8 The Guardian, @harlottetown, Sat., Mar. 13, 1965.

THE UNHAPPY WARRIOR |

4

By PETER C. NEWMAN

As his Liberal government reels from mishap to misfor- tune, more and more Canadians are beginning ask: what's happened to Lester Pearson”

The curious gap between the Prime Minister's reputation and his performance has left many people concerned about his cap

to

acity to exercise political power and the nature of his ultimate coals

Less than a decade azo. Mike Pearson was hailed as the sav jour of a grateful world: after a

lifetime of uninterrupted cess, he became the first Cana dian to win the Nobel Peace Pryte, the greatest internation al honor of them al!

Yet 23 months after assuming his nation's highest office, Pear- son has become the unhappy warrior of Canadian politics

By the ordinary yardsticks of history it would be far too soon to attempt a serious assessment of his stewardship But so much has happened to him. to his gov- ernment and to the nation. in the crises of the past two years that it’s probably not unfais to ask—at least tentatively—where we have come with him and where we may be going

This series of 10 articles will attempt some provisiona) an- swers. It will try to-go some distance in mapping the comp- lexities and exploring the para- doxes of the unusual diplomat- politician who is Canada's 1|4th prime minister a man de- scribed by his friend, Bruce Hut- chison, as ‘the most solitary public person of his time.”

Pearson has. advocated and helped to bring about deep-run-

suc

ning political and social chang- ,

és that have affected us all. But the image of him imprinted on

the public mind remains vague™

and confusing. A 1964 Gallup

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\ Pearson's Capacity } Surprises Aides

poll showed that of the 93 per as Prime Minister may be that

cent of Canadians who said they for admired Pearson, some 4 per son Years

Canadians, the Pear- the period when he

many

cent couldn't think of a single made the largest impact on the

specific reason why PICTURE BLURRED

That the many biurred pic

tures the public has of

nationat-consciousness~ remaip that. simpler decade following 1947 when a bow-tied Mike Pear- the External

son transformed

Leste affairs portfolio into an interna-

Pearson don't add up to a strong jj5n3) command post which al-

amusingly de monstrated hy a minor incident that occurred during the Queen's visit to Prince Edward Island last fall Pearson and his including Jim Coutts, his ap- pointments secretary, were stay- ing overnight at the official res- idence of the province's Lieut- enant-Governor in Oharlotte- town. Back in Ottawa, an aide got his time zones mixed up and placed a cal! to Coutts that rang in’ Charlottetown long before breakfast A local waiter. brought in to act as a manser- vant for the occasion, put down the phone and went shake Pearson awake demanding

Are vou Mr. Coutts”

When he heard the Prime Min- ister's emphatically negative reply, the man, still unaware of who he was addressing, persist- ed: ‘Well, look, you've got to help me find him. This 1s impor- tant.”’

mpression was

entourage,

to

The anecdote may reflect as much on the lack of formality among Charlottetown waiters as on the’ vagueness of Pear- son's public image. but still, it's not an incident that could com ceivably have involved a strong public personality like John Diefenbaker or Mackenzie King. It's equally unimaginable that either _ Diefenbaker or King would have reacted with the self - deprecating good humor Pearson displayed when he re- counted this story).

Part of the reason for his tn- ability to project a strong image

lowed him to bring more honour to his country than any living Canadian

MANY HONORS

In the loosely organized post- Pearson's flair for diplomacy earned him nearly every honour the in- ternational community can be stow: the presidency of the Uni- ted Nations’ the council chair- manship of NATO, 24 honourary degrees. two medals and the Nobel Peace Prize. Walter Lipp man wrote that Pearson ‘‘incar- nates the hope of building a true community of the Atlantic peo- ples’. while Dr. Gunnar Jahn, chairman of the Nobel prize committee, declared that at the time of Suez, Pearson had ‘‘sav- ed the world

Even f most Canadians weren't aware of exactly what Pearson was doing in that gold- en period between 1948 and 1957

war world

constructive

Canada shared in his interna- tional triumphs and all of us could fee] a part of his crusade for world order

Naturally enough, in electing Pearson as Prime Minister, Can adians felt that he would be able to transfer his towering in- ternational reputation to domes- tie politics. In many ways his time in office has been a period of national renovation. But not even the-most partisan Liberal can pretend that Pearson has delivered what was advertised: an immensely capable govern- ment which had the answers to the nation's many dilemmas

Instead of displaying the sup- erhuman competence that mark- ed his behaviour during inter- national crises, he's shown a discouraging tendency as Prime Minister to act like an admirab- le but all too fallible human be- ing

The office he holds demands ef its occupant some _ special quality— some dimension of un- realized potential which main- tains a distance between the prime minister and the rest of us. Mackenzie King’s occult sec- retiveness and John Diefenbak- ers s’elf-imposed sense of des- tiny fitted the pattern perfectly.

~ ORDINARY MAN

But Lester Pearson is differ-

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ent. Untike most of his 13 pred- ecessors, he hasn't been notably enlarged by his office. He re- mains that extraordinary ordin- ary man. He inspires “familiar- ity without the undercurrent of excitement Canadians yearn for in their leaders.

The alchemy of power has failed to transform his charact- er. Lester Pearson is probably the first man to serve as Prime Minister of Canada whose pub- Hic-and-private personalities are one and the same.

Yet Canadian history seems to

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3 Don’t Wait For Spring ;

prime minister's power depense lin, part on the

those personalities can he act in the terest without being by personal sentiment

In the current allegations of scandal involving his ministers and their assistants, Pearson has refused to abandon person- al friendships. This is certainly an admirable trait in an indivi- dual, but it’s at least question- able whether it's an equally ad- mirable trait in a prime minis-

Only then nation's. in- hampered

ter, or anyone else who aspires to high political office ‘Any profession! from the time he

enters the political arena, knows that if his actions prove embar- rassing, his party will ruthless- f¥ cut him loose,’ says one Ot- tawa politico. ‘That's part of the game. But Pearson sometim- es acts as if he was playing not politics but tiddledywinks.”’ The outraged innocence of Lib- eral ministers like Maurice La- montagne, who justified ws pe- culiar ‘“‘pay- if- you-feel- like-it’’ furniture deal by pleading nai- vete, may not sound credible to most Canadians. But political naivete 4s a quality that Pear- son can believe in, since he him-

self has been its frequent vie- tim CHARMED LIFE

Until he became Prime Min- ister, Pearson had never been roughed up, had never had cause for cynicism. In fact, he

had led something of a charm- ed life. Although he repeatedly volunteered for front line action, he survived World War I~ un- scathed. he was given his third university vear for his war ser- vice, he got a job from his uncle, wen a scholarship to, Oxford, went steadily and easily up the External) Affairs ladder in Ot- tawa. When he finally decided to enter politics in 1948, he was made a senior cabinet minister even before he became an MP and was handed such a safe Lib- eral seat ‘Algoma-East) that he's held it ever since with in- creasing majorities though he's one of only two MPs in Canada who don't bother to maintain residences in their home con- Stituencies

His painless progress from one success to another is re flected in Pearson's . approach to politics. He lacks that essen- “tral wariness, the sixth sense that power must be jealously guarded, which has prompted successful prime ministers to seek the point of balance on pol- itical issues, then to perch on it

until a national concensus has formed behind them. By the time they were finally moved

into action, the political hazards of their position had been min- imized

Pearson has reversed the pro- cess. He acts first and presum- es that public opinion will catch up

It's this tendency to attempt political high jumps without a running start that has caused the nation to stagger’from crisis to crisis under Pearson's stew- ardship. Although some notable achievements have been thrown off in the process, Pearson's technique has badly unsettled the national nerve.

The dramatic procession of events which culminated in the adoption of the Canadian flag provides a prime example of the Pearson ‘‘standing high- jump”) method of governing. When he abruptly in May of 1964, few Canadians were particularly concerned ‘about the flag issue. Seven months later, so much public pressure had been built up to re- solve the flag crisis that Pear- son's application of parliamen- tary closure produced only nom- inal resentment.

RISKS SMALL PART

But the fact that Canada’s flag is not the same design to lwhich the Prime Minister was originally committed also tells much about the Pearson ap- proach. He has a peculiar cap- acity to view events away from the vantage point of his own self-esteem so that he risks only a small part of himself on their outcome.

Although he holds what is, after all, the nation’s highest political office, he is not a man wholly committed to politics. “That's true,’ he told a friend who recently suggested this to him, ‘‘and it’s my - greatest strength. I've seen what a man totally immersed in politics can do to a country and nothing frightens me more. You must draw limits in your political commitment, otherwise you be- come uncivilized. But when a/! crisis develops, that's different. Then you can commit yourself totally to an issue. “This is my ideal: not to be involved with |

(Continued on page 13)

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