by John English
37. In his analysis of Trudeaumania, Litt writes: “Those who supported Trudeau most strongly were the very people who were most immersed in mass media and popular culture and most aware of it…. Trudeau and the Trudeauphiles communed in their shared distrust of their means of communication with one another, even as they used it expertly to achieve their mutual goals.” “Trudeaumania,” 51.
CHAPTER TWO: NEW WINE IN NEW BOTTLES
1. Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World (Toronto: Random House, 2005), 351, 378. Fulford in National Post, Jan. 26, 2008. Fulford was comparing Trudeau to Barack Obama. Kurlansky wrongly claims that Trudeau was forty-six in 1968. The error endured.
2. For a good analysis, see Eric Koch, Inside Seven Days: The Show That Shook the Nation (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1986).
3. Paul Rutherford, When Television Was Young: Primetime Canada 1952–1967 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 430–33. These pages are the finest description of the impact of Trudeau’s effective use of television.
4. Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President 1968 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969); and George Radwanski, Trudeau (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), 115.
5. Pierre Trudeau, “Federalism, Nationalism, and Reason,” in Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians (1968; repr., Toronto: Macmillan, 1977), 203.
6. Albert Breton, Raymond Breton, Claude Bruneau, Yvon Gauthier, Marc Lalonde, Maurice Pinard, and Pierre Trudeau, “Pour une politique fonctionnelle,” Cité libre, May 1964, 11–17; “An Appeal for Realism in Politics,” Canadian Forum, May 1964, 29–33. The best description of the background is found in comments by Marc Lalonde in Robert Bothwell, Canada and Quebec: One Country, Two Histories, rev. ed. (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1998), 125. Cabinet discussions of April 17, 19, 20, and 22, 1968. RG2, PCO, Series A-5-a, vol. 6338, LAC; Montreal Gazette, April 23, 1968; Pierre Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1993), 93–98; and Paul Martin, So Many Worlds, vol. 2 of A Very Public Life (Toronto: Deneau, 1985), 634.
7. Peter C. Newman, The Distemper of Our Times: Canadian Politics in Transition, 1963–1968 (1968; repr., Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990), 109; interview with Marc Lalonde, Aug. 2007.
8. Cabinet Conclusions, http://www.collectionscanada.ca/db/gad/inv/-002i1e.htmRG2, PCO, Series A-5-a, vol. 6338, July 8, 1968, LAC.
9. Trudeau, Memoirs, 95–96. When I interviewed Lord Trend for a biography of Lester Pearson, he commented on how often he had met with Michael Pitfield, whom he described as keenly interested in government reform matters.
10. Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Power, Politics, and Provincialism: Canada since 1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 348–49; Turner quoted in Richard Gwyn, Northern Magus: Pierre Trudeau and Canadians (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980), 87; Radwanski, Trudeau, 345ff.; J.W. Pickersgill, Seeing Canada Whole: A Memoir (Markham, Ont.: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1994), 798; interviews with Allan MacEachen, Paul Martin, John Turner, J.W. Pickersgill (the author’s landlord during the early 1970s in Ottawa); and collective interviews conducted by Library and Archives Canada. Gordon Robertson’s comment and Trudeau’s comment about going overboard are found in Gordon Robertson, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 256. The fullest account of the attempt to use scientific approaches to government is found in Jason Churchill, “The Limits of Influence: The Club of Rome and Canada, 1968–1988” (PhD diss., University of Waterloo, 2005).
11. James Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 682.
12. Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008), 747–78. Maureen O’Neil made these comments in 2008 at her retirement dinner from the presidency of the International Development Research Centre, itself an institution that represented the innovative spirit of Ottawa in those years.
13. John Meisel, Working Papers on Canadian Politics, 2nd ed. (Montreal and London: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1975), 25.
14. Le Devoir, July 8, 1968.
15. Edith Iglauer, “Prime Minister/Premier Ministre,” New Yorker, July 5, 1969. The trip is described in Globe and Mail, July 20 and July 30, 1968. The latter has three excellent photographs of the trip. Years later, Iglauer published a delightful article recalling an informal dinner party she gave for Trudeau at her New York apartment, where he unexpectedly arrived with the glamorous Barbra Streisand on his arm. See http://www.geist.com/stories/prime-minister-accepts.
16. There is a good description of the northern trip in Martin Sullivan, Mandate ’68 (Toronto: Doubleday, 1968), 421–22. Cabinet discussions for July and August are in http://www.collectionscanada.ca/db/gad/inv/002i1e.htmRG2, PCO, Series A-5-a, vol. 6338, LAC.
17. A brilliant analysis of the recommendation’s novel and “academic” character was given by the distinguished Harvard tax economist Richard Musgrave. “The Carter Commission Report,” Canadian Journal of Economics/ Revue canadienne d’économique 1, no. 1, suppl. (Feb. 1968), 159–82.
18. There is an enormous literature on the subject of de Gaulle and Quebec. Eldon Black, a former Canadian diplomat, has written a scholarly study, Direct Intervention: Canada-France Relations 1967–1974 (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1996). A more controversial study based upon extensive research in French and Canadian archives is J.F. Bosher, The Gaullist Attack on Canada: 1967–1997 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2000). Bosher, a distinguished French historian, personally knew some of the “agents,” and this acquaintance intensified his anger at what he regards as outrageous interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation. Claude Morin, probably the principal agent of Quebec’s international policy, has written extensively on the subject. See especially L’Art de l’impossible: La diplomatie québécoise depuis 1960 (Montréal: Boréal, 1999). A useful summary of the relationship is found in Frédéric Bastien, Le Poids de la coopération: Le rapport France-Québec (Montréal: Québec Amérique, 2006). The quotation summarizing de Gaulle’s view of Trudeau is found in David Meren, “Les Sanglots longs de la violence de l’automne: French Diplomacy Reacts to the October Crisis,” The Canadian Historical Review 88 (Dec. 2007): 35. Meren’s footnotes offer a full bibliography on the subject.
19. 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, 1998), 151–53. Coutts expands on these views in an outstanding 2003 article on Canadian politics, which can be found at http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/p01103.htm#coutts. Conversation with Jim Coutts, Dec. 2008.
20. The existence of such a group was the source of lively debate among former ministers at the joint interview conducted under the auspices of Library and Archives Canada. The charge that such a group existed was made by Mitchell Sharp. André Ouellet angrily denied it. Other ministers commented, with the prevailing view being that such a “Quebec” group existed and was important in Cabinet operations.
21. Daniel Cappon, “Whom Should Trudeau Marry?” Chatelaine, July 1969, 22–23, 56.
22. Ian MacEwan, On Chesil Beach (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2007), 6; conversation with Carroll Guérin, Aug. 2007 and July 2009.
23. Ibid.; Jennifer Rae in Nancy Southam, ed., Pierre: Colleagues and Friends Talk about the Trudeau They Knew (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005), 242–43.
24. A recent unofficial biography has many details on Trudeau. Christopher Anderson, Barbra: The Way She Is (New York: William Morrow, 2006), 180, 191–95. Barbra Streisand wrote about their relationship in Southam, ed., Pierre, 244–45, and this is the source of the comment on their London meeting. Interview with Tim Porteous, Sept. 2007. Most of the information here derives from an interview with Ms. Streisand in July 2009.
25. Streisand interview, ibid; Anderson, Barbra, 192�
�93; and Streisand in Southam, ed., Pierre, 245. Interview with Marc Lalonde, Aug. 2007.
26. Anderson, Barbra, 193–95. Streisand to Trudeau, nd [April 1970], and Streisand to Trudeau, Oct. 19, 1970, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 53, file 15, LAC.
27. Margaret Trudeau, Beyond Reason (New York and London: Paddington Press, 1979), 13, 40–44, 48–49.
28. Ibid., 48; Ottawa Citizen, Dec. 23, 1969. I viewed the event on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/results?search=related&search_query=Lennon%200no%20Trudeau&v=bXXpiRmTz98.
29. John English, Citizen of the World (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2006), chaps. 5 and 6, cover Trudeau’s views. The notes for Couchiching are found in TP, MG 26 02, vol. 12, file 17, LAC.
30. Pierre Trudeau, “International Development as a Requisite for Peace,” External Affairs (June 1968): 248–49. The best account of the period informed by interviews and multinational research is Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007), chap. 15. Trudeau’s own account of his foreign policy is contained in Ivan Head and Pierre Trudeau, The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada’s Foreign Policy, 1968–1984 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995). The book is organized by themes, and Head appears to have been the author of most of the material. The standard account of Trudeau’s foreign policy is J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), a book that Trudeau and Head studiously ignore in their volume. There are many contemporary accounts of the foreign policy review, the best of which are Bruce Thordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy: A Study in Decision-Making (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1972) and Peter Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles: Foreign Policy in the Trudeau Era (London: Published for the Royal Institute of International Affairs by Oxford University Press, 1972, p.752). Mitchell Sharp, with the assistance of Robert Bothwell, wrote Which Reminds Me … : A Memoir (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994). Linda Freeman’s assessment of Trudeau can be found in her Ambiguous Champion: Canada and South Africa in the Trudeau and Mulroney Years (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 284–88. I have also benefited greatly from access to several unpublished works, including the official history of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the memoirs of Geoffrey Murray, who was active in the foreign policy review.
31. Ivan Head to Trudeau, March 5, 1968, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 21, file 17, LAC.
32. Cadieux’s comments on Trudeau and External Affairs: interview with Michel Gauvin, April 1994. I also met several times with Marcel Cadieux during the 1980s, and he expressed these same opinions to me at the time. Quotation from Marcel Cadieux: Memorandum, June 5, 1968, CP, MG 31, E31, vol. 4, LAC. Bosher discusses Cadieux’s relationship with Pearson and Trudeau in Bosher, Gaullist Attack, 66–97. On the department’s weaknesses, see Gilles Lalonde, The Department of External Affairs and Biculturalism, vol. 3 of Studies of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1968). Coutts made the comment about Head in a conversation, Dec. 2007. Much of this discussion is drawn from my paper “Two Heads Are Better Than One,” which I presented at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dec. 18, 2008.
33. Charles Ritchie, Storm Signals: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1962–1971 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1983), 113–14.
34. Escott Reid to Trudeau, March 28, 1968, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 21, file 17, LAC. David Golden wrote a note in this same file that proposes an even more abrupt withdrawal of Canadian forces from NATO.
35. Mr. Gotlieb made these arguments in an interestingly titled document, “The Style of Canadian Diplomacy,” that he wrote for Trudeau in 1968. He also kindly provided me with some of the documents he wrote for Trudeau.
36. Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion, 288–90; “Meeting in Room 340S, Dec. 9th,” Dec. 13, 1969, MSP, MG 35 B61, vol. 3, LAC; Geoffrey Murray, “The Foreign Policy Review Process, 1967–1972” (in my possession from Mr. Murray); Cadieux Diary, Dec. 1968–March 1969, CP, MG 31 E31, vol. 5, LAC; and Head and Trudeau, Canadian Way, 66–69.
37. Cabinet Conclusions, RG2, PCO, Series A-5-a, vol. 6340, April 17, 1969, LAC; Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion, 289, on the reactions, including the advice to Kissinger to take it easy on the Canadians; Bosher, Gaullist Attack, 97; and Granatstein and Bothwell, Pirouette, 28.
38. Head and Trudeau, Canadian Way, 68–69.
39. Granatstein in Canadian Annual Review for 1968, 261ff. The summary of press reports is excellent. Canada, House of Commons Debates (10 Sept. 1968); Walter Stewart, Shrug: Trudeau in Power (Toronto: New Press, 1971), 110; Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion, 307. Note that Stewart and Granatstein have slightly different wordings for the comment made to the CBC interviewer, with Stewart claiming that Trudeau said, “peculiar questions.”
40. Trudeau, Memoirs, 346, 348; Freeman, Ambiguous Champion; conversation with Robert Fowler, Feb. 2008; and Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion, 304ff.
41. Freeman, Ambiguous Champion, 285. In interviews Mr. Gotlieb has emphasized the “realist” approach of the early Trudeau, and his memoranda for Trudeau confirm that he urged such an approach.
42. Executive Briefing, “Arrival Ceremony for the Right Honorable The Prime Minister of Canada and Mrs. Pierre Elliott Trudeau,” with attached briefing on Head probably produced in 1975. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, White House Central File, CO 28, 1/20/77-2/28/77.
43. Trudeau, Memoirs, 202; Macdonald to Sharp, RG 25, vol. 8837, file 20-1-2STAFEUR 8, LAC; and Foreign Policy for Canadians (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1970). The department history is found at http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/hist/canada9-en.asp.
44. Sharp, Which Reminds Me, 202–4; the newspaper comment occurred in a television interview and is quoted in Stewart, Shrug, 107–8.
45. Time, Cdn. ed., Jan. 24, 1969, 22; Globe and Mail, Jan. 6, 1969.
46. Tony Benn, The Benn Diaries 1940–1990, ed. Ruth Winstone (London: Arrow, 1996), 211. The Rittinghausen correspondence and clippings are found in TP, MG 26 020, vol. 10, file 54, LAC. Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 17, 1969.
47. Le Devoir, Jan.15, 1969; and Ritchie, Storm Signals, 124. Canadian opinions of Trudeau’s behaviours, which seem evenly divided, were recorded and preserved by the CBC at http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/01/16/. One of the students present at the Westminster meeting was John MacNaughton, the son of an Ontario Progressive Conservative minister. He confirms the strong impression Trudeau made on the gathering.
48. See assessments in Montreal Star, Jan. 14, 1969; Ottawa Citizen, Dec. 23, 1969; and Ritchie, Storm Signals, 139 (entry of Dec. 11, 1969).
49. Allan Gotlieb, “Some Reflections on Canadian Foreign Policy,” nd [1968], given to me by Mr. Gotlieb. Thomas Axworthy, “‘To Stand Not So High Perhaps but Always Alone”: The Foreign Policy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau,” in Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, ed. Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Markham, Ont.: Viking, 1990), 19. Axworthy writes: “Any sensible foreign policy contains elements of both power and principle. Idealism without an accurate assessment of the underlying realities of power becomes mere preaching.”
CHAPTER THREE: THE OCTOBER CRISIS
1. Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007), 300–301; and Peter C. Newman, Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales of People, Passion, and Power (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2004), 341–42.
2. Le Devoir, Feb. 15, 1969; Globe and Mail, Feb. 17, 1969.
3. On the Johnsons, see Benoît Gignac, Le Destin Johnson: Une famille, trois premiers ministres (Montréal: Stanké, 2007), 103. The most personal attack by Vadeboncoeur on Trudeau is found in André Potvin, Michel Letourneux, and Robert Smith, L’Anti-Trudeau: Choix de textes (Montréal: Éditions Parti-pris, 1972), 75–79, which also includes several critical articles by Trudeau’s former colleagues, sociologists Fernand Dumont and Marcel Rioux. Jacques Parizeau’s decision to join the Parti Québécois is co
vered well in Pierre Duchesne, Le Croisé, vol. 1 of Jacques Parizeau: Biographie 1930–1970 (Montréal: Québec-Amérique, 2001), 473ff. The English-Canadian historian of the left Ian McKay writes: “Not just a thriving left wing press but also a mass media alive with neo-Marxist and indépendantiste ideas testified to a socialist cultural ferment [in Quebec] unparalleled in Canadian left history except by the radical labour upsurge of 1917–22.” Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada’s Left History (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005), 187.
4. Gouin to Trudeau, nd [1969]. TP, MG 26 01, vol. 48, file 1, LAC.
5. Winnipeg Free Press, June 11, 1969; Edmonton Journal, July 18, 1969; and Irving, quoted in Nancy Southam, ed., Pierre: Colleagues and Friends Talk about the Trudeau They Knew (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005), 110–11.
6. The break with Hertel is discussed in detail in the first volume of this biography, 388–90. Trudeau’s description of the reasons why he asked the police to investigate is contained in his interview with Jean Lépine, April 20, 1992. TP, MG 26 03, vol. 23, file 5, LAC. Trudeau also decided to gain information on the financing of separatism and separatist influence in the public service: see Pierre Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1993), 130–31. Two major reports later dealt with the RCMP’s activities in Quebec related to alleged threats of violence. The Lévesque government appointed Jean-François Duchaîne, whose commission produced his Rapport sur les événements d’octobre 1970 (Québec: Ministry of Justice, 1981), and the Trudeau government appointed D.C. McDonald, who issued a report entitled Certain R.C.M.P. Activities and the Question of Governmental Knowledge, Third Report of the Commission of Inquiry concerning Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 1981 (Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing Centre, 1981).
7. On the continuing French interest, see David Meren, “Les Sanglots longs de la violence de l’automne: French Diplomacy Reacts to the October Crisis,” The Canadian Historical Review (Dec. 2007): 625–27. Polls are listed in John Saywell, Quebec 70: A Documentary Narrative (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 10–12.