Review: In Defence of Canada
| Date | 01 March 1984 |
| Published date | 01 March 1984 |
| Author | David Cox |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070208403900110 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
217
IN
DEFENCE OF
CANADA
Indochina:
roots
of
complicity
James
Eayrs
Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
1983,
xiv,
34
8
pp,
$45.00
cloth,
$17.50
paper
In
this,
the fifth
volume
of
his saga
on
Canadian
defence
policy,
James
Eayrs
turns
from
his
central themes
of
military decision-
making
and
policy
to
Canada's
involvement
in
Indochina.
The
role
of
Canada
in
the
international
commissions
that
were
created
by
the
Geneva
Conference
of
1954
might
better
be
seen
as
an
exploration
of
diplomacy
and
its
political
underpinnings
rather
than
defence
in
any
strict
sense.
Moreover,
although
it
is
now
thirty
years
since
Canada's
delegation
in
Geneva
signalled Ottawa
that
Canada's
participation
was
requested
in
the
International
Commissions
for
Supervision
and
Control for
Laos,
Cambodia,
and
Vietnam, this
is
nevertheless
a
story
of
contemporary
diplomacy.
Some
of
the
major
figures
are
still
in
public
life;
where
they
are
not,
the
list
of
actors
-
Lester
Pearson,
Paul
Martin,
John
Holmes,
Arnold
Smith,
Arnold
Heeney,
Jules
Iger,
Escott
Reid,
etc,
etc
-
reads
like
a
roll
call
of
the
creators
of
modern
Canadian
diplomacy.
For
the
first
time,
then,
in
the
so-called
golden
years
of
Canadian
diplomacy,
we
have
a
detailed,
documented
narrative
of
their
part
in
that
most
traumatic
of
all
decolonization
struggles,
Vietnam.
For
many
years
in
Canada
the established
view
of
the govern-
ment's
role
in
the
control
commissions
was
that
of
the
long
suffering
peacekeeper,
striving against
all
the
odds
to
maintain
the
neutrality
of
the
international
presence
and
the
objectivity
of
its
reporting.
On
the
whole,
those
who
questioned
this
view
have
not made
a
great
impres-
sion.
Criticisms
that
Canada
supported
the
corrupt
r6gimes
of
the
south
have
been
largely polemical,
and
the
intermittent
accusations
that
Canada
colluded
with
the
military forces
of
the
United
States
and
South
Vietnam
have
not
led
to
any systematic
reassessment
of
the
Canadian
role.
On
these
issues
Professor
Eayrs
has
now
offered
us
apparently
irrefutable
evidence.
Much
of
it
is
disconcerting.
The
story
begins
and
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