Dealing with Diefenbaker
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070201106600403 |
| Author | Asa McKercher |
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Coming Attractions |
| International Journal | Autumn 2011 | 1043 |
A former archival assistant at Library and Archives Canada, Asa McKercher is a PhD
candidate in history at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University.
Asa McKercher
Dealing with
Diefenbaker
Canada-US relations in 1958
Analyzing the results of the 1963 Canadian federal election, which saw
the Liberal party victorious after six years of Progressive Conservative
rule, American Ambassador Walton Butterworth predicted that Canada
would henceforth “be more stable, responsible, sophisticated and generally
cooperative than at any time since 1958.” That Butterworth would single
out that year as being of such importance is interesting but not a surprise.
Although Tory leader John Diefenbaker became Canadian prime minister
as head of a minority government in 1957, it was not until a snap election
in March 1958 that he won a resounding majority of seats in the house
of commons, the most to that point in Canada’s history. A former lawyer
and long-serving member of parliament, Diefenbaker was a fiery populist
who rose to power on a growing tide of nationalism—some would call it
anti-Americanism—that was coming to prominence in Canada thanks
to uneasiness among Canadians over the economic ties between their
country and the behemoth to the south. That Diefenbaker was a populist
and a nationalist is no secret. His clashes with John Kennedy, American
president from 1961 to 1963, are well known and have been the subject of
much academic and popular history. Less well known, and examined, is how
COMING ATTRACTIONS
| 1044 | Autumn 2011 | International Journal |
| Asa McKercher |
Canada-US relations played out during the years 1957 to 1961 when Dwight
Eisenhower was the American president.1
Of the Diefenbaker-Eisenhower years, as Butterworth observed, 1958
served as an important benchmark, because, to many observers, it was
clear that at this point something was rotten with the state of the Canadian-
American relationship. Nationalism in Canada had come to the fore, the
United States was subjected to frequent criticism from north of the border,
and with a parliamentary majority Diefenbaker seemed poised to enact
nationalist legislation, particularly in economics. In the late 1950s, a host
of troublesome economic issues divided the two countries: Canadian trade
with China, of which Washington disapproved; high levels of American
investment in Canada, of which Ottawa was wary; the disposal of surplus
US agricultural goods, which cornered Canada out of the market; and the
imbalance in Canadian-American trade, which favoured the United States.
These problems fuelled nationalist anger and contributed to Conservative
electability. So throughout 1958 American diplomats, government officials,
and legislators sought ways of dealing with Diefenbaker. Examining this
relative high point of interest in how Canada-US relations functioned, this
article traces reactions in Canada and the United States to Diefenbaker’s
electoral victories and nationalism, including American efforts to highlight
and mitigate sources of Canadian discontent. Ultimately, these steps, which
were largely applauded by Canadians, did little to stem the rise of Canadian
nationalism, a force that loomed over bilateral relations throughout the
following decades.
REDISCOVERING HISTORY
Diefenbaker’s election victory in 1957 jolted Livingston Merchant, the
American ambassador in Ottawa. Having been in the Canadian capital for
a year, Merchant sensed that with the arrival of a Tory premier his position
was going to become more stressful; he told the State Department that there
1 Ottawa to State, no. 1313, 11 April 1963, John F. Kennedy library, national security
files, box 18, file Canada, general, 4/11/63-5/3/63. See Knowlton Nash, Kennedy and
Diefenbaker: Fear and Loathing Across the Undefended Border (Toronto: McClelland &
Stewart, 1990); Lawrence Martin, The President and the Prime Ministers: Washington
and Ottawa Face to Face (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1982); and J.L. Granatstein,
“When push came to shove: Canada and the United States,” in Thomas G. Paterson,
ed. Kennedy’s Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 86-104. No comparable study of the Diefenbaker-Eisenhower
years exists.
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