bout de papier, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2008) — Fall/Winter 2008 // Automne/Hiver 2008, pp. 22–25
Readers of bout de papier, particularly those now regarding a snow-swept landscape from a cubicle in Fort Pearson, may not be surprised to learn that a distinguished Canadian diplomat once declined a very senior appointment in the Department of External Affairs on the grounds that Canada generally and Ottawa specifically were hazardous to his health. The documents below demonstrate that Pierre Dupuy believed that an assignment at headquarters, however exalted, would shorten his life. Some devoted readers may wish to employ Dupuy’s letter as a template for their own argument in favour of extension of their own tropical (or at least more temperate) posting.
The proposal which Mike Pearson, then Under- Secretary of State for External Affairs and later that year the department’s minister, made to Dupuy was the result of an ingenious suggestion made by Norman Robertson from Canada House in London. Robertson, Pearson’s predecessor as deputy minister, made this proposal to address the absence of a senior francophone in the management of the Department of External Affairs (in the wake of Laurent Beaudry’s departure) as well as to relieve the deputy from some of the ceremonial aspects of that position. It may be worth noting that Robertson, in making the case for this innovation, argued that “to make the system really work the next post abroad, after completion of the Ottawa sentence, should be the Paris Embassy.” As well, it addressed an administrative problem with classifications and salaries in the upper ranks, which Robertson contended had limited the ability of the department to lure personnel from the Department of Finance to “facilitate the top level reinforcement on the economic side that we have talked about.”
The correspondence reprinted below may be found in volume 4 of the nominal files in the Papers of Lester B. Pearson, Papers of the Prime Ministers, Manuscript Division, Library and Archives Canada. Robertson’s recommendation may be found in a
Ottawa, March 9th, 1948.
TOP SECRET AND PERSONAL
Pierre Dupuy, Esq.,
Canadian Ambassador to The Netherlands,
The Hague.
Dear Pierre,
You may have already heard the sad news that Laurent Beaudry has had to resign from the Service. My regret at losing an old colleague and good friend is very greatly increased by the circumstances of his resignation. He is really in very bad health. We are all sorry to see him go, and hope that, once official cares have been removed from his shoulders, he will soon regain his health and strength.
Consideration has been given by the Prime Minister [W. L. Mackenzie King] and the Minister [Louis St. Laurent] to the appointment of his successor. In this connection, it has been agreed that the designation “Associate Under-Secretary” should be abandoned and that Mr. Beaudry’s successor should be called Deputy Under- Secretary, the name which, for Civil Service Commission purposes, the position has always had. The change in nomenclature to Associate was made, I believe, to cover a special situation when Mr. Wrong was appointed. The salary, however, of the post will remain as it was in Mr. Beaudry’s time, $128,000 per annum.
The Minister has agreed that a new policy should be adopted in filling this post. It has been felt, for some time, that the efficiency of our Service would be increased if the higher posts in the Department could more frequently be filled by officers who have had experience in senior posts abroad. To facilitate this, it has been agreed that the second post in the Department, Deputy Under- Secretary, should be filled by someone who has been a Head of Mission abroad, and who would be posted to the Department for a definite period, say two or three years, as Ambassador on Duty in the Department. For Civil Service Commission purposes, the designation would remain Deputy Under-Secretary, but, for purposes of rank, the Ambassador on Duty in the Department would retain his Ambassadorial status, and a ruling from Council [i.e., the Cabinet, via an Order in Council] would be requested to ensure that, along with that rank would go the precedence and privileges of a Deputy Minister.
The Prime Minister and the Minister have instructed me to ask you to accept the above appointment of Ambassador on Duty in the Department, and I need hardly state that this is an instruction which I am delighted to carry out.
I do not know what your reaction to the appointment would be, so I am writing to you informally and personally in this way, before any formal steps are taken. I am anxious to have you with me in Ottawa, but equally anxious that you should not come here unless you are keen about the transfer. It would, of course, be possible for the Minister merely to transfer you to Ottawa, and I have no doubt that you would, as a loyal member of the Service accept the transfer, especially to such an honourable and senior post. However, as the duties are arduous and the responsibilities great, the holder of the post should, I think, be really enthusiastic about his job and wholehearted in carrying out its duties. That is why I wished to write you before proceeding further, and to get your personal reactions to the proposal. Will you drop me a line by air mail as soon as possible?
I should have mentioned above that you would not, of course, be asked to return until the celebrations in the Netherlands connected with the Queen’s Jubilee have been completed.
Yours sincerely,
CANADIAN EMBASSY /
AMBASSADE DU CANADA
TOP SECRET AND PERSONAL
The Hague, Netherlands,
March 31st, 1948.
L. B. Pearson, Esq., O.B.E.,
Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, Ottawa, Canada.
Dear Mike,
I wish to thank you heartily for your letter of March 9th and to tell you that I am deeply touched by the confidence shown to me by the Prime Minister, the Minister and yourself in offering me such a senior post next to you in the Department.
I appreciate the frank and friendly way in which you present this offer and I shall answer in the same spirit. There are a few important facts with which I consider it my duty to acquaint you as they are bound to influence our decision.
In 1946 I returned to Ottawa at the end of June and three months later, on the 2lst of September, I had a very serious haemorrhage in my lungs at the Chateau Laurier, which was followed by a series of others. I was taken to hospital and remained between life and death for more than seven weeks. I was saved, thanks to the ability of the well-known Dr. R. Boucher, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, and Chief Medical Officer at St. Luke’s Hospital, Montreal. This unpleasant experience was then attributed to the strain of my war years. My doctor was about to send me to a southern State because he thought I could not recover in a cold climate, when the Department appointed me as its representative to the Refugee Governments [i.e., the Allied Governments-in-Exile] in London. I slowly recovered and was able to fulfil my functions in this new capacity.
Last autumn when I returned to Canada on home leave I had the disagreeable surprise, after a fortnight in Ottawa, to notice that the same symptoms which preceded my collapse in September 1943 were coming back.
I again consulted Dr. Boucher who examined me thoroughly and asked me how long I would remain in Canada. I answered that it was a matter of seven or eight weeks and he said he thought I could take that risk. Otherwise he would strongly advise me to change climate because he could not guarantee that I would avoid a relapse. I never said a word to the Department about ail this as there was no need at the time to inform you on the point.
As you can see, this is a poor physical background to envisage the possibility of a prolonged stay in Canada. If it were not for this reason I would accept your offer without hesitation. I fully agree with the policy of recalling Heads of Mission for a period in the Department and would have considered it a privilege to take my share of your burden and try whole-heartedly to make a success of my work. However, there would be little advantage either to the Government or myself if I were, within a few months after my return, to go through the same crisis and perhaps find myself a few feet under the ground. If I were a bachelor I would nevertheless take this risk, but with my family responsibilities I must think of my children first as they still need me to complete their studies.
I hate to disappoint the Prime Minister, the Minister and yourself when you are so kind to me. I feel very distressed about it all. There is no one I would have liked better to work with than you, because I think we both have the human touch that would have helped a great deal in surmounting difficulties together. I am therefore all the more unhappy to find myself in such physical condition.
In case you want more technical details about my health, Dr. Boucher will be at your disposal.
Yours sincerely,
Ottawa, April 20th, 1948.
TOP SECRET AND PERSONAL
Pierre Dupuy, Esq.,
Canadian Ambassador to the Netherlands, The Hague.
Dear Pierre,
Thank you for your letter of March 31st. In the circumstances, we will, of course, not proceed with the Ottawa appointment, as I for one would certainly not wish to be responsible for your return to Ottawa with such unpleasant consequences to your health in the offing. I need hardly tell you that Iam very unhappy that the situation is as you describe it, and I hope that you will not have a recurrence in the future of the unpleasant physical experiences that you have had in Canada.
I have had a word with the Minister, and he quite understands the situation, though he is disappointed, as I am, that circumstances make it impossible for you to join the Department.
With kindest personal regards,
Yours sincerely,
[L. B. Pearson]
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2008) — Fall/Winter 2008 // Automne/Hiver 2008, pp. 22–25. Read the rest of this issue →
