bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2000-2001) — Winter 2000/2001 // Hiver 2000/2001, pp. 32–33
he death of Pierre Elliott Trudeau — and subsequent recollections of his life and times – reminds us that he was a bold and inquisitive traveller long before his tenure as a national and international statesman. Some veterans of the foreign service may recall that Trudeau’s blunt questioning of diplomats and their roles had been attributed to a brief stay in a Belgrade jail in1948, when his plight had apparently been ignored by the Canadian Embassy. It may be of interest to readers of bout de papier to learn that Trudeau was not always ignored by our missions abroad when he travelled.
Not long after he left a job at the Privy Council Office as an adviser on federal-provincial relations, Trudeau met Pierre Lebrun, the French organizer of an international economic forum in Moscow, ostensibly devoted to the promotion of East-West trade. The conference was one of several “peace” overtures by the Soviet Union that were designed to convince western public opinion of its benign intentions and to undermine popular support for anti-Soviet policies at the height of the cold war, most notably the rearmament of western Germany and its closer association with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Lebrun extended a personal invitation to Trudeau to attend the gathering in April 1952.
Western observers regarded the conference simply as a propaganda exercise. Most of the half dozen Canadians who attended the conference as delegates were regarded by their own government as communists or “fellow travellers.” One delegate who did not fit the mould, however, attracted the attention of the Canadian embassy in Moscow – Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Though Trudeau was no longer a public servant, there was concern that he might do or say something during his trip that might embarrass Canada.
At the time, Robert Ford was serving as chargé d’affaires a.i. Ford would later represent Canada for 16 years as ambassador to the Soviet Union (including more than a decade while Trudeau was prime minister). As the report below indicates, their earlier encounters enabled Ford to form an impression of Trudeau’s attitude towards both superpowers at the height of the cold war, as well as to observe an impish streak that was not always appreciated by American interlocutors. A later despatch from Ford mentions a last visit from Trudeau after a trip to Tbilisi. “Six days in a Soviet hard-class coach,” Ford reported, “together with the fact that on his return to Moscow he was treated cavalierly and left in little doubt that his hosts wished to be rid of him seemed to have changed his views somewhat as to the genuineness of the Conference.” Seven articles by Trudeau appeared in Le Devoir from Saturday, June 14th, to Saturday, June 21st.
Ford refers briefly to Trudeau’s visit in his memoirs, Our Man in Moscow. That account includes a passing reference to “Easter mass in the impromptu chapel of the American embassy,” though not to the Canadian traveller’s remarks to his American hostess on that occasion.
The despatch comes from the papers of the Department of External Affairs at the National Archives of Canada (Record Group
25, Volume 6487, File 7802-C-40, pt. 2.1), where it was found by Christopher Cook, an Ottawa-based historical researcher.
Despatch, Chargé d’Affaires a.i.,
Canadian Embassy, Moscow, to
Secretary of State for External Affairs,
No. 341, April 17, 1952. Confidential.
Reference: My despatch No. 304 dated
April 3, 1952.
Subject: Mr. PE. Trudeau, Canadian
Delegate at the International
Economic Conference.
In separate despatches in today’s bag, I am writing about the results of the International Economic Conference in Moscow and the share the Canadian delegation played in it. In this despatch, I should like to talk about Mr. Pierre Trudeau, since in many ways he is the most interesting of the Canadian delegates.
2. Mr. Trudeau has been the only Canadian delegate who, apart from the initial checking in, returned to the Embassy for advice and also to inform us of what was going on. He has been fairly useful to us in giving us information about the Conference, including copies of the daily proceedings. He is, however, a puzzling character and I have been trying to estimate from my conversations with him what his real attitude to this country is. Mr. Trudeau has undoubtedly been greatly impressed by the show put on for the Conference delegates by the Russians. He was prepared to believe all he had been told concerning economic conditions, prices, the supply of consumer goods, the position of labour, and even freedom of association between Russians and foreigners. He had spent an evening talking with three Russian economists from the Academy of Sciences and assumed from this that it was possible to establish contact with the Russians. I think, however, that he has been somewhat shaken by his conversations with I understand Trudeau, sometime before coming to Russia, had been associated with a periodical called “Cité Libre” which ran an article against participation in the Korean war. He claims his position is that of a neutralist-idealist and that it is possible for men of good Will to try to act as a centre group which will gradually widen and prevent the two extremes from clashing. I am willing to believe that his feelings on this subject are genuinely idealistic but I am afraid that he fails to realize that being neutral in the present struggle seems inevitably to involve leaning over backward to justify Russian actions on the one hand, and to criticize the western position, and particularly the United States on the other. It never seems to occur to these people, incidentally, that the neutralists inevitably have to be drawn from the western ranks and that such a thing as a neutralist or idealist from the Soviet bloc is a contradiction in terms.
Together with this idealist strain in Trudeau, there seems to be a kind of infantile desire to shock, which may in its place not do any harm but which, when exercised here, may do a lot of damage. For example, Mr. Trudeau was taken to Easter Saturday midnight mass at the United States Embassy. He was introduced to Mrs. Cumming, the wife of the Chargé d’Affaires, and proceeded to tell her that he was a Communist, though at the same time a Catholic, after which he proceeded to heap praises on the U.S.S.R. and attack the United States.
I think he did this out of desire to shock. Nevertheless, the next day at luncheon Mr. [Hugh S.]
Cumming (Jr.], who knew all about Trudeau’s Privy Council background, said to me, “I thought you said Trudeau was not a Red?” When I said I didn’t think he was, Mr. Cumming then told me what he had said to his wife. I pointed Communist he would hardly be speaking like this to Mrs. Cumming. Nevertheless, I could see what was passing through Mr. Cumming’s mind, and I am sure a report will go back to the State Department that a man who only six months ago was employed in a confidential job in the Privy Council is now in Moscow for the International Economic Conference and has openly stated that he is a Communist. This may have some effect on United States estimates of our security.
Mr. Trudeau, along with the head of the United States delegation and a number of other western delegates, has been invited by the Chinese to visit Peking. He asked for my advice on the matter and I told him that he would have to decide for himself but that for his own personal good I thought that he would be wise not to go. If he were genuinely objective, however, I suppose there might be some interest in visiting the Chinese capital. Trudeau obviously has a very strong sense of adventure and he was clearly tempted by the prospect.
As I mentioned in my previous despatch, Trudeau is a correspondent of Le Devoir, which I believe has been toying with neutralist ideas. It will be interesting to see what kind of articles he publishes in this newspaper when he returns. I should be grateful if you could let us have copies of his reports to Le Devoir. I think it also might be useful if someone in the Department could invite him on his return to Canada to give his impressions about the Conference and try to set him right on some of the erroneous ideas he has concerning the USS.R. and international trade. It might be a little easier to talk to him after he has cooled off a little bit from his present enthusiasm.
.A. Ford, Chargé d’Affaires a.i.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2000-2001) — Winter 2000/2001 // Hiver 2000/2001, pp. 32–33. Read the rest of this issue →
