowlan decided to call Brigadier Michael Wardell, the publisher of the Fredericton Gleaner. ROBERT THOMPSON

I happened to know Wardell a bit, and Mr Diefenbaker and Mr Wardell were very close friends. We thought that he would be the logical person to act as a go-between because we were shaping up to the crisis. We knew that. So I phoned him and he agreed to come up. I went out to the plane - he came up on a special DOT plane that Sunday evening - and met him, brought him downtown, and explained the situation. He was waiting in the office at about 12:30, 12:45 the next day [4 February] while the staff were typing out this statement that we gave to the press but also gave to Brigadier Wardell to carry to Mr Diefenbaker. If he could get an agreement on this - these were his instructions - if he could get a commitment from Mr Diefenbaker, not even in writing, but a verbal agreement that he would accept this, then we would vote against the Liberal amendment. Wardell was very very optimistic that he could get an answer. So was George Nowlan. George had cleared it with his own caucus. He'd talked to men like Gordon Churchill. When we went into the House, there was no reply. After the question period, we asked about a reply. There was no reply. All afternoon, I was back and forth in touch with Mr Wardell, with George Nowlan, 'What's the answer?' Mr Diefenbaker was incommunicado, and George Nowlan couldn't communicate with him, and neither could Mike Wardell. My tum was coming to speak. At twenty to six, I got up to speak. I didn't want an election, no_r did I want Mr Diefenbaker to be defeated. But we had reached an impasse where we just couldn't cooperate and couldn't get through on this thing. For twenty minutes before six o'clock I outlined reason after reason why the country shouldn't go into an election, that it was wrong. At six o'clock, I checked with Mr Wardell - I had the caucus standing by for an emergency meeting. There was no answer. At seven o'clock we gave up and went into caucus. We had given our ultimatum: if we can't get agreement on this, there's no point in carrying on.

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Mr Caouette wasn't there. He had a meeting in Montreal or something and wasn't with us. But I had to get agreement of the caucus that we would go forward with an amendment to the [Liberal] non-confidence motion. We argued over this thing for a whole hour, because we knew it would mean an election. If Mr Caouette had been there to influence the Quebec members, it might have been different, because he wanted an election less than I did. But we had a unanimous decision after discussing it with everybody who was present at the caucus meeting, and I had instructions just before eight o'clock - I didn't even have time to have anything to eat - to go back and move the amendment to the non-confidence motion. J . W A L DO M O N T E I T H (diary) February 4. Doug [Harkness] made statement on resignation. PM tabled acceptance. Weak want-of-confidence by Pearson. Amendment by Social Credit. Thompson to dinner hour appeared with us, and then after dinner, against. Good speech by Churchill showing obstruction.

The Social Credit amendment to the Liberal non-confidence motion was phrased so that the Liberals and NDP could support i-t . It seemed inevitable that the government would fall the next day . J . W A L D O M O N T E I T H (diary) February 5. 8:30 AM, Hees alone to PM at 24 Sussex. Told him he should resign in Hees's favour and Diefenbaker could have chief justiceship. Nowlan as leader only few months, then Hees - this was Hees's suggestion to Dief. Then secret meetings in Hees's office, which press got wind of. All sorts of fiction rampant. I went to see Bell and Churchill. Innumerable private members greatly disturbed.

PAUL MARTINEAU

George Hees called me and said, 'We're having a little meeting at my office. Would you come down?' His was the first office on the right as you entered the Parliament Buildings by the west door. I was just down the corridor. I said, 'Okay, I'll slip down and see you.' At that meeting, there were a number of my colleagues. I recall Dick Bell being there, Hugh Joho Flemming, of course George Hees, Mccutcheon. Either Balcer or Sevigny was there - I'm not sure which one. This was the most over-rated meeting, as far as the media were concerned, because really nothing took place, to my knowledge anyway. The only thing that was said was that Robert Thompson had approached some of them - I don't know if it was George Hees - and had suggested that he

62 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

would support the Conservative administration provided Diefenbaker were replaced as prime minister. George Nowlan was to become the caretaker prime minister for the time being anyway, until a new leader could be elected or selected. But there was no decision taken of any sort at all. Davie Fulton was another one at that meeting. I forgot him. He was very active in proposing different things, but the consensus was that there was very little that could be done, unless Mr Diefenbaker wished to desist himself from his position, which, personally, I thought he would not do. He certainly wouldn't go willingly, and there was no talk at all that he should be forced to resign. It was a very informal meeting. There was no chairman, and people came in and out. They grouped - two or three talking in one comer and maybe two or three in another. I remember Dick Bell telling me, 'I'm down here - I don't know what I'm doing here. I wasn't told about this.' He apparently was annoyed being there, and Hugh John Flemming spoke in a similar way. It was a very disorganized thing. I didn't even know the purpose of the meeting. When we left the meeting, nothing had been settled. R . A . BELL

Early on Tuesday morning [5 February], I had a call from George Rees, who said, 'Dick, would you come on over to the office. We are having a little meeting to see what we can do to salvage the government. I would like you here particularly because I think you know David Lewis better than any of us and we would like to see what you could do to work on Davis Lewis.' So I immediately went to Hees's office and found present, Nowlan, McCutcheon, Martineau, Hugh John Flemming, Halpenny, and Balcer. We were told that we would be joined as soon as they were able by Donald Fleming and Davie Fulton. We discussed first who knew whom, and who could get into the opposition camp, the NDP , and I was to immediately get in touch with David Lewis. Could David Lewis suddenly trip and not be able to come to the House that night or see whether he would keep us in office. It was then disclosed to us that there had been - and this came to me at that stage as a complete surprise - meetings with Bob Thompson, and that he had indicated on the night before that he would be prepared to support a caretaker administration headed by George Nowlan. This was discussed exceedingly briefly, it was certainly not agreed upon by all the people there. You can imagine it would not have been agreed upon by Hugh John Flemming, who was Diefenbaker's mover or seconder at the fifth convention and had been his close friend in every particular.

The plot that failed 63

While the meeting was in progress, and before anything had been discussed in anything more than the most informal way, we heard a newscast in which it was reported that a group of ministers were in George Hees's office engaged in a conspiracy. At the time the newscast came on the ministers had said almost nothing. Who the villainous character was who proceeded to try to make this appear at that stage as a sinister operation when we were simply trying to find techniques of preserving the government, I don't know; but I have my suspicions. Someone used the presence of the ministers as a defence mechanism and started the controversy. After we had heard this allegation of the situation, there was some discussion and we said we would go our ways and see who we could meet amongst the opposition people. If there was anything useful to report from the discussions which George Nowlan had with Bob Thompson we would come back together. By the time we left George Hees's office, the corridor was filled with Press Gallery people. We were running the gauntlet and the story was out that this had been the grand conspiracy. The grand conspiracy as such was created by someone for his own purpose, and, as I say, I am unable to prove who did it. I deny completely having been at any time involved in any discussion of the dislodgement of the prime minister in anything more than what was really an academic discussion. These were Bob Thompson's terms: Nowlan as caretaker prime minister. The only person who walked out early from that meeting was Nowlan, and it was not Hugh John Flemming. HUGH JOHN FLEMMING

I went in to George Hees's room and they were talking about resignations. When it came my chance to talk I said, 'Look, I have no intention of resigning. Not the slightest. Except that should the relationship between Canada and the United States be made an issue, then I don't think that I could face that in an election because my constituency is I 00 miles along the state of Maine border. Half the people in New Brunswick went over there, and a lot of their families got married and intermarried and intermingled. I just couldn't face that kind of an issue. But apart from that I see no reason to do any resigning, and I guess that's all I have to say.' I walked out, and I remember very well that Paul Martineau walked out at the same time. He said, 'Them's my sentiments,' and we walked out. But that's the only time I attended a meeting. As the preceding excerpts indicate, the participants had different impressions of what happened at the meeting in Hees's office. There was the question of whether it was a conspiracy, as the radio claimed, to force Prime Minister Diefenbaker out of office by mass resignations and to replace him with a person acceptable to Robert Thompson and the Social Crediters. Certainly,

64 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost this seemed to have been the purpose of the meeting, judging from the approaches made to Tommy Douglas and Real Caouette. T.C. DOUGLAS

On the morning that vote was to be taken I got a call from one of Mr Diefenbaker's ministers, Wally McCutcheon, to whom Mr Diefenbaker had been very kind. He said, 'I want to talk to you. Can I come to see you?' I said, 'What's it about?' He said, 'It's about the vote tonight.' I said, 'There is no use talking about the vote tonight. You haven't produced a budget, eighteen months have gone by, complete chaos, the government's disintegrating, three ministers issuing public statements in contradiction of each other, openly quarrelling about Bomarc missiles.' 'Well,' he said, 'if you see us through this vote I will promise you that in forty-eight hours Diefenbaker will be out. He is going to be chief justice. We will have him out of there in forty-eight hours.' I said, 'We are not interested in getting rid of Mr Diefenbaker, least of all to get rid of Mr Diefenbaker to replace him by you and some of your friends in Toronto, and we are not voting against Diefenbaker. We are voting against the fact that the government has not been able to govern, and the country is in such a chaotic condition in our opinion, and the financial affairs of the country have been so neglected that it is time we went to the people.' I related that because I think it shows two things. It shows the terrific divergencies there were within the cabinet. Also it shows the ruthlessness and the ingratitude inside the political system. Then McCutcheon approached Andrew Brewin, one of our Toronto members. Andy felt the same way as I did. Andy said, 'You know, there is no sense in this, but I thought I should come and ask you because McCutcheon phoned me. He wanted to see me.' But the sheer ruthlessness of it! McCutcheon had been brought into the cabinet by Diefenbaker. Decisions made by the cabinet had been made collectively. If they hadn't been made collectively and the prime minister had made decisions on his own then the ministers had a right to resign, but to be forming a cabal and going to other members and asking for support on the promise to get rid of Diefenbaker seemed to me to have got politics down to a pretty low level. REAL CAOUETTE

One of his people said to me, 'Keep us in power and tomorrow morning at ten o'clock we'll give you Diefenbaker's head on a silver plate.' I won't name the guy but he came to me just like that in this House of Commons

The plot that failed 65

office here. It was not Senator McCutcheon but another member of the Diefenbaker cabinet. I said, 'Thank you sir, I don't need that head tomorrow morning.' It was a damn shame for those people to act that way behind Diefenbaker's back. They had his confidence. He named them ministers. They would never have been ministers without Diefenbaker, because without him they would not have won the election in Canada. ALVIN HAMILTON

I went down the hall to see Gordon Churchill and I said, 'Do you know anything about this meeting they're talking about on the radio?' 'Yes,' he said, 'One minister came up here and gave me a list of all the people who were in attendance.' 'Let me see the list.' There were about fifteen on the list. I said, 'The list isn't accurate because Nowlan is not there.' Nowlan was over seeing the Bank of Canada about the forms for the governor general's warrants that you have to get ready in case you are defeated. He had consulted with me that morning about the amount of money that I would need for my department. Then Donald Fleming was going to the funeral of the chief justice who had died and I saw him in striped pants and top hat and talked to him about it, so I knew that he wasn't there. Both their names were on the list. We talked it over and Churchill said, 'I wonder if Diefenbaker knows about this.' So he called the prime minister. I could hear the sounds over the telephone and I gathered that he knew all about it, but he said something that was new. That morning he had been visited by George Hees, asking him to step down so George could take over. I heard Churchill say, 'Well what did you say to him?' and I heard Diefenbaker's voice very clearly say, 'I told him to go to hell,' and then he just laughed and continued with the conversation. Thus Gordon took the attitude that, with Diefenbaker in command of the situation, what should we do? I said, 'I don't know what you are going to do but I know what I am going to do.' I went out looking for members of the caucus and as I walked out of Churchill's office and down the corridor I met one of the Homers. I think it was Jack and the member from Lethbridge, Deane Gundlock, and an Edmonton member, Terry Nugent. They said to me before I could open my mouth, 'What is going on?' I said, 'If you fellows want to talk about it, come into my office.' And I put it to them in an oversimplified way. 'Look,' I said, 'the caucus is with the prime minister and he won that election for leadership in '56 against a group in Ontario - and this group in

66 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost Ontario is apparently moving again. I don't know what's going on but I sense that the old enemy of the Conservative party is at work, this small new group that seems to get its power from Toronto. If you fellows feel the same way about it as I do, you are going to do something about it. Where is the caucus?' These guys went ou! and they went up and down those offices. Homer, Terry Nugent, and Gundlock played Paul Revere. They got every member of the caucus down in the government lobby so when Diefenbaker came in to deliver his speech - at that time we weren't defeated yet - they just cheered him to the echo, they just built the old boy's confidence up again and he went in and delivered what I think is one of the greatest speeches in his career. I came into the anteroom late and I just saw the last stage of this cheering and yelling. R.A. BELL

When we went into the House that afternoon Alvin Hamilton proceeded to stir up some of the members in bitter antagonism to certain of us who, Alvin Hamilton had concluded, were attempting to dislodge the prime minister. I told some members at the time that they didn't know what they were talking about. What we were trying to do was to save the government. ALVIN HAMILTON

I was sitting beside Monteith in the House when big [Lawrence] Kindt [member for Macleod] came down and got a hold of George Hees and said, 'Now every time the prime minister speaks and says anything I want to see that hand of yours pounding the desk. If you don't, I will just rip your right arm out of the shoulder. If you don't think I can do it, there are a couple of guys back there, big Albert Homer and Jack Homer and Hugh Homer, who will help me do it.' Hees looked around and saw those three big Homers back there and every time that Diefenbaker said anything - and it was a great debating speech - Hees was just scared to death. He was pounding that desk like a madman. Monteith was my deskmate, and every time there was a point made he would grab me and just shake me and he ripped all the buttons off my coat. This was the excitement and the tension at the time. Diefenbaker's appeal was to the Social Credit in this speech: why would you guys be voting for the Liberals because you will just be decimated - they got the message. But my information was that Manning, who understood that if Diefenbaker was allowed to survive he would eventually dominate the West and you can't have two spokesmen for the West, ordered our defeat. I was told that's what happened by a man in the oil industry, one who was very

The plot that failed 67

close to Manning. Thompson has never admitted, to my knowledge, (a) that he got a call from Manning and ( b) that Manning's advice was the word of downfall. All I do know is that between six and eight o'clock [the previous night] Thompson had changed his tune. ROBERT THOMPSON

It wasn't a question of changing my mind. It was a question of not being able to communicate with the prime minister, or with anybody responsible in the Conservative party. In the meantime, we had received word that the cabinet was disintegrating, that there were going to be more resignations, not just that of Harkness. So I finished my speech and moved the amendment. And the crazy Liberals - not crazy but power-hungry Liberals moved in and supported the thing, and of course the government fell. But the tragedy was this - that afternoon, Mr Diefenbaker, realizing what had happened, stood up in the House of Commons and made a speech accepting every point, one after the other. He thought that would be enough for us to vote against our motion or to withdraw it. However, politics being politics, we couldn't withdraw our motion, we couldn't vote against our own motion. If only the communication had been such that he could have given us that word. All that was required was a word on the telephone. It wasn't even a written note. But he didn't do it. I look back and wonder just why we couldn't have had a direct communication. It was impossible for me to get it, and it was impossible for anybody in our party to get it, and it was impossible for anybody else in the cabinet to get it. The man was in a state of shock, apparently, so even his closest friends were not talking to him. REAL CAOUETTE

When I came back to the House of Commons it was the time of the vote, and everybody was very strongly in favour of this decision taken by the caucus. I knew that the premier of Alberta, Ernest Manning, was here in Ottawa at that time. He had discussions with Thompson, and I personally feel that Manning did give the word to Thompson to vote Diefenbaker down. So down he went. But I think it was a bad move for Social Credit. Before the vote was taken in the House, I told our members of Parliament from Quebec - twenty-five of them - 'Some of you will not come back after the next election, because this is no time for an election.' But they wanted the election, so I said, 'All right, let's go.' I got re-elected very easily, but six of them lost their seats and Mr Diefenbaker was defeated. But what have we gained? We gained nothing. For the first year, from '62 until the election date,

68 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost I asked Mr Diefenbaker many times for some things in the House, like the translation of the Rules of the House of Commons from English to French. Everything was granted by Mr Diefenbaker. So we had more results as far as Quebec is concerned with Mr Diefenbaker than with any other previous government known in Canada. GUY MARCOUX

When Caouette returned, he had a special caucus. He said, 'What happened? You shouldn't have done that. I wasn't there. I was not consulted.' People said, 'You don't need to be consulted. You're not here. You say what you want, and you want an election. You say that you are ready any time. So we are ready, and that's why we voted that way.' Caouette was really mad, and he tried by many means to have this changed. I was even a~ked to go to see Sevigny, because Sevigny was not happy. He knew that probably he would be defeated in the next election. I didn't want to go. I said, 'No, I've nothing to say to Sevigny.' But Caouette told me, 'Sevigny has something to say to you.' So I went. And Sevigny said, 'You're a doctor. You are the only one who can cure the situation. Have a medical report that all your members are sick and they couldn't vote, and then we can stand.' It was really funny to hear that; and he was serious. But this couldn't be done. The New Democratic party was not eager for an election but could not support the Conservatives. T.C. DOUGLAS

We canvassed the situation very carefully. We had every reason politically to support the government. We had gone through an election in June 1962. I had been defeated; I had gone through a byelection in October in BurnabyCoquitlam and I had just entered the House. The funds of our party were completely depleted, people were tired after the election. Nobody wanted an election; we knew that nobody wanted an election. From the standpoint of political strategy, it would have been wise for us to have kept the government in office at least for a year or so. But you couldn't do it; it was so apparent that the government was disintegrating before one's eyes. You had Howard Green, for whom I had great admiration, taking one position on the Bomarc missile, you had Harkness issuing contradictory statements, you had Mr Diefenbaker making speeches in which on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he was for the

The plot that failed 69

Bomarc missile, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday he was against the Bomarc missile. Nobody knew whether we were coming or going. Then there was the financial position, with no budget, with no accounting of where matters stood - committees weren't functioning, the whole governmental process was grinding to a halt. We were really into bureaucratic chaos. More and more the government was being run by the civil service, while the cabinet ran around in circles stabbing each other in the back. Consequently I don't think anything could have saved the government. Supposing we had voted with the government, one of two things would have happened : either Mr Diefenbaker would have stayed on, and I don't think these internecine struggles in the party would have ended, or George Nowlan would have taken over. I think George Nowlan could probably have pulled the factions together better than anyone else, but they were there and I still think that the Toronto Tories would have only used George as a temporary leader until such time as they could ditch him and put power back where the Tory party has always considered power should be, in Toronto. DAVID LEWIS

How can you vote for a government that wasn't there? There just wasn't any government. It was in tatters. You just had people tearing each others' eyes out, no one trusting anyone. No matter what particular social principles were involved, the one social principle is that you should have a government. When there wasn't any, when there was just a shadow, how could you support it? If you didn't vote against the government on Monday, you'd sure as hell have to vote against it on Tuesday or Wednesday because it was just going to pieces. It was non-existent. No one with any social responsibility at all could support a government like that. I think that was the basis of our decision. J . W A L DO M O N T E I T H (diary) February 5 [PM] . Dief made a terrific speech. Dinner at House of Commons. Vote at 8: 15. Beaten by combined opposition. Harkness and [Ed] Morris [Halifax MP] did not vote. From the NDP, [H.W.] Herridge and [Colin] Cameron voted with us, [Harold] Winch abstained. Speaker's reception later. Everybody seemed uncertain. However, I felt relieved to go to people and clear the air.

The motion was carried 142 to 111. Prime Minister Diefenbaker announced that he would see the governor general the next day, and the twenty-fifth Parliament was adjourned.

5

The caucus after

The government was defeated, but the rebellion in the cabinet was not yet crushed. A cabinet meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday morning, 6 February, and a caucus of Conservative MPs was to follow. However, at the last minute, it was announced that the caucus would meet first, at 9.00 AM. Eddie Goodman credits Allister Grosart with this tactical switch in plans, although Alvin Hamilton said that he had advised Mr Diefenbaker to have the caucus meeting first because the prime minister's strength was in the caucus. There had been reports that the rebels intended to deliver their ultimatum to Prime Minister Diefenbaker at the cabinet meeting - demanding that he resign or they would all resign - but the reversal in the order of meetings snuffed out any attempt at a coup d'etat. J . W A L D O M O N T E I T H (diary) February 6. Caucus at 9:00 AM. Hees in chair. Started in to justify private meetings in his office on Tuesday [5 February]. They were to get the Social Credit to support us in the vote. PM forced Hees to tell us of the visit to 24 Sussex at 8: 30 Tuesday AM. Hees offered chief justiceship to PM. PM gave fighting speech and offered to resign. Backbenchers rose in arms to say no. Alf Brooks, Grattan O'Leary, and Angus MacLean gave wonderful efforts on behalf of unity. Tears in all eyes. Finally, PM agreed to go on if all agreed. Eventually, all stood up. Hees, having corrected error (he thought PM had called him a traitor), with tears in his eyes, agreed. Looked like big thing to me, and shook his hand afterwards. Seemed like another united caucus and Hees went overboard to say so to press later.

Hees emerges from caucus after the government's defeat

72 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost DALTON CAMP

I went into the Commons office the next morning [after the defeat of the government]. Diefenbaker, Diefenbaker's secretary, Marion Wagner, and myself were there. Howard Green came in and Diefenbaker said, 'That's it. Get the governor. I'm going to advise him to send for Donald Fleming and they can have it. I don't want it, I'm finished, finished.' He started dictating his letter of resignation to the governor general. 'Take this down, Marion. I can no longer .. .' And Marion started to cry. But he didn't finish the letter, because Howard interrupted and said, 'Ah, come on now, John. We're not going to quit and you're not going to quit.' Diefenbaker said, 'No, I'm finished. Olive wants me to resign.' Howard said, 'Nonsense, John. You're not going to resign. We're going to have an election. We're going to have a lot of fun.' Diefenbaker said, 'It may be a lot of fun for you, Howard, but it's not going to be any fun for me.' Then he said, 'Well, let's go.' So he and I and Thrasher and Green walked down that long way to the caucus room. I met somebody, I can't remember who it was. I watched them go in, and I said, 'Where is Nowlan?' 'Not here.' I tore up to NowIan's office and said to Ruby Meabry, 'Where is George?' 'He's off. He has a meeting with the German ambassador.' I said, 'Come on. He's got to be at that caucus. If he's not at that caucus, he's finished. George cannot be absent from that caucus.' It began to dawn on me then what George was into, or what might have awaited George. She promised me that she would get George, call him urgently, and get him to the caucus, and I gather she did, although I never saw him come out. I then went upstairs with Cam Haig in his Senate office. I sat there and I said, 'Cam, I'm finished with all of them. They're going to dump the Chief. I'm going overboard with him. I'm going back to Toronto.' Cam said, 'Oh sure, forget it. Pack up. I don't want any part of this party.' We had this long despairing conversation. I watched my watch and then I realized that I'd better go down and wait for him in the Commons room. I went back to that office. He came in from the caucus, and Thrasher was with him. He said, 'Get Olive, get my wife.' They got her on the phone and he said, 'Olive, they wouldn't let me quit.' R.A. BELL

I was working at this stage to bring about some unity of purpose. I had gone to Diefenbaker the night before and said, 'Look this can all be pulled together but it must be on a basis of no recriminations.' I then went, just before the caucus opened, to George Hees and I told him I had been to the

The caucus after 73 prime minister and felt the prime minister was in a mood to deal reasonably with all matters, and I hoped he, Hees, in presiding over the caucus, would do everything to bring about unity of purpose. I suppose my meddling in this is partly because of my whole background as an organizer - the feeling that at one stage I had a lot to do with salvaging the Conservative party. I was seeing it going down the drain now and I was trying to pull everybody together as I had tried years before to do. To my absolute astonishment I found Hees had a prepared text which was an attack upon Diefenbaker and an expose of the reasons why Diefenbaker must go. He opened the caucus and he started into this prepared text and very quickly was interrupted by Diefenbaker. It became a shambles and he never finished his presentation. In my view it was one of the most unwise things I ever saw done by a public man under the circumstances. ALVIN HAMILTON

Hees was the chairman of caucus and was in the centre of the table. To his right was Diefenbaker, and most of the cabinet were scattered among the members of the caucus. I deliberately put my chair just about four feet away from Diefenbaker because by this time my Irish was aroused and there was going to be some blood spilled if I had a chance. Hees starts out reading this paper and again the howls came up and Diefenbaker then just shushed me up. I wanted to move in but he just put his hand down, and I said when the old master himself wants to move in why should a second stringer move in. So he began asking Hees a lot of questions, didn't you, didn't you, didn't you, he was destroying Hees and Hees began to cry. Great big tears dropped down and bounced off the table and then I got up and walked over into the corner. Terry Nugent came up to me and said, 'Why are you standing over here?' I said, 'I hate to see a grown man cry.' 'You never saw such a revival meeting,' that's what Senator McCutcheon said. All these guys who had been plotting against Diefenbaker were up giving testimony - they were all for him. Then, these great loyalists like Brooks and Angus MacLean spoke. I never heard MacLean so beautifully fluent. When they get emotionally moved, the Maritimers lose all this dourness and all of a sudden it is the word of the Lord spreading over the landscape. This was a tremendous oratorical session, with these fellows all denying they had any thought of removing Diefenbaker at all. They were fighting fools for Diefenbaker. Now the only guy that sat through the whole business and never said a word was Doug Harkness. At least he had the courage of his bloody con-

74 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost victions. He was opposed to Diefenbaker and he was still opposed to Diefenbaker. That should be marked up on Doug's side because it is pretty awful when there were God knows how many guys in the room, 150 - the only guy that wasn't on his feet cheering and yelling, that was Doug. I am telling you it was quite a thing. PIERRE SEVIGNY

Diefenbaker did absolutely nothing to stay in power. He did absolutely nothing to mend fences until he realized that his leadership was in jeopardy. That's when he called a caucus, and there was this great meeting where eventually he made a call to arms and asked for everybody to stand up and rally and be with him. Well, George Hees, who had been more or less one of the biggest protesters, eventually came to Diefenbaker, and in typical rah, rah, rah fashion, he said, 'Fine, the gang's all here and we are all together.' I remember I sat at that meeting and I didn't say one word. I didn't say yes, I didn't say no. I was profoundly distressed because I saw something that didn't make sense. I saw an emotional appeal made to people who did not know up to what point their leader had been difficult to get along with. We could not possibly, because of cabinet security and ministerial discretion, tell the members how worried we all were within cabinet circles concerning this thing. Then at the last minute that big emotional cry came along and Diefenbaker put up a show with this typical eloquence of his, which rallied the troops. But it seemed that he had won the victory and immediately after, instead of calling his ministers and saying, 'Look, I realize maybe that I did not perform with you the way I should; now we have got everybody together; now let's discuss this thing rationally and get somewhere' - he didn't do that. PAUL MARTINEAU

The rallying point was the speech of Senator Grattan O'Leary - a very emotional speech. He said that 'this man,' pointing to Mr Diefenbaker, was 'the man that had led the Conservative party to its greatest victory' and how much every one of us in this hall owed to Mr Diefenbaker, and how we should all rally. And then I know that George Hees spoke, and confessed publicly to his failings, his lack of appreciation of the fine qualities of the leader, but Diefenbaker said that all was forgotten and forgiven. I think George had a few tears, and there was a public reconciliation. Then this caucus meeting was followed by a cabinet meeting, and of course at that cabinet, without revealing anything secret, Mr. Diefenbaker was highly optimistic of victory in the coming election. He could see it, sense it, smell it.

The caucus after 75 GRATTAN O'LEARY

When the government fell, I was sitting in the gallery. Diefenbaker sent me up a note and asked me if I would come to that little office that he had back there in the corner. He was sitting there and he was completely bold. He said, 'This is it, I will go in tomorrow to caucus and I will retire.' I said, 'Oh well, nonsense.' He came to the caucus that morning. There is no doubt about it: there were, I think, at least forty per cent of the people ready to accept his resignation, including George Hees. George Hees was presiding at the meeting, and George was talking about nuclear weapons. Dief was sitting on his right. He said, 'George you must not recount here things that went on in cabinet. Stop it right now, and don't forget that I am still the prime minister.' George Hees who was supposed to be a great football player, wilted completely. There were speeches, very tough speeches, made against John Diefenbaker, and he sat there white as a sheet. The night before, I had seen McCutcheon, who told me then, 'I am going to that meeting tomorrow morning with my resignation. I will present the letter.' I said, 'No, McCutcheon. Don't do that.' I was still supporting Dief, because the election was coming on, and if the election came on and we had just fired our leader we would be slaughtered. So, I spoke at that meeting. I remember going over to Mccutcheon and saying, 'Now, look, McCutcheon. You've got the Scottish name of Wallace. You signed on for a voyage with us, and at the first sign of a storm you are quitting. I know that you have a letter in your pocket, and I am telling you that you must not take it out.' He kind of half-wilted. They asked me to go and stand on the platform. Now George Hees makes out, and his friends make out, that his falling out with Dief was over nuclear weapons. Actually there wasn't a damned word in his manuscript about nuclear weapons. He was just saying what John Bassett and people like that wanted him to. After I spoke, dear old [A.J.] Brooks got up and said, 'In the name of God what are we doing here? We are committing political suicide. Let us stop it.' Then Dief recovered and made an emotional speech. He asked these people: were they for him? I was amazed that one of the first men to get up and say so was McCutcheon. Every one of his ministers, Sevigny and all, answered the question and said, 'Yes, we are with you.' The next thing I knew, George Hees had his arms around Diefenbaker, embracing him, and they came out of that meeting together. The press met them and George said, 'We have just decided to keep our leader and go out and lick the hell out of the Grits.'

76 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost

Four days later he called up to change his whole itinerary of where he was going, because the Bassetts and the fellows in Toronto got hold of him and he quit. One of the backbenchers at the fateful caucus meeting was Erik Nielsen, the Member of Parliament for the Yukon, who was to play a prominent part when the Conservatives were in opposition. ERIK NIELSEN

It was a most moving caucus. Senator O'Leary made one of the most moving speeches that I have ever heard in all of my life. And Angus MacLean, who is a very quiet, unassuming, self-effacing individual, leaped on a table and spoke, tears streaming down his face. Everyone, after all this huge emotional orgy, was united, and then a couple of days later, everything was split asunder by this cabinet break-up. I have no lasting respect for people who treat loyalties so shallowly. I suspect' strongly what was at the root of that change. I have no basis upon which to make this flat statement, but I suspect that the in-fighting which led up to that caucus had proposed several alternatives to Diefenbaker - who was to be shuffled off to the Supreme Court bench - in the form of Mr Nowlan as prime minister, in the form of Mr Donald Fleming as prime minister, in the form of Mr Davie Fulton as prime minister, in the form of George Hees as prime minister. I think that, eventually, just prior to that caucus, all were brought into line by a reminder that there just happened to be in the files a little matter called the Munsinger case. Walter Dinsdale also referred to the Munsinger case and the fact that the two ministers who resigned were involved in that scandal. However, there is no evidence that the Munsinger case ever arose during the dying days of the Conservative government, either as a goad to keep these ministers in line or as a reason for their quitting. Nor at any time did Mr Diefenbaker say that George Hees and Pierre Sevigny resigned because of their involvement in this sex and security case. After the caucus, there was a cabinet meeting. ALVIN HAMILTON

There was nothing out of the way at this cabinet meeting, which dealt with how we were going to meet the country. We planned a couple of more meetings, just to lay the plans, as any good cabinet should do, to give direction to the party in the final thrust. It was really a question of picking up the pieces from our 1962 campaign and getting the arguments collected and so on. The only thing that happened at that cabinet meeting which was held on Wednes-

The caucus after 77

day afternoon was that Monteith heard Hees defending himself over the telephone: 'I had to give in. They would have murdered me if I hadn't.' It seems likely that Hees was explaining his actions to Eddie Goodman, who was his lawyer and political backer in Toronto. George Hees, the Golden Boy of his time, was born 17 June 1910 in Toronto. He was tall, rich, handsome, and athletic. He played snapback (centre) for the then-amateur Toronto Argonauts and was on the Grey Cup winning team of 1938. He also boxed. In his last fight at Maple Leaf Gardens, he was knocked out by Bill Meach, the Canadian heavyweight champion. He made a 'comeback' at Cambridge, where he was heavyweight champion. In November 1944, Hees - a graduate of the Royal Military College - was wounded in Holland and invalided home. As a brigade major, he knew that 'we were desperately short of reinforcements' and he told George Drew, premier of Ontario, how 'batmen, cooks, drivers' were being put into the line. He was asked to repeat what he had said in the North Grey byelection where the Conservative candidate, Garfield Case, was running against the defence minister, General A.G.L. McNaughton . He did, and standing there in his uniform with his arm in a sling he was a sensation. McNaughton lost. That was Hees's introduction to politics. He ran as a khaki candidate against David Croll in 1945 and lost, but won in 1950 in Toronto-Broadview . When he became president of the Progressive Conservative party in 1954, he sold his family's furniture manufacturing business and became a full-time politician. It was said that Diefenbaker regarded him as his successor. GEORGE HEES

He never told me that. No. He told Peter Dempson - this is before the 1962 election - that he was thinking of resigning after the '62 election and naming me. Of course, when he lost the ninety-two seats, his pride was hurt and he decided not to resign. I think that I became the fellow who in his view would take over if anything happened to him in early '61 on. After I got into Trade and Commerce, things seemed to go pretty well for me, and he figured I knew how to handle things. It was then that he decided, I think, that I was his boy. George Hees was a proponent of the policy that the government should live up to its obligations to the United States. As it had not done so in the case of the nuclear warheads, he had told his friends, John Bassett and Eddie Goodman, he would resign. The news of what happened at the caucus came as a shock to them.

78 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost E . A. GOODMAN

I spoke to him on the phone at great length, and he said that he was resigning. For some reason which escapes me there was a caucus called. I got a radio so I would hear about it. He went to the caucus. It was a hell of a way of resigning from a government. The caucus has nothing to do with it. You're supposed to resign to the prime minister. But he went and was going to resign from the government at the caucus meeting, which I thought was unreal. He shouldn't have gone to the caucus. He should have resigned and gone home. Then I turned on the radio. I remember the twelve o'clock news. They announced that Hees came out of the caucus saying, 'We're going to kill the Grits' or something. 'We're going to murder them.' I couldn't believe my ears, when I'd just spoken to him. So Edward Dunlop, who's George's brother-in-law and later a provincial cabinet minister, and I got on an airplane and flew down to Ottawa that day to get an explanation from Hees. The last time I had spoken to him was about seven o'clock in the morning. He said, 'I'm going over to offer my resignation.' And then I hear him on the twelve o'clock news telling how we're going to fight 'em and murder 'em. I was somewhat nonplussed, and I thought I was entitled, for all my years of friendship and working for him, to an explanation. I remember I went to the meeting at his house and Leon Balcer was there. They said that you could not believe the atmosphere of that caucus. Grattan O'Leary, who should have known better, rose to defend: 'The party must stand together.' Diefenbaker went over and made firm commitments to him [Hees] to do certain things - 'Stay with me, George.' I forget what the commitments were, but he made these commitments, and Hees got swept away by the pleadings. All the caucus importuned him that if he stayed with them they'd defeat the Liberals. I told him I thought he was an ass. Sure enough, within three or four days, Diefenbaker made it clear that he'd no intention of living up to the commitments he'd made to him, and Hees then resigned a few days later. Instead of resigning, as he should have and could have, covered with glory, he looked really somewhat ineffective, which is the only time I've seen him look like that. But the truth of the matter was he's a warm emotional fellow, and with everybody, all his friends in the caucus and people whom he'd worked with for all those years, pleading with him not to destroy the party, he gave in, which is easily understandable. I could understand that. I probably would have done the same thing. But it was a mistake just the same to allow your emotions to overcome

The caucus after 79

what you know is the right thing to do, and he recognized that a few days later, that he'd been had, and he resigned; and not only did he resign from the government, but he simply refused to run again, which I thought showed a great deal of principle. Many believed that it was John Bassett, publisher of the Toronto Telegram, who forced George Bees to resign. Bassett had been a friend and adviser to Diefenbaker, but he disagreed with the prime minister over the nuclear arms issue, and he put his newspaper behind the campaign to dump the Chief. He later regretted the break. JOHN BASSETT

Looking back, and very shortly afterwards looking back, I felt it was a mistake. My view is that if you're a member of a party and have been active in that party, you've got to work within the party. That's the way our system works. This was an emotional issue. I blame Howard Green who was the foreign minister, more than Mr Diefenbaker - a prime minister can't do everything. We all regarded him as such a great leader and infallible. I mean, the man who had brought this great victory and so on. I think everybody depended upon him to an extent that the Grits never depended on Lester Pearson or even perhaps on Mr St Laurent. I don't know. I strongly urged that we had to meet our commitments. I didn't care about nuclear weapons or not, up in North Bay or wherever it was. I didn't think they'd do much good, and I'm sure they wouldn't. But the issue to me was that we'd made a commitment to the United States, and we were combined with the United States in NORAD, the defence of this continent. The United States had always proven very sensitive to the Canadian point of view. The deputy commander of. NORAD was a Canadian. They were very susceptible to our needs, it seemed to me, and for us unilaterally to break our commitment to them I thought was disgraceful. This became an emotional issue with a lot of us, and, just at that time, Mike Pearson made a speech in Toronto, somewhere in Scarborough, in which he unilaterally, unequivocably said, 'We must meet our commitments to the United States,' and if it was his responsibility he would carry them through. And we supported that point of view. Then the cabinet broke up and Hees called us. I spoke to him and Eddie Goodman spoke to him. We both spoke to him. But there was no conspiracy on my part because anything I said to George I was saying editorially every day in the Toronto Telegram. George is like me. He's a very emotional fellow, and he doesn't always

80 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

perhaps give long detailed consideration. But don't forget this, that events were happening hour by hour. And I think Eddie thought Rees made a botch of it, because we were all speaking at the same time, and had three of us on the phone at once. Very exciting. I think we just foolishly may have been even carried away a little by the excitement of the whole damned thing. We should have known better. But there was no plot! We simply said that we felt that George should do everything he could to persuade the government to meet its commitment. Period. And that if it didn't, he ought to resign as Harkness had. Harkness had resigned quietly and decently without any fuss. Period. We should have fought the fight, I should have written all the editorials I did, but then, when the decision was taken by the majority of cabinet and the prime minister, the rest of us should have said, 'Well, this is a decision, he's the boss, we've fought a good fight, we've expressed our views. Now let's get on to something else.' No question. The ministers met daily until the end of the week . On Saturday, 9 February , George Hees and Pierre Sevigny resigned. J . W A L D O M O N T E I T H (diary) February 7. Caucus, organizational for campaign. Rees in chair. Dalton Camp present. Everybody seemed ready to go home and fight. Some worry about NORAD. Appeared united. Rees very much so. Sevigny maybe reluctantly. February 8. Cabinet met. Sevigny under tension on defence policy. Wanted to be minister. Everybody else appeared okay, including Rees. Likely story. Sevigny tense, drinking, called on Rees. More drinking. Called in Balcer. Discussed resignation. Balcer thought not serious (because he thought they were all drunk, you know). Left then and went to Three Rivers the next morning. Rees called McCutcheon and told him. McCutcheon called Nowlan, and Nowlan finally got Rees and talked for ages. No success. (This was about Rees and Sevigny resigning.) Rees likely felt he could force PM out by resignation. Pressure from Toronto. (The only reference I have to Bassett.) ALVIN HAMILTON

We had a series of cabinet meetings, on Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday, and we finished up early on Friday. We decided on who would do this and who would do that, and there was great harmony. After the last meeting we gathered into little groups. Dinsdale and I had gone to George Hees and said, 'All right, the boys are pretty mad at you but if we are going to hit

The caucus after 81

this thing in united fashion, you should come out and speak at several of the nominating conventions across the West to show that you are right with him. The boys will respond if you get out and make your peace with them, and we will arrange this.' As we came out of the East Block, the snow drifts were high in February, and George was wearing that great big fur coat that he had, and we were tagging along. All of a sudden he spots a television camera. He pushed both of us sideways like a football player would do, to stand in front of this camera, and I went right into the snow bank. That was bad enough being a cabinet minister being pushed into the snow bank by another cabinet minister, but who cares? I got up and walked to the House and Hees said, 'Now you go to Mel Jack and say that this is the agreement, and you arrange the conventions that I will attend.' Then he headed over to the office. But Mel Jack swears that he didn't see him. He went over to the Rideau Club, and some time between four o'clock and the next morning Hees decided to resign with Sevigny. R.A. BELL

On Friday morning we had a generally satisfactory cabinet meeting at which George Hees was present. There was no political upset of any kind. We rose about ten to one and I went into the anteroom with George Hees to have a cup of coffee so that we could discuss certain nominating convention arrangements. I was the Ontario minister in charge of organization and was chairman of the Ontario organization committee which consisted of Senator Harry Willis, Eddie Goodman, and myself as chairman. I was also chairman of the Ontario ministers for election purposes. So George Hees and I discussed what places he was going to go to take nominating conventions and make speeches and what places I was going to go. We realized we were going to be criss-crossing, so we traded some of them. We parted about five past one with our arrangements made and George with a list we had made up together in handwriting. He was going to confirm that afternoon with headquarters as to where he would be. I heard nothing further and know nothing of all the meetings that took place during that day until the following morning. PIERRE SEVIGNY

In my own personal case, I was very distressed. I had been insisting for a long time that I be moved from my post of associate minister of defence not that I didn't like the job, because it is the best post in government. I was surrounded by pleasant people, I was surrounded by army types and I had been a soldier myself, and I had really a great deal of freedom, more free-

82 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

dom than other ministers. But the people in Quebec were repeating daily that I was being cast aside and that I was not being promoted because I was a poor minister, and this was getting me, I mean to a very major degree. Furthermore, there was something else. All my life I have suffered from migraine headaches. At such times, I become very nervous, I don't sleep well. I felt very depressed and felt I was wasting time in the government. I was not being recognized as I should have been, and I felt that I should get back to business and make money, and so on. I acted on my own, in a much too impatient manner, a much too hasty manner. At one point I decided to resign, but before doing so I tried to get to Diefenbaker and seek some sort of an appointment, but I got nowhere. I realized it was impossible to talk with him, and I decided the Chief was against me. To sum up, I made a hasty, impatient, and wrong decision, which I have always regretted. George Hees, on the other hand, acted very much in the same manner, but George Hees was under pressure from some people in Toronto, who felt that he should take a stand on the defence issue and that he could not carry on being a member of the cabinet, which was not respectful of its defence commitments, and that he should do as Harkness did. That's why he eventually did change his mind, forgot the rallying pledge at that caucus, and decided to resign. He did it on his own. There was no collusion between ourselves on that matter. There may have been another reason for Sevigny's resignation. DALTON CAMP

Harkness resigned, and Sevigny was associate minister of national defence. He sent out a release from the department as acting minister of national defence. In cabinet, Diefenbaker apparently really tore into him, and Sevigny told me later that his manhood had been compromised, called into question, and that it was a deep, deep wound. Although Sevigny said there was no collusion between himself and George Hees, they did act in concert, and they felt that if Leon Balcer would join them in resigning they could force Diefenbaker to give way to someone else as leader. They called Balcer in Three Rivers on Friday evening. LEON BALCER

I arrived home at Three Rivers about 8:00 o'clock at night Friday. I had a meeting at 9:00. I arrived home and George Hees was on the phone. He said, 'There is a plane waiting for you at the Three Rivers airport and you must come here right away.' I said, 'Wait a minute. I am just getting out of my car after driving four hours, and I have a meeting in an hour. I will go

The caucus after 83

back to Ottawa tomorrow, but I cannot go tonight.' But he insisted, 'I am with Pierre Sevigny, and something has happened.' So I flew back and went to Hees's apartment. Sevigny was there and Hees's executive assistant Mel Jack, and they started asking me to resign. I said, 'Come on you fellows, make up your minds. Two days ago you were all excited and everything.' They said, 'Well Diefenbaker is going to make a speech on Monday, and he is not going to support our stand on nuclear weapons. We will look like fools and we cannot accept his stand on that.' I said, 'Let's wait until he makes his speech and then we will decide. What reason in the world can you give the public for resigning?' They said, 'You don't understand. If we resign, the three of us, it will create just enough stir so that Diefenbaker will leave and then we will reform the party, and what not.' My position was, 'This is absolutely childish because you have no excuse to give to the public.' I said, 'I certainly won't go along with it.' They were both convinced that I was letting them down, but I couldn't see any logic in their attitude. I said, 'Look, it lacks any logic of any kind. On Monday, if Diefenbaker makes his speech that you cannot accept, well, you can base your resignation on Diefenbaker's attitude and his speech, but you can't do that now.' J . W A L D O M O N T E I T H (diary) February 9 (Saturday). Expected a quiet day to work on speeches. Mary talking to Olive, was told ( I was at breakfast, I recall at the time) that Hees and Sevigny just arrived. Looked ominous. Ten minutes later the PM on phone to me. Mentioned their resignations. Come to 24 Sussex. Soon those in town arrived. Absent - Halpenny, Fairclough, Starr, Balcer, O'Hurley, Martineau, McCutcheon. Extensive phoning. Who still okay and who not. Halpenny dependent on medical condition as to whether he'd run again. Martineau told Fulton okay. McCutcheon definitely okay. Fairclough and Starr a hundred per cent. Balcer? He seemed to be wavering. I phoned him in Three Rivers, from Dief's house. Nowlan talked to him and said Balcer was tipping towards staying. McCutcheon finally got okay. Well rid of Pierre. Likeable but unstable, etc., etc. Decision to act at once to fill vacancies. Lunch at the PM's.

8.T. RICHARDSON

I was at 24 Sussex, the prime minister's place. It was on Saturday morning, a nice cold brilliant sunny day and the prime minister wasn't even dressed. He was working around in a dressing gown. I happened to phone Mel Jack, and I got a hunch that something was going on. An hour or so later there came a ring at the door. A Mountie was always

84 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

outside. I opened the door and there were Hees and Sevigny. They wanted to see the prime minister. I said, 'Well, sit in the library there.' I went and got him and I said, 'Mr Hees and Mr Sevigny are here.' I will always remember this, he started down in his dressing gown and Olive said, 'No, John. You must get dressed.' So I went down and talked to Hees and Sevigny and they were pretty tense about something. The prime minister came down and I went out. They just handed him their resignations, which I read afterwards. They were among the most extraordinary documents in the annals of cabinets. George Hees had never made a speech on military things, yet he was resigning, disagreeing with our military policy. It was incredible to me, but I didn't say anything. Then Sevigny said, 'Me too.' It was an honourable thing that he would have done. And then they left. The prime minister was thunderstruck. He took the resignations but he was practically speechless about this because it was so much of a surprise. This, of course, as it turned out, was a move in the game that was going on, part of which is on the record now, the move to try to persuade John Diefenbaker to resign and be appointed chief justice. The chief justice [Patrick Kerwin] had died. I think that was the day of the funeral because Dick Thrasher, who was the national director of the party, drove Diefenbaker to the Basilica. He was at the funeral. It was said in the paper that he wasn't there; he was at the back. PIERRE SEVIGNY

At 10 o'clock we went to 24 Sussex, met Mr Diefenbaker and handed in our resignations. Then for the first time Diefenbaker said, 'Can we not talk this thing over?' George said, 'No,' and I said 'No.' Who said 'no' first I don't know, but this was stupid on our part because there at long last a break was coming where we could, for the first time, sit down with a man who was faced with a dire and very drastic decision by two of his cabinet ministers and maybe we could have made headway. George Hees previously had gone to see Diefenbaker and told him this is what George Hees has related to me - that he would be appointed to the Supreme Court as chief justice if he went, and he would go in splendour and glory and all would be well. George Hees had come out of that meeting with a feeling that Diefenbaker was not serious when he was threatening so often to resign, because Dief had almost kicked old George out when he even hinted at Dief's possible resignation. So to make a long story short, the meeting ended after we told Diefenbaker we could no longer discuss it. He turned and looked outside the win-

The caucus after 85

dow and he seemed to be a picture of dejection. Olive looked at us in a very cold manner and we walked out. MEL JACK

I well remember the morning of the resignation. I pleaded with my own minister not to act impulsively, to hold it, but he said 'We have an appointment at 8 :30 with the prime minister, out at Sussex.' 'Well,' I said, 'the press will likely be there, everything is boiling, say nothing, come on back, think it over again, be able to judge it on the reaction that you get from him,' and Hees agreed and came back. Then I got a call from Burt Richardson, asking if there would be a delay in the announcement of the resignation. I said, 'Sure, as long as you want.' I was just stalling for time. I couldn't believe that the compromise didn't develop because this was the final straw. He came back around ten o'clock and all I could get out of him at the start was, 'A very discourteous reception, extremely discourteous.' I tried to say to George, 'Well these things happen. What the hell, leave it alone.' Then we made a two o'clock deadline for release with Richardson. The deadline came and went and we let it go. But it was broken for us anyway. Mrs Sevigny phoned a radio station in Montreal and gave the thing at eleven o'clock. We had rewritten that thing [his resignation] a dozen times, boiling it down and taking the belligerence out of it, trying .to leave an open door. Because basically I don't think Hees wanted to get out, I don't think so for a minute. The PC National Campaign Committee was to meet on Saturday morning and Dalton Camp was staying at the Chateau Laurier. DALTON CAMP

My phone rang about seven o'clock in the morning. Nowlan called me. He said, 'I have some bad news for you, old man.' I said, 'What is it, George?' He said, 'Hees and Balcer are resigning.' I got up and went over to the meeting. I got Flora MacDonald and I told her. I said, 'Don't tell anybody.' I said, 'Get me Mr Diefenbaker on the phone.' She went to the pay phone, and I spoke to him and said, 'I had a message that means big problems.' 'What?' I said 'Hees and Balcer are resigning.' He said, 'Who told you?' I said, 'Well, I don't think I should tell you that, except I heard it.' In the meantime Flora called Eddie Goodman, and Goodman said Hees and Sevigny had resigned. Well, that was a different kind of message. But Diefenbaker never confirmed it or denied it to me. He just wanted to know.

86 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

I said, 'Flora, you call the prime minister and tell him that it's Hees and Sevigny who are going to resign.' I didn't know what he knew. So she called him, and he said, 'Who told you?' And then she said, 'Eddie Goodman.' I mean, she just felt trapped, but she was talking to the prime minister of Canada. The two of use went back into the room, and somehow or other I knew then it was out. I don't know how I knew it was out, maybe he told me or maybe he told Flora. I mean, he said things to me like, 'How is your meeting going? Like, 'How was the play, Mrs Lincoln?' We had our meeting and it wasn't a very great meeting. Everyone was appalled by this [the resignations]. I was trying to keep in touch with Sussex Street, and of course I was just outraged by Hees, but I was terribly relieved Balcer had not resigned. R.A. BELL

Dalton Camp from headquarters had summoned a meeting of the national organization committee, of which I was a member, at one of the hotels in Ottawa. It was while we were there that Camp was called to the telephone, came back, whispered to me that there was trouble and that Hees had resigned and what did I know about it. That was my first knowledge of the Hees and Sevigny resignations. I have been told all sorts of things about the meetings that allegedly took place between Hees and Sevigny and Balcer but I know nothing of all the negotiations that went on that night. I heard that John Bassett threatened to expose him with something that was subsequently exposed. I was told soon afterwards that there was this scandal in the background of which I then knew nothing. This story moved around amongst ministers, idle gossip, no proof, no nothing. Frankly none of us believed that George would have gone out except under very heavy, almost irresistible, pressure. PAUL MARTINEAU

Davie Fulton telephoned me and told me that Hees and Sevigny had resigned and that he had been asked by the Chief to find out how many members were supporting him. So I told him that I'd support him. I hadn't resigned. 'Well, how many would resign? How many resignations would follow?' So I told him I had never had any plans, either immediate or otherwise, about resigning, and that as far as I was concerned, I was completely supporting the government. During the same day I got several calls from Mr Sevigny, and he was very very much upset that day. He even cried during one of our conversations. I think he now regretted that he had resigned. I asked him why he resigned,

The caucus after 87 and he said, 'Well, it's about the missile thing. Anyway, I'll tell you more about it when I see you. Now, what I'm calling you for - I want you to resign.' I said, 'Pierre, why should I resign? You hadn't consulted me before you resigned, and now you want me to do the same as you did. Why do you want me to do that?' He said, 'If you resigned, I don't think Diefenbaker would be able to hold on.' 'Oh,' I said, 'I'm sure that he would hold on regardless, and in any event, I am supporting Mr Diefenbaker. We've had differences of opinion. You were a witness to many of them. You were in the cabinet. But I always rallied to him, and I'm not his enemy by any means. And I support him. And I'm not resigning. And particularly not under these conditions.' Despite all his pleadings - he even got many prominent Conservatives from Quebec at the time, other members, like Marcel Bourbonnais, who were prominent in Conservative party circles in Montreal to call me, to urge me to resign - I stood fast, and didn't consider it for a minute. Sevigny called me, I recall, at least twice and I think three times. The last of those times was the time when he broke down and wept. Oh, he was in a state of very high emotion. PIERRE SEVIGNY

There were a lot of cabinet ministers resigning each night around I I o'clock, after the tenth whisky. One of them was McCutcheon. The next morning he would appear with his face red as a beet and carry on. He resigned more often at night than he did in the morning. Many ministers talked about resigning, some of whom denied it since, but I know damn well that they did. One of them was Leon Balcer.

6

His finest election

Before the 1963 election campaign began, six cabinet ministers had left the Diefenbaker government or had announced their resignations, and dispirited Conservatives were predicting that they would be returned with fewer seats than the thirty-nine that were salvaged after the 1935 election debacle. Douglas Harkness had resigned over the nuclear arms issue; Davie Fulton was going to British Columbia to seek the party's provincial leadership; Ernest Ha/penny was quitting politics for reasons of health; Donald Fleming was quitting for personal reasons; and George Hees and Pierre Sevigny resigned for reasons that remain controversial today. The ship of state was foundering and, in the view of many, would sink with little trace. Yet, when the last ballot had been counted, the Conservatives had won 95 seats and had lost 21 in total, and the Liberals, with 129 seats, were frustrated. The Social Crediters lost 6 seats in Quebec and dropped from a total of 30 to 24. The New Democrats lost two seats, which gave them 17 in all. Pearson formed a minority government. The Grits had run a poor campaign, making use of gimmicks, such as the 'Truth Squad' headed by Judy LaMarsh, whose purpose was to correct the prime minister's statements, but even if they had run a brilliant campaign it is unlikely that they would have done much better at the polls. For the old Diefenbaker was in full cry. All the agony of the disintegration of his government was gone, and he seemed to be a giant revived by this contact with the people. This was Diefenbaker's finest election. He was virtually alone on the hustings. Even such loyalists as Gordon Churchill had to stick to their own bailiwicks, where they were fighting for their political lives.

Diefenbaker campaigning in Halifax

90 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost R.A. BELL

It was a tremendous display of courage, determination. It was a wonderful show on his part. I don't know that anybody but a psychiatrist could analyse what happened. He was a changed man. If his morale ever got low, he never showed it, even to his colleagues. When he came back in off the hustings, and we would have a Sunday cabinet meeting, he was in great spirits - his old charming self, laughing, full of stories of his experiences on the hustings, and being every inch a prime minister, which is certainly what he was not the months of October, November, December, and January previous. Diefenbaker's first task was to patch up the cabinet, which had been rent by the resignations of Harkness. Hees, and Sevigny. Although Donald Fleming was leaving, he stayed on as justice minister and often acted as prime minister, as did Davie Fulton, the minister of puhlic works. Gordon Churchill became defence minister, while Marcel Lambert, the Speaker during the /962-63 session, succeeded him as veterans affairs minister. Senator Wallace McCutcheon was promoted to trade minister. At the suggestion of Leon Balcer, who seemed to get along better with Diefenbaker during the /963 election campaign than at any other time, the prime minister appointed Martial Asselin, MP for Charlevoix, and Theo Ricard, MP for St-Hyacinthe-Bagot, to the cabinet. He also named Frank McGee, who represented the Toronto riding of York-Scarborough, the largest constituency in the country, minister without portfolio. FRANK MCGEE

I got a call from Grattan O'Leary telling me that I was about to receive a call from Diefenbaker inviting me into the cabinet. This is customary. The prime minister doesn't ask anybody to do anything unless he knows what the answer's going to be to that request. It's good lawyer's training. Grattan said, 'You must accept. That's the name of the game.' I told him that I was committing political suicide by so doing. People were generally baffled as to why I did. Everybody was running in the other direction, getting out of the cabinet. Hees left to go skiing in Switzerland, and Fleming and Fulton and all these others were resigning, and here's McGee going the other way. I guess you could say it was an Irish instinct in a way, but, damn it, we were in a fight, we'd basically agreed at that caucus that we were going to fight it through. I was judged by the papers to be an opportunist for accepting it, interested in being called 'honourable' and a lot of other silly things. I went in with Martial Asselin and Theo Ricard, and again the Toronto press simply viewed this as a sop to the Catholic vote, which was nonsense.

His finest election 91 The fact of the matter is that he didn't have a Toronto minister who was a candidate in that campaign. And the reason my appointment was delayed was that, in an attempt to recruit candidates the prospect of a cabinet post was held out to them, and so I wasn't appointed until all the nominations were completed. Ricard, McGee, and Asselin were not sworn in until 16 March 1963. FRANK MCGEE

Going into the cabinet simply cost me my Sundays for the balance of the campaign. I had to go down to Ottawa and sit in on the cabinet committee to make the housekeeping decisions that had to be made during an election period. Some of those meetings were pretty hairy, because Dief and Mccutcheon were just like cats and dogs. They were at each other's throats with an incredible display of hostility between them. But interestingly enough, when I was sworn in at Government House, Diefenbaker said, 'Just a minute,' and he started over towards the book which contains the names of the privy councillors since Confederation. I said, 'Excuse me, sir,' and he sort of 'rrr-rrr-rrr.' I said, I think I know what you're looking for in that book, and it isn't there.' Of course he was looking for Thomas D'Arcy McGee's signature in the book and wanted to compare it to mine, or something like that. For once, the great man had erred in his recollection of Canadian history because D' Arey McGee was not a member of the Confederation cabinet. As a matter of fact, he had stepped down in the formation of the Confederation cabinet because in those days the three Rs of cabinet building were much more in evidence - race, religion, and region. The Nova Scotians were holding out for another cabinet minister, a Catholic. This posed a dilemma for Macdonald. To help him solve that, McGee offered to withdraw from the Confederation cabinet - he had been minister in a predecessor government before Confederation. It was one of the few occasions when Dief didn't have history buttoned on. DALTON CAMP

Diefenbaker tried to get Arthur Maloney to run, to no avail. That's why he put Frank McGee in the cabinet, because he couldn't get Maloney. Maloney, according to Diefenbaker, wanted into the Senate, but Diefenbaker had been cut off from the Senate because the government had been defeated. It was ironical that John Diefenbaker should be made a Freeman of the City of London shortly after his government fell and Parliament was dissolved. This was an honour that he would not refuse even if it meant delay-

92 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost ing the start of his 1963 election campaign. He was accompanied on the trip to Britain by his good friend, Gordon Churchill. Meanwhile, Dalton Camp, who had been running the party's national headquarters on a parttime basis since Allister Grosart had become a senator, took over as campaign director. DALTON CAMP

They [the Liberals] ran an unbelievably bad campaign. When we started out, we were reeling from blows, self-inflicted blows. Morale was so low, I can remember. I handled all the correspondence in headquarters for a period of a couple of weeks after the debacle of the resignations and the defeat of the government. I wrote it in my own hand. We recruited people who volunteered their services for nothing. That whole headquarters staff, with the exception of permanent people, worked for nothing in that campaign. We knew what our money situation was. Anyway, the first thing that they did was the comic books that Keith Davey issued, and they really were kind of flat. So we ran with that. Then we went to Montreal, and set out from Montreal for Moncton on the train. We get to Moncton - my God, there's the Truth Squad! Diefenbaker was up anyway, but that really got him up. We had a marvellous time with them. Then we went from Moncton to Halifax and they showed up again. Diefenbaker just played them like an organ, and the crowds loved it. Well, that was the end of the Truth Squad. I think they had two nights on the road and that was it. But it was a great help to him. I think that combination of things turned the morale of the party around in '63. It go so good, as a matter of fact, that some of the Ontario people began sending sympathetic messages - Eddie Goodman, George Hogan, John Bassett, Hugh Latimer - people in the Ontario organization who'd been a little cool. Such gimmicks as the Truth Squad were a mistake, in the view of Premier Stanfield and others, and may have cost Pearson his majority in Parliament. The Truth Squad was the brain child of Keith Davey, the Liberal party's campaign director, and, according to Judy LaMarsh, who was to head the Squad during its short life, Davey got the idea for it from Theodore White's hook, The Making of the President: 1960, a vivid and detailed description of John Kennedy's successful campaign. The Truth Squad got off to a bad start because of premature publicity. Judy had wanted to go about its work quietly, sitting in the audience at the Conservative meetings, but without her knowledge an announcement was published. The Tories were duly warned and knew what to do.

His finest election 93 JUDY LA MARSH

In Moncton, the Conservatives put up a table for us with a great sign over it. There were a lot of Liberals in the hall and everybody thought it was quite funny. Hugh John Flemming was sitting up there and kept winking at me every now and then because we were great friends. The next night in Charlottetown I spoke at a meeting in one end of the town and John Diefenbaker at the other end of town. We had about the same number of people. So it was kind of a draw. Then, the next night in Halifax was quite wild. An awfully nice guy from one of the Halifax papers came to my hotel room and said, 'You'll get killed if you do this any more. You'd better get out of it.' And there was a lot of shoving and shouting, and it was pretty bad the Halifax night. I was speaking in Cape Breton the next day, and when we got back to Moncton there was a phone call from Keith Davey and Walter Gordon, saying, 'Stop it.' I was very upset. So then two other very prominent Liberals got me that night and said, 'You know, you're really being left out on a limb and that's a terrible thing to do.' But unanimously the press was against it. In fact, we haven't had the tradition of calling the prime minister a liar, and that's in effect what it was. We had put out a couple of issues. I remember vividly one thing: Diefenbaker was saying that agriculture was in a healthier state in the Atlantic provinces than it ever had been. In fact we had the DBS figures which were just out and showed that every province was down a hundred thousand dollars from the year before. So we just put out his statement and in the column beside it we put the DBS report. It was an extremely difficult kind of operation anyway, and giving this to the press so it could go out at the same time as the story of the meeting was pretty tricky too. But the results were that it was called off and I went back home where my opponents carried coffins with me in it, and harped on the death of the Truth Squad all through the campaign. It cost me a hundred votes, I think. The Truth Squad, the colouring books, the pigeons, the whole gimmickry idea, people didn't like it. It looked too American. But in point of fact, we won Moncton and we hadn't had it; we stood the four seats on the Island, two and two; and we won the two seats in Halifax which we hadn't won before. So the Liberals picked up three or four seats out of those three nights. It didn't lose us those seats, anyway. But I don't know what the effect was elsewhere. My guess is it maybe skimmed ten per cent off the vote every place in the country. I don't know that, it's only a gut feeling. And it may have been enough in a lot of ridings to cost us seats.

94 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost With the PC campaign picking up momentum, Conservatives like John Bassett seemed sorry that they had turned against the Chief. DALTON CAMP

Bassett called me a couple of times and offered us free production on his television station, free time on his television station, anything we wanted. I felt like asking for his paper, but I didn't. Diefenbaker opened in St Catharines in that campaign and [newsman] Ron Collister was bowled over by the reaction Diefenbaker got. Word was getting back to Bassett that things weren't all that bad. JOHN BASSETT

Oh yes. I regretted it afterwards. The '63 election was very difficut. On election day, I had to go down and cast my ballot for Mr Perry Ryan. It was a tough thing to do. But I thought that, as a matter of policy, we'd been wrong, we were wrong-headed about it. Of course, on a personal basis, Mike Pearson was such a warm, attractive, nice fellow, it wasn't too difficult. So that didn't particularly trouble me, although I must say I never had the deep affection for him that I had for John Diefenbaker. I thought he [Diefenbaker] was such a human fellow, and I loved the way he operated. He was emotional, and he got involved, and he was a fighter. He was a hell of a fellow in my view. Still is, although from reports that seep back to me, he doesn't think too much of me. An extraordinary feature of the 1963 election campaign was the amount of apparent American interference. There was some question of whether the CIA was subverting the Canadian democratic process, as it was shown to have done in other countries. President Kennedy made it no secret that he wanted Diefenbaker defeated. One of the men who worked on the president's own campaign, the pollster, Lou Harris, was loaned to the Liberals. Newsweek did a hatchet job on the prime minister with a cover picture which made him look like a madman. Then there was a mysterious letter that purported to be from the us Ambassador, Walton Butterworth, to Pearson. DALTON CAMP

When I was in the Pc party headquarters, I got an anonymous letter on us embassy stationery, purportedly written by a Canadian employee at a low level, which said that the American embassy was housing people from Washington who were doing a Newsweek story. Norman MacLeod from the Press Gallery happened to be around that day, and I gave him a copy of it. I called in Grosart and showed him the letter, and he said, 'For God's

His finest election 95

sake, don't show that to Diefenbaker.' I never did. Anyway, we came to the conclusion that the letter was some kind of phoney. Well, the way you can look at that now is, maybe it was bait. The second thing that happened was this curious thing that fell into [Canadian High Commissioner in London] George Drew's hands, overseas, which purported to be a letter - written again on embassy stationery - by the former us ambassador here [Walton Butterworth] to Pearson. A dear Mike letter, warmly praising him for his stand on nuclear arms. Drew called O'Leary and said, 'I have a hot document. No one must see it. I want to get it to the prime minister.' Believe it or not, he gave it to the president of the cec [Alphonse Ouimet], who was in London, who flew it back to Montreal, not knowing what it was. I sent it to O'Leary, O'Leary gave it to the prime minister, and I never knew what it was. All I knew was it was some kind of thing that would blow the election wide open - or so O'Leary alleged that Drew had told him. The prime minister sat on this for a very long time. In the meantime copies of the letter were widely circulated. Clark Davey of the Globe and Mail had one, as did Ross Munro of the Winnipeg Tribune, and we all thought that we had exclusive possession of this strange document. There's no question that the letter was authentic in terms that it was written on authentic stationery. No question of that. To go back to the previous document, I think the judgment was that the letter had been typed on a photocopy of embassy stationery. But this was the real thing, and it was Butterworth's signature, ostensibly. Towards the end of the campaign McCutcheon, who was in the Senate and minister of trade and industry, had his suite in the Chateau, and I had several very anxious evenings with him in which he threatened to resign if Diefenbaker uttered one syllable critical of the United States. I reported this to the prime minister, and I assured Wally that this wasn't going to happen. And it didn't happen, except somewhere in the West where Diefenbaker made some crack about America's late participation in World War 1 or II - I can't remember which - which stirred up Wally a little but it passed. Anyway, towards the end of the campaign I was going through southern Ontario on the train with Diefenbaker. O'Leary was on the train, and Diefenbaker had called O'Leary into his car, and they had lunch. I met O'Leary between cars after the lunch, and O'Leary told me about the letter. He said that Diefenbaker had asked him if he would get it printed in the Ottawa Journal as a news item. O'Leary told me that he wasn't going to do it, because he didn't really believe it, and it was dangerous to do. I certainly didn't want it done, once I knew what it was.

96 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost Grosart was on the train, and for all I knew Grosart was on the train for the day. Then suddenly Grosart was missing. The train stopped, Grosart got off, disappeared. I had the direst of suspicions that it related to this damned letter, that Diefenbaker had made up his mind he was going to get this thing out somehow. It was the last week of the campaign. I got hold of Bruce Phillips [one of the reporters on the train] , who was kind of a friend of mine. Bruce and I got in a lower bunk, and I said, 'Look, there's something that the prime minister has and it relates to a letter which I don't believe is genuine. It concerns our relations with the United States.' I may have told him more, I don't know, but I said, 'I just want to tell you, for God's sake, don't touch it. Don't touch it as anything offending.' Apparently Phillips then called Charles Lynch, who then called Ross Munro. Now, what Grosart had done, in my understanding, was to have gone to Malton and flown to Winnipeg- either that or met Munro in Malton, I don't know which. He delivered this document to him, and Munro decided he wouldn't print it because he didn't believe it either, or for whatever reason. In the meantime, somebody did print it. The Brandon Sun, on the last Saturday of the campaign, did print the letter. But it never came to anything much. CP, I think, carried some kind of modest story about it. GRATTAN O'LEARY

I met Diefenbaker in Toronto, in his private car. He opened the letter. He is extraordinary. He said, 'This has got to be published; you have got to publish this.' I said, 'No, we can't publish that. The way to get that published, you read it on the platform tonight where you are going to speak and every paper in Canada will publish it.' By God, he wouldn't do that. I said, 'The thing to do is, when you get back to Ottawa you ask Mr Butterworth to come and see you and confront him with this and say, "Did you write this letter?" He will probably deny it.' Well, he didn't do that either. I am convinced the letter was a complete forgery. It is damned easy to get the letterhead of the American embassy; that's no trick at all. They are pretty skilful at that sort of thing. You see, Dief, with a thing like that, was trying to get me to publish it, and I would take responsibility for it. My God, it was libelous as hell. DALTON CAMP

It never happened in any of the other elections, all this purportedly American confidential correspondence and things. I just assume that we were being set up, perhaps. I don't know. We had a guy in the Buffalo radio station who was giving anti-Diefenbaker editorials out of Buffalo, which of

His finest election 97 course reached Ontario, and he called me and asked me if I wanted to reply, which I didn't. Then there was a series of anti-Diefenbaker articles Saturday Evening Post, Life Magazine, Newsweek, and Time were far from friendly during the campaign - just as though someone had put together a great campaign, orchestrated it. I don't know. There certainly wasn't a flattering word about Diefenbaker in any of the American media that I saw, and it all came at once. So that's my version of it. I don't know whether this was inspired by American intelligence or what. I don't know enough about how intelligence operates. It's credible, I suppose. Perhaps because of emotions aroused - and American interference may have contributed to them - there was an unusual amount of violence, or threats of violence, in the 1963 election campaign. Gerard Pelletier, who was to become a Liberal MP and cabinet minister, interviewed each of the party leaders during the 1963 election campaign. He was editor of La Presse of Montreal at the time, and he had an appointment to see Prime Minister Diefenbaker in the royal suite of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal one afternoon. GERARD PELLETIER

I knocked on the door. Somebody said, 'Come in.' I went in and I saw a man without a shirt on, and his wife without a dress on. I was very embarrassed. He said, 'Who are you?' 'Well,' I said, 'I'm the editor of La Presse.' 'What's your name?' I told him my name. He said, 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'I have an appointment with you, sir.' He said, 'What jackass gave you an appointment with me? I'm going to television.' Then, Burt Richardson, whom I had met in Couchiching and whom I knew pretty well, came out in the middle of the room and said, 'Well, excuse me, sir, but Mr Pelletier is the editor of La Presse and you gave him this we didn't know that the studio wouldn't be free for television,' and so on. He said, 'Okay, I'll sit with you for ten minutes.' He came to the other room after he finished shaving and dressing, and he complained about the television changing their timetable all the time. He was very grumpy. And I wanted to -you know, when you start an interview, I wanted to pacify him in some way. I said, 'How is the campaign going, sir? Are you in Montreal for some time?' 'No,' he said, 'I'm leaving tomorrow morning.' I said, 'You won't spend any more time?' 'No, what's the use? I can't communicate with these people.' And it was really sad because I think he felt that the opposition was breathing down his neck at that point and he felt pretty helpless in Montreal.

98 Diefenbaker: Leadership Jost B.T. RICHARDSON

I believe that there were three attempts made against the life of the prime minister during that election campaign and, except in one case, they were never reported. For instance, in Kitchener we were going through some Legion Hall and I grabbed a guy's hand. I just happened to be there. He was going to strike the prime minister. On another occasion I got a gash across my thigh and I am sure that it was intended to be a blow at the Chief. These crowds are so thick that you never know. Of course, the famous one was the FLQ attempt to derail the train. I was the senior staff person on that train. We were supposed to go from the Eastern Townships to Quebec city and then to Three Rivers. The big meeting that night was in Three Rivers. (Those big meetings in the evening in Quebec are just murder. They are all sitting around at the back of the hall drinking beer and the noise is terrible. The prime minister was always great in my opinion because he always made a speech in French which was excruciating, and everybody was in a holiday mood. It isn't quite the same out in Three Hills, Alberta, as it is in Three Rivers, Quebec.) We were supposed to be there at eight o'clock. I discovered that we weren't even running on the right track. I asked the conductor, and he said, 'Well something has happened and we have switched over from the CN to the CP line.' Then we went over the bridge and there was a long halt and it was quite obvious that the railway security had taken over. We never crossed a bridge between Quebec city and Three Rivers without them stopping and going out to see if there was dynamite placed or anything. That conductor told me that they had cut a piece of the rail out, so the train would have been derailed. That first overt act of the FLQ was directed against John Diefenbaker, prime minister of Canada, and virtually at the end of his time as prime minister. We got to Three Rivers about eleven o'clock that night and went to the hall. Everything was going strong. This was Maurice Duplessis's place. Everything was turned on, there wasn't any doubt about the enthusiasm for John Diefenbaker in Three Rivers. This wasn't Liberal territory at all. It was a great meeting. As a bizarre footnote to the 1963 election, the vote in Pontiac-Temiscamingue ended in a tie. PAUL MARTINEAU

That was the year that I had the recount. I was elected, then defeated by the armed forces vote. Then we had a recount. It came out a tie vote. We had some very tense moments following the announcement that it was a tie,

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because the returning officer would then be called upon to cast the deciding vote. He hummed and hawed a bit, and he asked for time. He wanted the night to think it over. The judge said, 'No, the law says forthwith.' Then he said, 'Can I phone the chief returning officer in Ottawa, Mr Nelson Castonguay?' And the judge said, 'Of course, you may do that.' He did that, and he came back and he said, 'I'm going to flip a coin.' So he flipped a coin. The coin just rolled on the floor, and he turned around to the judge and he said, 'Paul Martineau.' The judge said, 'Very well, you are voting for Paul Martineau, and I therefore declare Paul Martinteau to be elected.' And that was it. The Conservatives lost the 1963 election, but for a few days it was uncertain whether Lester Pearson would actually be able to form a minority government. It was a time of political scheming, of plotting and planning combinations and coalitions, and attempts at improbable alliances. There was the precedent of Mackenzie King in 1925 - beaten by the Conservatives who won 116 seats to his 101, he had nevertheless carried on. Suddenly, to everyone's surprise, on 12 April it was announced that six Quebec Social Credit MPs had signed a declaration saying that they would support a Liberal government. The following day Diefenbaker announced that he would resign. This became known as 'L'affaire des six.' There were charges of bribery and corruption; some of the Quebec voters felt betrayed and were so angry that they threatened the six with physical violence. Three of the six repudiated the statement the day after it was made, and the other three withdrew after the Pearson government was formed on 22 April.

7

Leadership threatened

From 1962 on, Diefenbaker's star was on the decline. The Tory establishment had never really accepted him, but as long as he was winning could not oppose him. Once the greatest parliamentary majority in Canadian history had melted away to a Liberal minority government, they came out in the open. The early leaders of the anti-Diefenbaker forces were Douglas Harkness, who had resigned as defence minister over the nuclear warhead issue, J.M. Macdonnell, a tall, gaunt establishment figure who had been George Drew's financial critic in opposition days and who was briefly a minister without portfolio, and Leon Balcer, who became a prime mover for a change in the leadership after he was named Quebec leader. While he was fending off the threat from the Conservatives in his rear, John Diefenbaker was at the same time in a conjrontation with Lester Pearson over such Liberal policies as the flag and bilingualism. The Chief got a flood of mail from English-speaking Canadians, especially those of British descent, who felt their traditions were being abandoned. There were also charges that the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was the thin edge of the wedge of French-Canadian power. Given such explosive issues to work with, Diefenbaker proved again his extraordinary abilities as leader of the opposition. T.C. DOUGLAS

This is where he's at his best, because he is the master interrogator, the Prince Rupert of the cavalry attack. He is superb at this, and he is a good parliamentarian. Consequently, as a leader of the opposition he is most effective, much more effective than he is in government.

Martineau and Balcer at press conference, December 1964

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For one thing, of course, when you are leading the opposition the diversities within your own party don't show up to the same extent. Issues you raise are issues on which you agree. You agree that the government isn't any good, you agree that certain of its policies aren't any good, and so you are united on the negative. On positive things it is not so easy, but you need not worry about that problem quite so much when you are in opposition as you do when you are in government. So he made a very good leader of the opposition, and there isn't any doubt that the Liberals, who from 1963 on should have been sweeping back to power to majority rule in Canada, were largely blocked by him. GERARD PELLETIER

I remember interviewing people as a journalist, not quite understanding the reputation he had as a great parliamentarian. A former minister of Mr Pearson, who was no longer here when I arrived, told me, 'You know, it's difficult to explain, but when you sit in the House and he comes out, sometimes he gives you goose pimples.' I couldn't understand that. But I did when I came to the House myself. He could whip up his indignation and go into those great orations. I observed him very closely when I was a backbencher. I even wrote a column about that, which didn't endear me to Mr Diefenbaker because I described him squirming in his seat and then getting up and looking all around the House before he said a word. I said, 'That's the most important moment. Once he starts speaking, it's difficult to know what he's talking about. But he has a great moment, and he goes on and on. And the next morning, when you read Hansard, you see that he said precious little.' My conclusion was that, probably with all great speakers, you were very much impressed when they spoke, but when you tried to find in cold print what moved you you wouldn't find it. I would say, in substance, that he was a wonderful actor. J . W. PICKERSGILL

I think that Mr Diefenbaker was one of the worst politicians we ever had, the most incompetent politician we ever had in this country. I will give you an illustration. When he became leader of the opposition after the 1963 election I was the house leader for the first session and it was very difficult. We had to construct a majority, we didn't have it in our ranks, and we had one or two mavericks, like Ralph Cowan, whom you could never be quite sure about. Diefenbaker insulted Robert Thompson, he insulted Real Caouette, he insulted Tommy Douglas almost every day when he was in opposition

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instead of attacking us. He was always creating divisions and consolidating our ranks at the same time. It seemed to me that he just had no capacity whatever to work with other people, and this is the essence of the parliamentary system. Maybe he would have been able to run a congressional system, maybe he would have even been able to do it without a Watergate. He thinks he's a great parliamentarian. I think he's a great performer in debate from time to time, but as for tactics, and above all strategy, he never had any that I can see. The annual meeting of the Progressive Conservative party was held in the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, 1-5 February 1964. It had been less than a year since the government's defeat. There were rumblings of discontent among the younger Conservatives and demands for a secret ballot on the leadership issue. The Quebec delegates were in revolt and might have walked out if Diefenbaker had not agreed that Leon Balcer be named Quebec leader. At the 1964 meeting, Dalton Camp succeeded Egan Chambers as president of the Conservative party. Chambers had run, and lost, in the 1963 federal election on a pro-nuclear platform . The press played up this policy division between the leader and the president as a sign of Conservative disunity. After the election, Camp arranged a meeting between Chambers and Diefenbaker. DALTON CAMP

I can remember a very, very humiliating day on which I went out to Sussex Street, thinking that the prime minister and Egan and I were going to have a quiet talk, and he had Churchill and Hamilton there. We all sat down at the table in the dining room, and there was a great silence. Then Diefenbaker said to Chambers, 'Well, Mr President, what are you going to do next?' Egan said, 'What do you mean, what am I going to do next?' Diefenbaker began to bully him, saying, 'You know what I mean. What's your next move?' Things like that. It was just a bad day. It was a nothing. It was just to put Egan on the rack for a while. I felt very embarrassed by it because I had asked Egan, on behalf of Diefenbaker, to come to this meeting. The prime minister wanted to see him. Egan didn't know he was going to be stood under the cold shower for an hour. I drove back with Egan and I apologized for the event. That was the first time I thought that Egan had outlived his usefulness as president - he'd only been president one term - and the idea began to form in the back of my mind that I would run. The principal reason for running was that I thought that I could guarantee Diefenbaker a second crack in '65 on the maximum terms with as little unrest in the party as anyone could achieve.

104 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost I would call in every IOU I had and keep the thing together. That is why I ran for the presidency in '64. I ran against Egan, and the night before the vote he withdrew. So I didn't have a contest. It was unanimous. You never knew in this business - it was so byzantine, the whole atmosphere at that time - who your friends were and who your enemies were, or whether any conversation you had was genuine. I can remember Roy Faibish bringing Jack McIntosh, who was the MP for Swift Current, up to my suite in the Chateau Laurier when I was campaigning for the presidency before Egan had withdrawn. McIntosh, whom I didn't really know well, said to me, 'I only have one question. Are you just another Diefenbaker yes man?' I said, 'I'm not anybody's man. I'm a party man. But if you're asking me if I'm going to be loyal to the leader, I'm afraid the answer is yes, certainly I will. But I'm not anybody's yes man.' 'Well,' he said, 'that's all I wanted to know. You have my support.' I don't really think he meant that question the way it came to me. I think he was pumping me. I wrote Egan a note and told him I was going to run for the presidency a couple of weeks before the annual meeting, maybe longer. I called Stanfield. Stanfield said, 'What do you want to do that for?' I said, 'I just want to, I'm doing it.' 'Well, go ahead.' I called certain people, and wrote others, and the response was pretty good, I hadn't talked to Diefenbaker because I didn't think the national presidency was the gift of the national leader. I didn't think it worked that way. The national director is, but not the national president. The day I arrived in Ottawa I went to his office in the Centre Block to talk to him. He said, 'You didn't tell me you were going to run for the presidency.' I told him exactly why I didn't tell him. I said, 'I don't think the national leader wants to become involved in a contest for the presidency whatever his preference might or might not be. But I'm going to run. I'm going to run because I think I can hold the party together and keep the party together better than anybody else can.' We had a chat - maybe ten or fifteen minutes. And at the end of it, he said that he understood I was a great fan of Churchill's. I said I was, and he said he was too. So he took a picture off the wall - it was a picture of Clemmy and Winston and himself and Olive - and he autographed it and gave it to me. It was as close as we ever came to being sentimental. I went away feeling that he knew what I was doing and that I had his blessing, as much as he could give it.

Leadership threatened 105 There was strong support among the YPCs and the students for a secret ballot on the leadership question, but at the annual meeting the proposition was overwhelmingly rejected. DALTON CAMP

At that meeting in '64, Diefenbaker said something to me that influenced me in subsequent years. When they were taking the vote, my advice to him was to accept the principle of the secret ballot. I told him if he did, he'd win it. He indicated to me he would and then he changed his mind. I met him after he made his speech. You know the speech: 'I want to know where you stand. You know where I stand, and I want to know where you stand.' The vote as I remember it was a vote whether or not to have a vote, or whether or not it should be a secret ballot. He said, 'If twenty per cent of those people vote against me, I'm going to quit right now.' Well, two years later we got to the point where fifty-one per cent flinched, and he didn't budge. I told him at the time that there wouldn't be anywhere near twenty per cent. There weren't a handful who stood on the question. It was a standing vote, there wasn't a corporal's guard that stood, maybe twenty. A surprise development at the 1964 annual meeting was the naming of Leon Balcer as Quebec lieutenant. Paul Martineau had a hand in this appointment, as did Tom Van Dusen, who with another newspaperman, Greg Guthrie, had joined Diefenbaker's staff. PAUL MARTINEAU

I had drafted and presented to a meeting of the Quebec wing of the party, which Diefenbaker had attended, the resolution designating Mr Balcer as officially the Quebec leader, and as such the deputy national leader. Mr Diefenbaker, who was at the meeting of the Quebec wing, very enthusiastically received that proposal, and said that he was absolutely in favour. The motion was immediately put to a vote, it was unanimously accepted by everyone in that hall, and great enthusiasm followed . Leon himself was very greatly elated. He confided in me, and in many others no doubt, how happy he was about this, and that now he would get to work with all his energy to get a strong organization going in Quebec that would produce results in the forthcoming election. But just a day or two after his designation by Mr Diefenbaker, Mr Diefenbaker himself cast a dampener, a lot of cold water, on his proposal when he replied to some questions that had been put to him by some of the press men about the functions of this leader. He simply replied that there was no such post in the party,

106 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

and that there was only one leader, and things would continue as before. This is substantially his comment on that appointment. So right away relations between Diefenbaker and Balcer became estranged. TOM VAN DUSEN

After the government was defeated, Balcer reverted to a front-bench private member and was fairly quiescent. At the 1964 Conservative annual meeting, a number of people approached the Chief and suggested that Balcer should be named his Quebec lieutenant. They mentioned Macdonald and Cartier, and they stressed that Balcer had survived all these years. The Chief agreed to this. One of the persons who was instrumental in this was Clement Brown, who was a newspaperman for Le Devoir. We wrote a statement out for the Chief on a typewriter in the kitchen of Stornoway, Clement Brown and myself, in both French and English. We likened Balcer to Sir George-Etienne Cartier, and mentioned the mantle of Cartier in a sort of roundabout way, but the message was pretty obvious. The Chief agreed to use this, and he did use it, but we found out when we returned to the convention that just at the moment that the Chief was about to start his speech, the Quebec caucus had passed a resolution suggesting that Balcer be the Quebec leader. So all of these things jived in and he was named the Quebec leader. Immediately upon being named the Quebec leader, Balcer gave a statement to the press saying that he was also the party's deputy leader. Mr Diefenbaker said, 'There is no deputy leader in this party. There never has been. There is no such title as deputy leader, and Baker's responsibilities were limited to the post of Quebec lieutenant.' This generated or inflamed the antithipy which Balcer had felt ever since the 1956 convention, when he walked out. It brought this whole smouldering feud back to life again. When this recognition of Balcer as Quebec leader took place, it seemed to bring to life some dormant aspirations of his, and he began to be very active among the eight Quebec members. He finally attempted to get from them an undertaking that they would follow his directions rather than Diefenbaker's. I think only two agreed to do this and the rest refused. He became quite active in movements aimed at increasing his own prestige. I had a long talk with Balcer. I pointed out to him that the Chief had made a considerable concession. He had agreed to name him Quebec leader, and maybe he should content himself with that for the time being. I could always talk to Balcer. We were always on excellent terms as far as personal conversation went. But you got the impression that you never got through

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to him. All he kept saying to me was, 'He's finished in Quebec; he'll never get any place in Quebec.' This seemed to be burning its way into his brain, and this was all he could think of. People kept saying at that time that, 'Diefenbaker doesn't understand Quebec.' But apparently nobody understood Quebec, because Lesage didn't understand Quebec, neither did Rene Levesque, and neither did Pearson, because nobody was making very many yards in Quebec at that time. In fact, Balcer didn't understand Quebec either, because the Fulton-Favreau formula that Balcer fought for and supported so strenuously was rejected by Quebec and rejected by Lesage. Diefenbaker's judgment on that point was better than Baker's and better than a lot of these self-constituted Quebec experts. One of Dalton Camp's first initiatives as president of the Conservative party was to organize a 'thinkers' conference. It was called The National Conference on Canadian Goals and was held in Fredericton , 9-12 September 1964. At that time, 1 wrote in Saturday Night that the conference had two main achievements: it 'destroyed the party's anti-intellectual image,' and it 'exposed the party Bourbons to modern thought.' There was a growing need for a party philosophy and platform. As might be expected, the Fredericton Conference was compared with the 1960 Kingston Conference, which had given a new direction and done so much to revive the Liberal party. But one difference was that Mr Diefenbaker was not really in favour of this conference. DALTON CAMP

Apparently he construed it as some kind of plot, or the formation of a cabal or something like that. He never really trusted it. I had a vice president named Jacques Bouchard from Amos, Quebec, who was a very dear friend of mine a. person I liked very much, and who was very, very devoted to Diefenbaker. Bouchard went to see Diefenbaker for me to ask him about his involvement in Fredericton, to assure him we wanted him to come, and to establish a time frame in which he wanted to participate and how. Bouchard opened his briefcase with all these documents, the nominal roll of the invited delegates - a list of people to be invited- and Diefenbaker, who has nothing if he doesn't have curiosity, said, 'What's that?' Bouchard said, 'Oh, it's just a few papers.' 'Let me see them,' Diefenbaker said. So he grabbed this list and he went through it. Of course Hees was on it, Fulton was on it, all the people that he despised were on, Hogan - well, he just exploded. Then he decided that he'd add some of his own names of people he wanted - which he did and which we did, and it didn't matter.

108 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

I invited Hees. Hees didn't come. But I made up my mind that we'd invite all the privy councillors and past presidents of the association. That's why Hees was on ; he was the past president. Fulton was entitled to it because of his rank in the party in British Columbia. No sheeps-and-goats thing. Have them all down. But that's not the way he saw it. He sent down Van Dusen and somebody else, who just hovered over the conference looking for tell-tale signs of disloyalty or heresy. Instead, everybody had a hell of a good time. TOM VAN DUSEN

Diefenbaker had it thrust on him. As some men have greatness thrust on them, he had this conference thrust on him. And he tolerated it. He went down and made a speech. His speech was not couched in abstract or academic terms - it was a political speech, and it was a very good political speech, even with that audience. People seemed to feel that he had points to make. Camp certainly went out of his way to be very friendly with the Chief. I remember when Diefenbaker arrived, Camp personally went out and scoured Fredericton, trying to find some lobsters for Diefenbaker, and came back with a box or a bag with half a dozen lobsters in it, almost like a retriever. The Chief came down on the last or second last day. This was the position assigned to him in the program. He made his speech, stayed overnight, and left. I was there for the whole conference. While I was there I had a very interesting discussion with Marshall McLuhan on Diefenbaker's television image. I was trying to pick his brains and find out how we could make Dief come through more functionally on television. There was a cocktail party going on and we ended up out in the hall. I got about forty-five minutes of pure vintage McLuhan about the visual age and all this kind of thing. It was wonderful material but I wasn't able to apply it immediately to the Chief's performance. McLuhan said that a great deal could be done to improve it, make it cooler and bluer rather than red and hot. I think we acted on some of it. I gathered from that that the Chief should be more relaxed, and we worked along those lines. We got him relaxed, and he became a very popular television performer eventually. When he became opposition leader, John Diefenbaker appointed a shadow cabinet, consisting of the former ministers of his government who were still in the House and a few new members such as Gordon Fairweather. The shadow cabinet met at least once a week in Diefenbaker's corner office on

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the fourth floor of the Parliament Buildings. At first , things went well, largely because Pearson's 'sixty days of decision' had turned out so disastrously. Tory spirits revived. Then, there arose issues such as the flag , bilingualism, and opting out of shared cost programs. These were divisive issues, and the Conservative caucus was as divided over them as the rest of the country. PAUL MARTINEAU

Pearson had appointed his B and B Commission, and Diefenbaker was very hostile to that. He had been asked at one stage when he was prime minister if he would consider the appointment of such a commission, and he had answered with a flat 'no'. This had been commented on very adversely in the French press - the unconcern and indifference towards the Quebec problem. This was one of the suggestions I'd made to Diefenbaker - that a commisison should be appointed to study those questions, as well as that various other structures should be set up to deal with it. They were largely ignored. We began holding long and very controversial or very argumentative caucus meetings to discuss the Quebec problem. I began to take a lead in exposing the Quebec point of view, my thesis being that we should try to appear to be in favour of reaching a modus vivendi with Quebec, which would give Quebec some positive response to its aspirations and set up structures that would enable Quebec to reach those aspirations, and at the same time maintain the unity of Confederation. As far as the status quo was concerned, I said that it wouldn't work because of the revival of nationalist feeling in Quebec. The small tokens that might have been sufficient in past years were no longer adequate at all to deal with the situation. A new generation of Quebeckers had arisen, who wanted to take control of their own affairs - maitres chez nous, as Jean Lesage had said, and in saying that he was really responding to the deep desire of the Quebec people. At the same time, I believed and I still believe that the majority wanted to remain a part of Canada. I suggested through the caucus that the party adopt an attitude that would be positive, that would enable Quebec to succeed in those ambitions. I said that we would find favour if we took a lead in that direction. Diefenbaker and a group of members, mostly westerners, led perhaps by Erik Nielsen and some others, Jack Homer perhaps - Jack, although he barks a lot, is not that hostile - took a very negative attitude towards those suggestions. They didn't want any concessions at all made to Quebec. As far as the BNA Act was concerned, it had been operative for a hundred years, and they didn't see why it should be changed.

110 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

They didn't know what Quebec wanted, why Quebeckers were always crying about something or other and making a lot of loud noises that were really beginning to be annoying and disturbing to even the remote parts of the country. This should not be encouraged, they said; it was due to the weakness of Pearson. Then there were the autonomous powers or options to the provinces that were really gnawing at the very fibres of the nation. And soon. Anyway, there was no meeting of minds. On the one hand there was the position of which I think I was the leading exponent: That a complete survey in depth of the needs and wants of Quebec should be made. That adjustments should be consented to, which would be expressed by constitutional changes, which would make it clear that the province of Quebec is not a province like the others because it is the mainstay of one of the two constituent cultural groups of the country. That this should be recognized by institutions. That if it were, it would crush at birth the growing separatist unrest and create a climate of harmony where Canada could fully progress, could attain nationhood. And that the aspirations of all groups could be attained without disparaging or impairing that of any. I made specific recommendations. But what happened was simply long, endless discussions aggravated by much bitterness, many personal attacks, much vindictiveness. It ended by some of them saying, 'Well, who are masters here? We won the battle of the Plains of Abraham, and this position of domination which we occupy, we will continue to occupy.' I'm not saying Diefenbaker ever used those words, but he did continuously oppose any change. He was absolutely in support of the status quo, unity of Canada, equal rights and privileges. That was his theme and he didn't evolve from that position at all. The flag debate resulted in bitter exchanges between Paul Martineau and the Chief. PAUL MARTINEAU

At one stage, Diefenbaker thought he'd worked out a compromise. He wanted to have the matter decided by a referendum. I opposed this suggestion. I said, 'Look, if it's a referendum, we know what the results will be. But not only that - I fear greatly the campaign that will necessarily precede the voting on the referendum, where all the old bitterness and quarrels of the past will be revived, and where all the prejudices and so on will come to the surface. At the end we'll be a most divided nation. No matter what the results are - whether we vote majority in favour of a distintive flag, or against it, the result will be division. I think it's a bad move.'

Leadership threatened 111

Diefenbaker had asked that all the members of the Conservative caucus take the position that they opposed the distinctive flag, but would bring in an amendment regarding the referendum. He said, 'Provided you do that, then you're free to do as you like afterwards, but you must, first of all, on principle, be against the Pearson proposition.' I got up and said that I for one would not support such a point of view, and then I walked with him as we were leaving the caucus room. He got very annoyed and began a great outburst against me. He ended up by saying, just as we were walking out, 'No.' When he took that attitude, I said, 'Very well, sir, if that's your attitude, I'll never make another suggestion, and I'm not sure if I'll ever come back again into this caucus.' That's when he said, 'The man is crazy, the man is crazy.' He was muttering that as I took my leave. Anyway, the debate continued all that summer on the flag issue, and the same positions were held by the various participants. Not much progress was made in any way, except that at one stage a committee was formed to decide what the form of the flag should be because a lot of people didn't like the first proposal of the three maple leaves. I was not a member of the committee. In fact, Diefenbaker - so I was told - intervened directly to make sure that I would not be on that committee. Instead, he had Theo Ricard from St-Hyacinthe as the Quebec representative on that committee. They brought in the report favouring the one-maple-leaf flag. The debate went on till December, and by then the country had had it up to here, and most members as well. But no one would budge from their positions. It was then that we began speaking about closure, and Leon Balcer decided that he would propose closure to bring the debate to an end. I told Leon that I thought it was a very bad move on his part, because at that time Leon was in great popularity and favour in English-speaking Canada and was openly and frequently suggested as a possible leader of the national party. I told him, 'If you take that position, your chances of ever becoming leader of the Conservative party are finished forever. I will support you on your stand, but I think that politically it's the wrong move to make. Especially now that you have a chance of becoming leader of the party, you shouldn't burn your bridges that way for no real reason. Let the government suggest closure. They will!' Because I believed that they were working up to it anyway, to bring the debate to an end. 'No,' he said. He'd made up his mind to propose closure. He had considered all the consequences possible. It was on the 14th of December, 1964, that the motion was brought in and the debate took place, and finally it was voted on at the very end of that day, around midnight or so.

112 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

I made a speech explaining the position I'd taken and why I'd supported closure, and why I favoured the distinctive Canadian flag, the maple leaf flag. This long debate had brought about a lot of bitterness among individual members of the Conservative caucus. Most of the westerners were very bitter. They felt that we were against the leader, and that we were also against Canada you might say, although actually my real thinking was that by doing that I was for Canada and that was the only way you could assure the survival of Canada - by bringing about measures that were acceptable to all elements of Canada. ALVIN HAMILTON

I said to Leon Balcer, 'Uon, tell me in one sentence what you want to quit this antagonism to us on the flag debate.' All he could propose was that we should have an equal number of senators from Quebec as we had from the rest of Canada. I said, 'If that is all you have got, that is nothing else but pure unadulterated BS.' 'We want a Canadian flag,' I said. 'The party's always wanted a Canadian flag. But we want evidences of both founding races on that flag and not some leaf or some inanimate object. We all have followed a flag with a cross on it since the crusades. Why should we turn around and follow a leaf? We all accept the idea of a greater power, so why not? That's the compromise that we are putting forward and you won't come in on that compromise.' It was just really a preliminary anti-Diefenbaker position on that fellow's part. In any case, I said, 'I will have nothing to do with you.' Shortly after the fl,ag debate ended in closure, Leon Balcer let it be known at a press conference held on 21 December 1964 that he was thinking of resigning from the Conservative party. His position as Quebec lieutenant had become untenable since he had asked the Liberal government to impose closure and end the Tory filibuster. In January 1965, the Quebec members of the caucus had a meeting in Montreal, and at Balcer's behest they wrote a letter to the national president, Dalton Camp, asking that the party call a leadership convention. The first step would be for the national executive to meet to consider this request. DALTON CAMP

The request bore the endorsement of every member of the Quebec caucus, including Theo Ricard - every one of them. I had met them in the Windsor Hotel after they had sent for me, told me what they had determined, read

Leadership threatened 113

me the letter, and I said, 'Okay, send it. I'll decide what I'll do when I get the letter.' Then I got the letter by registered mail. I had two choices. First of all, there is a clause in the constitution which says that when so many members of the party ask the national executive to meet, it has to meet. They didn't have that many, but there was no question they'd get them if they wanted to get them. In the second place, that's all that we had from Quebec, and they all said the same thing. There's no question in my mind that they had a right to be heard by the national executive. Before I acted, I polled the executive, every one of them, and they overwhelmingly voted to have the meeting. The Globe and Mail had a saucy editorial, saying when was I going to make up my mind. Well, I did. I acknowledged Baker's letter. I called him on the phone and told him what I was going to do and how I was disposed. But when I wrote the national executive I did not tell them how I was disposed. I asked them for an opinion - to call the national executive, call it soon, call it later, don't call it. Overwhelmingly they said, 'Call it soon.' At the same time, I began to get a lot of mail in favour of calling a leadership convention. I subsequently found out that was organized, but it made quite an impression on me. Who organized it? Hogan and Goodman, I think. E.A. GOODMAN

No, absolutely not. I took no part in that at all. I had taken this position at that '64 meeting. There was an annual meeting that followed, my recollection is, in which John Hilton and a few other people took a position. I felt that I had done all that I was going to do and I refused to take any position whatsoever after that. I just went and watched it. But as far as I was concerned, I wasn't going to make a career out of fighting with Mr Diefenbaker. I had great respect for many of the things that he'd done. I thought that he should have resigned in '64, but I was only supporting the executive position at that meeting. As might be expected, the party leader didn't relish the prospect of a national executive meeting on the question of the leadership. If it were to occur, he wanted the caucus to meet first. The party president insisted that it be the other way around. Parliament was to reassemble after the winter recess on 16 February, and the new maple leaf flag, the rock on which Diefenbaker's leadership was foundering, was raised on Parliament Hill the day before. The caucus had been called for 11-12 February; Camp set 5-6 February as the date for the national executive meeting. When the

114 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost Chief returned from a trip abroad and learned of the dates, he moved the caucus meeting to 5 February. DALTON CAMP

I went to see Diefenbaker when we decided to arrange the date to tell him what I was going to do. I went in with a suitcase full of letters, and I remember thinking, 'How many people am I going to condemn to perdition if I produce all this correspondence?' I began to have reservations about whether or not I'd show him the letters. Originally I thought I'd let him see them so he'd have some idea of the temper of the party. Anyway, we got into this long conversation in his office, and he sent out for sandwiches. It was a preposterous meeting. He was angry with me half the time and friendly with me the other half of the time, bullying half the time and conciliatory the other half. I told him the date I proposed to call the national executive. He had announced through Erik Nielsen when the caucus was to be called. I didn't know that he'd done that while we were in that meeting. It was after that that I turned the date around. I said to him, 'All right. I think you should know what the temper of the party is.' And I opened my briefcase. I said, 'You don't have to read these, but this is the correspondence that I've gotten from the national executive and people in the party.' He said, 'Don't talk to me about your mail.' And he pushed the button and said to Marion Wagner, 'Bring me my mail.' She brought it in, all this mail, which, at the time, had a peculiar texture to it - it was all anti-French, anti-Quebec, anti-Balcer. He started reading these to me and he came to one written by Cam MacLean who was the vice-president of the Manitoba Conservatives. It said, 'My dear Chief, I very much regret to have to say to you that I can no longer .. .' Diefenbaker got halfway through the letter. He pushed the button and he called in Marion Wagner, and he dictated an abrupt reply to MacLean. I had a copy of that letter in my briefcase because MacLean sent a copy tome. When I came out, the press were there; that corridor was packed. They said, 'What did you talk about?' I said, 'Well, we pretty well covered the waterfront. But we set the date.' I had set a date, and he had set a date; then he went overseas, and I had promised him, of course, while I was in there, that that would be the day. Maybe he wanted two dates, I don't know. As things went down the road and he was overseas, within a matter of days I changed the date.

Leadership threatened 115

I had determined, having taken advice, that it would be in Diefenbaker's interests if we had the national executive first, and whatever damage was done would be undone by the caucus, where Diefenbaker's strength was. If the caucus were first, they could say anything they liked about Diefenbaker or give him any vote they liked, it would not influence the national executive. It might, as a matter of fact, antagonize the national executive and make matters worse and not better, so what you'd get would be a residual bad taste in everyone's mouth and a bad mark against Diefenbaker. Frankly, what Diefenbaker didn't want was the national executive to be called at all. That was my own initiative, my own decision, and that may very well have been a wrong decision, but I thought it was a decision I had to m~ke, and that I didn't have to ask his advice on. In the end, Diefenbaker had his way, with the caucus meeting on 5 February and the national executive the following day. There was some grumbling among Tory members who had to come to Ottawa ten days before Parliament was recalled. Leon Balcer decided not to attend the caucus; instead, he delegated Paul Martineau to represent him and to speak for him at this crucial meeting. Thus, it was by default more than anything else that the member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue became the spokesman for Quebec Conservatives. Paul Albert Martineau was born at Bryson, Quebec, on JO April 1921, and grew up in the mixed French-English community of Campbell's Bay across the. river from Ottawa. He studied at the bilingual University of Ottawa and, after service overseas with the RCAF, at the Universite de Montreal and was called to the Quebec Bar in 1949. Like so many other Quebec Conservatives, Martineau had been a supporter of Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale party. He served as minister of mines and technical surveys in the 1962 Diefenbaker minority government. At the caucus meeting, Martineau found himself in the Chief's black book. PAUL MARTINEAU

The atmosphere was already highly charged in this particular caucus, because it was the one preceding the meeting of the national executive. Balcer did not attend; in fact, he hadn't attended since he had fallen out with Diefenbaker, and he told me that he was delegating me as his spokesman to attend the caucus. The reason for the caucus was to decide who were supporting Diefenbaker, and who were not supporting his continuance in office as national leader.

116 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

Anyway, Diefenbaker spoke first, and he referred to me, in a very disparaging way, trying to heap ridicule and satire on me as 'that spokesman' and saying, 'Well, Balcer hasn't even got the guts to come here, he's got to send this plenipotentiary.' He said, 'What have they got to reproach me for?' meaning himself, because after all he was a pretty good fellow, and he'd proved it because he got more votes in Quebec than any other leader. 'Look at Bennett,' he said, 'and look at Bracken' and look at this and look at that, 'and see what they did and see what I've done. I've done better in Quebec than most leaders and I'm as popular as most leaders were; but there is always a group within the party that are always gnawing against the leadership. Disloyalty to the leadership is their password and their byword, and this has brought the party to the sorry state that it is. And these people have always opposed me.' He referred to a few - Senator Flynn - who had not taken part, to my knowledge, in any disloyal manoeuvre against Diefenbaker, and others who were not present. He went away back into history, even to the days of the Reconstruction party : Who was its leader? Harry Stevens. And how the division that was in the party had always led to its defeat at the polls, and how he thought he had cured it, but the old disease had been brought back, and it was fatal to the party and to its leadership. Now he was asking for the support of the entire caucus at this coming meeting. Then, after he had spoken, Churchill got up and said he wanted the meeting to break up without any reply. I immediately rose and said, 'No, you cannot take this poll without having a chance for full discussion. I won't stay in here a minute if you do that.' A few of them said : 'Let him speak, let him speak.' I got up, went up to the front where Diefenbaker was sitting, and I began telling Mr Diefenbaker and the meeting, 'This is not a question of personalities, and it's not a question of opposing the leadership or opposing Mr Diefenbaker in particular.' Far from opposing Mr Diefenbaker, I'd always been on his side until lately, and I had supported him at the convention - which he said I had not, but I had and our delegation had, and I had supported him throughout - so that I wasn't speaking as a long-time adversary of Mr Diefenbaker's but simply as a person who could not accept the ideas which he was proposing. Then I went on to speak about the Quebec situation. My main theme was that there was a malaise that had to be recognized; that it could not be cured by any short-term remedy, but that we had to go to the real roots of the division; that we had to recognize the image that Quebeckers themselves had of themselves and of their role within Confederation; that we had to adopt certain reforms in order to recognize that role; and that if we did so

Leadership threatened 117 we certainly could look forward to a long period of harmony within Confederation. I said that no doubt Mr Diefenbaker would be sustained by the national executive, and that he might remain the leader of the party, but that it would be a very hollow victory, because first of all it would not lead to any lasting results, that he could not in the present atmosphere and in regards to the feeling of Canadian people in general and Quebec people in particular ever expect to lead his party back to power. Moreover far from maintaining, as he was always saying, 'the masculinity of the Canadian nationhood,' his position and his intransigence would lead precisely to those results where the nation couldn't be sustained. All I was asking was for an opportunity for a reasonable hearing, and to consider this point of view, and to consider it as friends. I considered that the future of Quebec was within Confederation, and indeed we had no other place to go but to stay within Confederation, but not the Confederation that was being envisaged as the only true way of evolution for Canada - intransigence and status quo. That would not work. This was about the gist of what I said, and at the end I had the full ear of the caucus and support of a large number of the members present. At the beginning of my speech, Mr Diefenbaker tried to interrupt me a couple of times, trying to lead me away from my argument, saying, 'What did so-and-so do and what did so-and-so do?' After one or two of those interruptions, Heber Smith rMP, Simcoe North] rose from the back of the hall and shouted to Diefenbaker, 'Look, we've heard you and we've heard enough from you. Let him speak.' And he got a lot of applause. It got very violent at one stage. Insults, and being jostled about, and some of them were going to fight the others. It could have broken into a fisticuff. But at the end of my speech, everybody was calmer, and I got quite a bit of applause. Then Churchill asked for a vote of confidence, and there were a number who didn't rise. I was one of them. And the meeting broke up. That night, before the national executive meeting, Dalton Camp had the principal officers up to his suite in the Chateau Laurier to plan strategy. At the same time, the Goodman element, as Camp described them, were meeting and were sending emissaries to him to let him know that they wanted Mr Diefenbaker's resignation. DALTON CAMP

I decided that, rather than have hard words and confrontation, we would just circulate a questionnaire, and I would be the only one except Dick Thrasher, the national director, and Diefenbaker who would ever see the results of that questionnaire. Nobody would be bound by it. Just an expres-

118 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost sion of opinion. I told this to Edison Stairs, who was the runner - he kept coming back and forth . My message was 'We're running this thing, so everybody stay in place.' When the Goodman element got word about the questionnaire, they accepted that. They'd at least be able to say what they thought, without prejudice. So the agenda was: Balcer was to speak, Diefenbaker was to speak, circulate the questionnaires, fill them out, end of meeting. One of the questions on the questionnaire was, 'Do you think the national leader should consider calling a convention?' or something like that. Around three o'clock in the morning we finished this off and around seven o'clock in the morning I was in Stornoway for breakfast. The national executive was to meet at ten o'clock. I had breakfast with him [Diefenbaker], and the highlight of the breakfast was that he read a letter by a couple of psychiatrists in London, written to Mrs Diefenbaker, asking her to intervene in her husband's public life and get him to resign, because he was mentally deficient or something like that. Then I told him the strategy. Balcer was to have his say, the leader was to have his say, then we would circulate the questionnaires, and I told him the questions on the questionnaire. He sat there. Didn't say anything. He said, 'Well, let's go.' We got to the door and my God, that's when I realized he was taking Mrs Diefenbaker with him. She had absolutely no right to attend that meeting - none whatsoever. She was not a member of the national executive, she was not invited, and it was not the kind of a scene that she should be invited to attend. I was just chilled, half mad, and I knew the effect on the national executive would not be good. He was taking her along as some kind of shield. I didn't think it was a good idea, and I thought a lot less of him for it. The meeting started and Balcer delivered a one-sentence statement which was 'You all know what I think. I don't have to say any more.' That was all Diefenbaker needed. He got up, and he was not only longer than Balcer, he was worse. He called Jim Macdonnell a termite, and you could just feel the venom, the animus gathering momentum in that room. PAUL MARTINEAU

Diefenbaker made a speech, and he used all the old arguments about the victories he had led the party to and all that. As far as Balcer was concerned, I thought he made a tactical error. He simply rose and said, 'Well, you know my position. I'm not going to repeat it here. I ask you to support it.' And he sat down. Instead of answering some of the points raised by Diefenbaker, he simply rested his case on what the people already knew about it. He

Leadership threatened 119 missed a fine occasion to expose his point of view and the point of view of the people he had defended. E.A. GOODMAN

Balcer was given an opportunity to speak, and Leon - who doesn't come across strongly but is still an intelligent fellow - made really not a very impressive presentation. Then Mr Diefenbaker got up and was no more impressive. His speech was a long rambling affair in which he kept on talking about how Mr Gladstone became prime minister in his eighties. Mr Diefenbaker usually rises to the occasion but he sure didn't rise to this occasion. Then the principal officers had brought in a resolution which they thought had Mr Diefenbaker's support because Dalton had spoken to Mr Diefenbaker before. I remember it so well because I said to Dalton, 'Well, if he's agreed to that resolution going in front of the body, I'm amazed.' My recollection was that it called for a ballot of confidence at the next annual meeting. After Mr Diefenbaker's speech, Dalton Camp ruled that there would be no further discussion and that he had the questionnaire, which Eddie Goodman remembered as a resolution, to put to the executive. He read out the questions. DALTON CAMP

I got to the fourth question and Diefenbaker said, 'No.' I was thunderstruck, just astonished. I said, 'What do you mean, no?' He said, 'You're not going to have that question [on holding a leadership convention]. We're not going to have that.' I said, 'All right the principal officers will withdraw.' We went back downstairs, and I said, 'What are we going to do?' And I told them 'I feel as though something's terribly wrong. You have to conclude either that I lied to you by telling you that he had accepted this, or that he's lying when he says he didn't know anything about it and he's not going to accept it. I don't know what we should do.' They said, 'Do it. Put it to the meeting whether or not we should have it [the questionnaire]. We went back and I tried to explain to the national executive what this was all about. In the back of my head on the way upstairs, I thought, 'The thing for me to do is resign, right now. I'm in a hopeless position. Because I can't say now that I told Mr Diefenbaker that this was what the questionnaire was, and I can't say, if I didn't, why I didn't.' Anyway, the national executive voted to do it [to vote on the questionnaire J. They voted by ballot. And Eddie Goodman, who was ever alert, the

120 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

principal officers all being at the head table, said, 'What about the principal officers? They haven't voted yet.' I said I didn't vote. The chairman doesn't vote. But Finlay [Macdonald] voted. Margaret Harrison Smith demurred, but [J.J Doak and [R.J Deyell voted. Diefenbaker didn't vote; he didn't have a vote. It carried, very close, very close, but anyway it carried so that we filled out the questionnaire. Dalton Camp and Eddie Goodman have different versions of what happened at the meeting. Goodman believed that the close vote [variouJ/y reported ,u 51-49 or 55-5/] was on a procedural motion by Erik Nielsen that the q11e.1·tionnaire was out of order. He also charged that Camp had not allowed the principal officers to take part in the ballot. At the time, there was co11/11.1·io11 and almost chaos. E . A . GOODMAN

We took the vote, and to my surprise, Camp announced that the Diefenbaker forces had won. I'd counted the vote, and l knew that it was within one or two votes of them losing, and that the three people who'd brought in the original resolution which they had supported were sitting at the head table. I simply said, 'You didn't count the votes at the head table. That makes the result go the other way.' To this day, Dalton has never answered me. He is one of my closest friends. Never answered me. He simply refused to count the votes of the proponents of the original motion. Diefenbaker won the vote by either one or two votes, when he would have lost it by one or two votes if they'd counted the proponents of the motion's vote. To this day, I've never been able to understand why Camp deliberately saved Mr Diefenbaker on that occasion. DALTON CAMP

No, no, I never deliberately miscounted the vote in favour of anybody. I was in a no-lose position. I couldn't care less which way the vote went. But there was a ballot taken with respect to the question of a leadership convention because I phoned those results to Diefenbaker and it wasn't particularly close. It was 75-25 or something like that against. I phoned Balcer the next morning and told Balcer what the vote was. I simply said, 'It was lost,' and then he said, 'What was the vote?' or something like that, and I said, 'It wasn't even close.' Balcer then made a public statement that he questioned the result, he questioned my reporting of the vote.

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In other words, according to the party president, there was a very close vote in favour of filling out the questionnaire but the results of the questionnaire revealed that the leadership question was lost by a wide margin. Camp said the ballots were kept in an Ottawa safe under the care of the national secretary, Ken Binks, for a couple of years. The result of the national executive meeting was understood to mean John Diefenbaker had won the right to lead the Progressive Conservative party in one more election campaign.

8

The last hurrah

Lester B. Pearson's troubles were many. There were the 'sixty days of decision' - a dream of an election slogan but an administrative nightmare. Then Walter Gordon's first budget had to be practically abandoned. After that, there were the Rivard revelations, the Hal Banks escape, the furniture deals, and other scandals. The justice minister, Guy Favreau, resigned. Another minister, Yvon Dupuis, and the prime minister's executive assista-nt, Guy Rouleau, were fired. Two other ministers, Maurice Lamontagne and Rene Tremblay, were under a cloud. Pearson was told that the way out was to go to the country; his advisers assured him that he would be returned with a majority and all his problems would be settled. There was no doubt that being a prime minister of a minority government which was as accident prone and scandal ridden as his was not a comfortable job. He was a sorely tried man and he did not enjoy the debates in the House of Commons, nor the daily confrontation with John Diefenbaker as opposition leader. Yet, at the same time, the prime minister was as cautious as any diplomat would be. Walter Gordon suggested an election as early as the fall of 1964, but the old 'pros' among the Liberal ministers, such as Paul Martin and Arthur Laing, were opposed, and Gordon had lost much of his reputation for omnipotence after the disastrous first budget. Still, the finance minister did not give up, and at the end of April 1965 he brought in a budget that included a ten per cent cut in the personal income tax, which was assumed to be a preelection tactic. Yet Pearson would not go to the governor general to ask for dissolution.

Diefenbaker campaigning before 1965 election

124 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost The planned election date was moved up to 12 July and the Liberal party's election machine was put in motion. Then somebody pointed out that that was the Orangemen's Glorious Twelfth; so it was postponed to 19 July. But Pearson still hesitated. Aside from getting a majority in Parliament, the purpose of an election, according to Judy LaMarsh, was to kill the scandals, to bring the disclosures to a full stop. Pierre Sevigny believed that the 1965 election was called in order to silence Guy Marcoux, who had announced that he would raise the 1963 affaire des six when Parliament reassembled in September 1965. He would move that the matter be referred to the Commons committee on privileges and elections for full examination and inquiry. Dr Marcoux had decided on this action, according to a report in Le Devoir of 18 August, after Moise Darabaner was charged with fraud and arson. GUY MARCOUX

I think that there was a connection between the affair and the election. 11 knew of many people that were involved. I thought that Pearson was probably aware of it. The Liberals knew that everything would die with the election, and I think they were sure that I would be defeated anyway, because my majority had dropped a bit by '63. According to Pierre Sevigny, John Doyle and Hubert Ducharme were alarmed by Marcoux's request for an investigation into the affair of the six Social Crediters. They were afraid that it would reveal their involvement. Through their contacts with prominent Liberals, they urged the prime minister to call an election; they were sure that Marcoux would be defeated and that Diefenbaker and the Conservatives would be slaughtered. Sevigny recalled spending a weekend at the Seigniory Club in Montebello, Quebec, not far from Ottawa, early in September 1965, where he met Doyle and Ducharme. PIERRE SEVIGNY

They were just as nervous as debutantes prior to their first dance. Ducharme came to me and said, 'We're in terrible trouble.' He said, 'There is an investigation that has been asked for and at this stage we are finished, we are through, there will be a prosecution and we can't get out.' He told my wife and me, 'Pearson is going to call an election as the way out.' Throughout that weekend, off and on I would see Doyle and Ducharme. I couldn't help laughing. I thought, 'My God, this is impossible that Canadian politics has gone to that, that these two should be here commanding

The last hurrah 125

the prime minister and ministers to stage an election so that they can get out of this mess.' Anyway, I will never forget one specific night. Doyle had invited all kinds of people to his suite at the Seigniory Club, and both my wife and I were at the party when the phone rang and Doyle came back. He had the biggest smile you ever saw and said, 'Let's open the champagne. I've got great news.' Then Ducharme came to me and said that he had just heard that Pearson had decided to call the election. It was going to be announced the next day. The next day I was in my car on the way back to Montreal when Pearson came on the air and said, 'For the good of the Canadian people, we need a majority government.' He had dissolved Parliament in order to prevent a great investigation into the defection of the six Social Crediters to the Liberal party in 1963, to reveal all the bribery that had taken place. Pearson announced early in September, after the Labour Day weekend, that the election would be held on 8 November 1965. Thus the House of Commons, which had risen for the summer recess at the end of June, would not meet again. According to Judy LaMarsh, the prime minister did not consult the cabinet on the election. The decision was his alone. It was a fateful decision for himself and for Diefenbaker: the 1965 election was the last time that either would lead his party to the hustings. During the summer months, the Liberals had been polling the country and had come up with a figure of forty-eight per cent of the vote, fully twenty percentage points above the Conservatives and enough, in their view, to ensure a comfortable majority. EUGENE FORSEY

All the pundits came on [television] and explained with great elaboration just how large Pearson's over-all majority was going to be. I am a very poor judge of election prospects, but I sat there saying to my wife, 'They're all wrong, he is not going to get a majority at all.' The pundits were particularly strong on the gains he was going to make in Nova Scotia. Well, I am part Nova Scotian. I had just been down there, and I said, 'They're crazy, he is not going to gain in Nova Scotia at all. He is going to lose seats in Nova Scotia, mark my words.' Then on came John being interviewed by Norman DePoe. Norman DePoe in his most blustering and heckling fashion said, 'Mr Diefenbaker, what have you got to say about the argument that the government needs a clear majority to strengthen it?' John, looking more avuncular and benign

126 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

than I could have believed possible, replied, 'I have always heard that it is no use adding spokes to the wheel when the hub is gone.' 'Well,' I said to my wife, 'There is the perfect description of the Pearson government.' It was no wonder the Liberals were supremely confident of the parliamentary majority Pearson wanted and said he needed - the Conservative party was so bitterly divided. There had to be a reconciliation of the opposing Tory factions. Diefenbaker needed the party and the party needed him; there was no way they could advance without each other. Part of the reconciliation was the appointment of Eddie Goodman as campaign manager, as he had been among the first to challenge Diefenbaker's leadership. E.A. GOODMAN

When the election was called by the Grits I was entitled to go to a campaign meeting because I was the vice president for Ontario, but I wasn't going to go. I received a call from Elmer Bell, who was Ontario president at that time, urging me to go because of my experience and asking me to at least go to this meeting to see if I could help in making the campaign plan. So I agreed to go, just to discuss the matter with the national director, who was Dick Thrasher, a great friend of Diefenbaker's, and a very fine fellow, and great personal friend of mine. Thrasher wanted to run again. He'd formerly been a member and he wanted to run again in one of the Windsor ridings. They were frantically looking for someone to become the national campaign chairman. They must have tried two or three people, none of whom would agree to take over what appeared to be a pretty battered party at the time. When I arrived, Thrasher grabbed me and took me aside with a couple of other fellows and started to pressure me to take over as national campaign chairman so that he could get out and run his campaign in his own riding. I laughed. I thought they were kidding, because I didn't think that Mr Diefenbaker would in any way, shape, or form want me to be his national campaign chairman. I made it clear that there's no point in being a campaign chairman unless the leader has absolute confidence in you. They asked me if I would meet with Mr Diefenbaker, and I said I would. As far as I was concerned, I had only disagreements on principle, although he might have had some other feeling. Mr Diefenbaker and I met. We had a long talk. He indicated that he would have confidence if I would accept it. So I accepted it. It all happened within a day. I made it clear that I would only take it if I had direct access at all times to him, and that I wouldn't do it through any intermediaries. If he would say to me, clearly without reservation, that he had absolute confi-

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dence in me, then I could be loyal and work for him during the campaign. I want to tell you that the relationship during that campaign was as close to being perfect between us as I can imagine. TOM VAN DUSEN

Eddie was a very practical person. He wasn't one of the people who notably operated underground. He was fairly open. In some of his conversations with the Chief, he had a bewildering habit of switching his ground within five minutes. My experience of him as national chairman in that campaign was that he did a very good job. He was in there as Robarts' man. He was representing the Ontario organization. You have to remember that the Ontario organization always did carry the big stick in the Conservative party, until Diefenbaker. With Diefenbaker, you got a very strong surge of western support, and you got support from the Atlantic provinces. However that didn't show up in the controlling machinery, which remained in the hands of Ontario pretty generally and Toronto specifically. This meant that the Ontario Conservative party actually had all the levers of power, even when Diefenbaker was leader. Eddie Goodman represented the Ontario machine, to put it bluntly. Goodman had been a Conservative from the time he was twelve years old, when he put up signs in the 1930 election campaign for Colonel G.R. Geary who was to become a Bennett cabinet minister. His father was a Tory and was the law partner of a provincial Conservative member, E. W.J. Owens, and young Eddie absorbed the political atmosphere at home. Edwin Alan Goodman was born and raised in Toronto; he took an arts degree at the University of Toronto and a law degree at Osgoode Hall. He was wounded as a tank commander in Normandy and returned from the war to run in the 1945 Ontario provincial election, but lost to the incumbent Labor Progressive member, Joe Salsberg. Once was enough for 'Fast Eddie' and he never ran again. Instead, he concentrated on working behind the scenes and became one of the most important movers and shakers within the provincial PCs. His first real participation in the federal field was when he managed George Hees's successful campaign for election as president of the national party. He met John Diefenbaker shortly after the war and was impressed with his evangelistic fervour and strong social conscience. In addition to being an experienced and capable organizer, Goodman had a way of getting on with people which made him the perfect choice for the reconciliation and reunification of the party. Among those he got to run in 1965 were George Rees and Davie Fulton. But Duff Roblin eluded him.

128 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost E.A. GOODMAN

If we had succeeded in getting Duff Roblin to run as he promised Gordon Churchill, or almost promised - Churchill thought he'd promised - I think that we might have very well ended up with as many seats as the Liberals. A shift of about twelve or fifteen seats is all we needed to do it. GORDON CHURCHILL

I was prepared in 1965, as I had been earlier, to step down in favour of Duff Roblin. However, when the election was called, my executive unanimously refused to let me stand down, and the majority of them refused to accept Duff Roblin as a substitute for me, which took me by surprise, so I had to commit myself to running in 1965. But Winnipeg South, the adjoining seat, was still open at the time. They hadn't had their nominating convention, they weren't committed, and they had no member. So I continued to press the point then that Roblin should enter the fray with us and I took all the necessary steps. I went to see him. I went to see his cabinet ministers. I called on his wife. I covered the entire ground as to what would be the results if Roblin stepped down as premier. Could the present provincial government carry on with a substitute? Would his wife be agreeable to his taking a chance on the Ottawa scene? I covered all the ground. Having talked to Roblin and looked at the general situation, I phoned Mr Diefenbaker and said, 'I think we can persuade Mr Roblin to enter the contest, but I would like to be able to say two things - one, if the Conservative party is successful in this election, you, Duff Roblin. will immediately enter the cabinet. I'll step down, you know, but we've got to get him in. The second thing I want to be able to say to him is this - that if we are unsuccessful but you yourself, Duff Roblin, gain the seat in Winnipeg South and enter Parliament, then at the appropriate time you will be sponsored to be the successor to Mr Diefenbaker.' That was the plan. Mr. Diefenbaker said, 'Yes, go ahead.' He agreed with both propositions immediately without any hesitation at all. I went back to see Duff Roblin and I pointed this out to him. I said, 'Now on the second alternative, you have to take your chance, you have to make your way in the House of Commons. You would be sitting in opposition, no longer premier of the province. It is a tremendous sacrifice that I am asking you to make, because it is no particular fun being top of the heap, premier of a province, and coming down to sit in the opposition in Ottawa. But the prospects for the future are good.' There was another factor, that if Roblin would run people would look

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upon him as a successor to Mr Diefenbaker and those who were not happy about Mr Diefenbaker could say, 'Well, let's vote Conservative because here's Roblin available to take over if the party is unsuccessful.' The word we had from Toronto and parts of Ontario was that that was a very excellent idea and we would have had support. I saw Mr Roblin and pointed this out to him and then Mr Diefenbaker was coming out and I arranged for them to meet at the Winnipeg airport. I said to Duff, 'You can't ask the Chief to make a firm commitment as to the date on which he would step down if we are defeated. You can't ask him to do that. In any case,' I said, 'be patient. Let's suppose that you are down there in the House of Commons. You are in opposition, the Chief is still leader, but there is a gap of twenty odd years between the two of you and if the members accept you and you make your way in the House of Commons - all you have to do is to be patient.' I thought it was a satisfactory gamble for the future. The two men had their meeting. I was there with them but I withdrew to a corner, you know, not to eavesdrop. B;ut my impression was that it was pretty satisfactory. Then the deadline approached; the convention for Winnipeg South had been called. There was an intervening weekend, and on Sunday Mr Roblin came over to my place to inform me that he would be unable to enter the contest. So that was that. I couldn't really fault him. What would you do if you were premier of a province and somebody asked you to step down to become a backbencher in the House of Commons? ALVIN HAMILTON

We needed Duff to complete the team. I went to Robarts to get him to phone, and I asked Stanfield to phone, and they did. I was there with Roharts when he phoned. Then I spoke to Duff afterwards. 'Why didn't you come?' He said, 'Diefenbaker never asked me.' 'You certainly didn't expect him to go down on his knees and ask you to run,' I said. 'He spent all that time telling you how all the other guys were coming. You were supposed to say, 'I am with you too chief.' It was all arranged. Diefenbaker never comes out pointedly and asks you to do anything. He expects you to do the right thing without being told.' E.A. GOODMAN

The day I arrived in Ottawa, I found out that Duff Roblin was not going to run, so I grabbed an airplane and flew out to Winnipeg to try and change his mind. I flew at night, stayed up all night, stayed with him for hours trying to get him to run, and didn't succeed.

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Duff was a very complex fellow. He was ultra-sensitive, very bright, a decent man, very decent, but very, very sensitive. I think that some of the people in Winnipeg got to him and told him that he would be better off if he stayed out of it and then came in and picked up the pieces. It was a really great and bitter disappointment to me because we were just gaining impetus and this cut our impetus a bit. I thought that by building up the interest he had not done us any good, because then it made it look as though it was a failure; whereas if he had said no from the outset, then it wouldn't have been so bad. I sure was annoyed. Even after Roblin said he was not going to run, Gordon Churchill did not give up. GORDON CHURCHILL

I drafted a petition and phoned it to my secretary in Ottawa. She phoned around the country - all the members were scattered. In twenty-four hours, she got forty-six signatures from members of Parliament, urging Roblin, for the sake of the country and the party, to stand. I had this published in the papers and on the radio. I put all the pressure on him that I possibly could. But it was unfortunate. He had a great future ahead of him. E.A. GOODMAN

If he had run in '65 he would have been the leader in '67. There can't be any doubt about that. Roblin would have been elected and he would have been the leader. So it hurt him in the long run. Despite the failure to recruit Roblin, reconciliation was the order of the day, and such anti-Diefenbaker rebels as George Hees and Davie Fulton rallied around the party. Even Douglas Harkness made his peace with the Chief.. However, the outward show of unity did not hide the fact that the leader's relations with some prominent Conservatives remained strained. GREG GUTHRIE

That Harkness reconciliation was as much in the interests of Harkness because the people in Calgary told him he was going to be beaten unless he made a gesture. There was a very dicey situation at the airport. Nobody was quite sure whether the reconciliation would last long enough for the photographers to record it. But in fact it did. It wasn't one of the warmest reconciliations, but it happened and it was successful. JOHN BASSETT

We all came together, but it wasn't the same. I think John Diefenbaker felt, and felt justifiably, that some of those who had been closest to him and had

The last hurrah 131 his confidence had betrayed him. And he was right. If I'd been in his position I would have regarded our actions as a betrayal. I think that his position was totally understandable - that he'd been betrayed by some people whom he regarded as being very, very close to him. And so the relationship was never on the basis that it had been before. DALTON CAMP

I ran against Mitchell Sharp. When I announced my intention to seek the seat in Eglinton I had a news conference in the Albany Club, and the first question I was asked was where I stood on the leadership question. The question annoyed me. I said in response, 'I'm just as loyal to Mr Diefenbaker as Mitchell Sharp is to Mr Pearson.' When I called Diefenbaker to tell him that I had that day declared my candidacy, he said, 'I know. You were a little equivocal about the leadership question.' I hadn't intended to be at all. But in 1965 I think the record would show that he didn't come into Toronto for a Toronto rally, because we couldn't figure out where to find the handle on him. I ran against him in the sense that that's all anybody wanted to talk about. I went to a million coffee parties and had a million questions about Diefenbaker: Why would anybody ever run the risk of voting for me, as nice a fellow as I might be, if it ran the risk of putting that man back in office? In the 1965 election, the Liberals brought back one former minister - Robert Winters ran in York Centre, which the hockey star, Red Kelly, had given up - and they recruited three total outsiders as candidates in Quebec: Jean Marchand, Gerard Pelletier, and Pierre Trudeau. These three, who were to change the face of the Liberal party, were not considered Liberals at all but NDP'ers; furthermore, they had been highly critical of Pearson and the Liberals in the previous election. Why then, did they now join with those whom they had scorned and derided? It was, according to Pelletier, because of the disastrous effect of the scandals on the Quebec ministers in Ottawa, and the rise of separatism . GERARD PELLETIER

The reasoning was very simple. I remember at my house - Marchand and Trudeau were there one night - I summed up the situation. I said, 'You see, the separatists will win by default, because there's nobody in Ottawa with whom they can identify as Quebeckers.' It's no reflection on any of the ministers but the fact is that nobody in Quebec identified with them. It was not only because they had had this

13 2 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

trouble with the Dorion inquiry and the furniture deal, which seems pretty picayune when you look at it with the benefit of hindsight, and all these things. But Lamontagne was a university professor. He had no deep roots within the population; he was ·not very widely known. Tremblay was a university professor. Favreau WllS a very highly competent lawyer, but not known generally. So we said, 'If people look in the direction of Quebec city for everything all the time and they have no counterbalance in Ottawa - I mean people with whom they can identify because they've known them in labour, on television, heard them over the radio and in journalism - separatism will win by default.' This was the basic reasoning, really. I must say also that we had been sympathetic towards the NDP but always at odds with them on their approach to Quebec. At every election, they came to us and they said, 'Well, you'll help us?' We said, 'Yes, we'll help you if you concentrate on five or six ridings. You have very few resources. We might get one or two members elected if you want to concentrate.' But the national direction of the party, the national authorities, always said, 'No, no, we must have at least' (I think it was) 'thirty candidates, because you need that if you want to be on radio and television between elections. We need to say in the rest of the country that we have a chance of forming a government because we run forty candidates,' which was total nonsense. Then, every time the language question, for instance, came up, one of their members from Vancouver or Manitoba would say exactly the wrong things. And they were giving in to a kind of special status for Quebec in which we didn't believe. We didn't just change our minds in 1965. We had been at odds with them on very, very many questions, but particularly on the question of the approach to Quebec and separatism. It wasn't a sudden change of mind. It was a process that took us to this position: 'We have a choice to make. Either we want to build now and see the country change in twenty-five years, and that would be with the NDP' - and I don't think we were very wrong because it's ten years later and they certainly have another fifteen years to wait - 'or we want to do something right now, and the only answer to that is that Liberal party.' The Liberal party opened the door, and we knew very well that we could eliminate what we didn't like in Quebec about the way the machine was run and so on. We did a pretty thorough job of housekeeping. I remember what they called 'the old guard' at that time in Montreal published a pamphlet to say how the old guard was betrayed and eliminated. The newsmen went to

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Marchand and said, 'What comment do you have to make on this?' He said, 'Mission accomplished.' That's what we wanted to do. Some Conservatives felt that if Mr Diefenbaker had announced this was to be his last campaign, they would have won - as it was, the party came within a few thousand votes of winning the 1965 election . Others blamed Premier Robarts and the Ontario provincial machine for not putting their full weight behind the federal campaign. FRANK MC GEE

All of us expected that Dief would do what we thought would possibly win us that election, which was to say someplace during the campaign, 'This is my last election. Give me one more chance and I will serve one term as prime minister and I will resign.' I happen to know that a variation on that theme was written about twenty times and about twenty times was put into his speech and torn out and thrown on the ground as he moved across the country with Dick Rohmer. Dick was in charge of getting that very key element into a speech during the '65 campaign. Many of us thought it would make the difference in that election. Dick told me about this later: he finally put it in different colours, so that they could see which page it was. Dief would go through the speech, and he would take some of it verbatim and then just do the rest off the top of his head. But he never said thatr Richard Rohmer was assigned to Diefen4aker's train in the middle of the campaign because of his closeness to JoRn Robarts. The Chief wanted to have the support of the Ontario premier, and Rohmer, who was then a young lawyer and a special consultant to Robarts - he has since become a bestselling novelist - was to provide him wit~ policy concepts and try to keep him to the official party line. RICHARD ROHMER

I sensed at the time that there was no real way Mr Diefenbaker was going to capture again the confidence of the broad mass of Canadians, which was not a judgment I had a monopoly on, and so it was my hope that he was prepared to say to the people of Canada: 'I have come this far. I can lead again, and I am the man of vision and strength. I give you my confidence that at my age, at my seniority, what I should be doing is regathering the Conservative party and retrenching, and I will restore the cabinet and the caucus to a degree of cohesion, and I will groom and make way for a new leader.' This would have been a magnificent heritage for him to have left, I

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felt. I did put this suggestion forward. I don't know whether I did it directly or indirectly, but in any event it was a concept which spoke to the fact that I for one believed that this really was the only kind of gesture that Mr Diefenbaker could make, if he was going to achieve power. I found him, as a person to deal with, all right, but really he wasn't interested in what I had to say or my ideas. It was in effect a bit of a sham. None of the concepts that I put forward, working hard over the ten days on the train, really appeared. The fact was that Mr Diefenbaker continued day after day to use the same approach to his speeches. He would have a great pile of papers, which he would take up to the platform with him, and he would shuffle through those while someone was introducing him. Then he would give the same speech that he'd given before. And all the journalists I think Peter Newman was there, Martin Goodman, Ron Collister, others were just dying for something new to report. Eventually I got so frustrated producing these various concepts - they ranged right across the board but I couldn't give you any one of them now because I have successfully obliterated them from my mind - that I wound up having all of mine typed on pink paper so that I could determine whether 'himself' was getting close to one during the course of the speech. Of course, he never did. Once or twice he got close, but he studiously avoided using anything that I produced. As a person I found him enormously interesting. We got on, I think, fairly well as individuals. He also had in his mind that I was one of the first people in '63 to suggest that he might make way for another leader, and of course he's got a memory like a steel trap. So, working with him was quite an experience; being with him was enjoyable. The other factor was that he had two men on his staff who had been on his staff for a long time, and these two, Tom Van Dusen and Greg Guthrie, in their own way resented my presence very much. This is understandable. They attempted to intercept anything that I was going to put forward to Mr Diefenbaker. TOM VAN DUSEN

From what we could see on the campaign, Robarts put up merely a token appearance, and he was quite categorical about it. He spoke at a place called Hyde Park. He came down to the train and he spoke on the platform. It was in his own riding. He was premier of Ontario. And he said, 'I personally will see to it that this riding returns a Conservative victory.' He limited his assurances to that riding, which I found even then, that night on the platform, a very strange position for a Conservative premier of a province

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to assume. In other words, he was saying, 'For the rest of the province, you're on your own.' We went to Queen's Park with the Chief. We met the Ontario government and had lunch with them. A half-dozen were very, very concerned. I think Al Lawrence may have been one at the time. I'm not sure whether he was in the cabinet but he was there. [Bill] Davis was quite concerned. But the majority adopted a very cool and stand-offish attitude, almost as though Diefenbaker were there as a stranger. RICHARD ROHMER

It wasn't Robarts who lost the election. It was Mr Diefenbaker. I go back to the very fundamental proposition that a leader communicates with the people, and he communicates concepts and ideas. On the other hand, a leader can be defeated if he adopts the wrong policy. For example, Mr Stanfield, having never, in seven years as leader, enunciated a policy with which the Conservative party would be associated - never would he take a position on any policy- suddenly in the 1974 election emerged with a policy. No one could shake him. It was that policy which defeated him. It was just a smashing self-defeat. I admire Mr Diefenbaker enormously. In my view, having been with him for the ten days, he had the opportunity of giving the country some of the vision that he had given it before in terms of producing ideas and policies and platforms that were new and exciting. There were these opportunities. He never seized them, and in the end he didn't ignite anybody. He would ignite the crowd that he was speaking to. That might be two hundred or five hundred or six hundred people. But there were all the other Canadians that he could have been reaching in the media placed there before him. No, it wasn't Robarts who defeated him at all. In my view, having watched this from close range and having attempted to be one of several who were trying to feed him concepts, he just wouldn't take them. And the result was that he defeated himself. Premier Stanfield and the Nova Scotia government gave their full support to Diefenbaker. ROBERT STANFIELD

We campaigned very vigorously in I 965, but largely on our own issues rather than the so-called national issues such as the flag and other matters. For example, we were very interested in those days in off-shore mineral rights. Mr Pearson was insisting on referring those to the Supreme Court, and I took the position that this was a question that should be settled politi-

136 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

cally. It was too important to be left to the judges. So we campaigned on off-shore mineral rights. We also found some federal deeds, one relating to Debert in Nova Scotia and I think one down in Shelburne, which reserved mineral rights to the federal government. I think probably it was something dreamed up by some bureaucrat rather than Mr Pearson or a member of the government as such. It was a departure that had never been taken before. We brought that quite forcefully to the attention of the people of Nova Scotia, and went around the province asking what was going on, what was the federal government up to, trying to get control of our off-shore mineral resources but apparently also involving some plan to try to get control of our on-shore mineral resources. Anyway, it was a very successful election. I don't attribute that success particularly to our effort, although we certainly worked hard. We had gone into the election of '65 with seven Conservative members. I think we were expected to lose a couple. We actually wound up winning ten out of the twelve. I was sufficiently jubilant that evening to say on the radio when I was asked about it, 'We could never have done it without the help of Gerry Regan and Allan MacEachen.' Jack Pickersgill said that we'd bought the province, and my comment was that it was an insult to the people of Nova Scotia for Pickersgill to say that. I remember meeting Pickersgill in Ottawa a few weeks later and saying, 'Jack, that was a terrible comment you made on the election results in Nova Scotia, accusing us of having bought the people of the province.' Jack looked at me and he said, 'I notice you never denied it.' Handling the publicity at Conservative campaign headquarters in Ottawa was James Johnston, who was to be appointed the party's national director after the election. TOM VAN DUSEN

Johnston came on the campaign train with a series of campaign advertisements for Diefenbaker's approval. One of the curious things about them there were about thirty-five different ads to run in the papers across Canada - was that they practically did not mention Diefenbaker. They mentioned the Conservative policies and Conservative programs and so on, but there was tremendous de-emphasis on the leader. This was another feature of the Conservative party organization at that time. They had this curious syndrome about winning elections without putting their leader forward, by trying to sort of bury their leader and win the elections in spite of their leader - something which the Liberals have never allowed themselves to fall into.

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The Tory advertising campaign in the 1965 election was in sharp contrast to that in 1957, when Allister Grosart used a large and striking portrait of Diefenbaker and hardly mentioned the Conservative party. Diefenbaker preferred to campaign by train, while Pearson had a chartered airplane. Their styles were very different . Keith Davey, who was Eddie Goodman's opposite number, put Pearson into supermarkets and shopping plazas in the big cities, while most of Diefenbaker's meetings were in high school gymnasiums and small town arenas. Greg Guthrie accompanied Die/en.baker throughout the 1965 campaign and acted as his special assistant, bodyguard, and second. GREG GUTHRIE

I have yet to see a speech that he was to give - that is one that was not impromptu, a formal one that he was committed to make - when he wasn't extremely difficult for some hours before. Pettish about this and that, and complaining about his stomach and he couldn't eat, and feeling as if he was going to be sick. It was rather like accounts I'd read of great performers who are temperamental and have problems with their stomachs before they go on to give their Shakespearean role or whatever. He told me that he always felt this way, nervous. Another manifestation was that he'd keep asking for reassurance that there were going to be enough people there. His favourite expression was, 'I haven't got any material, I haven't got any material,' and sometimes he'd say, 'You haven't given me any material.' This became a joke between Tommy Van Dusen and me because we'd have given him about twenty-five pounds of assorted material, and he had it, and he had his notes, but he was always tremulous on the eve of making a speech. His great fear was that he'd go to a hall and it would be half full . Then this remarkable change would come over him when he got on the platform and saw that they were hanging on the rafters, and you could see him picking up steam. He'd get out his notes and start making incomprehensible pencilled notes on top of the pencilled notes that were on top of the original notes. How he ever read them I don't know. But knowing his memory, I think that as a result of the act of writing them down, he didn't have to refer to them again. He would get up and start speaking, and it was fantastic to watch him. He was like a man fishing a trout pond. He would cast a fly out in different places and when he got some action he would come back to that place all the time. He was a master of oral communication. You know, people don't hear the way they read. It's one thing to read a prepared speech and digest what's in it, but if you listen to it you get very little out of it

138 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

because you don't listen logically or in sequence. He knew that all you could ever hope for was that the audience would carry away one, or at best two, main ideas or impressions. For that reason he would continually come back to his main point. He'd touch them up with a little humour, and then he'd be serious, and then he'd come back and rephrase the main idea he was trying to get over. This is why I always thought he was a very effective speaker. He was a great performer. He had a great sense of timing and emphasis and a feel for his audience, and in the early parts of his speeches he would feel out the audience, see what interested them, and then he would go for it, and he could get them with him. At the end, he would come off, and I would think he'd lose two to three pounds making a speech. He'd be absolutely soaking wet. In the campaign when we spoke in some rather primitive surroundings - in the Cow Palace in Charlottetown, for instance - we would be in a rather drafty room, a dingy little room with drafts and one naked bulb, and we'd have to strip the Chief and rub him down with a towel. We finally found out that the best thing to do was to give him a black sweatshirt that came up tight around his throat. He would take off his shirt, which was wringing wet, and hopefully his coat would dry out in the interim, and we'd sponge him off with a towel and put on this sweatshirt. Then he would put his coat back on and he couldn't wait to get back on the stage to shake hands with people, and hear how great the performance was. His first question when you'd be going out to get his clothes changed was 'How do you think it went?' I remember in Winnipeg, during the '65 campaign, they had a terrible arrangement whereby there was a stage in a great auditorium. At the end they lifted the back curtain so that people came up on the stage from both sides. The Chief's instinct was to head to the heart of the crowd rather than towards the exit. We were trying to get him out, and to cut him out of the herd was really a difficult thing because people were clutching his hands and his coat. Sometimes we had to be quite peremptory, and in this particular case I remember bodily picking him up and changing directions and guiding him towards the door and then rather rudely having to push him into the car and slam the door. He looked pathetic staring out of the window, looking at people still reaching out their hands. I could see him saying to himself, 'All those hands and I can't shake them!' But sometimes you had to take direct action. Often it was Mrs Diefenbaker's suggestion that we should get him out because he perspired buckets, and if we hung around too much in these corridors backstage where there's

The last hurrah 139 usually no heat, he might have taken pneumonia very easily. But I used to laugh. I told him it was like managing a third-rate fighter. The Progressive Conservatives won JOO seats on election night, but lost 3 when the service vote was counted. The Liberals finished up with 131, the New Democrats 2 I, the Creditistes 9, Social Credit 5, and Independents 2. ROBERT STANFIELD

I felt it was a victory for Mr Diefenbaker to have prevented Mr Pearson from gaining a clear majority in that election. I think Mr Diefenbaker fought a better election campaign than Mr Pearson did. T.C. DOUGLAS

On September 8, 1965, Prime Minister Pearson, despite the fact he had said in June that there wouldn't be any election that year, called an election for November 8 because the Gallup poll showed him at forty-eight per cent - and sixty days later he got forty per cent. There is no doubt it was the campaign that Diefenbaker put on that cut him down. For a party to lose eight percentage points in eight weeks is just fantastic. They should have come back in 1965 with a substantial majority, and I think it was his campaign that prevented them from doing it. E . A. GOODMAN

We had the most fun. I want to tell you, if the pollsters hadn't kept on telling everybody that we were going to get murdered, we might've even won another dozen or so seats in that election campaign. Diefenbaker ran a great campaign. He had Rivard climbing over a wall with that hose, and making a rink in the summertime. I mean, he just absolutely was gorgeous. It was too much fun. TOM VAN DUSEN

In the '65 election, Diefenbaker came back with eighty-nine seats in English Canada and Pearson came back with seventy-five seats in English Canada, and if it hadn't been for the Quebec bloc vote of fifty-six or fifty-seven seats Pearson would not have been prime minister. As soon as Mr Pearson called the 1965 election, I met with Theo Ricard and Clement Vincent, and two or three others, and they agreed to take the Chief immediately on a five-day tour in Quebec. So we did that. We covered five ridings, and out of the five ridings that he went into, we won three. I felt that if we had been able to take another two weeks or ten days in Quebec

140 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost during the election, we would have picked up more seats. But the organizers of the campaign thought otherwise, and only gave us three or four days. There's a strange setup in the Progressive Conservative party whereby the Quebec wing has always been autonomous and never been compelled or felt compelled to report what it was doing, and never accounted for its money. It just got it and spent it. My feeling always was that it very seldom got off the island of Montreal. There seemed to be a group of interested Tories, most interested when an election was called, and they suddenly emerged and set up offices, and money disappeared there. But there was very little effort in the rural outlying constituencies. I think it was just inconvenient for somebody in the position that Mr Diefenbaker was to be allowed into Quebec, because he might see what was actually taking place. It could be said that no one was the winner of the 1965 election, but there was certainly a loser. He was Walter Gordon, the finance minister who took the blame for the failure to win a majority and resigned. JUDY LA MARSH

Walter Gordon was again the campaign chairman, as well as being one of the vocal people who saw the prime minister more often than other cabinet ministers, and he accepted the responsibility, and offered to resign because he didn't get the majority. It was a matter of great shock to all of us, including Walter, when it was accepted. The responsibility was no more Walter's than it was that of every other member of the cabinet and of the prime minister himself. That's great, you know. A prime minister can say, 'I make the decision to have the election, but if I'm wrong then I'm going to be able to take my pound of flesh out of somebody else who advised me to do it.' Someplace the buck has got to stop. GORDON

CHURCHILL

Pearson's decision in September of 1965 to call an election coincided with the advice given to him by Walter Gordon. But poor Walter Gordon was the scapegoat. He was thrown out or resigned and Mr Pearson sailed on. Just like that notorious amendment that Mr Pearson moved in January 1958 that precipitated the 1958 election. He now puts the blame on Jack Pickersgill. Well, if Jack gave the advice, why didn't Mr Pearson reject the advice? Having accepted it, it was his decision. Mr Diefenbaker, to my knowledge has never, never blamed someone else. You know, I think sometimes he got bad advice. Sometimes he rejected good advice. But the man at the top makes the final decision.

The last hurrah 141

The 1965 election was again a good election from our point of view, and we should have won it. If Ontario had come through, we would have won it. You see, my study of political activities in Canada indicates that when strong support was accorded the Conservative party from the province of Ontario to balance the strong support that has always been given to the Liberals from Quebec, then there is a real chance of the Conservative party advancing to the position of forming the government of Canada, but if Ontario holds back its support from the Conservative party, our chances are reduced very considerably. That happened in 1965.

9

The Munsinger case

In March /966, the country learned that it had its own sex and security scandal, which was worse than Britain's notorious Profumo case, or so the news media claimed. It was only four months after the /965 election, and the loose ends of the previous period of scandals had not been tied up. However, it wasn't any of the Liberal scandals which brought Parliament and the political process into such disrepute, but the Mun.singer case. On 4 December 1964, Prime Minister Pearson wrote a letter to the opposition leader saying that he had the RCMP file on the Munsinger case, which had occurred in 1960-1, and that he was 'greatly disturbed by the lack of attention' the matter received; he asked for 'further information' saying that he had requested the police to 'pursue further enquiries.' Diefenbaker was in bed with pneumonia when he received the letter. He did not reply but saw the prime minister in his office. It was an angry confrontation. Relations between the two were never good. JUDY LAMARSH

Mike was afraid of him. He was contemptuous of Diefenbaker and Diefenbaker was contemptuous of him. I don't think either one of them was generous enough to see the good qualities in the other one. There was really bad blood between them. Mike didn't trust him, didn't trust his word, and Diefenbaker and Churchill and the rest of them were being as objectionable and as obstreperous as they could be. ROBERT STANFIELD

There was great personal antagonism between Mr Pearson and Mr Diefenbaker. This was reflected in the way things were going in the House. Things

Sevigny arrives for Spence hearing

144 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

were very rough. I don't recall actually being in the House during the question period, for example, when Mr Diefenbaker was in opposition, till I came up here. But certainly I got the impression that there were tremendously wild battles between the two national leaders. The disclosure of the Munsinger case came about as a result of a row in Parliament over the treatment of George Victor Spencer, a Vancouver postal clerk, who had been accused of being a Soviet espionage agent. This should have been a simple security matter, but it was turned into a civil rights issue because of the way the government handled it. On the afternoon of Saturday, 8 May 1965, the External Affairs Department issued a press release announcing that two members of the Soviet Embassy had been expelled for espionage activities. The statement also revealed that two Canadians were involved, one of them a civil servant who had been paid thousands of dollars for collecting information and documentation and providing economic intelligence on such things as the TransMountain pipe line system in Western Canada. It was unusual for a press release on a spy case to be so explicit, and the Pearson government's explanation was that this had been done as a warning. On two occasions, the Diefenbaker government had ordered Communist diplomats out of the country, but it had been done without publicity, and there had been no repercussions. In answering opposition questions, the prime minister refused to identify the civil servant (the other Canadian cooperated with the police) but said that he would not be charged because, Mr Pearson thought, he was dying of cancer. Later the newly appointed justice minister, Lucien Cardin, was to say that he did not think there was enough evidence for a conviction. On 2 November Tom Hazlitt, an investigative reporter for the Vancouver Province, wrote that he had found George Victor Spencer, who confessed to being a spy. On the CBC television program 'This Hour Has Seven Days,' shown Sunday, 28 November, Cardin confirmed that Spencer was the man . He had been tricked, he told me, into making that appearance. LUCIEN CARDIN

I can recall one day someone coming to my office and asking me whether I would appear on a television news broadcast to answer certain questions on a matter that I have now forgotten that had something to do with justice. It had absolutely nothing to do with espionage, the word wasn't mentioned at all. This was to be done in Montreal, and as I used to travel from Ottawa to Sorel and I had to go through Montreal, I said all right, that I would. When I got to Montreal, I met [Laurier] LaPierre and [Patrick] Watson. That was the first inkling that I had that I was not to appear on a news

The Munsinger case 145 broadcast but that I was to appear on 'This Hour Has Seven Days.' Now, I knew the reputation of that program, and it is only then that I knew that the questions that I would be asked had to do with Spencer or the spy case, as it was then called. During the course of that interview, either Watson or LaPierre made a statement to the effect that there was a press release that Spencer had identified himself. So I confirmed this. A whole series of questions were asked of me and, if I recall correctly, I suggested that Spencer would be under surveillance and I may have sa.id 'for the rest of his life.' I was severely criticized for that, even by Mr Pearson, saying that it was a very stupid thing to say. Perhaps it was. Throughout January and February, 1966, the opposition hammered hard on the Spencer case and demanded a public inquiry. The demand was rejected by Cardin with the strong backing of the prime minister. LUCIEN CARDIN

I felt that there was no reason in the world why we should have the inquiry into this [Spencer case] and that if we were doing it it was only to kotow to Mr Diefenbaker's wishes, and in my view we had done enough of that in the past. We should stand on our own and fight this thing out to the finish. We had given in to him and it was my thought at the time that most of the members were afraid of Mr Diefenbaker and his very powerful and eloquent attacks and the colourful language that he uses. We were ready to meet him head-on, and I felt that we had no choice. I would not back down if I possibly could avoid it. We would fight this thing through. And that was the decision of the cabinet at the time. Diefenbaker led the assault and dominated the debate. He was the justice minister's bete noir, for when he was prime minister, Cardin, then a quiet self-effacing back bencher, had surprised everyone by a vicious attack on the prime minister, accusing him of a Fascist-like lie. Diefenbaker had not forgotten and had never forgiven him. Lucien Joseph Cardin was born on I March /9/9 in Providence, Rhode Island, where his French-Canadian father was working as a contractor. Although his American schooling wds in English, French was spoken at home. When his father returned to Montreal in /93 /, young Lucien went to Loyola College and studied law at University of Montreal. He served as an officer in the navy during the war and very briefly practised law before being elected as the member for Richelieu-Vercheres in a hyelection in 1952. He was greatly influenced by his famous uncle, P.J.A. Cardin, a minister under

146 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost King and spokesman for French Canada, who had held the seat for thirty-five years until his death in 1946. In 1963, when Pearson took power, Cardin became associate defence minister in Pearson's first cabinet. For a short time he was minister of public works, and when Guy Favreau resigned beause of the Dorion report he was asked to be justice minister. Cardin didn't consider himself competent for such a senior post and agreed only on the understanding that he would have Favreau's help. When he became justice minister, Diefenbaker warned him that he was more vulnerable now. During the debate on the Spencer case, Cardin described the opposition leader as 'the great executioner.' He said, 'The great executioner is after my political neck.' LUCIEN CARDIN

I was very much under the impression that Mr Diefenbaker would use the Spencer affair to destroy me as he had used the Rivard affair to destroy Favreau and the furniture affairs to destroy Lamontagne and Tremblay, and the other affairs for the other people. By coincidence or otherwise, all these people were of French origin. I was quite sure that I was the next in line and I determined that it would not be so. There was a cry for having a judicial inquiry, and Mr Diefenbaker started his insinuation that we had something to hide here in Ottawa, that we had something to hide and that was why we only fired him but we didn't want to do anything else with him. That came up over and again, and other members in the House at the time made the statement that we had something to hide here in Ottawa. But it had always been the practice in Parliament of never divulging anything at all about a security case. That was sacred - you just didn't. You arranged with the leaders of the parties to inform them of what the situation was so that they would understand it. But you would never institute a royal inquiry into that kind of a deal. ERIK NIELSEN

Pearson had to give into an inquiry into the Spencer case. My own political judgment was that the old Chief had gone too far. There are certain decisions that I think have to be made by the state, unilaterally, with respect to national security, which cannot be questioned in the House. There may well be some appeal procedure that should be set up, and I think that there is some justification for saying this. But for Dief to badger them on the Spencer decision was a questionable political judgment, and I seldom question the old boy's political judgment. But, anyway, that was just a drop in the bloody bucket.

The Munsinger case 147 DAVIE FULTON

During the debate over the Spencer case, Guy Favreau called me into his office and told me that he was very much concerned over the course that events were taking. He felt that if this course of prolonging the debate and criticizing the minister of justice over the Spencer case were continued, that he, whatever his reservations might be, and others with the same view as he, would not be able to restrain an outburst and developments that we might all regret. He hoped that I might be able, perhaps on the basis of my knowledge of the situation, to use some influence or be helpful in calming things down. I told him that I appreciated his approach to me, but I said, 'I am not at all sure even if I wanted to that I could cause Mr Diefenbaker to pursue any other course than the one that he wished to follow, and I am not at all sure it is appropriate for me to even try.' I think it was implict in all that had been said that there was pressure on them to expose the Munsinger thing, and this pressure was mounting. So it was not an accidental disclosure; it was one that had been considered, and although there may have been some in the Liberal council who didn't think it should be done, the prime minister went along. It was on Friday, 4 March 1966, that the debate on the Spencer case reached a climax. As opposition leader, Diefenbaker demanded a public inquiry and pressed his attack, Cardin counterattacked by asking 'the Right Honorable gentlemen to tell the House about his participation in the Monsignor case.' The New Democrats also wanted an inquiry - as did a few Liberal members - and David Lewis read a telegram from Spencer's lawyer saying that his client wanted a hearing. (Spencer said that he had been well treated by the RCMP who were keeping him under surveillance but was worried about his pension rights.) However, the government did not yield, and Jean Marchand came to its defence with an emotional speech. Then, before the House rose, the prime minister reversed the stand taken by his ministers and agreed to an inquiry. LUCIEN CARDIN

I was heavily engaged in argument with both Mr Diefenbaker and Mr Nielsen. I couldn't say one word without there being all sorts of interjections, and interruptions. What we were discussing was very important and I didn't think it was fair, a fair way to treat the House, and it certainly was not the dignified attitude which ·Mr Diefenbaker always claimed should prevail and about which he was very eloquent. The word - I was literally sore, I was beside myself - and the word popped out without my really having decided to do so at that time. We were

148 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

discussing a question of holding an inquiry into questionable security risks, and I told Mr Diefenbaker that, very well, let him tell us how he acted in dealing with security risks. Then he went on, and I said, 'Well, all right, tell us about the Munsinger affair,' but I said 'Monsignor.' I will not say what my source of information was on the Munsinger thing. But I can say that I did not or had not at the time seen the file. And I had never seen the word 'Munsinger' spelled out. It could have been M-o-n-signor. Anyway, I mispronounced the word ~mt, believe me, I knew what the facts were. J.W. PICKERSGILL

It certainly wasn't retaliation. What happened was that Mr Cardin, who had been pressed very hard and very brutally by Mr Diefenbaker over this silly Spencer business, which didn't amount to anything, blurted out this name. There certainly was no intention whatever on the part of the Pearson government that I ever knew anything about. I am not going to interpret Mr Cardin's motives - Mr Cardin in my experience is one of the most honourable men I knew in public life. But you know what people do under great stress when they feel that they are being treated unjustly by people who have been accused of hiding things, by people who have not made complete disclosure. I do know this because I was sitting beside Mr Pearson - he wasn't in his seat, he was in the back row that day listening to the debate, and I happened to go to ask him a question about five minutes before. We were just sitting listening to this debate when this word came out and he turned to me and said, 'Did you know that anything like that would be said?' I said, 'Did you?' We were both startled and shocked. JUDY LA MARSH

I wasn't in the House when the Munsinger thing came up and the first I knew about it was when it was mentioned at cabinet that he'd said this. I said, 'Well, what does that mean? What's that all about?' I knew that Cardin couldn't stand Dief, and that he was absolutely devoted to Mike, and had the highest regard for Favreau. He really felt that he had, without very good credentials, usurped the position of minister of justice from Favreau, and so he consulted with Favreau a!I the time. Then he came up with this damned Munsinger thing. I had never heard of the name. Cabinet had not. Perhaps Mike and Favreau were the only ones who knew - aside from Cardin. But even when he blurted it out in the House I didn't know what he was talking about and didn't for quite a while after that. And, of course, none of

The Munsinger case 149

us knew about Mike getting the RCMP reports and sitting on them in his safe, which all subsequently came out. LUCIEN CARDIN

It had been decided by the majority of the cabinet members that on this issue [the Spencer case] we should not give in, that we should not have the inquiry as was asked for. Then a vote was to be taken in the House. Apparently some of my colleagues advised Mr Pearson that if it did come to a vote that we would be defeated. I am not at all convinced that that is so, and I think, as things turned out, the Social Credit would have joined us and we would not have lost the vote. But, in any event, that was Mr Pearson's information. Eventually Mr Pearson called me to his office, and he was very much ill at ease, and wanted to inform me that we had changed our stand. I think Mr Pearson had made up his own mind on the matter. I think that the actual statement was already prepared and all I could do was to concur. Now, I felt at the time that Mr Pearson was under considerable strain, faced with an important vote in the House, and I didn't blame him nor did I ever blame him for reversing the decision. As far as I was concerned, I would have seen it through to the end, but I was not the prime minister, nor was I responsible for either provoking or not an election. In my view, an election was the last thing in the world that was needed in that period of time. He asked me whether I would accompany him back into the House, to go with him, in order that it not be stated at the time that there was a division in cabinet. I decided to go with him. But even then, even at the time that Mr Pearson had told me that because of the information he had it was best to give in, to hold the inquiry on the conditions that Lewis had made which were supposed to be different - but actually the real principle was the same, we were giving in, that was it - even at that time, I was convinced that I had no alternative but to resign as minister of justice. However, in order that it not be shouted across the floor of the House I decided to go with him while he was making that statement. But I had already decided that I would resign. The following Sunday, I went to 24 Sussex and gave Mr Pearson my resignation. I told him what it was. He didn't want to open it. I've learned subsequently that he phoned a couple of people, Walter Gordon and Jean Marchand, in order to talk me out of resigning. Then it came to my mind at least, whether they were going to go through with it or not, I don't know - that if I were to resign then Marchand would resign and Leo Cadieux would resign, and all the Quebec ministers would resign.

150 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

So this put me in exactly the same position as Pearson was earlier when he had to make that decision to avoid an election. Had everyone - all the French-speaking cabinet ministers - resigned, then it would have provoked another election. I decided on the strength of that and not wanting to take the responsibility of forcing the government into another election, I decided to stay. For a while, anyway. I announced my decision to withdraw my resignation at the caucus meeting on Wednesday, 9 March 1966. Apparently, there was some method of learning what went on in the Liberal caucus meeting and Erik Nielsen had access to it. ERIK NIELSEN

On that caucus day in March the heat had been really on in the House of Commons, and nobody knew how to put the heat on as well as the old Chief did. About a half-hour before caucus, which was normally held about eleven, Pearson went into Cardin's office, just down the hall from mine, and Leo Cadieux was there. They were closeted there until caucus time, and then they came out together. The first person to speak at the Liberal caucus that day was [Leo] Cadieux, who I had always thought to be the military type of gentleman of the old school, having assessed him from across the aisle, and from speaking to him in the corridors and meeting him around the House. He delivered one of the most virulent attacks upon the Conservative party generally, and upon Diefenbaker and myself in particular, that I have ever heard. This was followed by great cheers and he obviously had aroused the Liberal caucus to great emotions by this speech. Cardin was next and you will remember that he was rumoured to be resigning. He immediately cleared the air by saying that he was not only not resigning but he was going to devote his entire energy - he hoped the Liberal party in the Commons, and in Canada would be doing the same - to ridding Parliament of the evil influence of Diefenbaker and Nielsen. Again this was followed by a violent emotional eruption by the Liberal caucus. Then Pearson spoke, and this was the last speech in that caucus. It was not quite so excessive, but obviously a speech that was not in any way limiting the exhortations of Cardin and Cadieux. It is my conviction, based entirely upon deduction of what happened in Cardin's office which I had no way of overhearing but which would be a pretty conclusive deduction by reason of the Spencer heat that was on in the House, followed immediately by the caucus, that Cardin's condition for remaining on as minister of justice was that he was to be permitted to reveal

The Munsinger case 151

the contents of the Munsinger file. His mistake in the pronounciation of the name and his mistake in the description of the facts I think can be attributed to what we in the North call 'buck fever.' That's the same kind of feeling an actor gets, I suppose, when he appears for the first time on the stage. When you have got something really volatile, as I know that I had it in the Rivard discussion and on other occasions in the House of Commons when I thought that I had something important to unload, it comes over you. You make mistakes. It's human. These initial mistakes of Cardin, I think, can be explained on that basis. DAVIE FULTON

As far as I can rationalize it, looking at it from the other side, I think it was a very weak decision to placate Cardin, or if not to placate to ensure the continued presence in the Pearson cabinet of Cardin, who felt he was being goaded to such an extent and tormented by Mr Diefenbaker over the Spencer case that he was just determined to expose the Munsinger case, and Mr Pearson went along with it. I am satisfied that there was discussion; it wasn't just a totally unexpected outburst by Cardin when he mentioned the name Monsignor, as it seemed to be in the House. I am satisfied of that because of the fact that there had been discussion of the matter and of the desirability or otherwise of exposing the Munsinger case because of that interview I had with Guy Favreau. On Thursday, JO March 1966, the day after the caucus meeting, Lucien Cardin held a press conference. LUCIEN CARDIN

I don't think I slept at all Wednesday night. I was pretty sure of the kind of questions that would be asked, although it was supposed to be not on Munsinger at all, but on the other thing [the Spencer case]. I went through the whole gamut, starting from the scandals. I went through all the careers that were broken - what attitude I should take. I knew that Mr Pearson did not want the Munsinger case to be divulged, and, believe me, I had the greatest esteem and admiration for Mr Pearson. And I didn't want to hurt him. On the other hand, I didn't believe that it was right for the party or right for Parliament or right for anybody that, after having been accused of all sorts of things and having again capitulated on the Spencer thing, we should sort of lie down and die. So I came to a compromise with myself, that I would not say anything about the Munsinger case unless I was asked a direct question, and then I would not shun the question nor try to go around it. I would answer it. My

152 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost thinking was that we just couldn't allow ourselves to continue to be decimated by insinuations without their being some kind of a defence, some kind of a reaction, that we would perhaps in this way put an end to what was being done, and that it was not true that the Liberal party was completely corrupt whereas the Conservatives were pure as gold, as they pretended to be. When the press conference started, then of course it was not long before the questions on Munsinger came in. I answered the questions as I saw them. I know that Mr Pearson was upset about the press conference. I was not aware that he contemplated resigning over it. I didn't myself consider it in that light. It seemed to me predominantly fair that, having accused us so recently in the maladministration of a security case, that we could and should compare what Mr Diefenbaker's attitude was in the light of a security risk case. Both Mr Fulton and Mr Fleming when they were ministers of justice had felt it necessary to bring it to his attention, but he claimed that there was nothing to it and just dropped it. Although Lucien Cardin said that Pierre Sevigny was not his concern, and that his sole purpose was to expose Mr Diefenbaker's inept handling of a security case when he was prime minister, it was Pierre Sevigny who was the principal victim of this attempt by the Liberals to get back at the Conservatives. Actually, Sevigny said that he had been warned some months before that the Munsinger affair might be resurrected. His story was that immediately after the 1965 election, John Diefenbaker had announced that he would press the demand made by Guy Marcoux (who had been defeated) for a parliamentary inquiry into the way the six Social Credit MPs switched to the Liberals in 1963. This news alarmed John Doyle and his friends. PIERRE SEVIGNY

On Saturday, November 13th, five days after the election, I was speaking at the Real Estate Institute of the province of Quebec, which was having its annual convention at the Chantecler in Ste Adele. After I ended my speech, the maitre d' of the Chantecler came to me and said, 'There is an urgent call for you from a gentleman in Montreal. He wants you to call him immediately.' I knew this fellow, a competent financier, a very capable man, very wealthy. He said, 'Pierre, I am sick. I have got a bout of asthma and I'm laid up in bed. I have got to see you and see you now. Come down and stop at my house. I want to see you.' I said, 'What's wrong?' He said, 'It concerns you. Come down.'

The Munsinger case 153 I got to his house and he didn't mince words. He said, 'Look, you are in trouble, in deep trouble. I was in Ottawa this week. I was at John Doyle's apartment at the Juliana. At the apartment were Ducharme and others. Present were also two journalists from Montreal, both key men at Le Journal de Montreal. There it was openly discussed that in order to avoid an inquiry into the affair of the six, it was essential that Diefenbaker be attacked and attacked with such force that attention would be diverted from the misdemeanours of the Liberals to scandals under the Diefenbaker administration. Doyle and Smallwood, among others, said that they had one thing on Diefenbaker. It was the fact that at some point while you were a minister you were severely chastized by Diefenbaker for having known a woman who was supposed to have a record in Germany, a security record. Now the boys decided that they were going to break that story, build it up into a sex and security scandal. They said the reason they felt this could be the thing that would save them is that a parallel could be established between the fact that you knew this woman and George Hees knew this woman. They were going to build up something similar to the Profumo-Christine Keeler story.' He said, 'I was there when all this was discussed. John Doyle was financing the news agency for which these journalists worked and he wanted them to break that story in the Journal de Montreal. After that, they said, Lucien Cardin would raise it in the Commons.' My friend said, 'I looked at them, Pierre, and I told them that you are going to destroy Pierre Sevigny. You will destroy his family if you do that, and Pierre doesn't deserve that.' John said, 'It's his skin, let him take care of himself.' Those were his exact words. 'Now,' he said, 'Pierre, they are going through with it. I was there at the conversation, and they are going through with it.' I could not take my informant lightly because he is too serious a man for that. But then I started thinking, 'My God, this is crazy. Heavens almighty, we are in 1965. I haven't seen this Gerda Munsinger since 1960. I saw her in 1959, I saw her a few times, there was nothing to this. Diefenbaker himself told me since that there was no security attached to it. It's impossible, they can't possibly bring that up.' I chose to ignore it. It was the first of many wrong decisions. So I carried on with my business. Twice, once at Christmastime and once at the end of January, this man begged me to do something. He said, 'Pierre, they are going through with it.' But like a damn fool, instead of taking him seriously, I ignored him. One day in the Journal in Montreal, an article appeared by Maurice Cote saying that a new scandal was going to break in Ottawa involving two or

154 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

three members of the Diefenbaker cabinet who had relations with a Russian spy, now dead. So the first phase of the warning came through and then I could not take it lightly any more. I consulted a couple of friends, who told me, 'Look, what can you do? You have got to wait for events. Your name hasn't been mentioned. Why should you do something?' I carried on. I was as busy as can be with my construction business and I was doing well. I was on my way back. I had not been a candidate in the 1965 election and I was not in anybody's way. It simply seemed impossible that they would pursue this thing. The rest of the story you know. Cardin, influenced by Favreau, eventually broke the name Munsinger in the House in the course of a very heated debate with Mr Diefenbaker. Not content with that, he held a press conference afterwards saying that this was a far worse case of security than the case of Profumo and Keeler. Immediately my name was mentioned, and when this happened I got mad. I made my second mistake. I got mad. I got furious. Joseph Pierre Albert Sevigny had the qualifications to be a successful politician. He was a great orator, fluently bilingual, and had an imposing platform presence, if anything heightened by the loss of a leg in action in the Second World War. He was born in Quebec city on 7 September 1917, the son of the Honorable Albert Sevigny, who had just been made minister of inland revenue, after having been Speaker of the House of Commons. His father was later to become chief justice of the Superior Court of Quebec. Pierre was educated at Loyola College and Laval University. Sevigny was a businessman, and moved with ease among the English- and French-Canadian elite in Montreal. He was a Conservative candidate in the 1949 general election and was defeated. He did not run again until John Diefenbaker became leader, and he was elected in the great Diefenbaker landslide of 1958. PIERRE SEVIGNY

I was severely wounded in the war, and to be called a security risk or a man likely to betray his country was something I couldn't accept. I made declarations on the radio and on TV. I was very violent against Pearson and against Cardin in particular. I said that I was going to fight and I started fighting. The more I fought, the worse I made it for myself. All that the press was interested in was the sex angle. And all of a sudden I realized that I was fighting the prime minister of Canada, the minister of justice, the RCMP, the full weight of the Liberal party, Joey Smallwood, the premier of the province,

The Munsinger case 155

plus the millions of John Doyle, and I was alone, penniless, no money, no friends in court, nothing. DAVIE FULTON

I am sure that there was no breach of security, that he never discussed with Mrs Munsinger anything that would have any bearing on security. I do not know what conversations he may have had with her. I will accept Pierre's word that there were no such conversations, and, knowing the man, I would be prepared to say that if anyone tried to blackmail him he would have had his head broken. Pierre Sevigny was just not a bad security risk. But I think, in the technical sense, there was a security situation, in that here was a woman with a murky background, to say the least, and, even if her background had been perfectly clear, it is a principle of security policy that a cabinet minister who has an illicit liaison with anyone exposes himself as a security risk, primarily, because of blackmail. In that sense it was a security case. The reports I had [as minister of justice at the time] from the commissioner of the police from the outset went no further than that Mr Sevigny had been known - and they had evidence - to be having a liaison with Mrs Munsinger. She was a very attractive person, but she had a security background, that is to say a record of contacts with people in other countries which at least raised the question of whether or not she was, or had been, an agent. The whole thing was just a keg of dynamite. It was this situation which I reported to the prime minister. He had Sevigny in at once, and Sevigny admitted, after some delay, it was a liaison, assured the prime minister that there had been nothing that could remotely involve an actual breach of security on his part, and undertook and kept the undertaking to end the liaison right away. The police were clear in their reports to me and in subsequent discussion of it with me that they were not saying - they had no evidence - and did not wish to say that there had been a breach of security in the sense that something secret was wittingly or unwittingly revealed, but just that it was a situation which caused concern in the security sense and they felt I should be informed of it at once. Again, in later discussion, I said we still had no evidence of any breach of security - and in any event the woman had left the country. The prime minister, whose decision it was, decided that we had the assurance that there had been no breach of security and that no further disciplinary action, as it were, needed to be taken. Lucien Cardin disclosed his charges against Diefenbaker in a letter to Pearson and in a sworn affidavit. On the basis of these accusations an inquiry was

156 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost ordered, and Mr Justice Wishart Spence of the Supreme Court of Canada was designated a one-man commission to look into the Munsinger case. JUDY LA MARSH

It was my suggestion they get Mr Justice Spence because I knew he was a man with a considerable sense of duty and that if the government asked him to do it he would, though it certainly tarnished him in the time to come. DAVIE FULTON

I want to be careful here. I know that the other judges of the Supreme Court were horrified and deeply concerned over the fact that one of their brother judges would accept the commission. I don't think I can go so far as to say there would never be a case where the only appropriate commissioner might be a judge of the Supreme Court. But I think the principle should be that judges, of whatever court, do not sit as commissioners of inquiries having political implications. Emmett Hall was a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada at the time of the Munsinger inquiry. EMMETT HALL

In any political inquiry that will involve party politics, I would say that it is not desirable for a judge to serve on a commission of inquiry. I don't know how you would formulate it - how do you define the issue? It comes down eventually to a definition of how you would see it as a political issue of the time. That would have to be the decision. The view I have on that doesn't arise solely from Munsinger. I can go back to a number of others - the Bren gun inquiry and others that were political. I don't think that you can exclude the judge wholely from these things. There may come a day when even that rule would have to be overlooked because there does come a time when there is really no one else. You have got to get somebody in whom the public will have at least a measure of credibility. PIERRE SEVIGNY

I had one ray of hope and that was if it was decided to submit the complete mess to a royal commission of investigation under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada. My father was chief justice of Quebec, and I have the greatest respect for the courts. To me it sounded impossible that a judge of the Supreme Court would deliberately prostitute justice. I agreed to appear before this commission. What I did not know then is that the thing was pre-arranged, pre-decided, that whatever I said, you

The Munsinger case 157

know, was useless. To show how biased this crazy prostitution of justice was, I had to prove that there was no [question of] security. Let's forget the sex. A man meets a woman and a woman meets a man. This was insignificant in any event. But I knew this Gerda Munsinger. She was a pleasant, beautiful girl. How many men would have done the same as I did? But that's beside the point. When she went back to Germany, this so-called security risk, she was hired by the American army as a secretary, and not merely by the American army, but by the intelligence section of the American army. I was given a letter from Gerda, written to her best friend, which I produced at the court, and here's what she says: 'My dearest Jackie, I am very sorry that it took two weeks again for me to answer your letter, but several reasons kept me from writing. First of all I have moved to a larger and better place and you know the kind of work it is. However it took almost two weeks for me to settle. Besides that I have started a new job which I like very much and since the last time I wrote to you I am working for the American Forces in Munich. I am a secretary in the Personnel Branch and I like it very much. I don't know if you remember when I told you that I had that kind of job ( that's the great spy), before I left for Canada, when after all those years I am back with the same office, even some of the same people. I am still here.' This is where she was working- the Intelligence Branch of the American Army, European Exchange System, South German District, Office of the District Officer, APO, us Forces. How can we in Canada say the woman is a spy? I mean when she actually worked with the American intelligence before she came here and went back there and got the same job. So I took that letter and produced it to the commission. I said, 'Surely this should prove, Mr Justice Spence, that this girl was not a spy.' In his report he makes no reference to this letter or to the fact that it was filed with him, none, because it completely destroyed this nonsense that there was security involved in this thing and made the Liberals look like fools. He had to vindicate the Liberals and damn Diefenbaker. The only way he could do it was by bringing in an unfavourable report. So his report, to sum it all up, was that nothing happened. To use his own expression, 'There isn't a scintilla of evidence that something happened, but something could have happened.' If we start talking this way, we could go ad infinitum. So the complete Gerda Munsinger affair was framed by John C. Doyle, by Ducharme, by Smallwood, by Pickersgill, and by Pearson, to prevent the story of the six coming out. That's why it was done. There was no security involved but Pierre Sevigny frankly admitted that he

158 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost had had a liaison with Gerda Munsinger. He had seen her a few times, had stopped seeing her, and had forgotten about it - until he was asked for an explanation by Prime Minister Diefenbaker. PIERRE SEVIGNY

One day Diefenbaker called me to his office. He said, 'There is a girl by the name of Gerda Munsinger who gave your name as a reference in her application for Canadian citizenship. I have got a report here which indicates that she said she knew you intimately, that you had been out with her. What's that?' I said, 'Look, Chief, I did know her. I did see her. I did meet her a few times. What happened between us is what happens between a beautiful woman who likes a man and a man who likes a beautiful woman, and that's all.' He said, 'There's an investigation going on and, in case you don't know, this woman had a record in Germany.' I said, 'A record of what?' He said, 'A record of pilferage immediately after the war ended and it was also said that she knew a Russian major in Berlin.' I said, 'The Russians and the Americans and the British were in Berlin, so it is quite normal that some Russians felt about Gerda the way I did when I met her.' He said, 'You realize that if the investigation reveals that she was a security risk that you will have to go.' I said, 'I agree with that and they can investigate if they will but they will never find that this girl was a spy or a security risk.' He said, 'I will call you back.' Needless to tell you I spent a very uncomfortable two weeks waiting to be called back. He did call me back and he said, 'The girl has a record but the RCMP says there isn't a trace of a breach of security anywhere.' I felt that the incident was over. There was more to the conversation. At one point he looked at me and said, 'She knew other people, didn't she.' I said, 'Yes, she did.' He said, 'George Hees?' I said 'Yes.' Then he gave me hell again, and I felt that I was duly and properly reprimanded and chastised. And he was right after all, let's face it. But I had not seen that woman for a long time. I knew from information which I had gathered that she was going back to Germany. So the incident was dropped and we carried on. This was in 1960 and the early days of 1961 . The years passed on and I forgot about Gerda and she forgot about me. Davie Fulton indicated that, if he had been prime minister, he would have removed Pierre Sevigny from his post of associate defence minister, but he added that there were logical reasons for Diefenbaker's decision.

The Munsinger case 159 DAVIE FULTON

For him to have fired or demoted a French Canadian, especially one with a record such as Pierre's own record and that of his family, his father particularly, would be more harmful in the over-all view than to leave him where he was, having taken the precaution to ensure that (a) there had been no actual breach, and ( b) such an event would not occur again. LUCIEN CARDIN

What Mr Diefenbaker was protecting was his halo of sanctimony, and to prove to you that he did not protect Mr Sevigny was this : during the time when both Mr Fleming and Mr Fulton brought the file, the RCMP file, to Mr Diefenbaker, he just didn't do anything about it. He also claimed, by the way, in the House, that there was no question of a security risk in that file. The RCMP had already told him that there was a definite security risk, and it was even called, I think, a classic security risk case. Mr Diefenbaker stated that that was not so. His attitude at the time when Fulton and Fleming brought these things to him was just to hide it. Even Mr Harkness, who was the minister of defence, had no knowledge whatever that Mr Sevigny was implicated. Now, you're interpreting that as Mr Diefenbaker protecting a FrenchCanadian member of Parliament and one of his cabinet ministers. If that is so, then why is it that Mr Diefenbaker - all the hearings were to be held in camera - insisted that they be held in public. Mr Diefenbaker knew damn well that if the story were to go out, as he knew it would, then all the limelight would be on Mr Sevigny's activities - falling asleep in the apartment, etc. - and that little or no blame would be attached to him. That's exactly what he did. He insisted that the hearings be made open. He also, I think, counted on Mr Sevigny's propensity for news value, no matter what kind, and that he would open up, and then the whole of the press would be centred on that aspect of it and nothing on the other aspect, which was Mr Diefenbaker's decision of not showing, not even informing, any members of his cabinet, even the minister of national defence, of the possible danger that existed at that time. No way can I interpret that as being Mr Diefenbaker's goal of protecting Mr Sevigny. PIERRE SEVIGNY

When the Munsinger affair happened, I wanted to see Mr Diefenbaker, but he didn't want to see me. He tried to get advice to me which I should have followed but didn't follow. His advice was for me to stay at home and not appear in front of the inquiry. It was the right advice because it was a put-up job, a frame-up.

160 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost DAVIE FULTON

I think it is an appalling development for there to be later an inquiry into the prime minister's political judgment, where no corruption, bribery, or actual breach of security had taken place - and those facts were in the knowledge of the then government, the Pearson government. It wasn't a case of the royal commission looking into the question of whether the national interest had suffered, and a case perhaps only a royal commission could find out. The fact that the national interest had not suffered, the fact that to that extent the former prime minister's judgment had been correct or had been vindicated - those were not in issue. Those were the facts that were known to the Pearson government. Therefore the whole occasion and purpose of the inquiry was to have a royal commission inquiring into the political or other unwisdom of a decision by a former prime minister in a matter which was his political responsibility to meet. I am sure there was only one area, or two areas, where that can be judged : one is in the House of Commons on the basis of his record, and the other is by the electorate. To appoint a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada to sit in judgment on the political propriety of what another administration did is an appalling precedent. Not only was it a matter of the bad precedent from the point of view of political science, there was the inevitable consequences that would follow, again to no good purpose. Pierre Sevigny wasn't in the House. There was no strong reason, I suppose, that he would perhaps ever be elected again. But the inevitable consequence of this was to pillory Sevigny and produce a great public scandal over his domestic life and his domestic affairs. Again what did it do? It showed that Pierre Sevigny had an illicit liaison with an attractive woman. But so far as protecting the safety of the state is concerned, or especially whether or not the safety of the state had suffered, it was totally irrelevant. To set up a royal commission and get a Supreme Court judge as an instrument to scandalize an individual seems to me almost as bad as, and perhaps worse than, the terrible precedent that was established with respect to review by a royal commission of the political judgments of a former administration. In retrospect, Lucien Cardin regretted what he had done. LUCIEN CARDIN

All that came of it was sorrow and pain to many people. But even though I wouldn't have done it again, I am not saying that my intentions at the time were not well founded . I felt that this was the only way we could put an end

The Munsinger case 161

to the destruction of my colleagues in Parliament, and it was the only way we could avoid being destroyed as a party for the people, and the only way that we might end in Parliament this kind of useless fight on nothing at all, which took up months of time. Once that was cleared, then perhaps we might get to a more constructive attitude in the House. No, I am absolutely convinced that had there been another leader of the Conservative party, any other leader, we would never have gotten into that kind of thing. It's not my nature, I have never done that kind of a thing before, or since. That was something which in my view was of the utmost importance to do at that time. As a matter of fact, I decided even to discount Mr Pearson's wishes, knowing that I could lose a friend. I felt that because of his soft - not soft, but fair - attitude, or his patience, that he would never do it. But somebody had to do it. That was the motivation. And judging from the results, nothing of which really changed anything, then of course the exercise was useless. The Munsinger case was one of the worst episodes in Canadian political history. And it brought Parliament into disrepute. J.W. PICKERSGILL

I think I can make one general statement about the whole business. I liked Parliament, I enjoyed my life in Parliament. But this whole miserable, muddy business completely destroyed my taste for Parliament. From then on, it was never the same again and I just wish all of it had not happened. If there had been a real scandal that would have been another matter - if there had been something that was shockingly wrong and doing great harm to the public interest. But this kind of business - it was just, it was horrible. The atmosphere became horrible. DAVID LEWIS

The Munsinger thing was a shabby retort by Cardin - somebody's cornered, an animal's cornered, so it hits out in all directions. That too was scandalous on the Liberals' side, because I don't think there was anything worth a damn to the Munsinger case. An attractive call girl, or whatever she was. So some member of the cabinet may or may not have slept with her. Who the hell cares? Nothing to do with Canada or the welfare of Canadians. I personally have no use for those things. There are scandals that are important, such as the contribution of large sums of money by corporations to political parties. They're important because they affect government action. But those other personal scandals, I've no use for them.

10

Camp's campaign

After the 1965 election, there was a lull in the strife that was dividing the Conservative party, but it was the lull before the storm. The anti-Diefenbaker forces were gathering strength, and they were aided by the censure of the Chief in the Spence report on the Munsinger affair. Shortly after the election, Dalton Camp went to see the Chief. DALTON CAMP

I told him that I had two things to say to him. The first was that I thought that it had been a bad period for Parliament, a bad period for politics, and I thought he could help restore things, because it was in the interest of the system. I said that the one thing I hoped he would do would be to suggest to Pearson that he nominate a permanent Speaker, and that it should be Lucien Lamouret.Jl. He cut me right off and said, 'No, the French have too much.' That ended that. Then I said I thought that the question of the leadership was going to become more persistent, that he should consider that and perhaps indicate to the party what his plans were. He told me that there was no one in the caucus to succeed him. He made a joke about George Hees. He laughed about Fulton. He said that he had asked Robarts, Stanfield, Roblin, all to come in in the last election and none of them had. He said, 'You cannot become leader of this party unless you've been in the House of Commons. You cannot become leader of this party unless you have experience in Parliament.' I was really in despair. I just came away thinking that we were going to

Diefenbaker points at Camp during 1966 PC annual meeting

164 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

perpetuate those years when Parliament really became a cockpit. The Conservative party was deeply divided, and it could only get worse. It seemed to me that if we had yet another Diefenbaker-Pearson election it would be disastrous, for the Conservative party, the federal Conservative party, in the first place. In the second place, I thought we were in danger then of losing a whole generation of young people to the party, which was a pretty serious thing to face. I had a pretty good reading on how the responsible officers of the party and the elected people of the party felt about the question. It seemed to me the party had fulfilled its debt of loyalty to Diefenbaker in terms of the opportunities it had given him. It was very clear to me, to my mind anyway, that he could never win, and so it was just a terrible, terrible battle of attrition. I didn't have any plans to do anything about it at that time - none at all. I just thought it was something that had to be endured, but I couldn't see the end of it. I thought how easy it would have been for him to have made some graceful kind of indication that he would not lead the party in another election, but I gathered from our conversation that he was hell-bent to do it. The Progressive Conservative party headquarters had been without a national director since Dick Thrasher had resigned to run in the 1965 election. Eddie Goodman managed the campaign but returned to his law practice in Toronto after it was over. As a result, Flora MacDonald, who had begun working at PC headquarters as Allister Grosart's secretary, really ran the office. There was bound to be a reorganization with the appointment of a new national director, and Miss MacDonald had said that she wanted to resign. Early in 1966 Diefenbaker, on the recommendation of Wally McCutcheon, named James Johnston, an economist and newspaper publisher, to the job. DALTON CAMP

Johnston's appointment was all right with me. I was out speaking to a student function at one of these motels outside of Ottawa, and Johnston and McCutcheon met with me. Johnston spoke about how national headquarters could only have one boss, to which I agreed. Then he got on the subject of Flora MacDonald. I said that Flora would loyally serve anybody, that he'd find her the closest thing to being indispensable if he wanted to be an effective national director, that she was the continuity of the party. I said that I felt very strongly as national president about her remaining on because I couldn't think of anybody who could be of any more help to me in what I had to do as national president. I had been an exceedingly active national president, and she was of great help to me. She had the knowledge, efficiency,

Camp's campaign 165

effectiveness, and stamina to do what I wanted her to do. The subject ended there. Then, some months later I was going to Eleuthera - Johnston knew I was going to Eleuthera [in the Bahamas] and called me the night before I left about something - and the matter of Flora MacDonald came up again. I said to Johnston, 'I'm going away. We'll discuss it when I get back. We'll talk about it some more, but I want you to assure me that nothing will be done in my absence.' Oh no, there wouldn't be anything done in my absence. The national president would be consulted. I was in Eleuthera about forty-eight hours, and my brother-in-law called me to tell me Flora had been fired. And then I made up my mind that a state of war existed between the national association and the party leader. Because I knew that Johnston wouldn't fire her. Couldn't fire her. That Diefenbaker had done it. I knew that he didn't do it in the interests of the national association, and I knew he didn't do it in the interests of the national party - he did it in his own interest. It was like a declaration of war. He was, I think, determined to isolate me. He had had about enough of me. GREG GUTHRIE

The national director fired her and told Dief what he'd done. Dief said, 'Well, that's fine, you're national director.' Now, there started to be a great uproar in the press. I remember Eric Dennis from the Halifax ChronicleHerald - he was a friend of Flora's - who wrote the first one saying what an iniquitous thing it was, it was reprisal. Several of the Nova Scotia MPs started to protest. Then they had a meeting of the caucus. Jim Johnston went before the caucus and explained the whole situation. There was no peep after that from anybody, openly, and the whole thing died away. It was used by the anti-Dief people, and I still see references in MacLean's and other places to the fact that Dief fired Flora, which is a pure fiction. He didn't. The national director, for whom she worked, fired her. And whether the reasons were good or not, I don't know, but according to the national director they were sound reasons. And he apparently convinced the members that they were sound. TOM VAN DUSEN

I was sitting in Dief's office when Johnston came in that morning. He said, 'I've just fired Flora MacDonald.' Diefenbaker said, 'What for?' He went into a long explanation, and Diefenbaker said, 'Fine, that's your responsibility, and you've carried it out.' After tire dismissal of Flora MacDonald in April 1966, Dalton Camp ,:ave

166 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost a speech at the Albany Club (a largely Conservative body) in Toronto, in which he said that Diefenbaker should indicate to the party what his intentions were with regard to the leadership. In September Camp made his views known to the public through a speech to the Junior Board of Trade. DALTON CAMP

I made the Albany Club speech in the presence of Dave Walker, which was like telling it to Diefenbaker, and I knew that. It was off the record. And there was a funny thing about that: it never leaked, never, and there must have been two hundred people in black ties in that room. That was in April. I waited for some kind of response. Nothing. Just total silence. Then came the Junior Board of Trade in Toronto. So I said it again, out loud, in public. And the response - the official response from Diefenbaker's office - was that I was a defeated candidate who'd spent more to lose than anybody in the history of Canada. GORDON CHURCHILL

:t wasn't until September of 1966 that I became aware of a strong campaign

to unseat the Chief, when I read the report of a speech made by Dalton Camp at that particular time. I sent a telegram to him, which I disclosed to the press, to the effect that he was unauthorized as president of the national association to make an attack, even a veiled attack, on the leadership, and that his job as president was to do everything in his power to unite the party. As a private member of the Conservative party he could say or do what he pleased, but not as the president, and I called for his immediate resignation. I am still annoyed that I was the only one of the sitting members of the House of Commons who took action of that nature. I can't understand why other people didn't immediately respond in that way, because most of the members were antagonistic to the suggestion. I was the only one who publicly took a stand, and I have often wondered why others didn't do something similar. Open telegrams are pretty well reported by the newspapers and by radio, and mine was. Diefenbaker celebrated his seventy-first birthday 011 I 8 September I 966 with a party in the office of the leader of the opposition, and he predicted that he would celebrate his next birthday in the prime minister's office. G.W . BALDWIN

When he talked about Adenauer and Gladstone and being around as prime minister for years and years and years - after he had indicated that he intended to go till the next election and wrap it up - I came out publicly with Gordon Aiken and a lot of the other fellows. We said that there is a time to

Camp's campaign 167

start and a time to stop and we should have a leadership convention to decide whether or not we want to change. He picked that up, and I don't think he has ever really forgiven ·me for it. But we get along all right now. Dalton Camp began a six-week cross-country tour to convince Conservatives that a reappraisal of the leadership was needed. It was thought that he had done this because of Diefenbaker's prediction. DALTON CAMP

I was aware that he had said it, but it didn't trigger anything. I suppose it just meant to me that the party had a leader who really didn't give a damn what the party thought and was not prepared to listen or was not prepared even to be concerned about it. The only thing to do in response to people who had questions about the leadership was to drive them out of the party. The purge. It was a little byzantine, the whole thing. People played roles and people played games. It was the style of the Diefenbaker period. Everybody kept saying to me, 'What are you go~ng to do? What are you going to do?' I said, 'I don't know what I'm going to do.' I hadn't thought that far down the line. I didn't have a plan at all. Then it occurred to me, finally, that all I had to do was to say that I was in favour of a ballot being taken by the national association as to whether or not it wanted a convention, and I would surely run against somebody who would take the opposite view. Camp's strategy was to avoid a confrontation on the leadership issue, which could be destructive, but to make it known that he was in favour of a reappraisal. Thus, his re-election as president, which was by secret ha/lot, would he considered a mandate to call a leadership convention. Diefenbaker's strategy had been to ignore Camp while he was asking the Chief to make known his leadership intentions, but he could not very well ignore this new move. DALTON CAMP

We got people who had flirtations with running [against me] - Wally Nesbitt, and we thought maybe Mike Starr would try it because Mike Starr was the Caesar's wife of the party. Various people. I remember one time having lunch at the Royal York with my brother-in-law, Norm Atkins, and Roy McMurtry, and I suddenly snapped my fingers and said, 'I know who it's going to be. It's going to be Arthur Maloney.' Roy was a very close friend of his, so I said to Roy, 'Why don't you go see Arthur, and see what's up with Arthur.' And he went to see him and lo and behold Arthur was being wooed at that very moment. So then we knew who it was. It was formidable. No question about that.

168 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost Arthur Maloney was a well-known lawyer in Toronto. He ran for the party presidency against Camp on two issues: (I) unqualified support for John Diefenbaker, and (2) opposition to any review of the leadership. Camp's campaign roused powerful support in the provinces. DALTON CAMP

I certainly knew how most of the provincial leaders felt, and I didn't know anybody who wasn't favourable. Martin Pederson was the leader of the party then in Saskatchewan; I don't exclude him. Shortly after I saw Peter Lougheed, the Alberta party passed a reappraisal mechanism and endorsed it. We tried to get any province that was having an annual meeting to do that. We almost got Ontario to do it, but they lost their nerve at the last moment. I didn't want to have an anti-Diefenbaker crusade, and I was prepared to wind it up any time. I got to Regina during the pilgrimage and Goodman called me and said Churchill had called him. Churchill wanted to know what could be done to persuade me to get off it. I said, 'Any kind of indication from Diefenbaker that he will submit himself to a vote at an annual meeting, a ballot, and I'll stop right now. I'll not only stop, I'll resign from the presidency.' He had no answer to that. The first federal leadership convention Dalton Camp attended was the 1948 convention that made Louis St Laurent Liberal leader and prime minister. Camp soon became disillusioned with the Liberals, and the next leadership convention he attended was the one that made John Diefenbaker the Progressive Conservative leader and shortly thereafter prime minister. Dalton Kingsley Camp was born in Woodstock, New Brunswick, on 11 September 1920. He spent the first fourteen years of his life in the United States where his father had a Baptist ministry, but after his father died the family returned to New Brunswick. Dalton enlisted in 1942 and, after the war, studied at the University of New Brunswick. In 1950, he went to Toronto to work in advertising. Two years later, he pleaded with Hugh John Flemming to let him run the provincial Conservative campaign in New Brunswick. Flemming won and Camp went on to help Robert Stanfield become premier of Nova Scotia in 1956, Duff Roblin premier of Manitoba in 1958, and Walter Shaw premier of Prince Edward Island in 1959. The 1966 Conservative convention was scheduled to be held 14-16 November in Ottawa, and as the time approached Camp's campaign gathered momentum. On the eve of the convention, Camp's supporters won the first battle - a fight over the agenda.

Camp's campaign 169 DALTON CAMP

The principal officers met before the national executive and we decided on the recommendations we would make with respect to the agenda. At about that time, I became aware that Johnston had not only determined what the agenda would be, he had printed it in a program. Now, it's true to say that he had called me and asked me for the agenda, but it's also true to say that I told him that I didn't set the agenda. The national executive would set the agenda. It didn't matter what the sequence of events was, whether they voted on this before they voted on that, or what they did. I didn't particularly want to play games with it, really, except that I wanted the fundamental business, the election of the president, to take place early and not late. If it takes place late, people begin to drift away and go home. So we would have this opening evening in which the president would report and the leader would speak. That's traditional. The next day we'd have nominations and elections. Johnston had the next day something else and then the third day, the last day, we'd have the elections. I wouldn't buy it, the principal officers wouldn't buy it, and the national executive wouldn't buy it. They put it to a vote. It was defeated pretty handily. E . A. GOODMAN

I continued to say nothing about my position until the private executive committee meeting the night before the convention. I believed that it was in the best interests of the party to have this thing on the ballot, but I wasn't going to take sides. I refused to, because I'd had the fight with Mr Diefenbaker in '63, then I'd worked for him in '65. I thought I'd make a fool of myself if I suddenly then came along in '66 and got into a public dispute. Other than one careless remark I made on some radio program, I didn't give any indication of where I stood. Although Dalton and I had discussions and I indicated to Mr Diefenbaker and to Camp where I stood on this matter, I didn't indicate any public position on it. Then we came to the executive committee meeting, and it was clear that the Diefenbaker strategy was to destroy Camp before the executive. I sided with Camp. I moved the vote and supported Camp at that meeting. Their policy was to censure the president. It would get out that the executive committee had censured the president, that would be the end of Camp, and Maloney would win. It was defeated. The night before the annual meeting began, Dalton Camp met with his campaign committee. The meeting was to be opened with an address by Diefenbaker. Camp was the chairman.

170 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost DALTON CAMP

We met in my suite and talked about what was to come. We agreed that there would be no demonstration with respect to Diefenbaker. There would be no barracking, no disturbance at all. It would be folly, so everybody was to be at their best. As a matter of fact, one of the wives, Pat Sedgwick, said, 'We will watch you.' I was sitting on the platform. 'If you applaud, we'll applaud, if you stand up, we'll stand up, and if you sit down, we'll sit down.' I said, 'That's fine.' When I went into the meeting that night, Robarts wasn't there. I knew nothing about why he wasn't there. I remember my brother-in-law pushing me up the centre aisle, saying, 'Go on.' There was quite a demonstration, and it was both ways - pro and con. I remember turning around and feeling menaced, then turning around and seeing it. I got on the platform and I found myself sitting next to Stanfield, and I immediately felt very sorry for him. I had nothing prepared to say, but I said whatever I had to say, and I can remember being heckled. It didn't bother me. Prior to that, or after that, Robarts made his entrance. I can't remember. I went over to welcome him. Why not? I was first of all a little surprised to see him there. I knew he would come, but I didn't know how far he'd come to do it, because I understood anybody's reluctance to enter into this thing, but all the provincial leaders were on the platform and he was there. Then Diefenbaker came, and Diefenbaker was well received, as I remember. I was asked then to call upon Joel Aldred to introduce Diefenbaker and I thought that was the worst possible choice because Joel Aldred did not really sit well with the party. Too slick. I would have gotten Mike Starr to do it or Angus MacLean. A funny thing was that Ted Rogers was asked to thank him. Ted Rogers's stepfather had called me to ask me if I thought that was a good thing for him to do. I said, 'Sure.' He said, 'What should he say?' I found myself ghosting speeches on all sides. Diefenbaker made his speech. I heard it in absolute total disbelief. He went on to quote all the things that I'd said about him, all the positive laudatory things I'd written. And I had said them. I'd say them again, take back nothing. But the crowd began to heckle. Stanfield said to me, 'My God, this is awful.' He just couldn't believe it. He whispered it out of the side of his hand. I had an impulse to get up and say something to quieten them down, because I was the chairman, but I thought it would be an affront to Diefenbaker to do that. I couldn't submit him to that kind of embarrassment where I had to tell people to be nice to him. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, because of the lights, the television lights and everything around us,

Camp's campaign 171

and I couldn't really see. I didn't know. Then when I got up there was a great cheer, and I said, 'I hope we aren't going to determine anything by applause.' I was really disappointed. But you could certainly feel the electricity. One of the things that had happened was our people had gone down the night of that meeting and put a certain number of Camp posters on the wall, and when they went down again and took their seats, they had all been torn down. There was a big Maloney banner across the front of the platform. They phoned back to the room to say this had happened, and they were really burning. So it began to build up a certain amount of steam. GORDON CHURCHILL

That was a disaster for the Conservative party, the savage attack made on Diefenbaker at the meeting that was held in the Chateau Laurier. The goon squad was there with instructions to shout him down - no applause, don't rise when he comes in, and so on. The written instructions are published in Pat Nicholson's book Vision and Indecision. They were found on the floor. As a matter of fact, prior to the meeting being called to order, I had been there at the back of the hall from six o'clock until ten to seven, when I went back to the House of Commons. The goon squad had come in and periodically they were exercising their vocal chords by standing up and shouting, 'We want Camp, we want Camp, we want Camp.' They filled at that time a good third, if not a good half, of the seats that were available. ALVIN HAMILTON

Diefenbaker expected to walk into that '66 meeting with his oratory just swinging, but the delegates couldn't get in because Douglas Harkness and Jean Wadds had all the front rows organized with these young sprats that they had brought up from Toronto and around the country. I sat up in the gallery and watched him fumble that night. He couldn't break through and get the feeling. He can't make a successful speech unless the feeling is coming back to him. He goes by empathy and if they are all hostile to him he is lost. My heart just broke that night up in the gallery watching that. TOM VAN DUSEN

I was in the hall a good forty minutes before Diefenbaker came, and I saw Elmer Diefenbaker go up and sit down in the third row from the front because, like John, Elmer had a bit of a hearing problem. Somebody came up to him, a lawyer from Toronto called Roy McMurtry, and told him that that seat was reserved and that he couldn't sit there. So he moved him back. He told him the first ten rows were reserved. At that moment those first ten

172 Diefenbaker : Leadership Jost

rows were filling up with people, and this Toronto lawyer began ushering people into these seats, quite a large number of people, so that friends or known supporters of Diefenbaker were being told to sit back of the first ten rows. Now, I saw that and I went up to Dief's suite and I told the Chief that the hall was being stacked against him, that the seats were being packed with his opponents. He shrugged and paid no attention. He knew what I was saying to him, but he seemed to disregard it. We ( Greg Guthrie and I) were both there when Diefenbaker spoke. People who are now sitting in the House of Commons - and some people who are not any longer sitting in the House of Commons - were yelling, shouting, waving their hands in front of Diefenbaker. There was one person who was not an MP then and who is an MP now, and quite prominent in the Conservative party, standing directly behind me and yelling at Diefenbaker to shut up and sit down, and saying this was all non/sene, and so on. This is the kind of thing that Diefenbaker faced, and he was seventy-one years old at the time. He was talking to his own party at a convention where he should have been able to count on a civilized hearing. There were three provincial premiers sitting on the platform with their arms folded, smiling benignly - Roblin, Robarts, and Stanfield - while all this was going on, this barracking. I've been to Union Nationale meetings in Quebec, I've been thrown out of halls, I've been howled down, but the only time I've seen anything like what took place at the Chateau in November 1966 was in films of the Nuremberg rallies. A contrived demonstration. GREG GUTHRIE

It was all very carefully orchestrated. If it was bad enough in the hall it was ten times worse on television, as it was intended to be. That's why it was necessary to have the people in the front, to look like a unanimous condemnation. TOM VAN DUSEN

There were people who would step up to the Chief when he was walking along the hall, young males, young warriors, and shout out some uncouth challenge. I saw a Cape Breton member of Parliament [Bob Muir] who was walking along beside Diefenbaker. Without breaking his stride, without turning his head, without changing his expression, he lifted his left fist about four and a half inches and connected with the chin of the individual who was yelling at Diefenbaker. That person spread himself out on the floor and didn't get up. The MP kept on walking and kept on chatting away to the Chief as though nothing had happened.

Camp's campaign 173 GREG GUTHRIE

A violent partisan of the Chief was Harvey McFarland, the perennial mayor of Picton, wealthy contractor, and long-time Conservative. He had occasion to do that same thing in an elevator. I've forgotten what the incident was. Some uncouth character ripped a Diefenbaker badge off a woman or something, and Harvey raised his fist sharply and the man was silent. When the doors of the elevator opened, so great was the press that he was held up. Everybody stepped out and the man just dropped like a log. Only poor Harvey either broke a bone in his hand or sprained it badly and he turned up the next day in his office with his arm in a sling. PAUL MARTIN

The Tories made an awful mistake when they scuttled Diefenbaker. Deep as my conflicts and competition with him had been, I was so annoyed the night at the Chateau Laurier when they howled him and booed him. I thought that was a terrible demonstration, and I wrote him a letter and, as a matter of fact, went and saw him the next day. I said that I really felt that he'd been the victim of the grossest act of unfairness and ingratitude. Here was a man who had raised this party from nothing, given it its biggest majority, and within a few years they tramped on him. ANGUS MAC LEAN

I thought that the way Mr Diefenbaker was treated was contemptible and quite unnecessary. After all he had become leader of the party when its fortunes were very low, he had brought it from that level to the greatest majority any party has ever had in Canada. When everything is said and done, he gave the country a pretty good government for six years. He wasn't defeated that badly even in the end. His showing as party leader in any election was reasonably good, judged against the lack of success the party had gone through since 1935. Then apart from that, supposing he was the most unfortunate leader that any party ever had, the methods used were completely unjustified. I think they were disgraceful, scandalous. No man should have been subjected to that kind of treatment by people who were members of a party which selected him as their leader in a democratic way with an open-ended tenure of office. DALTON CAMP

I have nothing but regrets about it, nothing but contempt for the people who did it. But I don't know any of them, never met anybody who did. I had no

174 Diefenbaker : Leadership lost

names. So I don't know where it came from, I don't know who led it. It could have been the CIA perhaps. After the tumult of the opening night, the vote for the party presidency, which brought the whole issue of the leadership into focus, became an anticlimax. The result was a foregone conclusion. TOM VAN DUSEN

The voting machinery was controlled by the people who were against Diefenbaker - Flora MacDonald and Camp - because Camp had been and was probably the most prominent and the most versed person in the voting structure of the party, control of the delegates, and all of this kind of thing. And Flora had all of the machinery relating to delegates and the choosing of delegates and so on. She had the whole thing, all of the cards and so forth. James Johnston was there. He had just been named national director, but Johnston had not had the time to get all of this under his hands. So what was happening was that delegates were being accredited by people like Flora MacDonald and Camp and people sympathetic to Camp. I recall seeing Senator McCutcheon standing in the lobby of the Chateau Laureau. There was a delegate's fee of ten dollars. I recall seeing people coming in from buses, and I saw on one - I was there for twenty minutes watching this - something like seventy persons accredited as delegates by Senator McCutcheon who was standing there. For each person, Senator McCutcheon was placing a ten-dollar bill on the counter and the name of the delegate was being put down. They were all from Quebec, the ones I saw, in ridings where there was no Conservative party, no Conservative member, no Conservative organization, no structure of any kind. In twenty minutes I saw Senator McCutcheon put down seventy ten-dollar bills in accrediting these delegates. Ontario had seventy or eighty delegates-at-large. This meant that these people were chosen at random in order to achieve a greater degree of representation from all over the province. They were supposed to be people who were noteworthy Conservatives, who had contributed in a noticeable way to the party. Arthur Maloney, who had been a member of Parliament [Parkdale] and whose father had been a member of Parliament and had worked all his life for the Conservative party could not get himself named as a delegate-at-large from Ontario. DALTON CAMP

Diefenbaker supporters were running people from Hull, the old Quebec. There were people there from Quebec who haven't been to a party meeting

Camp's campaign 175

since. We had no knowledge-we had good intelligence about the Montreal organization, but none about the rest of Quebec. We didn't even know who was coming. And they all, more or less, came. We had no control. And that was a risk, something you had to take into account. We made no presumptions, of course, about Saskatchewan. We felt reasonably comfortable with most of the other provinces, but Ontario was bound to be close. We had strong moral support from some people in Ontario and none at all from others, and Diefenbaker had a lot of friends. I didn't care whether I won or lost. What I wanted to do was get the party to face the issue, because they'd made me face it for a long time. They had bitched and grumbled to me. Well, there's a way of resolving these things. Stand up and be counted, or go off somewhere and vote, or shut up. I didn't care if we won or lost. It didn't matter to me at all. I'd have been just as happy if I'd lost, as long as they'd had the chance to say what they wanted to say. GRATTAN O'LEARY

On the morning of the day when we were having the nomination for the presideJ.?CY, I got a call from Dalton at about eleven o'clock. He said, 'Look, my nom\nator has run out on me. Will you do this?' I said, 'Certainly.' So I went up to the Press Gallery and wrote a speech out for him. At the Chateau, there was a hell of a crowd. I nominated Dalton Camp, and I don't think Diefenbaker ever forgave me for that. Dalton won by only fifty votes. It surprised me as a matter of fact, because Arthur Maloney made a very strong speech. This is when he got off that line, 'When I am in a room, and my leader, the former prime minister, enters, Arthur Maloney stands up.' This was criticizing some people. Well, that was the end of my relationship with Dief. That is one of the penalties you incur if you show any independence in a party at all. ROBERT STANFIELD

I would have been happier to have stayed home and not gone to the meeting at all, but I'd always gone to the annual meetings, and it would have been cowardly not to go. I think there were certainly some members of the Nova Scotia government who'd have been just as happy if I had stayed home. But they accepted the proposition that as the leader of the party of Nova Scotia I should go to that annual meeting. We were met at the door of the Chateau Laurier by Bob Coates and Bob McCleave, who were two federal members from Nova Scotia interested in seeing Camp defeated and Mr Diefenbaker left alone. They said there was a rumour going around that I was going to announce my support for

176 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

Dalton Camp. I said to them that I had no intention of announcing my position. I certainly had no intention of trying to influence anybody in the delegation from Nova Scotia as to how they should vote. I had to tell them privately, to be honest about it, that I was going to vote for Camp, but I wasn't going to take any part in the campaign or, as I say, exercise any influence, neither of which I did. It was a thoroughly unpleasant occasion, no question about that. I called Mr Diefenbaker two days later. He was naturally upset. I said to him that I had voted for Dalton Camp as president, but that I had not made any public statement or influenced anybody one way or another in connection with the campaign. I recall Mr Diefenbaker saying to me that, 'The Camp people used that, nevertheless, that you were voting for Camp, and that did us a great deal of harm,' referring to his cause and his candidate. The election of the party president on 15 November was surprisingly close, considering the way that John Diefenbaker was shouted down on the opening night. Camp won with 564 votes to Maloney's 502 . The delegates began leaving, and by Wednesday, the third and last day, many had gone or refused to take any further part in the proceedings. The morning session, which was chaired by Eddie Goodman , was interrupted by the skirl of pipes. The Chief had come to the Chateau Laurier to say farewell. His followers pressed around him. 'Fight on my men,' he told them, quoting a mediaeval ha/lad, 'lam wounded but not slain. I'll lay me down and rest awhile, and then J'/1 rise again.' There was cheering and weeping. But the meeting went on, and a resolution calling for a leadership convention to be held before I January 1968 was adopted hy a large majority. DALTON CAMP

I had a member of Parliament in my room all one night, crying. He said he was making $15,000 a year because Diefenbaker was the leader, and now that he wasn't leader he didn't know where he could get a job. I couldn't get rid of him. I was exhausted. He told me that I was the arch-disciple of James Coyne who financed my campaign. I said, 'If I told you that I had never talked to James Coyne, had never met James Coyne, and. wouldn't know him, would you believe me?' He said, 'No.' I said, 'Well, what can I say to you?' Diefenbaker had told him so. It was a nightmare, really. But it was a test of nerve, I suppose. WALTER DINSDALE

In the subsequent days, John Diefenbaker wouldn't come into the House of Commons. He had been repudiated by his party and he felt that he didn't have the authority necessary to carry on as leader of the opposition. It was

Camp's campaign 177

not until we got a loyalty pledge from the caucus which indicated that the caucus was behind him that he came back in and carried on. R . A . BELL

Gordon Churchill asked me to come to see him. I went to his office and he said, 'I don't suppose you will be ready to sign this document.' I said, 'Gordon, as far as I am concerned the annual meeting is the Parliament of the party. They have spoken and there must be a convention, and I am not going to be a party to a division between the caucus and that annual meeting.' Subsequently I learned that Mr Diefenbaker had decided to come into the House and that a demonstration for his return to the House was going to be organized. I urged certain colleagues not to appear to defy the annual meeting by some wild demonstration and then decided I would remain out of the House until it was all over. I stayed out and came in thinking it was all arranged and took my place just as Diefenbaker arrived. So the great demonstration went on and the Press reported accurately that the ex,.colleagues who did not applaud were Harkness, Fulton, and Bell. ALVIN HAMILTON

It wasn't only Diefenbaker who lost. I lost the election in '68 and Mike Starr lost that election too. The old people said your party wouldn't keep Diefenbaker, and even though Starr and I had been strong Diefenbaker supporters we both lost on that issue because these old people just deserted us. So they gunned us down not because we were against Diefenbaker but because we belonged to a party that had gunned Diefenbaker down. Many a Conservative candidate went down on that pro-Diefenbaker feeling in the Conservative party, particularly in Ontario where they were very partial to him. These people in the cities had misread the strength of that little-man support. The Conservative party changed from being a businessman's, rich man's, professional man's party into a little man's party under Diefenbaker. Now this was the gutting, the complete emasculation, of the Conservative party in '64, '65, '67, and '68 and I was one of the casualties in that emasculation.

11

Leadership lost

It was a cruel irony of fate for John Diefenbaker to lose the Leadership of the Progressive Conservative party in 1967, centennial year. His tremendous electoral triumph in 1958 had seemed to assure that he would be prime minister one hundred years after Sir John A . Macdonald. Instead, he was rejected by his party at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. As secretary of state, Judy LaMarsh was the hostess of Canada's birthday party, and she saw to it that John Diefenbaker was invited. JUDY LAMARSH

I said, 'There'll be no politics at all played. Every member of Parliament will be at this celebration, and particularly Mr Diefenbaker. Go out of your way to invite him to everything.' I think he felt it very hard to go to some of it, because he wasn't prime minister. Mike didn't give a damn about it. He would rather not be bothered. But to Dief it was of great symbolic significance, and I think it really killed him that year, not greeting all the heads of state and everyone else, because he just loved that kind of stuff. I don't know anyone who was more different from Mike, who'd spent his life in diplomatic receptions and meeting heads of state and with world affairs and that sort of thing. This is what Dief wanted - what Mike had no time for, really. I felt sorry for him during '67 very often. After his repudiation by the Conservative party at the annual meeting in November 1966, Diefenbaker was ready to resign - and, in fact, Jim Johnston wrote out a resignation for him - but he did not resign. Instead,

Diefenbaker hearing first ballot results at the leadership convention

180 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost he went on the air on 18 January 1967, using the CBC program 'The Nation's Business,' to call for a leadership convention at the earliest possible date. Any delay, he said, would only add to confusion and harm the interests of the nation. TOM VAN DUSEN

If he had resigned, the party, for which he continued to have regard, would have been saddled in its future with the onus of having publicly turfed out its most successful leader since John A. Macdonald. The party wouldn't have recovered from that. By not resigning he saved the party from that onus, from the onus of having expelled its leader, because it made it the work of a small group as far as the general public were concerned and as far as most people were concerned. But if he had given way and gone out in disgrace, it would have been the party, the entire party which would have had to bear the stigma. It would have been a stigma. DALTON CAMP

I was in Montreal, and I was about ready to make a conciliatory speech. Someone had asked me to make a conciliatory speech, someone on Diefenbaker's side, and I said I would - trying to involve the caucus again in the affairs of the party, inviting some kind of rapprochement. I wrote the speech, had the French done and worked on the French, and just as I was to deliver it Diefenbaker made the statement that there should be a convention and it should be immediately. It was like saying there should be somebody sent to the moon tomorrow. You just can't do that immediately. The Diefenbaker call for a leadership convention caught his opponents off guard. They were suspicious of the Chief and afraid that he would sweep a convention if it was held at an early date, as he demanded. Camp and his followers wanted to delay the convention until November 1967. After a succession of committee meetings, it was agreed the convention would be held in September. Eddie Goodman, who was named co-chairman with Roger Regimbal, was given credit for this compromise. Everyone seemed to want Goodman as chairman, if only because this meant that he could not work for George Rees or any other candidate in the leadership race. E . A . GOODMAN

I think Dalton did it not so much to get me away from Hees as to do two things for him. One, it would leave him a free hand to do what he wanted to do. Because he was more controversial than I was, he couldn't be responsible for the convention. And two, I suppose because I'd been chairman of the annual meeting which had gone off reasonably well, they thought

Leadership lost 181

that I would be able to handle the convention. The third thing was that they thought it might get me away from Hees. Even before Diefenbaker asked that the leadership convention be held as soon as possible, Davie Fulton was already campaigning. Other former Conservative cabinet ministers announced their intention of seeking the leadership: George Hees, Alvin Hamilton, Mike Starr, Donald Fleming, and Wally McCutcheon. Robert Stanfield and Duff Roblin, the two provincial premiers, were the last to enter the fray . Most of the candidates visited Diefenbaker in the opposition leader's office in the Parliament Buildings. Some of them thought they had his blessing. George Hees said he had been picked. Others besides Donald Fleming thought that the former finance minister was the Chief's choice, but Die/enbaker had made no commitment. MICHAEL STARR

Mr Diefenbaker didn't try to dissuade me from running. He said, 'I think that is great.' I know he said the same thing to others like Donald Fleming and Alvin Hamilton, etc. Consequently everybody was under the impression that he wasn't going to be a candidate. He didn't say, 'Oh well, I don't think you should run because I will be running myself,' or something to that effect, that just wasn't said. It got to the point where everybody got soldi~ed, and had taken on a financial obligation in respect to this matter. Mind you, I didn't expect to win, no question about it, but you see I probably was the first one of Ukrainian origin who ran for the leadership. I wanted to open the door a little bit and put my toe in it, so that somebody who might follow me won't have a hard time opening that door. You know, we are all Canadians regardless of our parentage, and if we want to play a role, it should be there for us to do so - and that's all that matters to me. The machine was too strong for me to get mixed up and I didn't have the finances to do it. I was more or less a token candidate, but these other fellows were more serious, like Don Fleming and Alvin Hamilton and Davie Fulton. I don't think Davie sought Diefenbaker's advice - I mean this was his own initiative. Dalton Camp, the man who was responsible for the leadership race, was out looking for a candidate of his own. DALTON CAMP

I went to every provincial premier. I'd had a conversation with John Robarts, had a long conversation with him, practically an all-night conversation. Just the two of us. And he told me first of all that he would not con-

182 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

sider it. Include him out. He told me that he didn't think anybody in the parliamentary caucus was suitable. He told me that if any of the provincial premiers wanted it, either Duff Roblin or Robert Stanfield, they would have to seek it, that he wouldn't participate in any draft, that when he went to the convention, he would openly be in support of somebody, but he was not about to persuade anybody else to support anybody, and wished me well. I went to see Roblin, at Roblin's invitation. Prior to that, just by accident, I had seen Stanfield. Stanfield had come to Toronto for a ministers of education conference. He had the education portfolio at that time along with the premiership. Senator Grattan O'Leary had come down to see him at the Park Plaza Hotel to urge him to run. Stanfield called me. I was just going to Winnipeg the next day. He called me that night and said he had had a conversation with O'Leary and he'd told O'Leary, no. He said he was sorry, but it was no. He apologized to me, and I said, 'No, that's fine. I'm going off to talk to Roblin, and see where he fits.' I had told Stanfield earlier on, and I told Roblin the same thing, 'My favourite nightmare is the leadership convention in which you and Stanfield are both candidates, because I don't know what I'd do.' I reminded Roblin of the conversation and I said, 'If you run, I'll do anything you want me to do. I'll openly support you. I'll quit the presidency. I will not support you. I'll do anything you want, all you want. But I want to know what you're going to do.' He didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't think he would. We played games. Who would be his national campaign chairman? I said, 'What about Arthur Maloney?' He thought it was a brilliant idea. He had asked me to come to Winnipeg - I was on my way to Edmonton, and I just stopped off at Winnipeg. The day he saw me he told Charlie Lynch that I was in town and it was an embarrassment to him that I was in town. I read the paper out in the kitchen while I was out pouring myself a drink and Roblin and Sterling Lyon and Ralph Hetherington were inside. I came back inside and I was in a rage. I was really angry. I'd really done quite a canvas. I had gone to see Roblin and Lougheed, and I had seen Davis in Ontario. Davis asked to see me. Roblin asked to see me. Stanfield asked to see me. In the early spring of 1967 Premier Stanfield denied that he would be a candidate, but on 19 July he announced that he would run. ROBERT STANFIELD

I said that all right. And really meant it. I certainly had no intention of seeking the federal leadership. We had a provincial election in the spring of '67 [May 30) and won forty of the forty-six seats.

Leadership lost 183 However, I don't think that had anything to do with changing my mind, except to the extent that winning the election that way I suppose left me with the feeling that if I left the province, the party would be strong. There were good ministers there to take over, and they had too big a majority, if anything, to work with. I'd also had a feeling for some time that while I genuinely didn't want to get involved in federal politics, I didn't think it was a good idea for me to stay as the head of the government in Nova Scotia indefinitely. I had been there for nearly a dozen years. Most of what I had in the way of approaches or ideas had been contributed. I'd noticed that in Ontario, the Conservative party in Ontario had remained strong through the years, one reason being that they turned over the leadership of the party after about a dozen years, and sometimes even less. This gave the party a chance to renew itself. It didn't feel the awful gap that the Liberal party felt, for example, when Angus L. Macdonald died after he had been the premier of Nova Scotia for virtually twenty-three years, except for some time out in Ottawa during the war. So the election results would only have been significant, as far as my thinking was concerned, in the sense that they would indicate that I didn't need to be concerned about the health of the provincial party in Nova Scotia. But I wouldn't want to exaggerate either the amount of pressure I had on me to run nationally for the leadership. There were certainly a good many people urging me to do it, and urging me very strenuously, and sometimes with a good deal of skill. But I did enough checking around to realize that there was no feeling among the Conservatives across the country that Stanfield should do this, and there was/de sort of 'draft Stanfield' movement. I remember talking this over with Senator John M. Macdonald in Ottawa, and saying this in the summer of 1967, and Senator John M. agreeing that it was right. So any decision I made had to be made upon my own assessment of the feeling of the situation and not on a belief that I was regarded by the party across the country as essential to lead it. You know, it's very difficult to be sure of your own motivation. I think perhaps a person's the worst judge of his own motivation. I felt no desire to get involved in federal politics. I knew it was a very different league than I'd been involved in. I knew it would be much rougher, and a very chancey kind of thing for me to take on, even assuming I won the leadership. I was assuming during those months, or hoping, that Duff Roblin would take the plunge, and certainly if Duff had done it I would never have jumped in. In fact, when I made the decision I was persuaded that Duff was definitely not going to do it. I don't mean that Duff had told me he wasn't going to do it, but simply this was the information I had. And I finally decided that I was taking myself much too seriously in the whole thing, and that ✓

.

184 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

supposing I did get kicked around some in the process, would it really make all that much difference to me? I'd had good fortune in Nova Scotia. I didn't have any great hunger for more glory, or any feeling that I had to succeed in Ottawa in terms of my own satisfaction or my own personal happiness. So I decided finally that I was taking myself much too seriously, and it was I 967, Canada's anniversary year, and I decided I'd just take a crack at it and let the party decide whether they wanted me or not. DALTON CAMP

The second time around, back to Nova Scotia to see Stanfield. Then I could tell he was getting warm to it. We had a meeting with Finlay MacDonald and Dick Donahoe and Ike Smith and Bob Stanfield and Bill Cox at Stanfield's house. Stanfield said that the problem he had with thinking about being a candidate was that he had no semblance of national organization. I said to him, 'You don't have to be worried about that. I've got a crowd of people who are anxious to support you if you want to run.' So we spent the evening talking about it, and he consulted Dick and Ike in our presence. Ike was against it but said, 'If you want to do it, it's all right with me.' What Stanfield wanted from Ike was a promise that if he went Ike would take the premiership. Ike wasn't about to give him that assurance, but reluctantly, finally, he became the most reluctant premier you ever saw in your life. Then we broke up and went outside and met Ike Smith, and we stood in the dark out in the driveway and talked about it. And Ike told us that he didn't want the mantle, he didn't think it was a wise thing for Stanfield to do, it would be better to sit there and hold on to Nova Scotia because he didn't think it would last if Stanfield left. It would be in jeopardy. He didn't think national politics was for Stanfield. Stanfield told me the reason he was considering it was because he thought he could make a contribution to the unity of the country with respect to Quebec. Anyway, I went back to my hotel and I woke up the next morning and Stanfield was on the phone and said he'd changed his mind again. There'd been a shortfall in revenues, and they were going to have to increase taxes. He had a minister who had become a problem to him and he had to fire him. He was the only one who could do it. There were problems he didn't want to wish on anybody, and so he felt it was his responsibility to stay. After that Ike Smith called me, and my recollection is that Smith said to me that it was probably the best thing, Stanfield not running, and he said to me that if I wanted to run, I could count on him. I just put that at the back of my head. I was flattered, as a matter of fact, because Ike had always been a little uneasy about this whole period of politics.

Leadership lost 185

I went back to the lake [Robertson's Point, Grand Lake, NB] and there were a number of people there - Flora MacDonald was there, Dick Hatfield was there, my brother-in-law Norm Atkins was there. My brother-in-law had an instant campaign organization standing by, and there were a lot of people in that organization who wanted me to run, because we were running against Davie Fulton, George Rees, Mike Starr, at that time. It wasn't a big impressive list. For the first time I thought seriously about the possibility. While we were talking about it, the phone rang up at the farmhouse. I didn't have a phone of my own then. I went up to the farmhouse, and it was F inlay. Stanfield had changed his mind again, and it was go. So I went back, passed on the news, and Atkins took off to Toronto to push the buttons. I went over to Halifax to consult with regard to the statement, and I came back again. Stanfield had Finlay call me again. Did I mind if Stanfield said this about Diefenbaker - something, some effusion, I don't know what it was. I said tc, Finlay, 'I don't want to be asked because I don't care what he says. He's a big boy now; he's got to make those decisions all on his own.' ROBERT STANFIELD

I think there was a time when Dalton Camp was considering running for the leadership. In fact, one or two at least of the people who were trying to p!rsuade me to run were using the argument that if I didn't run, Dalton rr.ight very well run, which would be, in the judgment of the people talking tc, me, very divisive. I knew that Dalton was of necessity a controversial fi~re, that he would of necessity have many enemies in the party. But I thought that this would not necessarily be held against me. There was no q Jestion about my record of support for the federal party as the leader of tl1e party in Nova Scotia, for example, and I'd never had any difficulty in the pist getting along with people and overcoming their suspicions. So while I rncognized that Dalton would certainly be controversial and Dalton would c,!rtainly have his enemies in the party, I didn't think there was anything there that I couldn't overcome, if I got the leadership. GORDON CHURCHILL

I think if Dalton Camp had announced that he was going to be a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative party, Mr Diefenbaker would then have announced his candidacy. I am informed that it was because of that, that Mr Stanfield was finally persuaded after three denials to stand as a candidate. He was informed by Grattan O'Leary that if he, that is Mr Stanfield, did not stand, Dalton Camp would, and if Dalton Camp stood, Mr Diefenbaker would stand, and the fat would really be in the fire. So

186 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

Mr Stanfield was persuaded to stand and Camp then didn't. That's the story is I have heard it. Two weeks after Stanfield announced that he was a candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party, Roblin was officially in the running. Stanfield wondered which of the two premiers was Dalton Camp's first choice. ROBERT STANFIELD

l'm sure he would have been perfectly content with Duff Roblin as a candidate for the national leadership. Dalton and a good many others were working hard on Duff to get him to agree to go. But they came to the conclusion that Duff was not going to go, and it certainly was on that assumption that I made my decision, that historic day of the 19th of July, 1967. Duff called me just before he made his announcement. I was on tour at the time. I did fool around with the idea for a few minutes of, well, now that Duff's in it perhaps I can go back home and mind my own business. But I decided that wasn't fair to the people who had committed themselves to me and were identified with me at that point. It wouldn't have been fair to them, so I kept on going. I had the benefit of the support of people who didn't know me. Some of the members of Parliament, for example, who were not Maritimers, might have had no particular reason to support me, except that they had been involved with Camp in this enterprise generally. He had an organization across the country that had been built up presumably in connection with the annual meeting that was available to me. There are some people who would say I made a mistake - I don't think they're right - going into the leadership thing under Camp's auspices. That was not my own feeling; it's not my own feeling today. It's possible that some of the delegates wouldn't support me because I was associated with Dalton Camp. But certainly his support did provide me with an organization that I would not otherwise have had. I couldn't help but be aware very vividly of the animosity that would have to exist following that annual meeting. The hatred exhibited there towards Camp, for example, by some people, and some of the manifestations against Mr Diefenbaker by some other people, weren't things that were readily forgotten by anybody who was sitting there on the platform seeing what was going on. I thought I could overcome that. I thought I could bring them together - I don't mean that I could bring Dalton Camp and John Diefenbaker together or anything of that sort - but I thought I could bring the party together.

Leadership lost 187

The entry of Donald Fleming into the Tory leadership race surprised many people, since he seemed to have been happy to retire from politics in 1963. DONALD FLEMING

You will remember that both in announcing my candidature in June 1967, and throughout the campaign which followed, I was at pains to state that I had been happy in private life and did not seek for myself a return to public life. I reluctantly, and after months of pressure, agreed to offer myself as a candidate when I was finally persuaded that having stood entirely apart from the schism which then deeply divided the party I was the one person who could reunite it and would be acceptable to both sides to the division. The pressure came from the parliamentary caucus, led by Gordon Churchill and Monty Monteith, and was subscribed to by approximately two-thirds of its members. Pressure and exhortation also came from many other quarters, both within and without the party, and even from some highly placed persons in other parties. In the end I was reluctantly convinced that it was my duty to return to public life. Another factor was that I was unwilling to commit myself unless I was reasonably sure that I would be elected, for I had no desire to be simply a contestant and had absolutely nothing to gain from such a course. When I announced my candidature in June I had been convinced that the field was reasonably complete and that I would be selected. The subsequent entries of Stanfield, Roblin, and eventually Diefenbaker into the race changed its complexion entirely. Had they declared themselves sooner I would have felt under no duty to offer myself. J. WALDO MONTEITH

In early spring there were only Hees and Fulton on the horizon as possible contestants, and I wasn't satisfied with either. I was looking for somebody, or trying to think of somebody, who would not be associated with the squabbles of the last few years since '63. I mentioned this to Gordon Churchill. I said I would like to talk to Don Fleming. Now, I did not know either Bob Stahfield or Duff Roblin well enough to approach them. Frankly, I don't suppose I really thought of them. I was thinking more of somebody in the federal sphere, and Fleming looked to me - although I had not supported him in 1956 - he looked to me at that time to be the only one who was not mixed up in the anti-Dief battle. I told Gordon Churchill I was going to call on him. I did. I called on him in his office in Toronto, made the proposition. The only other person who knew I was there was Gordon Churchill.

188 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

Don thought that he had Gordon Churchill's support. I think I can see both sides of it. Maybe that's my trouble in politics - I can always see both sides. I think I can see Gordon Churchill's approach in that if Dief didn't run, okay, Don Fleming. Don came to Ottawa, he called on Gordon, and I think he got the impression that he had his support. We took it for granted that Dief wouldn't run. He went to call on Dief, and received a very warm reception. Of course, by this time I was committed, and Don finally made up his mind. Then the two provincial men came in, and I still think my thought was not without good sound sensible foundation, providing the other two hadn't come in. But, of course, the members at the convention just didn't want to have anything to do with the federal people - to hell with them. They wanted either Roblin or Stanfield. It was as simple as that. At any rate, I went in to see Dief before I left Ottawa to go to the convention. He understood my position. I think he still considers that I've been loyal to him throughout his leadership, but by this stage he knew what had transpired, and he knew that I was committed. So we parted the very best of friends. R.A. BELL

I supported Donald Fleming and I was the chairman of his organization. My support for Donald Fleming came about in a rather unusual way. It was Gordon Churchill who was basically responsible for it. Gordon Churchill decided that Fleming was the desirable leader and the one who could bridge the gap in the party between the Diefenbaker loyalists and the antiDiefenbakers and so he proceeded to circulate again one of his famous round robins in caucus. With the assistance of Monty Monteith and Angus MacLean, he got about forty-eight members of the caucus committed to Fleming, including himself - committed in writing. A clear majority of the caucus. When he was doing this he did not consult me at all. However he came to me when he had it all and said, 'What do you think of this?' I said, 'Well, Donald's been away a long time. I don't think he could be persuaded to come. Where would John Diefenbaker stand if he did come? Would John give him his full support?' 'Yes, this is the only way we can get John to support a leadership candidate.' I met then with over thirty-five members of the caucus and they were all insistent that I should become the chairman. I was nominated in that role by Monty Monteith and, as I recollect, seconded by Gordon Churchill. We made the approaches and persuaded Fleming to come in and handed him this written assurance. I was unaware of any defection on the part of Gordon Churchill until I started to make a tour of the West to try to develop an

Leadership lost 189 organization for Fleming. I realized in Winnipeg that something had gone sour as far as Churchill was concerned. Just to make a long story short, Gordon Churchill did a complete, total, and utter doublecross, the like of which I had never experienced with any other man in the whole of my political career. He undercut Fleming. Fleming was then very badly undercut when Stanfield came in. All the Nova Scotia, indeed all the Atlantic provinces members were fully out for Fleming with the exception of David MacDonald. The moment Stanfield announced, I got a call, one after the other, to say they had to back down on their situation. It became painfully obvious soon afterwards that the initial situation upon which the Fleming campaign was predicated of party unity could no longer happen, that John himself had reneged on what Churchill indicated were his assurances that he would back Fleming and that John himself was likely to be running. So we were involved in a disastrous campaign on behalf of Fleming. It became quite evident well before the convention itself because the whole basis of it was undercut with John's getting in the race, Gordon Churchill's defection to Diefenbaker, and the defection of so many of the members. Richard Rohmer was Fleming's campaign manager. RICHARD ROHMER

At the time when Mr Stanfield and Mr Roblin decided that they would enter the race, I was in Europe and so was Mr Fleming. He was there on business, and I expected him to withdraw. No one in his team of caucus people put to him the proposition that he should withdraw. Quite certainly, if my advice had been sought, I would have said that he should think very seriously about carrying on. He just pressed on. And I stuck with him until the last. I don't believe, if you're committed to somebody, that you say, 'Well, it's three months away,' or whatever, 'and so-and-so has now come in and I think you should withdraw, and if you don't I'm going to quit.' I just didn't do it. But again, politicians are unusual people. They are great ones for selfdelusion, and it's awfully hard in my view to actually make a definitive judgment when it points towards the fact that you should back off. If you have been in certain power pinnacles such as Mr Fleming, it would be very difficult. He's also a strong man with a not minimal ego, and he made his choice and he stuck with it. I stuck with him until he was defeated, and that was it.

190 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost As the Conservative leader in British Columbia, Davie Fulton had failed to overthrow Premier W.A .C. Bennett's Social Credit government. In fact, he had not won a seat in the provincial election, and this was considered to be a blow to his leadership ambitions. DAVIE FULTON

I don't think it was a major factor in determining the outcome and in determining, for instance, that Duff Roblin or Bob Stanfield was going to win instead of me. I think the other factors were much more important and probably so decisive that the attempts to type me as a loser were not of any major significance, the other factors being the general disgust with the then parliamentary situation, the feeling that the party with its present people was in a pretty sour state, that we had better get somebody new, somebody who had not been connected either directly or indirectly with all this, and therefore wasn't tarnished with any part of it. Stanfield and Roblin were two people for whom that description was tailor-made. George Hees also ran up against a feeling of disillusionment with members of Parliament. GEORGE HEES

I think at that time people were fed up with all of us in Ottawa. They were looking for something new, and you know it comes around that they do. For instance, they chose George Drew; they wanted something new then, the George Drew type. Then, they came back to Diefenbaker. They are always looking for something a little different. I think we were all stamped as having been in the same pot together. They wanted something new. Stanfield looked great. He started from zero in Nova Scotia, and had come out with a great success story. In five elections he had come from zero seats to forty out of forty-six. A great success story. He looked like the answer, and so this was it. Roblin had had a pretty successful career out West. So therefore you had the East and the West battling it out, and people in the centre saying, 'Well, these are the kind of fellows that we want. We want somebody who hasn't been mixed up with this whole business in Ottawa. We want something new.' So when Stanfield and Roblin came in, I knew that was the way it was going to be. As the Tories' idea man, Alvin Hamilton emphasized policy issues during his campaign. ALVIN HAMILTON

Because of the effectiveness of the campaign that I had waged among the delegates in southwestern Ontario, John White had come up here to Ottawa

Leadership lost 191

to see me, as a spokesman for what we called the London 'mafia.' He indicated to me that in talking among themselves - and I assume that would be Frost and Robarts and so on who controlled that bloc of votes - they had decided that they would swing those two hundred votes either to Duff Roblin or myself, depending on the circumstances at the time of the convention. At the time that I was told this, I knew that Stanfield had bombed out badly in the presentation of his case in western Ontario - he couldn't articulate anything - and I knew that Duff wasn't doing too well in his campaign because it was a little high pressure for many of the Ontario delegates. So I thought I had a very good chance of getting an additional two hundred delegates from the Ontario group in the western part of the province. I knew I was fairly strong among the northern Ontario delegates. This chat with John White was very encouraging to me, and I visualized that, even with Stanfield and Duff Roblin in, if I got the two hundred delegates I might be in the five hundred class in the first ballot. So I went into the convention fairly confident that I would do fairly well. By all accounts, Robert Stanfield was making little or no impression on Conservative delegates outside the Atlantic provinces, and, with the leadership convention only a few days away, the pundits were writing him off and turning more and more to Duff Roblin. But everything changed when the convention opened. Stanfield's speech to the policy committee early in the convention is generally credited with winning him the leadership on 9 September 1967. Robert Lorne Stanfield was born 11 April 1914 in Truro, Nova Scotia. His father was a leading industrialist and a prominent Conservative who became lieutenant governor of the province in 1930. His eldest brother, Frank, was a Conservative member of Parliament (Colchester-Honts) from 1945 to 1953, and inherited Stanfield's Limited, the family business. Robert, despite the cartoonists, never worked for Stanfield's. He was destined for another family firm, the Acadia Trust Company in Truro. With that in mind, Stanfield took a degree in economics and political science at Dalhousie University and a law degree at Harvard. However, he wasn't long with the trust company in Truro before Ottawa called and he joined the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. After the war, he practised law in Halifax. In the /945 provincial election, no Tories were elected to the Nova Scotia legislature; Angus L. MacDonald had wiped the slate clean. Up to then, Robert Stanfield had shown no interest in politics, but he was persuaded that it was his duty to aid the moribund Conservative party and became its leader. In the 1949 provincial election, he won seven seats. Two elections

192 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost later, in 1956, he swept the Liberals out of office and became premier. In his last two elections, he had been helped by Dalton Camp. Camp did not take any active part in Stanfield's leadership campaign until the very end, just before the convention opened in Toronto. Then he went to work and helped put together the policy speech that led to victory. RO .B ERT STANFIELD

The only speeches in which Dalton would have been involved were during the convention week. Prior to uominations, we had a meeting at which all the candidates spoke. This was the meeting of the policy committee where I made a very big hit with a positive speech. Dalton was certainly involved in the preparation of that policy speech, and also involved in the speech I made at the convention. DALTON CAMP

I went to Don Guthrie's farm for a weekend with Stanfield on the eve of the convention. But this time it was pretty clear that the crunch was coming and he needed some help. I said, 'Okay, I'll pitch in.' And we went to work. That policy speech had an effect all right. It certainly had an effect on John Bassett and some other people. It had an effect on the media and on the delegates, obviously. But I suppose it was not as good a speech as it seemed. It only seemed like a good speech in comparison with the other speeches, because I think it was the first big event of the convention and all the delegates were up for it, but the candidates weren't up the way the delegates were up. It was fortuitous pacing, I guess. ALVIN HAMILTON

The critical event of that convention was the invitation to the leadership candidates to speak to the policy committee which was on Thursday, September 7th. We had been told that we were to have ten minutes or so apiece just to get up and indicate the direction that we thought the policy thrust should be. I recall Mike Starr getting up and talking vaguely about the direction that he would like to see the party take. My own remarks were along the same vein, a little more precise than Mike's but still off the cuff and not a finished or polished performance, just indic;ating that policy was my main field and that I thought we could maintain the harmony with the past and meet the problems of the future with what I called a dynamic positive approach rather than reacting to events. I listed some of these proposals. Suddenly we were elecuified when Stanfield spoke. He spoke smoothly, cogently, every word polished, without any hesitation in his delivery and none of these qualifications that he has which ruin most of his speeches. All

Leadership Jost 193

of a sudden you realize that he has been preparing for this thing because this is a highly polished, prepared speech. After it was over I remember speaking to Doug Fisher. Doug, who is a very astute person, said, 'Well, that's it. He acted as if he were prime minister already and he has seized the opportunity which you fellows fluffed.' Duff was sitting beside me at this long table. He realised that he wasn't to speak till the end so he was busy scribbling on a piece of paper. He got up and delivered a great bible-thumping type of message trying to make up by noise and violence of expression for the fact that Stanfield had scored a major political coup. The next morning when the three papers came out that this was the man for all seasons, I knew what the score was. I finally got confirmation of that because John White was courteous enough to have breakfast with me and to tell me that the Ontario votes would now be going to Stanfield. But he did not give me a reason. So on the Friday and Saturday I was under no illusions about what was going to happen. On Thursday evening Diefenbaker spoke to a packed convention hall. He had not yet announced his intentions. He demanded that the party repudiate the policy committee's acceptance of Marcel Faribault's concept of 'deux nations.' The next morning he announced his candidacy, which meant that he could once more speak against the two-nations theory . GORDON CHURCHILL

When the leadership convention opened, Mr Diefenbaker made his major speech, as he had the right to do, being the acknowledged leader of the party. In that speech he attacked the concept of the two nations. Then he was in a quandry because he wasn't a candidate and some people said to him, 'If this is the attitude that you take, of which we approve, then you should stand as a candidate so that we can record our votes.' The second factor was that the candidates had an opportunity of speaking on the Friday night, and if he were not a candidate his opportunity to speak was finished - over and done with. So the decision was reached that he should at least submit his name as a candidate so that he would have an opportunity of speaking again, and that was done. There was no organization behind Mr Diefenbaker's candidacy on that occasion. None at all. MICHAEL STARR

The first inkling that I had was that Thursday night when he was going to make the speech at the convention and word got down that he wanted to see

194 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

me. I went to see him. He was preparing his speech and he said, 'Michael, do you think I should run?' I just sat upright and I said, 'No.' So I knew right away the fat was in the fire. You know exactly what happened. If he hadn't encouraged the other fellows, if he had said ahead of time, they wouldn't have run, and he would have been a tough guy to beat at the convention, because you take the votes that Alvin Hamilton got, a lot of the votes that Don Fleming got might have gone to him, and the few votes that I had, which was only 45, might have been the deciding factor. It would have made a tremendous bid because even at that he got 271 on the first ballot. Another 150 on top of that would have given him well over 400 on the first ballot and he would have been a tough guy to beat from then on. ALVIN HAMILTON

He told me at the beginning of the convention that if they didn't get rid of that resolution on two nations that he might have to run for the leadership. I knew the meaning of that to me and to Mike Starr. He said that he was not going to let the party adopt such a resolution, that it was against Conservative principles and against his views, very much so: I understood that and I've never done anything else but admire him for this stand, but it destroyed Mike and me as serious candidates. As part of bringing harmony into the convention, they finally withdrew this resolution and in effect the need for Diefenbaker running was taken away. But they didn't take it out until after he had announced that he was going to run. So I think that Diefenbaker's fight was successful. He was able to get the resolution withdrawn entirely and it never became official policy. I would think that he has the perfect right to claim that he stopped the Conservative party from making a grievous error. Throughout the convention, Greg Guthrie accompanied John Diefenbaker wherever he went. He was the chief's bodyguard, valet, secretary, adviser, and friend. GREG GUTHRIE

I was in on the meetings of the strategy committee, which were something really incredible, because the strategy committee didn't know until the last minute whether the Chief was actually going to run or not. I don't think he would have had his nomination papers in, in correct form, in time, had it not been for Tommy Van Dusen's foresight the night before in getting blanks, in going around and getting the number of names - I've forgotten what it was, twenty-five or fifty seconders - and having them ready the next morning when the Chief finally said, 'I'm going to put in my name in nomination.'

Leadership lost 195

Then we had to translate these scrawled signatures. We had to find out who they were attached to, because some of them were at the reception the night before and they weren't too clear. They were in pencil and there were drinks spilled and so forth. But we managed to get them all typed out and checked and rushed down to Lincoln Alexander, who was the officer in charge of receiving nominations. We got there about five minutes before the deadline. The remarkable thing was that the chairman of this ad hoc committee for his nomination was Senator David Walker. He had just had a serious operation in hospital, and against his doctor's orders he appeared at the Royal York to help. There was Joel Aldred and there was Churchill, and there were Tommy and myself, a couple of others. We used to hold quick meetings in my room, and usually the chairman, Senator Walker, presided prostrate on the bed with people hovering anxiously over him because he was as pale as death, and we thought he was going to pop off any time. We felt like saying, 'Well, let's adjourn before he goes.' He survived. He was a great tower of strength, a very loyal supporter. It was rather like being in the palace of a minor monarchy because at the Chief's suite people kept turning up for audiences - provincial premiers and former cabinet ministers - and they were ushered in with great ceremony to be welcomed by the Chief. Sometimes more intimate friends were received when he was lying in his bathrobe on his bed. Whenever he took to his bed it became like an eagle's nest, very untidy and spotted with scraps of paper and pins lying around, and all sorts of things. We didn't have a budget for any paper hats or balloons. You remember Senator McCutcheon's famous balloons, and that girl in the green dress with the trumpet. We didn't do any of that sort of thing. A group called 'Youth for Dief' got hold of a Dixieland band and welcomed him at the hotel, and they used to appear periodically in the hotel, going from one reception to the other. I believe that that money was found from a group of friends on the spot, among whom was Harvey McFarland. But there were no expenses because it wasn't really a campaign. His name was in nomination but he didn't campaign, and he didn't maintain a hospitality suite or buttonhole delegates - nothing like that. There were no expenses involved. Diefenbaker's last-minute entry into the race did not mean that he had any hope of retaining the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party . GREG GUTHRIE

He knew it could be nothing but a token. Tom Van Dusen mentioned a remark of the Chief's to him. The chief said, 'It's one thing for an old man, a

196 Diefenbaker: Leadership lost

person in his seventies to be endorsed as leader at an annual meeting, but it's quite another to contest a leadership contest successfully. There's just no way that man is going to win.' He knew he wasn't going to win, but he also knew he had to go the last few steps to Calvary. He had to do it for the sake of the party, and for the sake of his own integrity. Mind you, he had his Gethsemane where he was of two minds and he was weighing the pros and cons, but it was inevitable that he would run. It certainly was the advice I gave him when I was asked for it. I said, 'From the point of view of history, you have no choice.' It was a terribly difficult period for him, sitting in that hot, very uncomfortable, Maple Leaf Gardens seat hour after hour while the voting went on. It was bad enough down on the floor, but it was worse when your knees were jammed against the wooden front. Mrs Diefenbaker sat with him throughout, and it was even worse for her because her leg was very painful, but she sat stoically there. They did get a break. We went into the directors' room, but it was filled with people the Chief would have just as soon not seen at that time, like John Bassett and a few others. Joel Aldred was a tower of strength, and between us we always managed to cleave a way through the crowd. Everything was jammed. You couldn't move with any facility. So really, a physical sort of bodyguard was necessary. On the first ballot, Diefenbaker got 271 votes. He should have withdrawn after the second ballot, hut did not do so until after the third ballot when his total was reduced to 114. GREG GUTHRIE

After these hours of waiting, knowing he was going down to defeat and a secondary humiliation, he decided to go back to the hotel to eat. We went out, and we got in the car, and Jim Johnston came out and said, 'It's necessary to give a note to the chairman that you've officially withdrawn.' So he scribbled this out and the car was in the middle of the street - I remember this policeman holding up traffic on each end - and Jim Johnston took the paper and scurried back into the Maple Leaf Gardens and we took off down the street. The Chief was completely relaxed. He was a new man. It's just as if a great burden had been lifted off him. We were rather depressed and hot and tired, and all of a sudden this strange, reedy tenor split the silence. It was the Chief, singing 'When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day.' It was a very appropriate piece but it was a very poor rendition.

EPILOGUE, APPENDIX, AND INDEX

Epilogue

Suddenly it was the spring of 1968, and the new leader of the Progressive Conservative party, Robert Stanfield, had fought his first federal election campaign. The Tories under Stanfield won seventy-two seats. Dalton Camp, who ran in the Toronto riding of Don Mills, was defeated by an unknown young Liberal, Robert Kaplan. Duff Roblin lost by more than 10,000 votes to E.B. Osler in Gordon Churchill's old Winnipeg South Centre seat. However, the worst disaster was in Quebec, where the Tories had had great expectations but ended up with only four seats, half what they had won in 1965 under Diefenbaker. The proponent of 'deux nations,' Marcel Faribault, who was to be Stanfield's Quebec lieutenant, was roundly beaten in the Montreal riding of Gamelin. Dalton Camp's explanation for the Tories' poor showing was the popularity of the new Liberal leader, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. His assessment had been that Stanfield could have taken Pearson; he had the right candidate but the wrong election. It was only human nature for John Diefenbaker, once again triumphant in his Prince Albert constituency, to gloat over the results. His spirits revived. Vic Mackie who had known the Chief longer than any other Ottawa correspondent, marvelled at his resilience. He had thought that Diefenbaker could not survive his defeat at the Toronto convention, that the long drawn out humiliation of the voting that Saturday afternoon would have been too much for him. Mackie told Diefenbaker this when he had a chance to have a chat with him after his eightieth birthday parties. The Chief replied that he had not suffered so much at the 1967 convention - after all, that was an election of a leader and he had lost that kind of election before -

200 Epilogue it was the 1966 annual meeting with its organized violence that had really hurt. After he lost the party leadership, Diefenbaker was honoured at a testimonial dinner by the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa, during which he swore that he would not speak again in the House. Someone broke the rules and reported this statement in the newspapers, and this allowed the Chief to get out of such a rash promise. He resumed speaking in public and has never stopped. He became the conscience of the Commons, Alvin Hamilton said, and every time he rose in the opposition front bench, he put the fear of God not only in the government members but in the civil servants looking down from the official gallery. Diefenbaker provided excitement and entertainment, and on the few occasions he was not in the House you could hear the sigh of disappointment among the visitors in the galleries. His continuing as an MP did hurt Robert Stanfield. The new leader's position was made particularly difficult because, as he said, his predecessor took somewhat different positions on issues. 'It makes some people wonder who's really speaking for the party,' Stanfield said in the interview I had with him. In 1976, the Tories once again chose a new leader. Diefenbaker addressed the convention on opening night. It was a vintage Diefenbaker speech, rambling at times, but with enough shafts of wit and invective to maintain interest, and the crowd loved it. He was a historic character now, a senior statesman, and the only living former prime minister - although he said that he hoped for company soon. At eighty years of age, he looked younger and better than he had nine years before at the previous convention. Although he had more influence at this convention than in 1967 - so much more that he was seen as a possible kingmaker - he nevertheless backed the loser. In an interview with me, Keith Martin said that some of Diefenbaker's friends wished he hadn't given his public blessing to Claude Wagner; they said that for the sake of his reputation he should have remained on the sidelines as Stanfield had done. However, Diefenbaker felt that he had to do it for the good of the party and the country. As the leadership campaign progressed, the Chief had become annoyed with the way the Tory establishment were ganging up against Wagner - these were the people who had brought him into the party and now they had started a campaign against the trust fund they had set up for him. Old loyalties meant that he had to support Jack Horner on the first ballot; by the time he had decided to back Wagner there was little or no chance of his winning. Diefenbaker knew this but he thought it was historically the right thing to do - it would give the lie to charges he was anti-Quebec.

Epilogue 201 It had not been the best convention for Diefenbaker, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that Dalton Camp had become a non-person, the 'uncommitted delegate' as Camp called himself, uncommitted because the candidates were afraid of his support and ran scared of even meeting him. Sometimes, the television cameras caught Diefenbaker with his head bowed, as though he were worn out by all the noisy demonstrations and the expensive American hoopla. It was the convention where Diefenbaker came to terms with his party and the new generation that was in control. Although he supported the loser, he had a friendly chat with the winner, and declared, in a speech he made a couple of days later, that Joe Clark would make 'a remarkable leader of this party' and would rejuvenate the House of Commons. Davie Fulton summed up the paradox of John Diefenbaker's career when he said that he was 'a man who just missed one of the greatest chances that anyone ever had and yet a man who had the greatest success at one time that anyone ever had.'

Appendix

The interviews on which Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained 1956-62 and Diefenbaker: Leadership Lost 1962-67 are based, along with the dates on which they were recorded, their duration, and their Archives' tape reference numbers, are listed below. The tapes and transcripts are deposited in the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, and are for general release after 31 December 1980. Date of Interview

Duration of interview

PAC

Interviewee

tape number

Balcer, Leon Baldwin, Gerald Bassett, John Bell, Richard A. Brown, Clement Camp, Dalton Caouette Real Cardin, Lucien Chevrier, Lionel Churchill, Gordon Dinsdale, Walter Douglas, T.C. Faibish, Roy Fairclough, Ellen Fisher, John

31 January 1972 7 November 1973 IO June 1975 24, 26July 1972 18 April 1974 13 June 1975 10 September 1975 22 May 1975 9 May 1975 25, 30 May 1972 15 November 1973 4 December 1972 26 September 1973 9 March 1973 3 July 1974

1 hr, 55 mins 1 hr, 56mins 1 hr, 28 mins 4hrs 1 hr, 22 mins 4 hrs, 25 mins 1 hr, 15 mins 1 hr, 51 mins 1 hr, 20mins 3 hrs, 59 mins 2hrs 2hrs 2 hrs, 46 mins 1 hr, 53 mins 1 hr, 7 mins

60 272 514 127 363 512

547,548 505 505

53,54 284 144,145 250,251

182 372

204 Appendix

Interviewee

Date of interview

Duration of interview

PAC tape number

Fleming, Donald Flemming, Hugh John Flynn, Jacques Forsey, Eugene

20 October 1973 7 May 1975

3 hrs, 26 mins 1 hr, 57 mins

253 504,505

14 March 1974 17 September 1971, 30 October 1973 5 October 1972 29 May 1975 26 October 1971 6 December 1972, 14 February 1973 3 February 1974 18 June 1975

1 hr, 50 mins 2 hrs, 45 mins 2 hrs, 20 mins 1 hr, 36 mins 1 hr, 5 mins 3 hrs, 59 mins

346,347 127, 128, 272 137 508 130 145,149

2 hrs, 13 mins 2 hrs, 45 mins

339 514

30 April 1974 8, 9 November 1972, 11 January 1976 3 February 1974 1 November 1971 11, 17 December 1973 17 May 1972 28 May 1975 20 September 1972 29 August 1975 21 November 1973 11 July 1974 20June 1975 28 November 1972 23 May 1972 9 June 1975 24 January 1974 4 July 1974 21 June 1974 5 March 1973, 16December1975 7 February 1973

2 hrs, 30 mins 4 hrs, 40 mins 2 hrs, 9 mins 1 hr, 27 mins 2 hrs, 26 mins

364 140, 141, 594 339,340 141 292

1 hr, 22 mins 2 hrs, 26 mins 1 hr;45 mins 1 hr, 38 mins 1 hr, 48 mins 1 hr, 6 mins 1 hr, 12 mins 2 hrs, 4 mins 2 hrs, 22 mins 1 hr, 20 mins 2 hrs, 45 mins 2 hrs, 27 mins 1 hr, 17 mins 2 hrs, 25 mins

141 507,508 131 542,543 284 373 514,515 141, 142 58 513 298,299 372,373 370 182,594

I hr, 57 mins

148, 149

Fulton, E. Davie Goodman, E.A. Green, Howard Grosart, Allister Guest, Gowan Guthrie, Greg, and Tom Van Dusen Hall, Emmett Hamilton, Alvin Hamilton, William Harkness, Douglas Hees, George Jack, Mel LaMarsh, Judy Langlois, Raymond Lewis, David MacLean, Angus Mackie, Vic Marcoux, Guy Martin, Paul Martineau, Paul McGee, Frank Menzies, Merril Monteith, J . Waldo Nelson, James Nielsen, Erik O'Leary, Grattan

Appendix 205 Duration of Interview

PAC tape number

1 May 1974 19 June 1975 5 September 1973 4, 5 April 1974 22 July 1975 9, 22 August 1972, 18 March 1976 26May 1975 19 October 1973 15 December 1971, 22 August 1972

1 hr, 23 mins 1 hr, 7mins 2 hrs, 36 mins 2 hrs, 11 mins 52 mins 4 hrs, 51 mins 2 hrs, 10 mins 1 hr, 41 mins 1 hr, 54mins

364,365 514 240 352,353 532 128, 129, 641 505,506 271 129

22 January 1973

2 hrs, 8 mins

147

Interviewee

Date of Interview

Pearkes, George Pelletier, Gerard Pickersgill, J.W. Richardson, B.T. Rohmer, Richard Sevigny, Pierre Stanfield, Robert Starr, Michael Thompson, Robert Van Dusen, Tom; see Guthrie, Greg Wright, Maurice

Index

Acheson, Dean 19 Adenauer, Konrad 166 Aiken, Gordon 166 Aldred, Joel 170, 195, 196 Alexander, Lincoln 195 Asselin, Martial 90, 91 Atkins, Norman 167, 185 Balcer, Leon 11, 38, 41, 56, 61, 62, 78,80,82,85,86,87,90, 101,103, 105,106,107,111,112,113,114, 115,116,118,119,120 - excerpts 6, 37, 43, 82-3 Baldwin, G.W. - excerpt 166-7 Banks, Hal 123 Bassett, John 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 86, 92, 94, 192,196 - excerpts 79-80, 94, 130-1 Bell, Elmer 126 Bell, R.A. 8, 9, 61 , 62, 177 - excerpts 5, 16-17, 26, 40-1, 53-4, 56,62-3,66, 72-3,81,86,90,177, 188-9

Bennett, R.B. 116, 127 Bennett, W.A.C. 190 Binks, Ken 121 Blakely, Arthur 6 Bouchard,Jacques 107 Bourbonnais, Marcel 87 Bracken, John 116 Brewin, Andrew 19, 64 Brooks,AlfredJ. 71, 73, 75 Brown, Clement 106 Brunt, William 6 Butterworth, Walton 27, 28, 94, 95, 96 Cadieux, Leo 149, 150 Cameron, Colin 69 Camp, Dalton 4, 17, 30, 44, 80, 85, 86,92, 103, 107,108,112,113, 117,119,120,121,163,165,166, 167,168,169,171,174,175,176, 180, 181,185,186,192,199,201 - excerpts 4, 17, 19, 31-2, 45, 72, 82, 85-6,91,92,94-6,96-7, 103-4, 105, 107-8, 112-13, 114-15, 11718, 119-20, 131, 1·63-4, 164-5,

208 Index 166,167,168,169,173, 174-5, 176,180,181-2,184-5,192 - biography 168 Campney, Ralph 32 Caouette, Real 39, 61, 64, 68 - excerpts 64-5, 67-8, 102 Cardin, Lucien 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 160,161 - excerpts 144-5, 146, 147-8, 14950,151-2, 159, 160-1 - biography 145-6 Cardin, P.J.A. 145 Cartier, Sir George-Etienne 106 Case, Garfield 77 Castonguay, Nelson 99 Chambers, Egan 103, 104 Churchill, Gordon 4, 10, 11, 30, 36, 37,41,46,50,51,54,55,58,60, 61, 65,89,90,92,103, 116,117, 128,143,168,177,187,188,189, 195,199 - excerpts 15-16,27-8,38,44,46-7, 128-9, 130, 140-1, 166,171,1856, 193 Churchill, Sir Winston 104 Clark, Joseph 201 Coates, Robert 175 Collister, Ron 94, 134 Coolican, Denis 52 Cote, Maurice 153 Cowan, Ralph 102 Cox, William 184 Coyne, James 17 6 Creighton, Donald 46 Croll, David 77

Darabaner, Moise 124 Davey, Clark 95 Davey, Keith 92, 93, 137 Davis, William 135, 182

De Gaulle, Charles 19 Dempson, Peter 77 DePoe, Norman 125 Dennis, Eric 165 Dewar, Gordon 54 Deyell, R. 120 Diefenbaker, Elmer 171 Diefenbaker, John George passim Diefenbaker, Olive 4, 53, 54, 72, 83, 84,85, 104,118,138,196 Dinsdale, Walter 46, 76, 80 - excerpt 176-7 Doak, J. 120 Donahoe, Richard 184 Dorion, Frederic 132, 146 Douglas, T.C. 13, 19, 38, 64, 102 - excerpts 64, 68-9, 101-2, 139 Doyle, John 124, 125,152,153,155, 157 Drew, George 77, 95, 101, 190 Ducharme, Hubert 124, 125, 153, 157 Dunlop, Edward 78 Duplessis, Maurice 98, 115 Dupuis, Yvon 123 Faibish, Roy 3, 104 - excerpt 3 Fairclough, Ellen 8, 10, 58, 83 - excerpts 10, 56, 57, 58 Fairweather, Gordon 108 Faribault, Marcel 193, 199 Favreau, Guy 107, 123, 132, 146, 147, 148, 151, 154 Fisher, Douglas 193 Fleming, Donald 7, 8, 11, 50, 51, 56. 57,58,62,65, 72, 76,89,90, 152, 159,181,187,188,189,194 - excerpts 50-1, 52, 58-9, 187 Flemming, Hugh John 18, 61, 62, 63, 93,168 - excerpt 18

Index 209 Flynn, Jacques 6, 9, 116 Forsey, Eugene - excerpt 125-6 Frost, Leslie 191 Fulton, Davie 7, 11, 43, 45, 47, 49, 52,54,56,57,58,62, 76,83,86,89, 90,107,108,127,130,152, 158, 163,177,181,185,187,190,201 - excerpts 7-8, 45-6, 147, 151, 155, 156,159, 160, 190 Geary, G.R. 127 Gladstone, W.E. 119, 166 Goldwater, Barry 55 Goodman, E.A. 30, 31, 32, 71, 77, 79, 80,81,85,86,92, 113,117,118, 119,120,126,127,137, 164,168, 176,180 - excerpts 30, 78:....9, 113, 119, 120, 126-7, 128, 129-30, 139,169, 180-1 - biography 127 Goodman, Martin 134 Gordon, Walter 93, 123, 140, 149 Green, Howard 7, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 32, 50,51,54,55,56,58,68, 72,79 - excerpts 22-3, 23-4, 29, 49-50 Grosart, Allister 31, 44, 71, 92, 94, 96, 137, 164 - excerpts 6-7, 43-4 Gundlock, Deane 65, 66 Guthrie, Don 192 Guthrie, Greg 105, 134, 172, 194 - excerpts 130, 137-9, 165,172,173, 194-5, 195-6 Haig,Cam 72 Hall, Emmett 156 - excerpt 156 Halpenny, Ernie 40, 41, 43, 44, 56,

62,83,89 Hamilton, Alvin 3, 10, 47, 56, 58, 66, 71,103,181,190,194,199 - excerpts 11, 36, 55, 56-7, 65-6, 66-7, 73-4, 76-7, 80-1, 112,129, 171,177, 190-1, 192-3, 194 Harkness, Douglas 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20,21,25,27,28,32,50,51,52, 53, 54,55, 56,57,58,59,61,67,68,73, 74,80,82,89,90, 101,130,159, 171,177 - excerpts 20, 21-2, 23, 24-5, 25-6, 26-7,29-30,54-5,56 - biography 20-1 Harris, Lou 94 Hatfield, Richard 185 Hazlitt, Tom 144 Hees, George 7, 8, 36, 40, 43, 47, 50, 52,53,55,56,61,62,63,65,66, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79,80, 81,82,83,84,85,86,89,90,107, 108,127,130,153,158,163,180, 181,185,187,190 - excerpts 77, 190 - biography 77 Herridge, H.W. 69 Hetherington, Ralph 182 Hilton, John 113 Hogan, George 16, 17, 92, 107, 113 Horner, Albert 66 Horner, Hugh 66 Horner,Jack 65,66, 109,200 Jack, Mel 81, 83 - excerpt 85 Jackman, Hal 32 Johnston, James 136, 164, 165, 169, 174,179, 196 Kaplan, Robert 199 Keeler, Christine 153, 154

210 Index Kelly, R. 131 Kennedy,JohnF. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 42,92,94 Kennedy, Robert 19 Kerwin, Patrick 54, 84 Khrushchev, Nikita 17 Kindt, Lawrence 66 King, W.L. Mackenzie 99, 146 Laing,Arthur 123 LaMarsh, Judy 11, 89, 92,124,125, 179 - excerpts 11, 93, 140, 148-9, 156, 179 Lambert, Marcel 13, 90 Lamontagne, Maurice 123, 132, 146 Lamoureux, Lucien 163 LaPierre, Laurier 144, 145 Latimer, Hugh 92 Lawrence, Allan 135 Leboe, Bert 38, 53 Lesage,Jean 107,109 Levesque, Rene 107 Lewis, David 62, 147, 149 - excerpts 19, 69, 161 Lougheed, Peter 168, 182 Lynch, Charles 54, 55, 96, 182 Lyon, Sterling 182 Mccleave, Robert 175 Mccutcheon, Wallace 6, 7, 38, 40, 41,42,43,44,46,49,53,54,56,61, 62,64,65, 73, 75,80,83,87,90, 91, 95, 164, 174, 181, 195 - biography 6 Macdonald, Angus L. 183, 191 MacDonald, David 189 MacDonald, Finlay 4, 120, 184, 185 MacDonald, Flora 31, 85, 86, 164, 165,174,185

Macdonald, Sir John A. 46, 91, 106, 179,180 Macdonald, John M. 183 Macdonnell, James M. 32, 101, 118 MacEachen, Allan 136 McFarland, Harvey 173, 195 McGee, D'Arcy 8, 90 McGee, Frank 8, 90, 91 - excerpts 8-9,19-20,46,90-1, 133 McGee, John J. 8 McIntosh, Jack 104 Mackie, Victor J. 199 MacLean, Angus 46, 71, 73, 76, 170, 188 - excerpts 4, 35, 173 MacLean, Cam 114 McLuhan, Marshall 108 MacLeod, Norman 94 Macmillan, Harold 15, 16, 17 McMurtry, Roy 167, 171 McNamara, Robert 42 McNaughton, General A.G.L. 77 Maloney, Arthur 91,167,168, 169, 171,174,175,176,182 Manning, Ernest 66, 67 Marchand,Jean 131,133,147,149 Marcoux, Guy 124, 152 - excerpts 68, 124 Marsh, William 5 Martin, Keith 200 Martin, Paul 123 - excerpts 18, 173 Martineau, Paul 9, 37, 43, 62, 63, 83, 99, 105, 110, 115 - excerpts 9, 10, 35, 42-3, 61-2, 74, 86-7,98-9, 105-6, 109-10, 110-12, 115-17, 118-19 - biography 1 15 Meabry, Ruby 72 Meach, Bill 77

Index 211 Merchant, Livingston 14 Miller, Air Marshal Frank 28 Monteith, J. Waldo 46, 51, 55, 66, 77, 187,188 - excerpts 57-8, 187-8 - diary 51-2, 54, 55-6, 61, 69, 71, 80,83 More, Kenneth 13 Morris, Edmund 69 Morrison, Cecil 37, 38 Morse, Eric 52 Muir, George 44 Muir, Robert 172 Munro, Ross 95, 96 Munsinger, Gerda 76, 143, 144, 147, 148, 151-9, 161,163 Nesbitt, Wallace 167 Newman, Peter 40, 134 Nicholson, Patrick 37, 38, 171 Nielsen, Erik 76, 114, 120, 147, 150 - excerpts 76,109,146, 150-1 Norstad, General Lauris 28, 29 Nowlan, George 7, 13, 17, 38, 41, 43, 44,45,46,53,59,60,61,62,63,65, 69, 72, 76,80,83,85 Nugent, Terry 65, 66, 73 O'Hurley, Raymond 83 O'Leary, Grattan 8, 9, 42, 46, 71, 74, 76, 78,90,95, 182,185 - excerpts 75-6, 175 Osler, E.B. 199 Ouimet, Alphonse 95 Owens, E.W.J. 127 Pallett,John 47 Pearkes, George 21, 22, 32 Pearson, Lester B. 13, 24, 26, 30, 31, 32,38,61,79,92,94,95,99, 101,

102, 107, 109, 110, 111, 123, 124, 125,126,131,135,136,137,139, 140,143,144,145,146,148,149, 150,151,152,154,155,157,160, 161,163,164,179,199 Pederson, Martin 168 Pelletier, Gerard 97, 131 - excerpts 97, 102, 131-3 Phelps, Arthur 31 Phillips, Bruce 96 Pickersgill, J.W. 32, 136, 140, 157 - excerpts 32-3, 102-3, 148, 161 Profumo, John 143, 153, 154 Regan, Gerald 136 Regier, Erhart 13 Regimbal, Roger 180 Ricard, Theogene 9, 90, 91, 111, 112, 139 Richardson, B.T. 85, 97 - excerpts 53, 83--4, 98 Rivard, Lucien 123, 139, 146, 151 Robarts, John 127, 129, 133, 134, 135,163,170,172,181,191 Roblin, Duff 127,128,129,130,163, 168,172,181,182,183,186, 18~ 188,189,190,191,193,199 Rogers, Ted 170 Rohmer, Richard 133, 189 - excerpts 133--4, 135, 189 Rouleau, Guy 123 Rowe, Earl 36 Ryan, Perry 94 St Laurent, Louis 32, 79, 168 Salsberg, Joseph 127 Sedgewick, Pat 170 Selassie, Emperor Haile 39 Sevigny, Albert 154 Sevigny, Pierre 14, 43, 45, 56, 61, 68,

212 Index 75, 76,80,81,82,83,84,85,86, 87, 89, 90, 124, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158,159,160 - excerpts 14-15, 25, 28-9, 41-2, 74,81-2,84-5,87, 124-5, 152-4, 154-5, 156-7,158, 159 - biography 154 Sharp, Mitchell 131 Shaw, Walter 168 Smallwood, Joseph R. 153, 154, 157 Smith, G.I. 184 Smith, Heber 117 Smith, Margaret Harrison 120 Smith, Sidney 7, 11 Spence, Wishart 156, 157 Spencer, George Victor 144-51 Stairs, Edison 118 Stanfield, Frank 191 Stanfield, Robert 104, 129, 135, 163, 168,170, 172, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185,186,187,188,189,190, 191, 192, 193,199,200 - excerpts 5, 92, 135-6, 139, 143-4, 175-6, 182-4, 185, 186, 192 - biography 191-2 Starr, Michael 11, 83, 167, 170, 177, 181, 185, 192, 194 - excerpts 181, 193-4 Stevens, H.H. 116

Taylor, E.P. 6 Thompson, Robert 13, 37, 38, 39, 40, 59,60,61,62,63,67, 102 - excerpts 37, 38-9, 40, 49, 53, 5960, 60-1, 67 - biography 39-40 Thrasher, Richard 72, 84, 117, 126, 164 Tremblay, Rene 123, 132, 146 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott 26, 32, 13 l, 199 Van Dusen, Tom 105, 108, 134, 137, 194,195 - excerpts 106-7, 108, 127, 134-5, 136,139, 165, 171-2, 174,180 Vincent, Clement 139 Wadds, Jean 171 Wagne~Claude 200 Wagner, Marion 72, 114 Walker, David 6, 166, 195 Wardell, Brigadier Michael 60 Watson, Patrick 144, 145 White, John 190, 191, 193 Willis, Harry 81 Winch, Harold 69