by Denis Smith
Diefenbaker seemed genuinely puzzled by the cabinet defections. “We will … face the sniping that goes on from those who left,” he told Elmer. “I cannot understand Mr. Harkness. He agreed to the statement I made in the House of Commons on Defence, shook my hand after I delivered it, and then he went against me. Mr. Hees of course is another of those who through history reached out for the leadership too soon. He thought he was more powerful than he was. I did much for him but he continued to get himself into difficulties … It seems impossible to fathom the mentality of such as Harkness, Sevigny and Hees.” But he was determined to fight on: “Elections are not won except in the last week. I am the underdog now and that means that the fight must be strongly waged.”11 The role was familiar and liberating. It meant “hard work on the part of your supporters. Hard work spells victory.”12 Diefenbaker thought he could see beyond the Bassetts, the Dalgleishs, the Goodmans, the Heeses and Sévignys – those of little faith and ulterior purpose – to the voters who admired and rallied to the underdog, to those ordinary Canadians who understood his quest as his betrayers could not.
Besides, there were others still loyally committed to the cause. In January, when Allister Grosart gave up the national directorship of the party, Diefenbaker announced the appointment of Dalton Camp to replace him, with the mutually agreed title of chairman of the national organization committee. He was prepared to act without salary as Diefenbaker’s “personal representative to the organization at large,” because “I have for you a personal affection and simple loyalty that has, since you assumed the leadership … no reservations or limitations short of my personal mental and physical limits.” With an election bound to come soon, Camp reflected: “What is required, then, is fresh energy, enthusiasm and new direction to the organization. Enthusiasm must be rekindled, a tenacious will to win must become pervasive in the party. New techniques must be developed and applied and we obviously must [be] ready for battle. To all that, I offer to apply myself without stint or reservation and with optimism and confidence.”13 Camp, like Diefenbaker, enjoyed fighting the Grits. He reminded his leader that, since 1952, he had been involved in twenty-three federal and provincial election campaigns on behalf of the Tory party. Once the campaign had begun, he was rejoined in managing it by Allister Grosart.
On February 20 another prodigal returned. George Hogan – who had started the public phase of the party controversy over nuclear arms – wrote to Diefenbaker offering his full support in the election “both for the Party and for you personally.” He had not changed his mind about accepting nuclear weapons, but conceded that “we are in an election campaign and the alternatives are either to reject the Party’s whole programme because of one disagreement or to accept the whole programme in spite of one disagreement.” Since all parties were internally divided on the nuclear issue, he said, “I can see no reason why the Conservative Party should be called upon to suffer for its nuclear differences while the other parties are allowed to profit from theirs. As I see it, the essential difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals on this question is that while our approach is to adopt no policy until May, theirs is to adopt two policies until April.” He wished Diefenbaker success in the campaign.14 The new premier of Ontario, John Robarts, pledged his organization’s aid as well.
Despite this evidence of renewed support from members of the party in Toronto, Diefenbaker was determined to see his struggle from what was, for him, a traditional perspective. On the platform, he was fighting not only the Grits and the Kennedys but also his old antagonists “the Bay Street and St. James Street Tories” who had inspired “the desertions and insurrections” of the previous weeks.15 When he addressed a large joint meeting of the Empire and Canadian Clubs and the Toronto Board of Trade in mid-February, he joked that “Daniel in the lion’s den was an amateur performer compared to me.”16 And some of the enemy, he suspected, remained within. On February 11 he appointed Wallace McCutcheon to George Hees’s vacant portfolio of Trade and Commerce in the hope that he “might help to still some of the storms surrounding us” – and because “our circumstances had not allowed me the luxury of firing him.” But McCutcheon, he later wrote, “spent the entire election threatening to resign, with appropriate media fanfare, if I treated forthrightly the major issues of the campaign … I thought him the biggest political double-crosser I had ever known.”17
While McCutcheon cautioned Diefenbaker against an anti-American campaign, Newsweek magazine provided the prime minister with a safe target of attack for its February 18 cover feature on “Canada’s Diefenbaker: Decline and Fall.” Diefenbaker’s dark and scowling face, brows furrowed, lips pursed, jowls almost shaking, hair flying into the title line, dramatically lighted from below to emphasize every crease, landed on the newsstands in the first week of the Canadian campaign.18 Inside, the story described the political crisis for American readers in terms familiar to Canadians, but included a few tendentious sentences describing that extraordinary face on the cover.
Diefenbaker in full oratorical flight is a sight not soon to be forgotten: the India-rubber features twist and contort in grotesque and gargoyle-like grimaces; beneath the electric gray V of the hairline, the eyebrows beat up and down like bats’ wings; the agate-blue eyes blaze forth cold fire. Elderly female Tory supporters find Diefenbaker’s face rugged, kind, pleasant, and even soothing; his enemies insist that it is sufficient grounds for barring Tory rallies to children under sixteen.19
Dalton Camp seized the initiative by photocopying the Newsweek feature and sending it immediately to all Conservative constituency presidents. “Although the target of this derogatory tirade, the Prime Minister, has made no comment,” Camp wrote, “I believe the members of this organization will condemn it in the strongest terms. The article not only attacks the person of the Prime Minister, but the office as well, and is obviously calculated to overtly inflame public opinion. It is difficult to recall any American publication making a more abusive and inflammatory attack on the head of any state, friendly or otherwise.”20 The prime minister saw conspiracy at work. He told his audiences, and repeated the charge in his memoirs: “Who, among those who voted in 1963, will ever forget the Kennedy-conceived message conveyed to the Canadian electors by the cover and contents of the 18 February issue of Newsweek: its editor was President’s Kennedy’s close friend.”21 Ben Bradlee, it was true, was one of the president’s intimates, and Diefenbaker was not in Kennedy’s good books. But the notion that the cover article was “Kennedy-inspired” was no more than a hunch, an expression of Diefenbaker’s heightened sense that his enemies were uniting and closing in. If damage really was intended, Washington must have been disappointed. The mischievous cover picture probably assisted more than it harmed the Diefenbaker campaign. Diefenbaker’s response of theatrical indignation was both calculated and genuine, the reaction of a professional performer with a thin skin. His audiences could sense, and sympathize with, his anguish while they also relished the performance.
Publicly, the policy of the Kennedy administration was to remain strictly neutral after the flareup of January 30. It would not comment on the Canadian election. Privately, there was outspoken distaste for Diefenbaker in the White House and the State Department, which was echoed in dispatches to Washington from the American Embassy in Ottawa. In a long telegram on February 3 commenting on the consequences of the State Department press release, Walton Butterworth offered a withering assessment of the Canadian cabinet and its policies, and an encouraging prospect of better times ahead. Butterworth was in no mood for tempered judgment. For six years, he reported, the United States had tolerated Canadian “foot dragging” in continental defence and “pretentious posturing” in other areas of foreign policy, until “our sudden dose of cold water” produced an “immediate cry of shock and outrage.” But the “traditional psychopathic accusations of unwarranted US interference in domestic Canadian affairs” were rapidly subsiding as Canadians began to face the “hard realities, as set forth in the Departme
ntal release.”
Preponderance of evidence available – news media, editorial comment, private citizens expressions of views – indicate shift of public attention from US statement to clear recognition Diefenbaker indecisiveness, with frequent and widespread reaffirmation of identity of US and Canadian interests and explicit acknowledgment that Canada has somehow gone astray. Department will recall this was basic aim of exercise … i.e. to bring Canadian thinking back to state of relevance to hard realities of world situation. Defense policy, particularly nuclear weapons issue, was key element this psychological problem, and its resolution will have profound bearing on Canadian attitude toward other less important foreign policy questions.
For past four or five years we have – doubtless correctly – tolerated essentially neurotic Canadian view of world and of Canadian role. We have done so in hope Canadians themselves would make gradual natural adjustment to more realistic understanding…
Inconclusive outcome last June’s general elections … fumbling and indecision during Cuban crisis, continued … evasiveness on vital defense matters suggested reappraisal necessary…
In effect we have now forced issue and outcome depends on basic common sense of Canadian electorate. Our faith in their good judgment is based on our reading that public has been way ahead of political leadership of all parties … In short we think Canadian public is with us, even though some liberal politicians have been afraid we have handed Diefenbaker an issue he can use against them and US. We think Canadians will no longer accept irresponsible nonsense which political leaders all parties, but particularly progressive-conservatives under Diefenbaker, have got away with for several years.
If our appraisal is sound and if trend continues, we face transitional period uncertainty, probably until general elections return a new government with an absolute majority and thus a clear mandate … World has changed and Canadian people know it. Polls show strong Canadian majority support for acquisition nuclear warheads and for close cooperation with us. Cuban crisis last October evoked widespread evidence public unhappiness with Foreign Minister Green’s moralizing and Diefenbaker’s flexible inaction…
We should not be unduly disturbed at steam of resentment which first blew off upon publication of Department’s release. Diefenbaker’s reaction was expected. He is undependable, unscrupulous political animal at bay and we are ones who boxed him in … Let us also face fact that we are forcing Pearson to go faster and further than he desires in the direction we favor … We have reached point where our relations must be based on something more solid than accommodation to neurotic Canadian view of us and world…
As this appraisal indicates, we see grounds for optimism that over the long run this exercise will prove to have been highly beneficial and will substantially advance our interests. We have introduced element of realism which no government, whether progressive-conservative or liberal, will be able to ignore.
One thing which could bring it all to naught would be backing away from our present stand … On maintenance of this stance depends framework of our future relations with Canada.22
Whether or not there was the conspiracy of forces that Diefenbaker saw in his darkest moments, or hinted at from the platform, there was no doubt that the Kennedy administration looked forward to a new Canadian government not led by John G. Diefenbaker. As the campaign opened, Washington kept its powder dry and watched events to the north with unusual care.
Butterworth reminded Washington on February 2 that the Rostow memorandum was still “hanging over our heads, and Diefenbaker or someone else may decide to try to make political hay of it at any time. It is probably a good thing that he doubtless knows that the Liberals are aware of his possession of it and the manner of his acquisition since, in essence, failure to return to such an invited guest a personal, confidential paper would be difficult for Diefenbaker to explain to the Canadian public.”23 Embassy officers reported discussion of the memorandum in their presence by Grattan O’Leary and the Liberal editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, Shane McKay, at the end of January, as evidence that its existence must have been fairly widely known.24 But Butterworth implied that if the memo was still hanging over Kennedy’s head, it was also hanging over Diefenbaker’s. The prime minister knew the risks of using it.
Before his second winter campaign could begin, Diefenbaker flew to London for three days in late February to be invested as an honorary freeman of the City of London, the first Canadian prime minister to receive this honour. He enjoyed the interlude as a brief escape from political turmoil, a soothing balm for his bruised ego – and a burst of glowing and uncritical publicity that could not have been better timed. On Sunday, February 23, he read the lesson at the City Temple, paid a short visit to Sir Winston Churchill, and met Harold Macmillan for the first time since the collapse of Britain’s negotiations to enter the Common Market. Next day, he and Olive rode in a royal landau, under escort by mounted outriders of the RCMP, to the Guildhall to receive the freedom of the city before an appreciative audience of 1100 guests. The Lord Mayor good-naturedly referred to Diefenbaker’s three Indian chieftainships in wishing him “the sharp eyes of the eagle, the wariness and strength of the walking buffalo, and the joyous speed and abandon of the many spotted horses” during the coming election campaign. Diefenbaker responded gratefully for “the greatest civic distinction to which any man or woman can aspire … To be of London is to share in a stream of history that has enriched a quarter of the world’s population within the Commonwealth and free men everywhere.” Afterwards, the Diefenbakers were honoured guests at a Mansion House banquet featuring nine wines. “He raised a glass to his lips to respond to the frequent toasts,” wrote Charles King of Southam Press, “but apparently enjoyed the hospitality less than other guests.” The party returned overnight to a chilly Ottawa dawn.25
“Somebody up there doesn’t like us”
The Chief had been unsettled by jokes and gossip about his strained appearance and shaking hands, and in a gesture reminiscent of Dwight Eisenhower’s 1956 campaign, he released a medical certificate at the end of February signed by two Toronto physicians testifying that he was in excellent health. “At no time,” they affirmed, “during this or at past examinations has there been evidence of any chronic illness.” The Winnipeg Free Press, among other papers, published a photograph of the medical certificate.26
“The 1963 election campaign,” Diefenbaker recalled, “was one of the more uplifting experiences of my life … There was no question that everyone was against me but the people, and that unless I could find a way to get the message across, I would be lost.”27 So – inspired by Harry Truman’s 1948 “Give ’em hell!” campaign – he decided to conduct a whistle-stop election, travelling as much as possible by train, stopping briefly at the little towns to mingle with the crowds that appeared in bitter cold to greet him. At Capreol, Ontario, on February 28, Diefenbaker spent twenty minutes on the station platform as the temperature hovered at −22F. When his train arrived in Prince Albert on March 2 – delayed by unscheduled stops at Hague, Rosthern, and Duck Lake – Diefenbaker descended to a home town welcome from the mayor and five hundred citizens. The more sedate and “prime ministerial” speaking style of 1962 was discarded for the evangelist’s tones of 1958, mingling nostalgia, scorn, and humour with hints of paradise and hellfire. The ridicule was mostly reserved for Mike Pearson and the Liberals, since Diefenbaker knew that Wallace McCutcheon and the State Department were measuring every speech for signs of excessive or provocative outbursts of anti-Americanism.28
The prime minister felt alone on the campaign trail – and most of the time he was alone. Davie Fulton had gone to British Columbia; Donald Fleming was not running, although he stayed in Ottawa to manage cabinet business until April 8; Douglas Harkness was running, but at odds with his leader; George Hees had retired and departed the country for the duration; Pierre Sévigny fought the election as an independent Conservative; Ernest Halpenny had retired; and other ministers were tied down i
n tight contests in their own constituencies.
As usual, Diefenbaker had one speech – with infinite variations of order, emphasis, and anecdote – for six weeks of campaigning. It was fully elaborated at his Prince Albert nominating meeting on March 2 before an audience of a thousand. He recalled elections from his youth at Fort Carlton, when candidates of both parties travelled together to speak from the same platform – and the occasion, perhaps apocryphal, when the Conservative fell ill and the Liberal delivered both speeches. (The story was familiar, so applause and laughter smothered the punch line.) He spoke to those in his audience “whose fathers and mothers came to this country, came here as pioneers, came here to build a Canada, came here to join with all the races of men. One of my reasons for being in public life and I’ve said it from the earliest days, was the opportunity to be able to do something in order to bring about in this nation without regard to racial origin, while preserving the constitutional rights of the initial and primary races of this country … equality of opportunity, to remove discrimination whatever one’s racial origin may be, to give to Canadians as a whole a pride of being Canadians, to remove that stigma that in the past existed that blood count constituted something in the nature of citizenship.”
In the last election, the Liberals had claimed that Canada “was on the road to ruin … They downgraded Canada. They undermined Canada. They did it deliberately in order to destroy.” In doing so, he said, they provoked the foreign exchange crisis that the Diefenbaker government had acted decisively to overcome. “And today Canada, as a result of our action, has the largest foreign exchange amount it has ever had in the history of this nation.” His government had enriched prairie farmers by selling grain to China on credit, and China had repaid its debts on time.
Diefenbaker explained his defence policy as one that changed to suit rapidly changing circumstances. Why should he be criticized for that when Britain and the United States followed the same shifting policy? When Canada agreed to accept two Bomarc missile units, the United States planned to build thirty or forty launching sites to protect their Strategic Air Command bases. Now there were only six: two in Canada and four in the United States.