bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2011) — Summer/Fall 2011 // Été/Automne 2011, pp. 31–32
Diplomat, Bus Driver, Sailor, Spy
The aged Warden VW camper was full of kids and assorted pets when it was overtaken by a police cruiser. Bill stopped, opened his window and the policeman said “Did you know that you were travelling at 100 km per hour in an 80 km zone?” “Yes,” replied Bill. “I can’t get this rattletrap to go any faster.” This was one of many stories about an extraordinary man — told with great affection by family and friends at the wake following his funeral in Victoria in January.
Bill and I, our wives, three children, one dog and one parrot (for each family) met in Quebec City. We were sent there to live, study and absorb for a full year.
As amateur spies we had not covered our tracks very carefully and before the end of his tour Bill was warned by a friendly intelligence agency that Cuban counter- intelligence (the dreaded G2) was on his tail.
programme was grandly called “perfectionnement biculturel”. No one, certainly not our wives, subsequently accused either of us of cultural perfection. But, it was a splendid year (also the year of Levesque’s election as premier) and we emerged close friends.
In Quebec City, Bill and I discovered shared experiences in our recent past. Both of us had been engaged in one of External’s occasional clandestine activities. I had been sent to the embassy in Havana to monitor Soviet military and shipping activities in Cuba just after the missile crisis. Bill was the last of several officers assigned to this task. As amateur spies we had not covered our tracks very carefully and before the end of his tour Bill was warned by a friendly intelligence agency that Cuban counter-intelligence (the dreaded G2) was on his tail.
After Quebec City Bill set off on a series of jobs as head of mission. The first was Hong Kong, where as often as possible, he abandoned the office to go sailing. This was followed by Pakistan and India. India was especially challenging for the whole family — an enormous country, a large residence, a huge staff and complexities involving Canadian Sikhs. Indira Gandhi was prime minister and was assassinated while the Wardens were there. The Air India disaster cast a black cloud over the end of their posting. As Bill told the Major enquiry, it was eminently preventable.
Before these tragedies, there was a visit from Pierre Trudeau — well past the zenith of his exuberant, banister sliding image, but still a hugely charismatic figure. Bill and Laine were much engaged in the organization of this visit, which inevitably ran into problems — problems that would test Bill’s diplomatic skills.
The programme began with arrival at Government House in Delhi. Mr. Trudeau, Bill and the Canadian party were greeted by a cordon of very attractive young women dressed in gorgeous saris. Their role was to be statuesque and stationary. Trudeau was delighted. As he smiled warmly, the girls broke ranks and swarmed around him. The Indian Chief of Protocol was incensed and sacked all of the girls. Trudeau found out about this, and as he boarded his plane for departure for other Asian visits, instructed Bill to ensure that the girls were reinstated by the time of his return to Delhi in five days. Persuading an angry Chief of Protocol to rehire his own staff on his own turf was a tricky assignment. The next day Bill telephoned the Chief of Protocol. Not surprisingly, this man said “nothing doing”. Whereupon Bill enquired what Mrs. Gandhi was likely to do when told that Mr. Trudeau’s request to reinstate the girls had been turned down. Bill categorically assured the Chief of Protocol that Mr. Trudeau would raise the issue. Five days later Bill met the plane and the first question from Trudeau was about the girls. Bill was able to give a satisfactory answet.
After India Bill left the government and became the founding director of the International Centre at the University of Calgary. Bill and Laine moved to Priddis in the foothills near Calgary where Laine naively hoped that Bill would settle down to a quiet academic routine. This was not to be. He became the Associate Chief of Protocol for the Calgary Olympics and chair of the Board of the University’s Gorbachev Foundation. In addition, he plunged into the election observation circuit. By the time he had finished el tion monitoring — about two years ago (¢ the last few with a wonky heart) — he participated in about 30 missions. I was the same circuit with the result that so of these we did together. But Bill v usually asked to go to the most remc grungy and sometimes dangerous assi; ments. On one occasion, on the Venezue border with Colombia, he had to extric himself from a town which had been tal over by a narcotics gang. A senior offi of the Organization of American Sta wrote to me just before the funeral to that: “Bill was indefatigable, unassum1 funny and willing to do whatever v needed for the success of the mission. never lost his curiosity about the peo and things around him.”
Bill had other passions: for any mach that drove wheels or a propeller or v driven by the wind. When he retired fr the University, he took up driving bu — large, ancient tour buses. He would t: hockey teams, tourists and soldiers 1 B.C. and around Alberta. On one occas! when the bus was stopped, he had a k conversation with a congenial Ameri tourist. At the end the man said to E “What a shame you are a bus driver. If had had a good education, you could h made something of yourself”
He enjoyed a dry style of mischief. C visit to Priddis several years ago, Bill t me to a road house restaurant in the nei bouring ranching country. He squeezed Hyundai Accent into a phalanx of jun tired pick-ups and we went inside. Bill kr some of the people eating pancakes : introduced me. “This is Mr. Graham. H a Liberal from Ottawa.”
Bill also found time to be a sharp thorn in the side of the federal government. He was a prolific writer of letters to the Prime Minister, Ministers of the Crown (especially Foreign and Justice Ministers), letters to the editor, columns for the Calgary Herald and op-eds. His last letter to the Globe appeared two weeks before his death. Bill felt very strongly about the importance of human values in the practice of foreign policy. When government and its leaders fell short, which in Bill’s view over the last few years was most of the time, the politicians involved felt the sting of his pen. Letters about the treatment of Richard Colvin, Omar Khadr and Abousfian Abdelrazik smouldered on ministerial desks. He expected governments to be concerned with integrity and believed that this could and should be reconciled with advancing Canada’s material and security interests.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2011) — Summer/Fall 2011 // Été/Automne 2011, pp. 31–32. Read the rest of this issue →
