bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992) — Summer 1992 // Été 1992, p. 35
Ralph joined the Department of External Affairs in 1940. He retired in 1979. He began his Foreign Service in Chungking, China in 1943 and his last appointment abroad was as Canada’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, in 1971. In between there were postings to Washington, London, Moscow, and Pretoria, where he was Ambassador. And there were long and demanding years in Ottawa during which he held many of the more sensitive senior posts in the Department.
He was an acknowledged expert in Asian affairs but he could turn his hand, and his brilliant, questioning mind, to almost anything. Soviet affairs, the Middle East, Africa, Western Europe, the United Nations, the Commonwealth – he handled them all with equal aptitude. In the last seven years of his career, the Government employed him in the role of chief air negotiator, an appointment for which he had no special experience or training but which he enjoyed as much as any he had held.
He was devoted to the Department and even after his retirement he maintained his connection with it, as a member of an advisory board on the Department’s history. His last wise words of advice were given to the principal author just four days before he died.
One reason for Ralph’s success as a diplomat was that he worked hard at understanding the position of others. He was never satisfied until he felt fully and roundly informed. He was a voracious consumer and a searching analyst of information, on practically any subject. In his final illness, which he fought so bravely, he complained that the doctors would not give him enough information about what they were trying to do. That was Ralph. Even at such a moment, he wanted to understand.
In his approach to his work, he lived in the world of the possible, skeptical of visions and forecasts and slogans, yet alive to new concepts and theories. He was a contributing participant in what is often referred to as the golden age of Canadian diplomacy.
He was a modest man, blessed with a sense of humour. He was not given to advertising himself, and he was happier behind the scenes. He could always be relied on for an independent judgment on the day’s events, unswayed by the lead story in the morning paper or by the latest rumour of what the higher-ups were thinking.
And what a teacher he was, by example. He maintained a loose rein on his subordinates, kept them informed, listened to them, and worked with them. He could be a severe critic of loose writing or reasoning, and he was a refreshing debunker of conventional wisdom. A skilled draftsman himself, he tightened up a lot of reports and speeches in his time. It is too bad that the historians will not be able to trace his full contribution. The archives will reveal only a fraction of his work. He was not one to insist on a byline.
I would like now to quote from a message which has been received from Willis Armstrong, a distinguished American friend. These are his words:
“Ralph and I became friends in the summer of 1936 when we studied Russian together at Berkeley, California. We kept in touch over the 55 years, no matter where we were. He was one of my best friends, warm and responsive, good company on the golf course or on a social occasion. I always admired his collected and cool approach to a wide range of subjects, offered with modesty and objectivity. In recent years we all admired his courage in adversity. His sense of humour never left him. He remained vitally interested in world affairs, even as late as three weeks before his death when I had the privilege to visit with him in Ottawa. My wife Louise and I pay tribute to an exemplary Canadian and a fine human being. We shall miss him and we shall cherish our memory of him.”
As Willis Armstrong says in his eloquent tribute, Ralph will indeed be missed and remembered, as a man who won the admiration and respect of all who knew him in Canada and beyond, and by many of us, as a treasured friend
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992) — Summer 1992 // Été 1992, p. 35. Read the rest of this issue →
