Lester B. Pearson by Andrew Cohen

Author:Andrew Cohen [Cohen, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Canada, Presidents & Heads of State, Post-Confederation (1867-), History
ISBN: 9780670067381
Google: A_YMAQAAMAAJ
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-10-15T21:18:10+00:00

WHEN PEARSON BECAME secretary of state for external affairs on September 10, 1948, six weeks before his election to Parliament, he inherited a foreign service that was much bigger than the one he had entered twenty years earlier. In 1939, the department had just six legations employing sixteen officers; in 1948, there were forty-four legations (including the United Nations in New York and Geneva) employing some 216 officers, with many more staff at home. The growth of the department reflected a growth of responsibility. This was no longer a diffident diplomacy for a country content to say nothing; it was a diplomatic service for a country that wanted to show up and speak up. At a time the government was cutting back other departments, External Affairs was expanding, a commitment that seems to be forgotten today as the department again absorbs budget cuts in a country throwing off huge annual surpluses. “This country’s foreign policy is largely Pearson-inspired,” remarked the Montreal Standard on November 13, 1948. That was largely true. Now the department would be Pearson-presided. He was choreographer, director, and producer.

For the next nine years, until the Liberals lost power in 1957, this would be Pearson’s show. So significant was his contribution in this decade that even had he never become prime minister, his life would still have been considered an unquestionable success. Diplomacy would have been his monument. It was here, in the 1950s, that his star shone brightest. As chair of international bodies, including president of the UN General Assembly in 1952–53, he was swept into the eddies and whirlpools of international crises and asked to find a way out. It was here, in one maelstrom after another, that he developed what became known as Pearsonian Diplomacy.

Distilling events, we see how Pearson used agility, imagination, patience, and empathy—all qualities of the diplomat that he had in great supply—to cool tensions and advance peace. As the world split between East and West, as decolonization dismantled old empires and the United States displaced Great Britain, there was a call for cool heads and experienced hands. Pearson had both. In the establishment of NATO, he ensured that Canada was the first, or among the first, to give voice to a regional pact. When the twelve member states gathered in Washington to sign the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, they established an alliance that would help keep the peace in a divided Europe during the Cold War. NATO would be among many roles Canada had in a starring season on the world stage, as the country contributed in big ways and small to the world’s new institutional architecture.

The British Commonwealth of Nations, which grew out of the British Empire, twice engaged the attentions of Pearson early in his tenure as minister. The first time was in 1949, when India, having won its independence two years earlier, decided to become a republic. The question was whether, no longer having any link to the monarchy, India could remain in the Commonwealth. Australia and New Zealand balked; Canada sought a compromise.

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