by John English
10. Conversation with Sharon and David Johnston, Dec. 2004; interview with Donald Johnston, June 2004. Johnston, Trudeau’s lawyer and a Cabinet minister in the eighties, describes Trudeau with the family in his memoir Up the Hill (Montreal: Opticum, 1996).
11. Pierre Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993), 69.
12. Paul-André Linteau, René Durocher, Jean-Claude Robert, and François Ricard, Quebec since 1930 (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1991), 287.
13. Curiously, Trudeau told Helen Segerstrale on August 21, 1952, that he had been offered a position in political science at the Université de Montréal but had turned it down. This information conflicts with various other accounts, but it does suggest that Trudeau did not believe then that Duplessis had blocked his appointment. It may be that he referred to an offer that had not been approved by senior university officials. TP, vol. 12, file 53.
14. Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message, co-production of CBC Television and McLuhan Productions produced and directed by Stephanie McLuhan, 1984; Marshall McLuhan, “The Man in the Mask,” quoted in W. Terrence Gordon, Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding. A Biography (Toronto: Stoddart, 1997), 235. McLuhan’s enthusiasm for Trudeau was evident in a 1968 New York Times book review of Trudeau’s essay collection Federalism and the French Canadians (Toronto: Macmillan, 1968).
15. “Portrait de P.E. Trudeau à Radio-Canada, 1950,” TP, vol. 11, file 27.
16. Interview with Marc Lalonde, April 2004.
17. Pelletier, Years of Impatience, 27.
18. At the time he wrote the article opposing the Korean War, Trudeau had debated with his Cité libre colleagues whether he should use a pseudonym that could be easily recognized, such as “Pierre d’Ecbatane.” “Trudeau, citoyen,” to “citoyens libres,” [1951], TP, vol. 21, file 28.
19. Ben Rogers to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, April 1, 1952; Robert Ford to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, April 3 and April 17, 1952; and Trudeau to Norman Robertson, dated March 17 but sent April 17, 1952, from Moscow. All are in Privy Council Records, RG 2, C-100–4, LAC. I would like to thank Paul Marsden for drawing my attention to these records.
20. “Au Sommet des Caucases,” broadcast CBF au réseau français, Sept. 18, 1952, TP, vol. 12, file 16.
21. Interview between Pierre Trudeau and Ron Graham, May 12, 1992, TP, vol. 23, file 12.
22. “J’ai fait mes Pâques à Moscou,” broadcast Réseau français de Radio Canada, Sept. 4, 1952, ibid.
23. “Aux prises avec le Politbureau [sic],” broadcast CBF au réseau français, Sept. 25, 1952, ibid.
24. Trudeau to Laurendeau, draft of letter, Nov. 17, 1952, TP, vol. 12, file 12.
25. Braun, “Apparences et réalités religieuses en U.R.S.S.,” L’Action catholique, Nov. 19, 1952.
26. The articles in Le Devoir are June 14 and June 16–21, 1952. The Braun attack may be found in L’Action catholique, Nov. 17, 1952. Also, Nos Cours 14 (13) (Jan. 10, 1953): 19–32. Correspondence with J.-B. Desrosiers in TP, vol. 12, file 12, including Trudeau letter of Dec. 4, 1952; letter to Father Florent, Jan. 23, 1951, ibid., file 14.
27. TP, vol. 12, file 18.
28. “Retour d’URSS: Le camarade Trudeau,” Le Quartier Latin, Oct. 23, 1952.
29. Ibid.; and “Staline est-il poète?” broadcast CBF au réseau français, Sept. 11, 1952, TP vol. 12, file 16. On the Moscow conference, see the report by the economist Alec Cairncross, “The Moscow Economic Conference,” Soviet Studies 4 (Oct. 1952): 113–32. Cairncross saw value in the conference as an occasion for Western economists to meet their Eastern counterparts. He noted that “the delegations from the West were drawn mainly from left-wing or radical groups and no voice was raised at any time that could be said to be really representative of rightwing opinion. The speeches, therefore, gave a rather one-sided impression and were uniformly complimentary to the USSR, but often extremely hostile to the USA” (114).
30. Susan Trofimenkoff, The Dream of Nation (Toronto: Gage, 1983), 285. See also Gérard Laurence, “Les affaires publiques à la télévision, 1952–1957,” Revue d’histoire de 1’Amérique française 6 (Sept. 1952): 213–19.
31. For a description of Lévesque’s style, see Paul Rutherford, When Television Was Young: Primetime Canada, 1952–1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 175–77; and Pelletier, Years of Impatience, 27–28.
32. Jim Coutts, “Trudeau in Power: A View from Inside the Prime Minister’s Office,” in Andrew Cohen and J.L. Granatstein, eds., Trudeau’s Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Toronto: Random House Canada, 1998), 149.
33. Trudeau to Segerstrale, Aug. 21, 1952; and Segerstrale to Trudeau, Dec. 18, 1952, TP vol. 53, file 1.
34. The election was closer than the number of seats indicated. The Liberals won 46 percent of the vote compared with 50.5 percent for Duplessis, but they won only 23 seats compared with 68 for the Union nationale. This imbalance became a major political issue in Quebec in the 1950s, although it occurs frequently in the British parliamentary system.
35. Black, Duplessis, 362–63.
36. Pierre Eliott Trudeau, Against the Current: Selected Writings, 1939–1996, ed. Gérard Pelletier, trans. George Tombs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996), 29–33. Also, “La Revue des Arts et des Lettres,” broadcast CBF au réseau français, Jan. 27, 1953, TP, vol. 25, file 5.
37. Pelletier, Years of Impatience, 131–33. On the political neutrality, see Roch Denis, Luttes de classes et question nationale au Québec, 1948–1968 (Montreal: Les Presses Socialistes Internationales, 1979), 157–58.
38. Draft of remarks to Couchiching Conference, 1952, TP, vol. 25, file 41.
39. Trudeau, “Techniques du voyage,” “Moulin à vent,” Jan. 17, 1954, TP, vol. 12, file 17.
40. See, for example, Clarkson and McCall, Trudeau and Our Times, 2: 69–71.
41. Quoted in Pelletier, Years of Impatience, 110.
42. Paul-André Linteau, Histoire de Montréal depuis la Confédération (Montreal: Les Éditions du Boréal, 2000), 483.
43. Le Devoir, Oct. 15, 1952; Denis, Luttes des classes, 136ff; Donald Horton, André Laurendeau: French-Canadian Nationalist (Toronto: Oxford, 1992), ch. 8; and, for the description of Laurendeau’s anti-Duplessis sentiment as it developed within his family, see Chantal Perrault, “Oncle André,” in Robert Comeau and Lucille Beaudry, eds., André Laurendeau: un intellectuel d’ici (Sillery, Que.: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, 1990), 34.
44. Trudeau, “Réflexions sur la politique,” Cité libre, Dec. 1952, 65–66. On unionism and the Cité libre group, see Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, ch. 7.
45. Trudeau, “La Revue des Arts et des Lettres,” broadcast CBF au réseau français, Jan. 2, 1953.
46. André Malavoy, “Une recontre mémorable,” in Comeau and Beaudry, eds., André Laurendeau, 20.
47. George Radwanski, Trudeau (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), 83.
48. “École de la metallurgie, Cours de P.E. Trudeau, le 23 janvier 1954,” TP, vol. 15, file 6.
49. Maurice Lamontagne, Le fédéralisme canadien: Évolutions et problèmes (Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1954).
50. Father Lévesque made contact with Trudeau through Doris Lussier, a friend of Trudeau who worked with Lévesque. She had given Lévesque the text of one of Trudeau’s speeches. He said it was a strong address “whose vehemence equals its truth.” He hoped to meet Trudeau soon and to have him speak at Laval.
51. Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 191.
52. “Mémoire de la F.U.I.Q.,” TP, vol. 16, file 2.
53. See Black, Duplessis, 485; and Trudeau, “De libro, tributo et quibusdam aliis,” in Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, 66–69. Original in Cité libre, Oct. 1954, 1–16. On the grants specifically, see Trudeau, “Les octrois fédéraux aux universités,” Cité libre, Feb. 1957, 9–31.
54. Robert Rumilly, “Pierre E. Trudeau honoré pour avoir insult
é les Can.-Français,” TP, vol. 14, file 38.
55. On Rumilly’s background and attitudes, see Jean-François Nadeau, “La divine surprise de Robert Rumilly,” in Michel Sarra-Bournet and Jocelyn Saint-Pierre, eds., Les Nationalismes au Québec du xix au xxi siècle (Québec: Les Presses de 1’Université Laval, 2001), 105–16.
56. Conversation with Sylvia Ostry, Feb. 2003.
57. Erasmus, “À propos de ‘Cité Libre,’” L’Action catholique, June 22, 1953.
58. Accounts of these programs are found in TP, vol. 25, files 3 and 4. Confidential interview with female friend about the Roman Catholic Church.
59. Trudeau to Segerstrale, Aug. 6, 1955, TP, vol. 53, file 1.
CHAPTER SEVEN: EVE OF THE REVOLUTION
1. Frank Scott, “Foreword,” in Pierre Trudeau, ed., La Grève de 1’amiante (Montreal: Les Éditions Cité libre, 1956), ix. Further references are to the English edition, The Asbestos Strike, trans. James Boake (Toronto: James Lewis & Samuel, 1974). The background to Recherches sociales is described in David Lewis, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs, 1909–1958 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1981), 456. Gérard Pelletier describes the financing arrangements and the “foundation” that would finance it. Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, Jacques Perrault, and Jean-Charles Falardeau were the trustees, and they met to finalize the arrangements on February 11, 1951. Trudeau Papers (TP), MG 26 02, vol. 25, file 15, Library and Archives Canada (LAC).
2. Fernand Dumont, “History of the Trade Union Movement in the Asbestos Industry,” in Trudeau, ed., The Asbestos Strike, 107. Gilles Beausoleil, then a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the other author. Many others were considered as possible authors, including Jean Marchand.
3. The project was nearly abandoned in 1953 because of the delays. Jean Gérin-Lajoie to Trudeau, March 11, 1953, TP, vol. 23, file 16.
4. Ibid., Nov. 23, 1955.
5. J.-C. Falardeau to Trudeau, Dec. 20, 1955, ibid., file 15. The problems with the printers are discussed in Grace Trudeau to Pierre Trudeau, Oct. 6, 1955; she sympathized with his difficulty in finding a publisher on Dec. 1, 1955, TP, vol. 46, file 23. Falardeau strongly opposed trying to publish in France in a letter of June 17, 1955, TP, vol. 23, file 16.
6. Trudeau, ed., The Asbestos Strike, 345, 14, 67.
7. Ibid., 348–49. Trudeau’s earlier articles that contain the seeds of the essay include “La démocratie est-elle viable au Canada français?” L’Action nationale, Nov. 1954, 190–200, and “Une lettre sur la politique,” Le Devoir, Sept. 18, 1954. On the church, see his “Matériaux pour servir à une enquête sur le cléricalisme,” Cité libre, May 1953, 29–37.
8. Trudeau, ed., The Asbestos Strike, 6–9. An excellent analysis of Trudeau’s argument can be found in Michael Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution: Liberalism versus Neo-Nationalism, 1945–1960 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), especially chs. 4 and 5.
9. Trudeau, ed., The Asbestos Strike, 16–21, 25, 37, 64–65.
10. Trudeau said, correctly, that Hertel advocated a corporatist version of personalism in 1945. Ibid., 24. On the politicians, see ibid., 51.
11. Ibid., 44.
12. Le Devoir, Feb. 2, 1955; Vrai, Feb. 12, 1955.
13. Trudeau, ed., The Asbestos Strike, 346–49.
14. François-Albert Angers, “Pierre Elliott Trudeau et La Grève de 1’amiante,” L’Action nationale, Sept. 1957, 10–22, and Sept.-Oct. 1958, 45–56; Father Jacques Cousineau, Réflexions en marge de “la Grève de 1’amiante” (Montreal: Les cahiers de 1’Institut social populaire, 1958); and Pierre Trudeau, “Le père Cousineau, s.j., et La grève de 1’amiante” Cité libre, May 1959, 34–48. Laurendeau’s articles are found in Le Devoir, Oct. 6, 10–11, 1956. The files on the Cousineau case are in TP, vol. 20, files 20–21.
15. The dismissal of Catholic and nationalist thought was a characteristic of many of the Cité libre group. Trudeau’s own comment that the strike was purely the product of industrial forces and that ideas such as those of nationalism and religion could play no part brought later rebuke from Fernand Dumont, Trudeau’s collaborator in the fifties: “An event which bears historical meaning without an ideological character, one that is produced solely by the forces of production, isn’t that the greatest marvel?” Trudeau’s implicit dismissal of the value of his own education and, of course, his years in law school was not unusual on the part of his generation. Fernand Dumont, “Une révolution culturelle,” in Dumont, Jean Hamelin, and Jean-Paul Montminy, eds., Idéologies au Canada français, 1940–1976 (Quebec: Les Presses de 1’Université Laval, 1981), 19.
16. On Scott and Trudeau, see Sandra Djwa, “Nothing by Halves: F.R. Scott,” Journal of Canadian Studies 35 (winter 2000): 52–69.
17. Quoted in J.D. Legge, Sukarno: A Political Biography (London: Allen Lane, 1965), 264–65.
18. Report of World University Service of Canada tour, TP, vol. 13, file 4.
19. Conrad Black, Duplessis (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977), 389.
20. Perron to Trudeau, Sept. 9, 1950, TP, vol. 20, file 2; Doris Lussier to Trudeau, May 21, 1953, TP, vol. 21, file 12; Lionel Tiger to Trudeau, Aug. 28, 1958, TP, vol. 18, file 1; Trudeau to “Jennifer,” nd [1954], TP, vol. 53, file 38.
21. Black, Duplessis, 372–73; Paul-André Linteau, René Durocher, Jean-Claude Robert, François Ricard, Quebec since 1930 (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1991), 269–70.
22. Grace Trudeau to Pierre Trudeau, Sept. 6, 1955, and Oct. 22, 1955, TP, vol. 46, file 23. When Casgrain had stood as a candidate in Outremont in 1952, Trudeau had worked for her. Ibid., vol. 28, file 14.
23. Le Devoir, June 1, 1956. Trudeau’s drafts are in TP, vol. 22, file 12.
24. These results are taken from the official site of the Quebec National Assembly: www.assnat.qc.ca/fra/patrimoine/votes.html.
25. André Carrier, “L’idéologie politique de la revue Cité libre,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 1 (Dec. 1968): 414–28.
26. Trudeau had many files on Cité libre. See also Yvan Lamonde and Gérard Pelletier, eds., Cité libre: une anthologie (Montreal: Stanké, 1991), for a more general history. A comparison of the journal’s circulation is found in Pierre Bourgault, La Presse, Nov. 11, 1961; he gives the figures. Cormier’s attempt to resign is found in TP, vol. 21, file 5. For the general files, see TP, vol. 20, files 1–45. The exchange with Vadeboncoeur occurred on January 22, 1955, TP, vol. 21, file 29. See also Time, Jan. 19, 1953.
27. Quoted in Pelletier, Years of Impatience, 1950–1960, trans. Alan Brown (1983; Toronto: Methuen, 1984), 26.
28. Lamonde and Pelletier, eds., Cité libre, 16.
29. These lists are drawn from files in the Trudeau Papers, especially TP, vol. 21, file 36. Scott to “Reginald [Boisvert],” July 7, 1950, ibid., file 26; Léon Dion to Trudeau, April 26, 1957, ibid., file 12; Jean Le Moyne to Trudeau, March 9, 1955, ibid., file 12; Rocher to Jean-Paul Geoffroy, May 20, 1951, ibid., file 25; Blair Fraser to Trudeau, nd, ibid., file 3; and Rocher to Trudeau, Jan. 21, 1953, ibid., file 2.
30. See Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 250–51, for a description of the Rassemblement platform and organization. For the constitution and principles of the Rassemblement, see Le Devoir, Sept. 14, 1956.
31. Pierre Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993), 70; Pierre Dansereau, “Témoinage,” in Robert Comeau et Lucille Beaudry, eds., André Laurendeau: Un intellectuel d’ici (Sillery, Que.: Les Presses de 1’Université du Québec, 1990), 184; Gérard Bergeron, Du Duplessisme au Johnsonisme (Montreal: Éditions Parti pris, 1967), 132–35; Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 253–56; and André Laurendeau, “Blocs-notes,” Le Devoir, Dec. 3, 1957.
32. Pelletier to Trudeau, Aug. 29, 1957, TP, vol. 27, file 13.
33. Ibid., file 9.
34. Pierre Trudeau, “Les octrois fédéraux aux universités,” Cité libre, Feb.
1957, 9–31; Forsey to Trudeau, Feb. 26, 1954, TP, vol. 16, file 7.
35. Figures from Jean-Louis Roy, La marche des Québécois: Le temps des ruptures (1945–1960) (Montreal: Éditions Leméac, 1976), 273.
36. Le Soleil, Nov. 6, 1957. Trudeau debated the question on October 10, 1958, on radio and argued that the grants were “against the constitution and the spirit of federalism.” TP, vol. 25, file 4.
37. They were later published as Pierre Trudeau, Approaches to Politics (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970).
38. Ibid.; “Faut-il assassiner le tyran?” Vrai, March 15, 1958; and Hébert’s defence in Vrai, March 22, 1958.
39. The correspondence with Wade began on November 3, 1955, and included letters of October 5, 1956, and October 30, 1956. The University of Toronto Quarterly letter was written on March 12, 1957, and Trudeau’s draft reply was April 17, 1957. He wrote on January 13, 1958, to offer the article to the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, TP, vol. 24, file 1. See Trudeau, “Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec,” CJEPS 23 (Aug. 1958): 297–311, republished in Pierre Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians (Toronto: Macmillan, 1968), 103–23. See also John Dales to Trudeau, Feb. 11, 1958, TP, vol. 22, file 1.
40. John Stevenson to Trudeau, Oct. 15, 1958, TP, vol. 53, file 13. The quotation is from Trudeau, “Some Obstacles,” 106–7.
41. Clippings and the notification of the prize from James Talman, a historian at the University of Western Ontario, are found in TP, vol. 22, file 1. Le Devoir did report it. Flavien Laplante to Trudeau, Dec. 26, 1959, vol. 13, file 8.
42. Vrai, June 14, 1958.
43. The Lesage speech with Trudeau’s annotations is found in TP, vol. 22, file 38.
44. Pelletier, Years of Impatience, 168.
45. Madeleine Gobeil to Trudeau, April 7, 1957, TP, vol. 47, file 32.
46. Le Petit Journal, May 29, 1955.
47. Trudeau, “Un manifeste démocratique,” Cité libre, Oct. 1958, 1–31; and Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 254.
48. “Rapport d’un assemblée de Cité Libre tenue le 11 novembre 1958,” and “Rapport d’une assemblée de Cité Libre tenue le 6 décembre 1958,” TP, vol. 21, file 41. On the university protest, see Jacques Hébert, Duplessis Non Merci! (Montreal: Les Éditions du Boréal, 2000), ch. 7.