bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1993) — Winter 1993 // Hiver 1993, p. 29
bout de papier is honoured to print below the text of the speaking notes for Mr. Blair Seaborn’s oral eulogy on that sad occasion. Editor
I have been asked to say a brief word about the professional career of Alan McLaine, an old friend and a devoted, hard-working and loyal public servant.
My wife and I first met Alan and Tudy McLaine when they arrived in Moscow on their first posting in June of 1960. From his arrival, Third Secretary McLaine threw himself with energy and enthusiasm into the role of young Canadian diplomat in the fascinating area of Soviet affairs. And with this posting began a career of ever-increasing responsibilities over more than thirty years. It took him to Havana, to Washington, a second time to Moscow as Counsellor, to Warsaw as Ambassador, and finally to Prague.
In between these foreign postings, he was back in Ottawa, attending to Canadian interests in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Most recently, just before going to Prague as Ambassador, he had a long and gruelling stint as Director General during the period when walls and curtains were falling, the Soviet Empire was disintegrating, and the Soviet Union itself was going through incredible change, turmoil and upheaval. During that period, as indeed on all his postings, Alan earned the respect of those from the area with whom he dealt for his fairness, his straightforwardness and his genuine desire to establish the best possible relations with them and their countries.
One of the things I admired most in Alan was his great fund of common sense. Where other Kremlin watchers and Eastern European experts were caught up, often fascinatingly, in the subtleties and uncertainties of the scene, he could cut through all this to assess the situation, and particularly the Canadian and Western interests involved, with practical and politically astute good sense. He had, moreover, the capacity to convey to the nonspecialist, including Ministers and Members of Parliament, the essentials of complicated situations in clear and direct language — a talent not characteristic of all public servants.
Alan was not a “hard-liner” ’, but he knew how and when to be tough when the circumstances called for it. He had a knack for getting along personally with even the most obdurate and outrageous Communist officials; but he did not mince words with them when they were being obdurate and outrageous, especially if Canadian interests were at stake.
But the characteristic which perhaps endeared him most to his colleagues and fellow-workers, especially at difficult posts abroad, was his irrepressible cheerfulness, his kindly humour and sense of fun (his doggerel verse was great!) and his constant concern for the well-being of those who were working with him.
Alan and I kept in touch even after our professional lives had gone their separate ways, largely because we shared a fascination with what we used to call “the Soviet Bloc” and because we had become firm friends through being together in Moscow many years ago. I visited the McLaines in Prague in June of this year, and as always found Alan absorbed by this posting, by what was going on in a former Communist country apparently determined to tear itself apart.
Tudy, god-daughter Heather, all members of the McLaine family: the Department of External Affairs — and Canada — were well served by Alan. I rejoice to have known him as a warm friend and colleague, to have worked with him, and to have shared that love for his work for which he will long be remembered.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1993) — Winter 1993 // Hiver 1993, p. 29. Read the rest of this issue →
