by Denis Smith
In the end, it seemed, the prime minister’s surreptitious use of the Rostow memorandum in the last week of the election campaign was of no noticeable benefit to him. Washington, in its response by proxy, managed to make its effective point that Diefenbaker was the one who had committed the diplomatic offence. For those who noticed, the contretemps probably served to harden existing political commitments, both for and against the prime minister. He was either a courageous white knight or a blackguard. And Kennedy had not used the expletive deleted.49
On the last weekend of the campaign another unusual incident caused disturbance for Walton Butterworth and Mike Pearson, but it came too late to make any impact on the vote. On April 6 the Vancouver Sun published a story by the Southam reporter Bruce Phillips suggesting that “the Conservatives have a document so hot even they are afraid to use it, a document purporting to be a letter from American Ambassador Walton Butterworth to Liberal chieftain Pearson telling him the Conservatives are unfit to govern Canada.” The party, Phillips said, had had the letter for “about two weeks,” but had been “uneasy about using it because they did not know where the splinters would hit when the explosion came.” The letter, dated January 14, offered congratulations to Pearson for his speech advocating the acceptance of nuclear warheads for Canadian weapons. Butterworth, he said, had learned of the existence of the letter and had called the cabinet secretary, Robert Bryce, to deny having written it. Pearson, too, vehemently denied its authenticity. Phillips reported that the letter “came into the hands” of George Drew in London, who forwarded it to Canada, but he explained nothing more about its provenance.50 The case looked suspiciously like that of the Rostow memorandum. Had the government provided this document, too, to a friendly reporter for use without attribution?
What made the incident more outrageous for Butterworth was that the letter was a forgery. Using it was a kind of dirty trick unfamiliar in Canadian politics or in the recent history of Canadian-American relations. Butterworth asked the State Department to pursue the issue with Canada, but in the aftermath of the election, Washington decided to let the matter rest “and hopefully disappear with other flotsam and jetsam cast up by the campaign.” Butterworth accepted the decision but protested to the State Department that it was mistaken: “What concerns me … is lest this be an indication that the Department is reverting to its old ways of treating Canada like a problem child for whom there was always at the ready a cheek for the turning … I do hope that in future we will deal with Canada with considered care and courtesy but in a more normal, matter-of-fact manner, and with due regard to the importance of obtaining quids for quos.”51
Diefenbaker’s account of the incident was disingenuous. Afterwards, in the memoirs, he wrote as though the letter had not been used in the campaign, and regretted that “not using it constituted a major political error.” He claimed to have “confidential knowledge, which will be revealed in due course, that it was a true copy,” but there appears to be no documentary evidence for the claim. Diefenbaker reproduced the entire letter in the memoirs and noted that after receiving it in late March he consulted Howard Green and Gordon Churchill about establishing its authenticity. Since there was no time to establish whether or not it was a forgery, he reported an honourable decision not to use it.52
The record, all of it available to Diefenbaker, looks less edifying. The letter, in photostat and postmarked March 20, 1963, was originally mailed to George Drew in London from an English address. Drew called Grattan O’Leary to warn him he had a “hot document,” and dispatched it that day to Diefenbaker. Soon afterwards the prime minister met O’Leary and urged him to publish it in the Ottawa Journal. Drew had warned Diefenbaker that the letter “could be of vital importance if its authenticity were verified, and it could be extremely dangerous if by any chance it is an attempt to plant something which could obviously boomerang very badly.” O’Leary thought it was a forgery and refused to publish it; Camp shared his scepticism. Diefenbaker kept the letter and discussed it with Allister Grosart, who passed on the story to the publisher of the Winnipeg Tribune, Ross Munro. Munro called Butterworth, who called Bryce to make his denial. And Bryce relayed the report back to Diefenbaker on his campaign train in western Canada.
Meanwhile, Diefenbaker had brought Howard Green and Gordon Churchill into his secret. He proposed to Green that he should return to Ottawa to “call in the Ambassador and ask him who wrote the letter. Howard was disturbed by the suggestion. I then suggested that he secure examples of signatures of the Ambassador, to which he replied that that would arouse suspicion.” Another dead end. Diefenbaker “thus turned the investigation over” to Gordon Churchill. Formally, Diefenbaker had taken his distance. What followed was publication in a small Manitoba newspaper, from which Bruce Phillips picked up the story for Southam News.
Later the RCMP examined the copy and determined that there were no typewriters in Butterworth’s office to match the one used in the letter. There were other anomalies, too. Diefenbaker believed that the RCMP commissioner had given Butterworth sufficient notice of his search to remove the incriminating machine, and he continued to insist that the letter was genuine. The point of this insistence, in face of the evidence, is obscure, unless Diefenbaker felt an unacknowledged responsibility for use of the letter – and an inability to admit he could have been wrong.53
The Diefenbakers returned as usual to home ground in Prince Albert for election day, while the Pearsons remained in Ottawa. As the count moved westwards that evening, Liberal hopes for a majority were raised and then lowered. Newfoundland delivered all seven of its seats to Pearson, but Diefenbaker held his ground in the Maritime provinces. In Quebec the Créditistes retained twenty seats, while the Liberals gained only twelve and the Conservatives lost six. In Ontario the Liberals picked up eight ridings from the Tories – not an overwhelming shift. At the Manitoba border Pearson had 119 seats (only thirteen short of an absolute majority), but there his bandwagon stalled. In seventy western and northern races, he won only ten, while Diefenbaker took forty-seven (for a loss of only two seats). At the final count Diefenbaker had 95 seats to Pearson’s 129. Social Credit and the NDP held the balance, with twenty-four and nineteen seats, respectively. The Liberal Party had consolidated its strength in the cities, while Diefenbaker’s Tory party settled more firmly into its rural and western strongholds. Only Quebec broke the national pattern, where Social Credit lost some areas of rural strength but achieved 15 percent infiltration into Montreal in several working-class neighbourhoods.54
Diefenbaker told a television interviewer on election night that the result reminded him of 1925, when Prime Minister King had lost by a plurality to Arthur Meighen’s Conservatives, but “had decided, as was his right, to meet Parliament on the basis that no party had a majority.”55 That seemed only a bit of mischievous talk designed to keep the Liberals on edge. By the next day Churchill, Hamilton, Grosart, McCutcheon, Frost, and others were urging the government’s resignation, and Diefenbaker accepted the choice. He was ready to face the Liberals as opposition leader, and nursed his resentments for later use. As he prepared for his flight to Ottawa on April 10, he told a Saskatchewan friend: “I went down there to see what I could do for the common people and the big people finished me – the most powerful interests.” But he made no public statement about his intentions, beyond indicating that he would “watch eventualities.”56
On April 12, in mysterious circumstances, six Créditiste MPs delivered a sworn affidavit to the governor general and to Mike Pearson declaring that the Liberal Party had the right to form the next government and promising their voting support to that government. Pearson had his absolute majority. Diefenbaker concluded that “there were no further eventualities for me to wait upon,” and arranged to meet Pearson to agree upon the transfer of power. At noon on Monday, April 22, John G. Diefenbaker was succeeded as prime minister by Lester Bowles Pearson.57
FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS JOHN AND OLIVE WERE PREOCCUPIED WITH THE MOVE from 24 Sussex D
rive to Stornoway, the house provided for the leader of the opposition, taking two of their household staff with them. On the evening before their move, Diefenbaker told his brother, “Olive made a discovery. We thought we had emptied every drawer and for some reason she looked at the desk in my room on which the TV was placed and found two extra drawers in the back of the desk which I had completely forgotten about which revealed quite a number of letters which would not have been fitting for our successors to read.”58 The move was trying. Diefenbaker wrote: “I am hoping we can go West because there is quite a bit of furniture that should be shipped down here as ‘Stornoway’ is anything but equipped. We have had to buy a washing machine, dryer and all the kitchen equipment and there will be about $1000.00 in odds and ends of furniture that we will have to purchase. The only room that is properly equipped is my office and library which Olive has fixed up most attractively … It is almost six years since I had my hands on the wheel of a car so I will have to take some lessons before I get a license. I simply can’t exist by depending on taxis.” Within a few weeks, Olive had taken her driving test and acquired a licence, “so we will be able to get around a lot easier than we have since moving,” but in July “she was fortunate that she wasn’t injured when the car went over the sidewalk into a plate glass window. She was very calm about it.” Subsequently, the Diefenbakers were provided with a chauffeur, who took delivery of their new Buick Wildcat from General Motors in Oshawa on October 4. “It is a Canadian-made car,” John told Elmer, “and while we would have preferred a better Buick felt that we must not purchase a car manufactured outside Canada.”59
The Diefenbakers returned from a short trip to Saskatoon and Prince Albert in mid-May to find their surroundings more comfortable. “While we were away,” John wrote, “the staff at the house worked very hard and got everything in readiness. As soon as some of the furnishings that we had shipped from Prince Albert arrive here it will become very homelike.” Ten days later he was still adjusting to the life of an ordinary citizen: “Olive is still working on the house. Some of the furniture came from Prince Albert although the cost was very high. The freight on the bedroom suite was $400.00 and the cost of moving from 24 Sussex to our present address was over $650. A third-rate plumber did some work for us and charged us at the rate of $4.50 per hour. All these charges are far beyond anything that could have been imagined a few years ago.” Diefenbaker paid them out of his own pocket.60
The adjustment of routine was substantial but less trying. “It is far less work being Leader of the Opposition than Prime Minister,” he wrote on May 24, “and I am getting a great deal of rest and also more reading done than has been possible.”61 Diefenbaker observed the NATO ministerial meeting in Ottawa in May with resentment. “We invited them but the new Government does the entertaining and is receiving the applause. Lord Home went out of his way yesterday to build up Mr. Pearson by saying, in effect, that he became Prime Minister because he wanted Canada to be a good ally. Several of my colleagues are most annoyed at this because I refrained at all times from making political speeches in London that would criticize the Government or assist the Opposition.”62
As the new Pearson government adjusted to office, settled its commitment to take nuclear warheads for Canadian weapons, appointed the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, stumbled through its first budget debate, and confronted a disturbing wave of terrorist bombings in Montreal, Diefenbaker was preoccupied with his own position in the party and the country. Pearson regarded his opponent with distaste: “There is certainly going to be lots of unpleasantness in the House,” he wrote to his son on May 26. “D. is very nasty and cannot conceal his frustrations. He misses the pomp and prestige of office greatly and obviously.”63 Diefenbaker’s former newspaper supporters kept up their complaints. At the end of May he told Elmer: “The ‘Globe & Mail’ and ‘Telegram,’ and to a lesser extent until today, the ‘Gazette,’ are spending their time in personal criticism, for certain of the big interests have determined that there must be a change of the leadership of the Conservative Party.” Diefenbaker saw this criticism as a continuation of the winter conspiracy: “It is more than a coincidence that Davie Fulton was here on Monday and this is the third time that such a visit has been followed by an article by Arthur Blakely. However, I have got no intention whatsoever of falling in line with their plans and schemes. They should have learned that many years ago.”64 A week later he reported further: “Dave Walker gave a dinner on Wednesday night for the Conservative members of the Senate and the House of Commons and he made a typically frank speech except he told them they would not have been there if it had not been for me, much to my embarrassment. However, when speaking I pointed out that I had no intention of falling in line with the desires of the Liberal Party to get me out of the leadership with an assist from a few of my former colleagues.”65
During the next six months there were frequent calls in the party – centred in Ontario and Quebec – for a leadership review. Diefenbaker put them down at first to the inspiration of Davie Fulton who, he believed, “is doing his best to bring about a Convention – under cover work by him always seems to come to light! “Just before a meeting of the Conservative executive in October, Diefenbaker received reports that George Hees’s aide, Mel Jack, was coordinating efforts to remove him from the leadership by the spring of 1964, while “Fulton and his people” continued their activities. “I am more definitely set than ever before against resigning no matter what they may do,” he told Elmer. “It is going to be a big fight and when these great and powerful financial interests determine a course of action they exert a tremendous influence. I beat them before and intend to do so again.” In November the Chief commented publicly that “you don’t have leadership conventions unless there is a vacancy. I am the leader and there is no vacancy.” Within the organization, he strengthened his own position by installing Gordon Churchill as national director and the former MP Richard Thrasher as national secretary.66
Dalton Camp told the party executive in October: “I supported the Conservative Party and its Leader, Mr. Diefenbaker, because I believed them to be right in all the issues vital to the country. Indeed, the greater the issue, the more right they were. Far from apologizing for my personal stand, I exult in it. In fact, I celebrate it with each passing day.” The leader had distinguished himself in the campaign. “Men in adversity do not always react the same. Thus, one of the prime qualities of leadership is personal courage. Those of us who saw Mr. Diefenbaker at close range during the campaign could not help but admire his courage, and could not help but be inspired by it. From the time he set out, we at Headquarters heard from him neither complaint, nor criticism, nor any discouragement. Even had he been wrong in what he stood for, it would have been a distinct privilege to have been associated with such courage.”
Now Camp declared that the party, “singularly blessed by the remarkable incompetence of those who succeeded us in office,” must seize its chances. That meant, paradoxically, engaging in “free expression and fresh thought within the Party itself … In the process of making a god of our Leader, we made sheep of ourselves … A healthy candor and a free exchange of thoughts are needed – should be encouraged – and must, in my opinion, be the purging influence resolving our present unresolved business. But I am not prepared to listen to those who would speak on Friday and leave us on Saturday, unless we do as we’re told.” This was a call to the faithful as skilfully ambiguous as one from Diefenbaker himself. The Chief took particular note of one paragraph, in which Camp called on the executive “to reunite this Party in mind and spirit. Surely, there must be more inviting targets on which to fix our aim than on one another. I would rather fight Grits than Tories … it is only self-inflicted wounds that are slow to heal and that can be mortal.”67
For two weeks in September Olive and John travelled to Italy, Egypt, and Israel, with brief stopovers in Greece and Switzerland, enjoying the privileges of an elder statesman and opposition leader. They were
accompanied by Diefenbaker’s Commons colleague and physician, Dr P.B. Rynard. The trip was refreshing, and the leader returned to Ottawa for the reopening of parliament determined to confront both Liberal and Conservative opponents. Two provincial elections offered him mixed signals about the state of the party. In Ontario, John Robarts’s Conservatives received an overwhelming mandate despite the active participation of federal Liberal ministers in the campaign, while in British Columbia Davie Fulton’s Tories faced what Diefenbaker called “a frightful defeat” at the hands of W.A.C. Bennett’s Social Credit Party, winning no seats and only 11 percent of the popular vote. In Diefenbaker’s view that left Fulton with idle hands, which he would undoubtedly turn to the fight against the federal party leader. Diefenbaker thought he could handle that. The Ontario result, along with his own large correspondence, gave him hope that there was “a widely felt antagonism” to the Pearson government. The Chief planned to recommence war on two fronts, with speaking engagements across the country leading up to the annual meeting of the party in Ottawa in January 1964.68
At the end of October, Peter C. Newman’s book Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years was published to widespread publicity and immediately became a bestseller. Diefenbaker denied having read it, but told Elmer on October 31 that the book was “a terrible piece of muckraking and slander. I am considering commencing action for libel. It is full of falsehoods. I am told that some wealthy people in high places provided the finances for its publication and there is some evidence to support this fact.”69 Two advisers provided him with commentaries on the book, both emphasizing the inappropriate depiction of Diefenbaker as a “renegade” – by definition, “one who has deserted party or principles.” “In the case of the Right Honourable Leader of the Opposition,” one declared, “his principles have followed a strong, clear line from his first entry into politics until now. There has been no deviation. The title is part of the Liberal Party policy followed in the case of every Conservative Leader, of character assassination.” But the other saw advantage in the name: “The book publishers – McClelland and Stewart – have added the title for box office purposes … As ‘renegade’ is a fighting word, the Conservatives will get all the benefit from having their supporters worked up to anger. In short, John Diefenbaker will enjoy a fresh windfall of sympathy votes … The immediate advantage to the Conservative Party is that Newman’s book has brought John Diefenbaker to front page attention on a scale far beyond anything that could be contrived.” The critic noted that – although the book contained “pure inventions of the kind dreamed up in after-hours drinking in the press gallery” – it portrayed Diefenbaker as “an extremely human person, a vivid and alive personality, and the recognizable hero of the Canadian scene.” The story made him “the true Alger-series hero – poor, decent origins; family long associated with Canadian history; lost in the blizzard with Uncle Ed!…it is the legendary material that will get into the school books of future generations of Canadians.” The legislative record was impressive, and the claim that Diefenbaker was indecisive merely showed that Newman “does not understand the process of decision in a parliamentary democracy.” The public, the commentator thought, would absorb the legend and reject the author’s bias; the book was based on “hearsay and guesswork, and … backstairs gossip”; its claims were unsubstantiated.70