by John English
In 1970, as criticism of Trudeau’s intellectual honesty abounded, Vadeboncoeur came to his defence, stating that he “did not have the least hesitation in affirming that Trudeau had not betrayed his beliefs … but, to the contrary, he had remained scrupulously faithful to his beliefs.” Inevitably some bitterness came later, when he began to write bluntly about Trudeau, the destroyer of so many dreams. Trudeau himself was mostly silent, but he placed exclamation marks beside a 1963 press clipping that described Vadeboncoeur as by far the most radical member of a panel on separatism and socialism. As they parted ways, Vadeboncoeur paid back the money his closest friend had lent him over the years. Two middle-aged men were left with their memories of a shared childhood on the streets and alleys of Outremont, of the terrifying first days at Brébeuf, of the hilarious moment when Vadeboncoeur threw his law notes into the air and declared he was free, and of the secrets they shared when Trudeau came back from Europe in 1949. Thirty years after they separated, Trudeau paid a final personal tribute to his old friend, by then a major literary figure. He wrote in his memoirs that it was Vadeboncoeur who had taught him to write good French.62 It was a lasting gift that estrangement could never efface.
If Vadeboncoeur had been one of Trudeau’s closest male friend of adolescence and youth, François Hertel was his principal mentor in those days. Later, they had met frequently in Paris, where Hertel edited a journal on the writings of the French diaspora to which even Grace Trudeau subscribed. The rise of separatism after 1960 stirred Hertel’s old sympathies and aroused new hopes. In the winter of 1963 he wrote an essay, “Du séparatisme Québécois,” in which he recalled for readers his statement in 1936 that “one day, separation will come.” Now, finally, Quebec was preparing to leave Canada and was creating “a solid bloc” in which its intellectual, artistic, and social life would flourish “in a rediscovered security and serenity.” There was no serenity as Trudeau marked the essay with nine exclamation marks, one question mark, numerous underlined passages, and one illegible comment that reacted to Hertel’s statement that even a Swiss-style decentralization, which he had held out as a last option thirty years before, was no longer possible.
The essay displeased Trudeau immensely, but he was outraged when students at the Université de Montréal published an article by Hertel in Le Quartier Latin in April 1964. André Laurendeau, a nationalist but also an eloquent opponent of separatism, had agreed to co-chair the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism that Pearson established soon after he took office. Laurendeau’s new role was too much for Hertel. He wrote: “If you want to assassinate someone, assassinate a traitor, someone who is celebrated among us—that would be the perfect blow. For example, deliver from existence poor, bored Laurendeau, a prematurely old man who is also obscene.” In Cité libre in May 1964, Trudeau lashed out against Hertel. He accused him, in a biting comment, of being a Torquemada about to begin an inquisition. He profoundly regretted that Hertel, whom he had long respected for his refusal to conform, had chosen to enter “into the separatist chapel.” In a Quebec where terrorists were becoming heroes and the collectivity was once again being idolized, Hertel’s words were thoroughly “irresponsible,” as was Le Quartier Latin for publishing them.63
Hertel protested to Trudeau and others—ingenuously, given the tensions of the times—that he was being metaphorical and that he actually detested violence. Yet a chill had entered his relationship with Trudeau and, eventually, it froze nearly all contact. Like Pierre Vadeboncoeur, Hertel later came to Trudeau’s defence when others questioned his sincerity. While dismissing Pelletier derisively as a “boy scout,” Hertel echoed Vadeboncoeur in suggesting that Trudeau’s failure to share their beliefs derived from his excessive focus on the law: “In the case of Trudeau, whom I know well, it’s another matter. He’s a jurist, one who, in my view, has become imprisoned in a formula that he would do well to enlarge. A little British by birth too.”
The last comment no doubt further infuriated Trudeau. In fact, while favouring independence, Hertel did later became concerned about some of its violent physical and verbal expressions, and he loathed the “Communism” of some of its most vociferous supporters. As they drifted apart, he and Trudeau still apparently exchanged casual notes. When Hertel returned to Canada in the eighties, he was wistful about the past and suspicious of the direction the young had taken in the 1960s in literature and in life. He died in 1985 and, to the surprise of all, had a religious funeral, which Camille Laurin and Pierre Trudeau attended together.64
Hertel and Vadeboncoeur were correct in their sense that Trudeau’s interests were no longer strongly literary, as they had been in his early forties.* The strong literary preoccupation of his youth had waned. As a professor at the Université de Montréal he had joined the Groupes des Recherches Sociales, and his own writings reflected his increasing interest in social science and law, especially the intersections between the two. In June 1963 he wrote to an Ontario friend in reply to a letter sent a year earlier. The delay, he said, resulted from the strain he had been under. He declined the friend’s request to “tour” Canada to explain the “French-Canadian point of view” because he was leaving for Europe and North Africa: “The past year has been a mad one: lectures & research at the University, my office, Cité libre, civil liberties, peace research, and all that. It is not too serious that I do not answer letters; but it is serious when I find no little time for legal studies. I hope to find a way next fall to barricade myself up in the University.”65
He did not barricade himself, not least because it was the leftist and separatist students who were building barricades he wanted to tear down. Far more satisfying was the time he spent at cafés near his Sherbrooke apartment with Madeleine Gobeil, who was now teaching at a Montreal classical college where she found, to her dismay but not to Trudeau’s surprise, “a whole generation of people my age who, instead of working and becoming competent in their own field, sit around discussing things like separatism.” Albert Breton, the most impressive young francophone economist of his generation, with links to some of the leading international economists of the age, was present when Madeleine made that comment. Now, when asked whether his first allegiance was to Canada or to Quebec, he always described himself as a “North American.” And although Trudeau was critical of American politicians, he was increasingly attracted to American social science and intellectual debates. In the early 1960s his social thought increasingly reflected the arguments about countervailing powers and the poverty of the public sector set out by John Kenneth Galbraith, whose book The Affluent Society was a bestseller.
Over the winter of 1963–64, Trudeau joined with the Breton brothers, Montreal lawyer Marc Lalonde, sociologist Maurice Pinard, lawyer Claude Bruneau (who had worked for Conservative Justice Minister Davie Fulton), and psychoanalyst Yvon Gauthier to investigate why, in Trudeau’s words, separatists wanted “the whole tribe [to] return to the wigwams.” That, Trudeau further argued, “will not prevent the world outside from progressing by giant’s strides; it will not change the rules and facts of history, nor the real power relationship in North America.”
In May 1964 Cité libre published their manifesto “Pour une politique fonctionelle,” which appeared simultaneously in a translation by Montreal lawyer Michael Pitfield in the Canadian Forum under the title “An Appeal for Realism in Politics.” The authors revealed their legal and social scientific training as they deplored the lack of realism in Quebec politics, the absence of political leadership, and the government’s refusal to deal with economic problems. In making their case for “the free flow of economic and cultural life,” they rejected “the idea of a ‘national state’ as obsolete” and announced their refusal “to let ourselves be locked into a constitutional frame smaller than Canada.” Trudeau’s new friends helped him find a different approach through “functional politics.” As so many old friends marched off under a new nationalist banner, Trudeau took a different turn.66
* His frequent companion of
the 1960s, Madeleine Gobeil, describes Trudeau as a gourmand who, when in Paris, went to Michelin-starred restaurants and ordered Bordeaux from the fabled châteaux. However, he drank little and wine lingered long in his glass. Interview with Madeleine Gobeil, May 2006.
* Trudeau’s enthusiasm for China pervaded his letter to his friend Carroll Guérin. She wrote when she received a note from him at the time: “It was fascinating to receive word from China, particularly since you praise it so much. Pierre, you are so lucky to have met Mao Tse-tung … I imagine everyone will react to your favourable reports as they did towards your previous ones about Russia in ’52.” Guérin to Trudeau, Oct. 18, 1960, TP, vol. 39, file 6. China continued to intrigue Trudeau. Years later, when asked by Thérèse Gouin Décarie and Vianney Décarie who had impressed him most among world leaders, Trudeau answered immediately, “Chou En-lai.” Conversation with the Décaries, June 2006.
* Western views of China and Mao were much more generous than views of the Soviet Union and Stalin. Journalist Edgar Snow’s book Red Star over China romanticized Chinese Communism, and, by the 1960s, Mao was a cult hero among the radical young who clung to his famous Red Book. By the 1970s even American Republicans had succumbed. Although Mao did not praise America, Nixon told Mao at their first meeting that “the Chairman’s writings moved a nation and have changed the world.” He said Mao was a “professional philosopher”; in return, Mao spoke admiringly of Kissinger’s success with women. Unbelievably, the transcript reads: Mao—“There were some rumours that said you were about to collapse (laughter). And women folk seated here were all dissatisfied with that (laughter, especially pronounced among the women). They said if the Doctor is going to collapse, we would be out of work.” The Chinese took extraordinary pains to cut off locals from foreigners. During the Nixon visit, which occurred at Chinese New Year, thousands of rural youth were sent back to their villages lest they encounter the American president—an encounter that security had already made impossible. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (New York: Knopf, 2005), 584, 587–89.
* Trudeau, along with Frank Scott’s son Peter, did not demonstrate the earnestness of many socialists in the fifties. Their efforts in one of Thérèse Casgrain’s campaigns consisted of “driving recklessly around Montreal in Trudeau’s open sports car with a bull horn. They regaled passers-by with CCF slogans in two languages, vying with each other in a public display of witty bilingualism, with Scott concocting the French sentences and Trudeau embellishing the English.” Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and Our Times. vol. 1: The Magnificent Obsession (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990), 88.
* Madeleine Gobeil, who would become Trudeau’s most frequent companion until his marriage to Margaret Sinclair in 1971, took part in a Maclean’s roundtable chaired by Gérard Pelletier in the spring of 1963. The young journalist Peter Gzowski described her on that occasion as fitting “neither the cliché about the shy, family-dominated young canadienne who wants only to be married and have a dozen children or the one about the gay, champagne-drinking flirt. She is serious, clever, frank and, above all, emancipated. She is, for example, unafraid to say publicly that she no longer believes in her church.” She was, however, the most unambiguously “Canadian” in her comments, saying: “Maybe it’s because I come from Ottawa, but I feel I’m more Canadian.” However, when asked how they “felt” about English Canadians, she agreed with another participant: “I find [English Canadians] boring too. They have nothing interesting to present. They aren’t really very good conversationalists.” Peter Gzowski, “What Young French Canadians Have on Their Minds,” Maclean’s, April 6, 1963, 21–23, 39–40. Madeleine claims that she and Pierre rarely discussed religion. He insisted that his faith was a private matter. Interview with Madeleine Gobeil, May 2006.
* Carroll herself was not shy, and her lively exchanges with Pierre capture his charm for women as well as his weaknesses. After she called him in Montreal, she wrote to him on June 18, 1962: “How thrilled I was to speak to you a couple of hours ago! I am still under the effect, and practically phoned you back to tell you how glad I was but thought that you probably would not appreciate it if I reversed the charges again.”40 She advised Trudeau on the furnishing of his flat and often joined him as he carefully selected his stylish clothing. She also persuaded him to buy his exquisite Mercedes 300SL convertible. Conversation with Carroll Guérin, Dec. 29, 2006.
* In 1968 the celebrated Canadian artists Michael Snow and Joyce Wieland organized a “Canadians in New York for Trudeau” meeting in that city, where they were living. They had a jazz trio with the drummer Milford Graves. Snow introduced Graves to Trudeau as “the greatest drummer in jazz today.” Trudeau shook Graves’s hand, saying, “Oh! Well, what about Max Roach.” Graves was not insulted but astonished at Trudeau’s knowledge of jazz. Michael Snow in Nancy Southam, ed., Pierre (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2005), 125.
* Pierre Godin raised the charge in support of his belief that Trudeau’s “portfolio” affected his actions. He pointed out that Trudeau was, frankly, a cheapskate when it came to paying entertainment bills or tipping. Evidence suggests the charge has some validity. Margot Kidder, who dated Trudeau in the 1980s, recalled how she pretended she was going to the washroom after the dinner ended so she could return to the table and leave some additional cash for the waiters—to whom Trudeau had given just a couple of dollars. The bartender at the upscale Troika Restaurant in Montreal in the 1960s remembered an evening when Trudeau came in alone. An apparent friend joined him at the bar. When they appeared ready to leave, the bartender gave the bill to Trudeau, assuming that he was the host. He paid, and both customers left. However, Trudeau quickly returned and rebuked the bartender: “Never again give me a bill unless I ask for it.” Yet there are also abundant examples of Trudeau generosity, from his treatment of “poor boy” Gaby Filion in the early forties at school, through François Hertel and Pierre Vadeboncoeur in the fifties. This mixed behaviour does not seem unusual. In a television docudrama aired later, Pelletier asked Trudeau why he was so parsimonious. Trudeau replied that, even when he was a schoolboy at Brébeuf, kids wanted him to pay because they knew he was rich. Trudeau’s defensive analysis was almost certainly correct. The biographies of millionaires are replete with similar stories, such as the payphones for guests in Jean Paul Getty’s castle. Thérèse Gouin Décarie describes Trudeau’s attitude towards money as “confusing,” while Madeleine Gobeil says he was an intellectual who was troubled by his millionaire status. Pierre Godin, René Lévesque: Héros malgré lui (Montreal: Les Éditions du Boréal, 1994), 118; interviews with Margot Kidder and Jacques Eindiguer; and “Trudeau, the Movie,” CBC Television, Oct. 2005.
* Indeed, Trudeau’s fears were justified. The Gallup polls showed strong Social Credit support in Quebec. Union nationale politician Daniel Johnson wrote to Diefenbaker at the height of the 1963 election on March 8, 1963, predicting that if an election were held that day, the Social Credit party would win “50–55 seats.” The letter suggested the continuing support of some Union nationale politicians for Diefenbaker, on the one hand, and Caouette, on the other. Johnson to Diefenbaker, March 8, 1963, Diefenbaker Papers, XII/115/F/281, Diefenbaker Library, University of Saskatchewan.
* Trudeau and Vadeboncoeur continued to share their enthusiasm for labour matters. Although Trudeau, unlike Vadeboncoeur, was not a full-time labour organizer in the 1960s, he spent untold hours drafting a brief that incorporated labour’s views for the constitutional committee established by the Quebec National Assembly in May 1963. The brief reflected Trudeau’s hesitation about “opening up” the Constitution as well as his support for instituting a bill of rights. This work prepared him exceedingly well for the debates about the Constitution in the following decade. For his overall opinions on these issues, see his essays “We Need a Bill of Rights” and “Quebec and the Constitutional Problem” in Gérard Pelletier, ed., Against the Current: Selected Writings, 1939–1996 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart,
1996), 214–16, 219–28.
CHAPTER 9
POLITICAL MAN
On an early spring morning in Westmount in 1963, René Lévesque, Gérard Pelletier, and André Laurendeau were still at the Pelletiers’ table at 2 a.m. Trudeau and Jean Le Moyne had left earlier. Out of cigarettes but still brimming with thoughts, Laurendeau and Lévesque had a last cup of coffee. Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the silence outside. “It’s a FLQ bomb,” said Laurendeau, blaming the Front de libération du Québec, a loose organization created earlier that year to bring about an independent Marxist state through violence. “No, no,” Lévesque retorted, “it’s an explosion in the Métro,” the subway system then under construction in Montreal. Laurendeau disagreed: “I recognize the sound. They planted one not far from my place last month.” Alec Pelletier descended the stairs and was decisive: “It’s a bomb.” Another explosion, and this time even Lévesque began to doubt his Métro explanation. The FLQ found mailboxes an easy target—where else could they drop a package and not look suspicious?
The three journalists—one now a Cabinet minister, another an eminent editor, the third a political and media icon—set out in search of a big story. With Alec still cloaked in her elegant dressing gown, they soon found a grocery store whose windows had shattered, leaving a wall of cigarette packages completely exposed: “What luck, René,” Alec declared. “Just help yourself.”
With the scent of smoke and the thrill of the chase intense, the men set off to find the source of the other explosion. Oblivious to danger, they drove close to a mailbox where another bomb lay, but, fortunately, that explosion would come later in the morning. As crowds milled around the splintered glass, Pelletier kept an astonished silence. Lévesque was divided in his response, critical, yet admiring: “You’ve got to hand it to them—they’re courageous, those guys.” Laurendeau became reflective: “It’s incredible,” he mused. “When I was twenty I used to call on a girlfriend in this part of town. I never dreamed that such things could happen here. Absurd, isn’t it?”1