bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2007) — Fall 2007 // Automne 2007, pp. 5–7
John Benjamin Clark Watkins was born in Norval Station, Ontario, in 1902. He had specialized in Scandinavian studies at the University of Toronto and at Cornell University, from which he received his doctorate in 1944 (after working for more than a decade with the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York). Before he joined the Department of External Affairs in 1946, Watkins taught at the University of Manitoba. At headquarters, Watkins ultimately served as an Assistant Secretary of State for External Affairs from 1956 to 1958. His diplomatic appointments included chargé d’affaires in Moscow and later Ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As testimony to the quality of his writing, the acuity of his observations and the fascination of others with his encounters with the Russian people, notably the artistic community and the Soviet state, selections from his official correspondence were edited and published by Dean Beeby and William Kaplan as Moscow Despatches: Inside Cold War Russia (Toronto: Lorimer, 1987). His last diplomatic appointment was as Ambassador to Denmark.
After entrapment in a homosexual encounter, Watkins was pressured by Soviet authorities. The revelations of a Soviet defector led to his identification as the diplomat involved, though subsequent investigation demonstrated that Watkins had never betrayed his country. As part of the inquiry, however, Watkins was questioned in London and then in Montreal by the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. During the latter interrogation, which took place in a hotel room less than six weeks after the letter below was written, Watkins suffered a fatal heart attack. That episode became infamous when journalist and author Ian Adams raised sufficient questions about the circumstances of his death, particularly the misrepresentation of those who were present when he died, that there was a coroner’s investigation in the early 1980s. The life and death of John Watkins have been depicted in works of fiction as well as in various studies of diplomacy, intelligence and security in the Cold War.
As the letter reprinted below demonstrates, John Watkins was not only an eloquent diplomatic reporter but he was also a delightful private correspondent, whose gossipy personal writing was characterised by warm friendship and urbane wit, much of which involved self-deprecation and! or an appreciation of the absurd. The recipient of this letter, John Holmes, had himself experienced a discreet but stressful separation from the Department of External Affairs when he was a victim of the “gay purges” which took place in the Canadian public service in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both Watkins and Holmes, whose significant contributions to the “golden age” of Canadian diplomacy have been justly highlighted by scholars, retained close friendships and strong connections to the Department of External Affairs and their former colleagues in the Canadian foreign service, as this document attests.
This letter was written in a cramped hand, which posed some editorial challenges, particularly when Watkins deliberately invented phonetic equivalents to French words or phrases to highlight pronunciation or made passing reference to individuals who would be known to both correspondents. The original letter may be found in the John Holmes Papers in Trinity College Archives at the University of Toronto. I was unable to find a copy in those files of the letter from Holmes to which this was a reply.
Hotel Lenox, 9, rue de l’Université, Paris-7e
September 2, 1964
Dear John [Holmes], Your interesting letter of August 4 reached me only yesterday, as it got immersed in the great empty mansion on the Faub. St. Honoré while Jules [Léger, then serving as Canadian Ambassador to France, later Governor-Generall, Gaby [Leger] and I were at Recloses, the little village five miles south of Fontainebleau where Mrs. Tommy Stone [Thomas Archibald Stone, who served as Canadian Ambassador to Mexico and Sweden, among several diplomatic appointments, died the following summer and is buried in Recloses] has her charming house and property giving on the forest of F. I had been invited there earlier, before I was sick, for the first week in August, but the Légers insisted that I stay for three, occupying the little maison du curé which forms part of the complex of old buildings skilfully welded together by Mrs. Stone and supplied with all American comforts such as hot water, bathrooms, central heating, etc. There with lots of rest, good food (mostly Gaby’s cooking for the first two weeks which, as you well know, is excellent, and the last week with the new chef, who is a real treasure) long walks in the forest and duets on the piano with Jules, stimulating and amusing conversation with Gaby, etc., I rapidly improved and was able to come back to Paris a week ago Monday (the Légers stayed till the next week end when Jules had to make a speech in Rouen) in time to move out of 38, Bd. Raspail [coincidentally the address of the “tiny” or ’intimate” Théâtre de Babylone, where Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot was first performed on 5 January 1953], as my Dutch friend is returning, and back into the old Lenox. I have rather a large room on the fourth floor at 18 francs a day instead of 15 since I’ll have to spend more time in it now.
I feel I owe you a brief account of my misbehaviour since your departure. I very much enjoyed your short visit but was sorry I was not in form to do justice to the Place Pigalle, the Canadian mecca, to which I know you were just dying to go, corset or no corset. As you may remember, it was my stomach and the question of what I could eat or not eat seemed very important. I had a rough night alone in the apartment July 12 (even the American professor was away for the week end), wakened at 4:30 a.m. with a stomach pain, decided it must be a result of emptiness, ate a banana and a croissant, went to sleep, and wakened again at six terribly short of breath. Since I couldn’t lie down or sit down, I stood with my head out the window in the courtyard to get air for a couple of hours. The only sensible thing I did, Jules said, was to take a swig of Scotch. I took it in hot water, but he said that was just a superstition of my grandmother’s that something hot was good for the stomach: the whiskey was the thing:
My doctor, whom I should have seen a month earlier, was away on a month’s vacation. I remembered that when we had lunch together Gaby threatened to drag me to her doctor who was a marvellous person. So I called Gaby and she moved very quickly. Dr. Laporte diagnosed “cardiac fatigue” and gave me a choice of going to the American Hospital or the Canadian Embassy, I chose the Embassy, explaining that I could only stay three days as I was leaving then on a tour of the Massif Central with a friend from Toronto. Dr. Laporte tactfully said that in three days he would present me with the evidence and I could decide. Privately he told Gaby I was a “fantaisiste.” In an incredibly short time he had a battery of doctors arranged for – blood tests, electro-cardiograph, eyes (apparently they can tell a lot about the arteries from the eyes) stomach x-rays (pas d’ulcère, pas de concère [sic]). In a few days he told me that if I followed a regime for four or five months, I should be able to lead a normal life after that — slow upstairs and up hill, not to carry anything over one kilo, cut cigarettes from 40 to 5 or 6 a day, drink Sanka coffee & weak tea, take sédo-caréna [a compound of aminophylline, papaverine chlorhydrate and phenobarbitall pills and digibain drops (I remember from years ago in Norval that all the old crocks had to take digitalis). It’s an awful bore but perhaps it’s worth it. In any case I haven’t much choice as a little over-exertion brings the pain back.
The Légers have been marvellous and I don’t know how to thank them. With her experience of cardiacs Gaby is very knowledgeable and also pretty strict. It is hard for an ordinary person to understand the treatment at first. After a week in bed Dr. Laporte was pleased with my progress and said he thought I might now go out a little, take a taxi to St. Germain or somewhere, sit in a café and have a glass of water, and take a taxi home. Never in my life having taken taxis to get a glass of water, I suppose he only meant I could have an outing of some sort and walked to the Rond-Point [des Champs-Elysées] and back. That was quite the wrong thing to do – especially back, which he said was uphill – and I had a pain that night. Stopping cigarettes doesn’t bother me so much – I never inhaled anyway, so it was largely a waste. Now I don’t have one till after 12 noon. The most difficult thing is not to smoke in company.
Gaby wants to drive to Nice for a few days late in Sept. And if she does I may go along and stay for a while in a pension she recommends there. Rosa Groom has asked me to come back to Mallorca, but she and her Dutch friend motor by through France to Holland in November and December and return in January I might go later as the winter is a good deal warmer there than in S. France. The Alexanders – and Ann – have invited me to London again and I’d like to go some time but probably should wait till I’m closer to normal, I find it hard to cut down on walking but have to for a while. I had hoped you were going to get ten days holidays between Oxford and Italy, but it looks as i they were getting absorbed somewhere. Pain really brings me to heel quite quickly and I’m surprised that you can go on at such pace while your back is as painful as it obviously was when you were here. I think Gaby would soon put an end to some of your nonsense too! Fantaisiste!
: I had a letter from Basil [Robinson, who had been appointed as Assistant Under Secretary of State for External Affairs one month earlier, after serving as Minister in the Canadian Embas in Washington, and who was later Under Secretary of State for External Affairs] in B.C. a month or so ago, which I only answered recently. Presumably the whole family will be back in Ottawa by now. They were planning to spend at least this year in their old house. The little I read about the Canadian House [of Commons] over here is not appetising. I was glad to hear that the G&M [Globe and Maill had come out so unequivocally against Dieflenbaker]. I hope Lester|BPlearson] is taking a wise course As you know, Jules was rather worried.
It would be fun to have Escott [Reid, former Assistant Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, High Commissioni to India and Ambassador to Germany, who was then serving as a Director of the World Bank and who would become Glendon College’s founding Principal in the following yearl in Toronto. I wonder if he’d like it as they him. Herb [Moran, then Director General of the External Aid Office and former Assistant Secretary of State for External Affairs] will only move, I think, when he gets a post abroad to his liking. There are other candidates for his job in Ottawa too. I should think he might himself favour Peter Towe [then serving as Deputy Director-General of the External Aid Office, later Assistant Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, then Ambassador to the United States and for ten years Chairman of Petro-Canada International Assistance Corporation]. Basil expected Arnold Smith [then Assistant Under Secretary of State for External Affairs after serving as Ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and later Secretary General of the Commonwealth] to grab quite a lot before he got there and I haven’t heard yet what he’s handling. He hoped he might have D.I. I for the sake of an occasional trip to Europe.
The Centre of International Studies at the U[niversityl. of Toronto] would seem a nice haven for you when you wear yourself out and even get fatigue cardiaque with the life you’re leading. I don’t blame you for not wanting the administrative side
– just a nice professorship with a couple of seminars a week and lots of time for reading and writing. I hope your mother and the rest of the family are well Give them my best when you see them. (It’s a wonder I didn’t give Isabel cardiac fatigue too – it was my relations that finally finished me, especially my cousin from N. Ireland) Ann seems happy in her new job. Basil Rakoczi [an Irish artist, born in London, who was a member of the White Stag group] saw a lot of her in London and said she was very helpful with the exposition. He sold 12 – incredibly good out of only 30 altogether. I still haven’t decided whether I want to live in or near Toronto, which I like and where I have friends and relations, or somewhere over here where a cheap warm winter is easily accessible. Some day I’ll have to decide. Nice that you got to the Crowes [Marshall Crowe had recently left the foreign service to work as an economic adviser to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and later served as Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet and as Chairman successively of the Canada Development Corporation and the National Energy Board; Doris Mary Crowel. My best wishes when you see them. John [Watkins]
[added on left margin:)
I’m lunching at the Gardens [Gordons?]. Janice is picking me up in the car at 12:15. What service I get now! I’il probably trade on this the rest of my life. My aunt in Toronto 85 says: Take lots of rest. We all have to come to it sooner or later!
[added on right margin:]
I felt mean letting Arthur Kilgour [a former member of the Department of External Affairs, who had most recently served abroad as First Secretary and Consul in the Embassy in Cairo, where he had been posted from 1957 to 1959; he later was Registrar of Trinity College at the University of Toronto] down so badly, but he had a fascinating trip anyway.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2007) — Fall 2007 // Automne 2007, pp. 5–7. Read the rest of this issue →
