bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1994) — Spring 1994 // Printemps 1994, pp. 46–48
DOCUMENTS ON CANADIAN EXTERNAL
RELATIONS, VOL. 19, 1953 edited by Donald
Barry, External Affairs and International
Trade Canada, Canada Communications
Group — Publishing, Ottawa, 1991. xxxix,
1665 pp., illus. $75.00.
This hefty volume (it weighs two kilograms) covers a single year. It was a year of startling events on the world stage: the inauguration of a new Republican Presidency in the United States which ended twenty years of Democratic dominance; the death of the leader who had dominated the Soviet Union for three decades; in Canada the election which ushered in the final four years of Liberal Party government which had begun in 1935; the ending in Korea of the first major military confrontation since the defeat of Germany and Japan; the inauguration of a new Elizabethan era with the coronation of a twenty-nine year old Queen; the election of a new Secretary-General for the United Nations which brought to an end three years in which East-West confrontation had largely paralyzed the institution.
The 1115 meticulously edited documents here reproduced provide a fascinating glimpse of the foreign policy and international relations of the Government of Canada. They have been selected in accordance with the guidelines set out in Volume 7 nearly twenty years ago: ’Within the confines of manageable space and size, to provide a comprehensive self-contained record of the major foreign policy decisions taken by the Government of Canada, and of the reasons for taking them.’ Most of the documents are drawn from the files of the Department of External Affairs. But Professor Barry was also able to draw on the files of other departments, including those of the Privy Council Office (but not the Department of National Defence), and his selection is enriched by documents from the private papers of Lester B. Pearson, Louis St. Laurent, Brooke Claxton, and C.D. Howe. There is a useful index, and the ’List of Persons’ provides a convenient guide to those Canadians and some foreigners whose names are often mentioned. The tasteful selection of illustrations provides a visual impression of some of these in action.
In his selection, the editor was obviously constrained by the limitation of space. But it would be hard to quarrel with the process of selection, and the volume provides an authoritative picture of the events which crowded into the year. Hardly bedside reading, it will nonetheless reward the general reader who perseveres through its pages. For scholars and others it will provide a halfway house between the secondary works on the period (such as the Keirstead and Masters volumes in the Canada in World Affairs series) and the extensive archives from which the documents printed have been selected.
In 1953, the Department of External Affairs was still relatively small. There were fifty-three diplomatic and consular posts abroad, and a headquarters staff of only 120. This was still the ’golden age’ of Canadian diplomacy, in which Lester Pearson as Secretary of State worked in harmony with the Prime Minister, while policy was shaped and executed by a group of distinguished public servants: Robert Ford, Arnold Heeney, John Holmes, Jules Léger, Charles Ritchie, Norman Robertson, Dana Wilgress and Hume Wrong among them. The documents, whether reports from abroad, instructions from Ottawa, or ’think pieces’ to guide policy, are often of very high intellectual quality. One cannot help but admire the cogency of the arguments adduced and the literacy with which they were advanced.
The range of subjects covered is encyclopaedic. The volume opens appropriately enough with the Proclamation of Royal Styles and Titles on the occasion of the Coronation. It deals extensively with the final stage of the Korean conflict and with the Armistice which brought the fighting to an end. Nearly four hundred pages deal with the second part of the Seventh Session of the UN General Assembly (of which Lester Pearson was President), with the first part of the Eighth Session, with the Specialized Agencies, and with the election of a new Secretary-General following the Soviet veto of Pearson’s election. There are extensive sections on NATO and on relations with Western Europe and with the Soviet Union. The attention paid to the Commonwealth, the Middle East, the Far East, and Latin America suggest the range of Canada’s global interests prior to the decolonization which brought Africa onto the world stage.
A collection of documents resembles an anthology of verse; inevitably a reviewer is drawn to comment on and to quote from the items which reflect a particular interest, even bias, on his part. One is struck at once by the continuities. The decision to establish representation in the Dominican Republic in the interests of expanding trade required the establishing of a mission to French-speaking Haiti. The agreement to the posting to Ottawa of a Minister from the State of Israel necessitated the establishment of post in Tel Aviv and in some Arab capital. The Middle East thus began to assume the more central position in Canadian diplomacy which it has occupied ever since.
Echoes of present themes are found elsewhere. ’One of the most desirable developments in NATO, ran a memorandum of 4 February, “(at least to Canada) has been the opportunity it gives for frank general discussions on political subjects of common concern.’ “No one connected with NATO,’ a later passage reads, ’ … is satisfied with the publicity arrangements.’ If this has a contemporary ring, so does the thoughtful memorandum composed by Ed Ritchie (at the time Head of the Economic Division) in which he argued the futility of debating topics such as ’What’s Wrong with NATO?’ Ritchie saw the Alliance in a stage of ’ “shaking down” in preparation for the longer and steadier cruise … of indefinite duration’ rather than the more clamorous and feverish activity of confronting unforeseen crises. ’The importance of the inclusion of Article Il in the Treaty,’ he wrote in a passage which was extensively quoted in Volume 2 of John Holmes’s The Shaping of Peace, ’lies in the obligation it places on member countries to pursue harmonious national policies and to encourage international economic and social collaboration,’ rather than to try to solve problems through NATO which were best dealt with elsewhere.
Documents dealing with relations with the United States occupy more than 300 pages. With the advent of the Eisenhower administration, it was mid-February before Pearson had an informal meeting with the new Secretary of State, Foster Dulles, and it was not until early May that Prime Minister St. Laurent journeyed to Washington for talks with President Eisenhower. It is hardly surprising that defence and economic issues were of primary concern.
A brief section dealing with Western Europe (with which, rather incongruously, the Middle East is coupled) also focuses on economic questions — the ill-fated European Defence Community (EDC) is dealt with under NATO. There is a brief section on relations with France and with the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1952, memories of the 1939-45 war had still been live enough to sustain doubts that Canadian public opinion was ’quite ready’ to welcome a visit from the German Chancellor, despite a successful visit by Economics Minister Ludwig Ehrhard. By early 1953, however, with the ’increasingly important role’ which Adenauer was playing on the international scene and his support for a German contribution to Western defence which Canada and its NATO allies viewed as essential, it was agreed to extend an invitation for the Chancellor to visit Ottawa following a visit to Washington. In the course of less than twenty-four hours, the seventy-seven year old Chancellor had talks with Prime Minister St. Laurent on such subjects as war criminals and with other ministers (Pearson was unfortunately away from Ottawa). It may be noted that he also attended a formal dinner given by the Prime Minister and a luncheon by the Governor General, held a press conference, and received an honorary degree from the University of Ottawa.
The 100-odd pages dealing with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe include interesting documents on the vexed question of the Polish art treasures stored in Quebec City. But understandably the centrepiece is the consequences of the death of Stalin. Two despatches from the chargé, Robert Ford, which analyze the domestic and foreign policy implications of the change at the Soviet helm (a subject which is largely absent from Ford’s memoirs) underline the difficulties faced by foreign representatives in penetrating the fog which surrounded the leaders in the Kremlin. A later despatch attempts to assess the internal developments of the months following the change in leadership. While the documents in the NATO section clearly reflected the cautious Alliance view that Stalin’s successors were not embarking on any major change in established Soviet foreign policy, evidence of a modest post-Stalin thaw is found in the mutual easing of travel restrictions for diplomats, the appointment of a Soviet ambassador to Ottawa, and, towards the end of the year, the naming of John Watkins as ambassador to Moscow,the post which had been vacant since the withdrawal of Dana Wilgress over six years earlier.
The publication of this volume of documents reflects great credit on the Government of Canada for sustaining the series, on the Department of External Affairs for the full access to the documents provided to the editor, and especially on the editor himself, who, with his team, has performed a distinguished service to the Canadian public and scholarly community.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1994) — Spring 1994 // Printemps 1994, pp. 46–48. Read the rest of this issue →
