Foreign policy advice in the Prime Minister’s Office: Mackenzie King to Brian Mulroney
| Author | Penny Bryden |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702020976614 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
Foreign policy advice
in the Prime Minister’s
Office: Mackenzie King
to Brian Mulroney
Penny Bryden
Department of History, University of Victoria, Victoria,
BC, Canada
Abstract
The Department of External Affairs (DEA) has always been anomalous—more closely
associated with the prime minister than any other department, yet also more indepen-
dent from cabinet in its necessarily far-flung structure than any other department. The
unique position of the DEA has meant that its influence has been closely tied to changes
in the structure of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). This article examines the ways
that the advisory capacity of the DEA has gradually been eroded, while the foreign
policy advice from the PMO has concomitantly increased, in the period between the
1930s and the 1990s.
Keywords
Foreign policy advice, Prime Minister’s Office, prime ministers, Department of External
Affairs, Greg Donaghy
When Prime Minister Mackenzie King invited O.D. Skelton to lunch at Kingsmere
on “a beautiful bright clear day” in June 1927, he perhaps had more than just
departmental business in mind. King had been entertaining Burgon Bickersteth for
the weekend in an effort to convince the Warden of Hart House to leave his post
Corresponding author:
Penny Bryden, Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W
2W2, Canada.
Email: pbryden@uvic.ca
International Journal
2020, Vol. 75(4) 516–528
!The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702020976614
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