bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2001) — Spring 2001 // Printemps 2001, pp. 34–36
A perpetual lament of Canadians — and especially of our diplomats – is that Americans (and sometimes their government) tend either to ignore us or to take us for granted. For the most part, observations by Canadian statesmen and others about Canadian- American relations pass unnoticed south of the border, unless something truly remarkable is uttered, whether deliberately or not. Careers have been devoted to the often futile pursuit of attention for Canada in the American press — a quest for a memorable phrase only slightly more successful than the search for the Holy Grail.
Given that daunting challenge, it may come as a surprise to readers of bout de papier to learn that there was one occasion when a speech by Canada’s foreign minister received widespread coverage in American newspapers. The secretary of state for external affairs, Lester B. Pearson, spoke about “Canadian Foreign Policy in a Two-Power World” to the Empire and Canadian Clubs of Toronto on April 10, 1951 [Statements and Speeches, No. 51/14].
Pearson had intended to elaborate on an earlier expression of regret about American sensitivity to “constructive criticism” from friends and allies, and to underline the need for consultation to ensure co-operation. For some time, he had been concerned about the “problems” in Canada’s relations with the United States, which were the subject of a series of memoranda that served as background for the speech as well as for a confidential departmental analysis of Canadian-American relations written by J.F Grandy.
Near the end of his speech, Pearson observed that “the days of relatively easy and automatic political relations with our neighbour are, I think, over.” Most readers failed to notice the benign passages dealing with the United Nations and collective security that preceded this sentence, or the appeal for Canadians to pay more heed to international affairs that followed it. Instead the address was interpreted — particularly by Americans — as a rebuke, one that prompted much editorial comment in the United States and many angry personal letters from American citizens. For his part, the recipient of the messages reprinted below, Hume Wrong, did not share Pearson’s perspective on Canadian-American relations, as John English has perceptively observed (The Worldly Years: the Life of Lester Pearson, Volume II: 1949-1972, pp. 59-62). As Pearson noted, however, the reception to his remarks likely had more to do with the timing than with the content or phraseology of the speech. At one in the morning in Washington — mere hours after Pearson spoke – the White House announced that President Harry S. Truman had fired General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. Pearson had delivered an earlier speech with thinly veiled criticism of MacArthur, so that his more recent address became linked in some commentaries with the controversial and unpopular dismissal of the American general. Particularly as the “old soldier” did not immediately “fade away,” Pearson avoided any further references that might be misinterpreted.
As the messages below, from volume 2 of file 1415-40 of the Department of External Affairs (now held at the National Archives of Canada in RG 25), indicate, Pearson was anxious as well that American officials did not misunderstand what he had said. The lamentation about American inattention ceased, at least for a while.
L.B. Pearson, Secretary of State for External Affairs, to H.H. Wrong, Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Personal and Secret, Ottawa, April 16, 1951.
Dear Hume,
I hope that by now Jack Hickerson [Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs, Department of State of United States] and my other friends in Washington, having read the full text of my speech of last Tuesday [Canadian Foreign Policy in a Two-Power World, Empire and Canadian Clubs, Toronto, April 10, 1951], have decided that a declaration of war is not necessary — on either side.
I have been surprised at the extent of the reaction to my speech in the United States. This, however, serves to confirm my thesis that we never get much attention down there unless we say something critical, and then the attention becomes surprised, pained and irritated. As a matter of fact, this speech in Toronto was, primarily, for Canadian consumption, and it is unfortunate that one part of it should have been taken out and used so widely across the line. There is no use complaining about that, because I know it can’t be avoided. Newspapermen look for the headlines, and they found them in one or two paragraphs of the speech. It was unfortunate also that its delivery in Toronto coincided with General [Douglas]
MacArthur’s discharge. If I had known that this was going to happen at this time, I would not have used those particular paragraphs until a later occasion.
It is, I think, important that our friends in Washington, and elsewhere in the United States, understand the anxiety and hesitation with which the majority of people in Canada watch the development of United States policy, especially in regard to the Far East. There is no use deceiving ourselves about this or deceiving them. The deep-seated, though often unconsciously felt, origin of this is, I suppose, our feeling of dependence on the United States and frustration over the fact that we can’t escape this no matter how hard we might try. The immediate cause, however, is found in recent United States attitudes and policies, which seem to many Canadians to be based on the acceptance of inevitable war; not so much against an aggressor as against communism itself.
You know, as well as I do, that we have a fundamentally friendly feeling towards Americans, and that we really are anxious, on the official and other levels, to support them in the leadership which they are giving to the struggle against Russian Communist imperialism. I have not made any statements in the last six months without emphasizing that fact; indeed, I have gone further and said, both in the House of Commons and outside, that there will be times when, in the interests of the unity which is so necessary, we may have to abandon our own views in favour of those held by the United States. But we feel that Americans also should modify some of their own partisan views in the interest of their national unity in foreign policy, which is just as important as a united front internationally. The MacArthur outburst is an example of what I mean. Our worries are, in fact, not so much over the actual policies that are being followed in Washington, though in their Far Eastern manifestations they have roused considerable anxiety up here, as in the atmosphere of excitement, controversy, instability and emotion in which policy is formulated, attacked and altered, and formulated again. What so many of us fear is that public opinion in the United States, i and especially in Congress (the focus of so many of our fears) : will make any consistent and stable line impossible, and that I there will be times in the future when we will have to do what we avoided doing in recent months, namely, take our own line even at the risk of weakening that unity, which it is our first objective to preserve. It is because I feel that this may, at times, be unavoidable in the months ahead that I thought our own people should be given some indication of its possibility. I do not think that anyone is serving the cause of t Canadian-American relations at this time by continuing the pleasant platitudes which are normally so agreeable, and conveying, thereby, the impression that everything is going to v be easy and smooth when this may not prove to be the case.
At the time I made my Toronto statement, I was filled with anxiety that at any moment General MacArthur might authorize some action in the Far East, such as an air bombardment of Chinese cities, which would have required us to dissociate ourselves formally from the decision taken. Telegram 876 of April 3rd from London shows that we had a real reason for such fears. If, for instance, the Formosan operation, mentioned in that telegram, had been carried out and a Canadian ship had been asked to participate, that would have faced us with a very difficult problem. Either we would have had to remove the ship from the operation and precipitate a political crisis, or we would have had to allow the ship to participate in carrying out a policy which we would not have approved.
The immediate difficulty of MacArthur has been removed, or has it? The general feeling in Parliament at this news was one of relief, coupled with dismay at the outburst of unbridled controversy — exploited for political purposes — which has followed it. The events of the next two or three weeks will show whether moderate, wise and healthy influences on American opinion will prevail over hysteria, prejudice and immaturity. I think the President [Harry S Truman] is going to win out on this issue, but if he doesn’t, and if the forces which are backing MacArthur prevail, there will be stronger expressions used up here about American policy than have been even contemplated previously. The President’s broadcast the other night was good, I thought. It put the problem of both MacArthur and his policy and the dangers from both in the proper perspective. It represented the kind of thing that we can really back, and I hope effectively. If that policy wins out, there won’t be much to fear. If the other policy wins out, then we really will be up against some difficult decisions in our relations with Washington.
You may be interested to know that I have received a lot of correspondence from the States in the last couple of weeks, practically all of it hostile, and some of it quite abusive. There is nothing very significant in this. More significant is that I have been receiving some very friendly letters and messages from all over Canada. In this episode, I am more worried about extravagant praise from Canada than abusive criticism from Americans, because it shows now easy it would be to work up a strong anti-American feeling in this country at this time. The danger of that is obvious, and that is one reason why, having now said my piece, I will lapse back into the traditional Canadian- American speech pattern, unless specific events and developments make that impossible, when I shall do my best to say nothing — in public! I hope that you agree with this, and I would be very glad to get your own views on all these matters.
We are now, as you know, making an exhaustive study of outstanding Canadian-American problems, of which there are many. These problems, some of them difficult enough to solve, and which are far more important to us, naturally, than they i are to the Americans, make it all the more important that the general atmosphere and general relationship between the two countries should be good. I shall be very interested to receive your comments on these memoranda. It mightn’t be a bad idea to show them, in their final form, personally and confidentially to one or two of our friends in the State : Department. They give in very impressive form the back- ’ ground of concrete problems against which Canadian-United States relations will develop in the months ahead.
The Embassy here cannot play any important part in all these matters. Stanley Woodward, as you know, is an amiable person, but not very useful in such things. The Embassy in Washington has played a big part, but can, however, play a bigger one, if we could give you more help. Thinking out loud, what about the idea of a very senior person indeed as a sort of chief public relations man. [Paul] Malone [First Secretary, Information, Canadian Embassy, Washington] is a good and competent person, but not, I should think, of the seniority or experience or quality required. When Don Matthews [Minister, Canadian Embassy] leaves Washington, or even possibly before he leaves Washington, would it not be a good thing to appoint someone of ministerial rank (even if we had to bring him in from outside) with special qualifications for public relations, keeping in touch with congressmen, etc., etc. I should think that kind of an appointment would be a very considerable help to you, if we were ever able to make it. Yours sincerely, Mike (L.B. Pearson)
Telegram, Secretary of State for External Affairs to Canadian Ambassador, Washington, April 19, 1951. Confidential.
Following for Wrong from Pearson, begins:
Mr. [Stanley] Woodward [Ambassador of the United States to Canada] called to see me yesterday afternoon and brought up, among other things, the question of my Toronto speech. He said that some of the senior officials of the State Department had been studying the speech and had been particularly interested in references to the fact that not enough attention was paid in the United States to what we said or did up here. He added that they were surprised at the publicity the speech received in the United States and I replied that they were not as surprised as we were especially as I and others had been making statements along these lines for many years without creating any excitement. I asked Mr. Woodward if they had been unduly disturbed in the State Department by my talk which, while frank, was not, I thought, unfriendly or ungenerous, if the whole speech were read. He said that they were not upset; that he himself had read my speech before it had been delivered and that it did not seem very startling to him. However, he indicated, and I suspect that this was the main reason for his visit, that in other departments of government concerned with defence and trade they were surprised and hurt that we should complain of lack of recognition, and felt that if we wished to be treated like other countries we would lose by that treatment. I made the obvious reply that just as we were given special consideration in certain supply matters, so we gave the United States such consideration in reverse; also that such special consideration did not always apply, as we had reason to know, at the present time. Woodward agreed.
I mentioned the worry we had over Far Eastern policy which : made us uneasy up here about United States policy, but added that if I had known that General MacArthur was going to be dismissed and the President exercise his authority in the way he had, I would have saved my American paragraphs for another time. Nevertheless, I added that opinion in Canada was still very uneasy, as it was, indeed, in other countries,
• including the United States, in respect of the immediate future in the Far East. I said that my speech was produced primarily for home consumption and that I had two main purposes in mind: first, to tell our own people not to be too touchy and sensitive about criticism of Canada in the United States, and, secondly, to prepare them for the fact that we were bound to have differences of opinion with the United States in the months ahead. The early part, of course, got all the publicity! I told Mr. Woodward if we uttered merely platitudes at the present time, and if later there was, unfortunately, open disagreement between us on certain policies at the United Nations, that disagreement would be a far greater shock to opinion than to face frankly the fact that there might be differences and to emphasize that we must do our best to remove their causes. I suggested to the United States Ambassador that those in the State Department who were concerned might
* desire to discuss the speech and its implications with you • and some of your colleagues at the Embassy.
ENDS.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2001) — Spring 2001 // Printemps 2001, pp. 34–36. Read the rest of this issue →
