Rogue Tory

by Denis Smith

  8 Stursberg, Leadership Lost, 83-87. Sévigny had a sarcastic comment about others who had not resigned: “There were a lot of cabinet ministers resigning each night around 11 o’clock, after the tenth whiskey. One of them was McCutcheon. The next morning he would appear with his face red as a beet and carry on. He resigned more often at night than he did in the morning. Many ministers talked about resigning, some of whom denied it since, but I know damn well that they did. One of them was Léon Baker.” Ibid., 87

  9 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, February 8, 1963, JGDP, V/5, 2758

  10 Helen Brunt to Olive and John, nd, JGDP, V/28, 18670-72

  11 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, February 20, 1963, JGDP, V/5, 2793-94

  12 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, February 22, 1963, ibid., 2795

  13 Press release, January 14, 1963; Dalton Camp to JGD, nd, unsigned, JGDP, IX/38/B/87.1; XII/97/F/37

  14 George Hogan to JGD, February 20, 1963, JGDP, OF/765

  15 OC 3, 178-79

  16 CAR 1963, 303

  17 OC 3, 178-79

  18 Newsweek, February 18, 1963

  19 Ibid., 33

  20 Dalton Camp, memo to constituency presidents, February 13, 1963, JGDP, VII/291/F/48

  21 OC 3, 107

  22 “Telegram from the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State,” February 3, 1963, 445, FRUS, 1961-1963, 1196-99

  23 W. Walton Butterworth to William R. Tyler, February 2, 1963, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: Rostow Memorandum … Mandatory Review Case NLK-94-11

  24 Ibid.

  25 Toronto Star, Telegram, and Winnipeg Tribune, February 25, 1963; Toronto Star, February 26, 1963

  26 W. Keith Welsh, MD, and T. Albert Crowther, MB, “To whom it may concern,” February 19, 1963, JGDP, VII/291/F/55; Winnipeg Free Press, March 1, 1963

  27 OC 3, 178, 182

  28 Calgary Herald, February 25, 1963; Montreal Star, March 1, 1963; Prince Albert Herald, March 2, 1963; OC 3, 183-86. In the memoirs Diefenbaker notes that “my message throughout was consistently pro-Canadian; charges that I was on an anti-American rampage were patently false. Indeed, for the reasons earlier explained, I did not give the weight it deserved to United States interference in our affairs.”

  29 Globe and Mail, March 4, 1963. The main defence portion of the speech was transmitted to the State Department and the White House from the Ottawa embassy the same day. In his covering letter, Butterworth quoted Diefenbaker’s assertion that “we shall not have Canada used as a storage dump for nuclear weapons.” Telegram, Ottawa to secretary of state, 1124, March 4, 1963, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General

  30 Globe and Mail, March 4, 1963

  31 Winnipeg Free Press, March 4, 1963

  32 OC 3, 188-89. See also English, Worldly, 262; LaMarsh, Memoirs, 36-44.

  33 In March the State Department told the White House that a Canadian Gallup Poll showed that 54 percent of Canadians believed the prestige of (and respect for) the United States in Canada had grown in the previous year, whereas only 20 percent felt that way in polls conducted in 1957 and 1961. The Canadian Institute of Public Opinion explained that they “believed the results are largely a reflection of President Kennedy’s actions regarding Cuba and his personal popularity.” William H. Brubeck, “Memorandum for Mr. McGeorge Bundy, The White House,” March 15, 1963, S/S 3942, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General

  34 In January 1963 Gallup showed the Liberals at 47 percent, the Tories at 32 percent, the NDP at 10 percent, Social Credit and others at 11 percent. By March the standings were Liberals, 41 percent; Tories, 32 percent; NDP, 11 percent; Socred and others, 16 percent. In early April support for the Liberals and the Tories remained as in March, while NDP support had grown to 14 percent and Social Credit/other had fallen to 13 percent. On March 8 Daniel Johnson told Diefenbaker that “Réal’s support is at its highest peak right now; a vote tomorrow would return 50-55 Socreds.” Another poll published by the Telegram on March 30 showed the Liberals and Conservatives in virtually a dead heat nationally (at 38 to 36 percent), with wide regional variations. CAR 1963, 34-35; Daniel Johnson to JGD, March 8, 1963, JGDP, XII/115/F/281

  35 English, Worldly, 263-64

  36 Theodore Draper, “McNamara’s Peace,” New York Review of Books, May 11, 1995, 7-11, esp. 8; McNamara and Diefenbaker, quoted in Nash, Kennedy and Diefenbaker, 292-93; Lyon, Canada in World Affairs, 202-07

  37 Nash, Kennedy and Diefenbaker, 278-79

  38 McGeorge Bundy, “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Defense McNamara,” April 1, 1963, 446, FRUS, 1961-1963, 1199-1200

  39 Department of External Affairs to Embassy of the United States of America, No. 35, March 29, 1963, enclosure No. 3 to Embassy’s A-890, Ottawa embassy to secretary of state, April 2, 1963, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General

  40 Vancouver Province, Ottawa Citizen, March 27, 1963

  41 Ottawa Citizen, March 27, 1963

  42 Telegram, State to Amembassy Ottawa, Amconsul Vancouver, March 27, 1963, 1001, 34, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General: Rostow Memorandum…

  43 Telegram, Ottawa to secretary of state, April 1, 1963, 1267, ibid.

  44 Telegram, Butterworth to secretary of state, April 2, 1963, 1271, ibid.

  45 William H. Brubeck, “Memorandum for McGeorge Bundy, The White House, Subject: Diefenbaker’s ‘Secret Document,’ ” April 3, 1963, ibid.

  46 L.J. Légère (Niccolo), “Memorandum for Mr. Bundy, Subject: Diefenbaker ‘Secret Document,’ ” April 4, 1963, ibid., Mandatory Review Case NLK-94-9. There was calculation in the proposal that any release should come from the White House rather than the State Department: “We ought to finesse the January 30-associated ‘U.S. State Department’ out of the act and capitalize on the President’s popularity in Canada. Naturally this in no way reflects on State, but is merely tactical in the light of circumstances.”

  47 Montreal Star, Globe and Mail, April 6, 1963; telegram, Butterworth to secretary of state, April 6, 1963, 1292, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General: Rostow Memorandum…

  48 Montreal Star, April 8, 1963

  49 A second article in the Globe and Mail by George Bain (apparently based on a briefing by Kennedy’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger) on April 12 offered a full and accurate account of the entire story, including the point that it seemed to be the use of the word pushed that had upset Diefenbaker. Bain reported that “although efforts to uncover the actual words of a pencilled notation on the paper in the president’s handwriting have been unsuccessful, it can be reported with assurance that it was not of an offensive nature. When the story became a repeat sensation in the last week of the campaign, there was talk here that the president had pencilled in something like: ‘What do we say to the A.O.B. (sic) about this?’ Because of reluctance here to talk about the document at all, or anything else relating to Canada, during the campaign, this could not be proved or disproved at the time. But it was not so.” No one in Washington could be entirely sure whether there was a handwritten comment, since Diefenbaker had possession of the original document. But Bain and his sources were correct: There was no handwritten comment. Knowlton Nash wrote that Kennedy said to Ben Bradlee: “At the time, I didn’t think Diefenbaker was a son of a bitch. I thought he was a prick”; and to Hugh Sidey of Time. “That’s untrue … I’m not that stupid … And besides, at the time I didn’t know him so well.” After the change of government in April 1963, the US administration discussed whether any effort should be made to retrieve the original document from Diefenbaker, but decided that would be fruitless. When Pearson met Kennedy for the first time as prime minister at Hyannis Port in May 1963, the subject was raised during “an informal group conversation after dinner,” and on Pearson’s inquiry, Basil Robinson asserted that he had seen the document and that it had “no handwritten comment on it.” Telegram, Butterworth to secretary of state, April 12, 1963, 1322, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General: Rostow Memorandum…; “Memorandum of Conver
sation: Subject: Memorandum prepared by Mr. Rostow,” May 10, 1963, ibid., POF: Canada: Security, 1963; Nash, Kennedy and Diefenbaker, 288-89

  50 Vancouver Province, April 6, April 8, 1963; telegram, Butterworth to secretary of state, April 7, 1963, 1294, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General: Rostow Memorandum…

  51 Telegram, Rusk to Amembassy Ottawa, April 12, 1963, 1033, Kennedy Papers, NSF: Canada: General: Rostow Memorandum … Mandatory Review Case NLK 94-11; “Telegram from the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State,” April 15, 1963, 447, FRUS, 1961-1963, 1200-01

  52 OC 3, 8-10

  53 Nash gives a full account of the chain through which the letter passed, and the remaining evidence can be found scattered in Diefenbaker’s own files. Drew’s covering letter to Diefenbaker is in the papers, although its letterhead has been roughly torn from both pages. There are also several of Diefenbaker’s own memos on the affair. No copy of the offending letter can be found in the Diefenbaker Papers. On May 27, 1963, in the face of Liberal protests, Gordon Churchill read the letter in the House of Commons. Nash, Kennedy and Diefenbaker, 285-87; George Drew to JGD, date removed; JGD, “Memorandum Re: Phone Conversation with George Drew, March 25, noon, from Nanaimo”; MW to JGD, nd, re telephone call from Bryce; JGD, “Interference of the Americans in Canadian politics in the election,” JGDP, XII/88/D/202; XII/58/C/155; XII/88/D/204; XII/95/E/127; Debates, May 27, 1963, 318-22

  54 CAR 1963, 35-39

  55 OC 3, 189

  56 Ibid., 191; Leslie Frost to JGD, April 11, 1963, JGDP, XII/36/B/166

  57 “A Son Excellence Le Gouverneur Général du Canada,” April 12, 1963, JGDP, XII/41/B/335; OC 3, 192-95

  58 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, April 26, 1963, JGDP, V/3, 2897

  59 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, May 1, June 7, July 27, October 3, 1963, ibid., 2909-10, 2946, 3030, 3126-27

  60 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, May 13, 23, 1963, ibid., 2927, 2932

  61 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, May 24, 1963, ibid., 2933-34

  62 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, May 23, 1963, ibid., 2932

  63 Quoted in English, Worldly, 268

  64 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, May 31, 1963, JGDP, V/3, 2937

  65 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, June 7, 1963, ibid., 2946

  66 CAR 1963, 40-41; JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, July 27, October 22, 25, 1963, JGDP, V/3, 3030, 3146, 3157

  67 Dalton K. Camp, “Remarks … to the Executive Officers of the Progressive Conservative Association of Canada,” October 26, 1963, JGDP, IX/38/B/87.1

  68 OC 3, 204-06; JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, September 10, 18, October 2, 25, 1963, JGDP, V/3, 3090, 3094, 3124, 3157

  69 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, October 31, 1963, JGDP, V/3, 3166

  70 “Renegade in Power,” October 28, 1963; “The Diefenbaker Years: Commentary on Peter Newman’s ‘Renegade in Power …’ ” November 4, 1963, JGDP, IX/16/A/548.1

  71 JGD, nd, ibid.

  72 Elmer Diefenbaker to JGD, November 11, 17, 1963, JGDP, V/3, 3178-85, 3189-95

  73 JGD to Brigadier Michael Wardell, November 22, 1963; Michael Wardell, “The Editorial Page … Reply to Newman,” Fredericton Gleaner, November 16, 1963, JGDP, IX/16/A/548.1. Another of Diefenbaker’s friends, Gowan Guest, contributed a measured review of the book to the Commentator in December 1963. Guest noted: “For the author to fail to emphasize the twinkle in the eye, the gesticulations with the anecdotes, and the hearty guffaw is to deprive the man of one of his essential characteristics. For him to pass over as lightly as he does the sympathetic understanding of John Diefenbaker for the private sufferings of people he comes to know is to distort one of his most attractive traits.” Renegade, Guest judged, “has no sympathy for John Diefenbaker … Nevertheless, it is a book which no sophisticated Canadian should fail to read and a book which no politically interested Canadian can fail to find absorbing from dedication to index.” Gowan T. Guest, “Perspicacity without Perspective,” Commentator, December 1963, 17-18

  74 CAR 1964, 3

  75 JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, December 17, 1963, January 4, 1964, JGDP, V/3, 3234; V/6, 3241

  76 Telegram, February 4, 1964

  77 Diefenbaker told his brother on January 25 that if the motion to hold a secret ballot carried, he would at once announce his resignation as leader since “I do not intend to be the Leader of a Party and be subject to continuing sniping from the minority.” Apparently he thought better of that threat in the ten days that followed. Globe and Mail, Telegram, February 5, 1964; CAR 1964, 9-10; OC 3, 220-21; JGD to Elmer Diefenbaker, January 25, 1964, JGDP, V/6, 3278

  78 CAR 1964, 10; OC 3, 221

  79 Dalton K. Camp, “Acceptance Speech …” February 4, 1964, JGDP, IX/38/B/87.1; OC 3, 218-20

  80 Dalton K. Camp to JGD, March 30, 1964, JGDP, IX/38/B/87.1; Douglas Leiterman, “Television Journalism,” Globe and Mail, June 25, 1964; CAR 1964, 439-40

  81 House of Commons, Debates, February 20, 1964, 42-66

  82 Quoted in CAR 1964, 21

  83 Debates, June 15-17, 1964, 4306-09, 4317-32, 4347-52, 4357-60; CAR 1964, 22-29

  84 For accounts of the scandals, see Gwyn, Shape of Scandal, passsim; CAR 1964, 38-44; English, Worldly, 279-83; Nielsen, The House, 133-50.

  85 L.B. Pearson to JGD, December 4, 1964, quoted in OC 3, 267-68

  86 Hutchison, “A conversation with the prime minister,” February 11, 1965, Hutchison Papers

  87 Ibid.

  88 OC 3, 269

  89 Hutchison, “A conversation with the prime minister”

  90 OC 3, 269-70

  91 Debates, December 11, 14, 1964, 10965, 11075, 11136, 11139; OC 3, 225-26; CAR 1964, 33-38

  92 CAR 1964, 90-93; JGD to Dalton K. Camp, October 17, 1964, JGDP, IX/38/B/87.1

  93 Léon Balcer to Dalton K. Camp, January 15, 1965; press communiqué, January 14, 1965, JGDP, XII/93/E/98

  94 Dalton K. Camp, “Memorandum to: The Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker …” February 1, 1965, JGDP, XIV/16/E/193

  95 Dalton K. Camp to executive officers of the Progressive Conservative Association of Canada, January 19, 1965; Dalton K. Camp, “Memorandum to: The Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker …” February 1, 1965, JGDP, XII/93/E/98; XIV/16/E/193; Toronto Star, January 25, 1965

  96 Dalton K. Camp, “Memorandum to: The Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker …” February 1, 1965, JGDP, XIV/16/E/193

  97 As leader of the opposition, Diefenbaker had three assistants: Richardson, the former editor of the Telegram; Van Dusen, who had been Michael Starr’s executive assistant from 1957 to 1963; and Greg Guthrie, a former journalist and military officer.

  98 Burt Richardson, Memorandum, February 2, 1965, JGDP, XII/93/E/98

  99 TVD, “Caucus. 1. Motion to expel Balcer,” nd, JGDP, VII/169/A/1580, 104216-18; Diefenbaker dictated at least six memoranda on the crisis on February 4, in two of which he indicated that he might retire. Erik Nielsen told him “that would be a terrible calamity, we would have no one to lead us in the election. I said I was not going to be used in an election campaign and be thrown out after.” Diefenbaker set two conditions for himself. He would not accept any kind of veto imposed by the Quebec caucus; and he would not continue as leader “if John Robarts and the Organization in Ontario are going to be against me.” These memos are filed in JGDP, XII/93/E/98.

  100 “Memorandum, re PC Caucus February 5/PC National Executive February 6,” February 4, 1965, JGDP, XII/93/E/98

  101 Toronto Star, February 10, 1965

  102 CAR 1965, 10-11

  103 This account of Diefenbaker’s speech is based on the detailed notes of Davie Fulton. E.D. Fulton, “Executive Meeting, PC Ass’n. 6/2/65,” Fulton Papers

  104 Toronto Star, February 8, 1965

  105 The questionnaire was headed: “Letter of advice to the National Leader … intended to serve solely as advice to the National Leader … to be communicated to him by the National President.” JGDP, IX/64/B/630

  106 The published accounts differ over whether the vote was on a Nielsen or a Goodman motion, and whether the vote was 55-52,
57-55, 53-52, or 52-50. Toronto Star, February 8, 1965; CAR 1965, 11-12; Goodman, Life, 104-05

  107 Goodman, Life, 105

  108 E.D. Fulton, “Executive Meeting, PC Ass’n,” February 6, 1965, Fulton Papers

  109 Quoted by Peter C. Newman in the Toronto Star, February 10, 1965

  110 Globe and Mail, February 8, 1965

  111 Ibid.; Toronto Star, February 8, 10, 1965

  112 Quoted in CAR 1965, 14

  113 OC 3, 240

  114 CAR 1965, 15-16; Debates, March 3, 1965, 11931-43

  115 Gwyn, Shape of Scandal, 222-37; Nielsen, The House, 133-43; OC 3, 231-35

  116 Murray had been Davie Fulton’s executive assistant, and was then in the same position with Wallace McCutcheon. He remained close to Fulton, and was thought to be one of Peter Newman’s confidants about the cabinet crisis of 1962-63. For an account of these events in 1965, see Goodman, Life, 106-12.

  117 Ibid., 112-13

  118 Ibid., 112-17; Newman, Distemper, 358-60; Toronto Star, October 2, 1965

  119 Johnston was an economist who had worked as an editorial writer for the Financial Post, editor of the Stratford Beacon-Herald, and publisher of the Aurora Banner. He joined party headquarters for the 1965 campaign. This account was part of a commentary on the 1965 campaign written for Diefenbaker as he wrote his memoirs in 1974. It seemed intended to persuade Diefenbaker that the jibe was not part of a campaign of subversion which, in retrospect, he perceived among traitors to his cause at national headquarters. Newman and Goodman also tell the story with slight variations. James Johnston to JGD, “Memorandum: Recollections of 1965 General Election Meetings, E.A. Goodman letter and Newman’s ‘Distemper of our Times …’ ” December 3, 1974, JGDP, XIV/1/A/13; Johnston, The Party’s Over, 41-42; Newman, Distemper, 360; Goodman, Life, 116-17

  120 James Johnston to JGD, “Memorandum …” JGDP, XIV/1/A/13

  121 Newman, Distemper, 360

  122 Carrigan, Canadian Party Platforms, 1867-1968, 320-23; Johnston, The Party’s Over, 42; Johnston to Diefenbaker, “Memorandum …” JGDP, XIV/1/A/13; OC 3, 254-56; CAR 1965, 101