![Trudeau’s World Trudeau’s World](/assets/aff300b7/9780774836395fc-72168-510x590.jpg)
Trudeau’s World
Insiders Reflect on Foreign Policy, Trade, and Defence, 1968-84
Pierre Trudeau and most of his contemporaries at home and abroad are now dead. This book offers critical reflections on Canadian foreign, trade, and defence policies from interviews with most of the key policy makers, diplomats, and military officers in the Trudeau government and of that era.
Conducted more than three decades ago, the interviews are informative and revealingly frank. There is much on the enormous difficulties in dealing with the United States, Europe, NATO, the Soviet Union, and Communist China in the era dominated by the Cold War. There are also varied personal insights into Trudeau himself, including a lengthy conversation with the authors. That Trudeau was a man of great “esprit,” who seemed destined to change Canadian policy in a dramatic fashion, is commonly voiced throughout the interviews. But he was also a man who embodied contradiction and, over time as his interests fluctuated, many of his foreign policies reverted towards the norm. In the end, patriating the Constitution from the United Kingdom, covered in detail here, remains his legacy in a way that his foreign and defence policies do not.
A unique resource, Trudeau’s World adds immeasurably to our understanding of the Trudeau era. It also has much to tell us about Canada and the world from 1968 to 1984.
This book is for scholars interested in Canadian politics and foreign affairs in the Trudeau period and in the Cold War; Canadian politicians; academics and politicians from other countries curious about prominent figures from their own country who are interviewed; amateur political junkies of all kinds; and people working in diplomatic circles and foreign affairs.
This monograph will be well-received by scholars and graduate students alike in history and political science. It will also be a useful source for undergraduate students in Canadian foreign policy courses. The interviews fuse together large themes in the history of Canadian international affairs while they also remind us that their work stands the test of time.
Trudeau's World does three things very well: 1) It examines the complex and multi-layered workings of the government; 2) it focuses on and attempts to give clarity to several issues of the period that had foreign policy or military dimensions; and 3) it provides insider glimpses of that attractive but inscrutable figure, Trudeau... The book's strength comes from the interviews with people who worked with [Trudeau].
Readers can be thankful for the efforts of Bothwell and Granatstein. The editors devoted substantial time, energy, and resources to organize and interview such a large and important group of policymakers, diplomats, and military officials connected with the Trudeau government... Trudeau's World is a model oral history project that will surely serve as a valuable resource for students and scholars of Canadian policy during the post-1968 Cold War era.
Trudeau’s World is a magnificent trove of information and insights about Pierre Trudeau and his times. Two outstanding historians show the value of their craft as they extract invaluable nuggets from their sources and cause the interviewees to reveal more than they had ever intended. An essential book for all scholars and students of post-1968 Canada.
The insider interviews conducted by Robert Bothwell and J.L. Granatstein for their 1990 book on Pierre Trudeau and Canadian foreign policy were always what made Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy such an indispensable source on that era. Now, thirty years on, we have a curated collection of those interviews. Engagingly scripted and carefully placed in context, these interviews are a natural companion to Pirouette. But Trudeau’s World also stands on its own as a fascinating and compelling window into Canada — and the world — between 1968 and 1984.
Robert Bothwell is a professor of history at the University of Toronto. He was the director of the International Relations Program there from 1995 to 2011. He is a noted and much-published specialist in Canadian political and foreign policy history. He is the author of Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945-84.
J.L. Granatstein is a Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus at York University. He was director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum and has served on government commissions. He has published extensively in Canadian military, political, and foreign policy history for more than fifty years. He is the author, most recently, of The Weight of Command: Voices of Canada’s Second World War Generals and Those Who Knew Them.
Introduction
I Advisers and Ministers
Hon. Marc Lalonde
Hon. R. Gordon Robertson
Hon. Michael Pitfield
Marshall Crowe
Hon. Gérard Pelletier
Ivan Head
Rt. Hon. Paul Martin
Hon. Mitchell Sharp
Reeves Haggan
Hon. Mark MacGuigan
II Deputy Ministers and Senior Diplomats
A. Edgar Ritchie
Allan Gotlieb
William Barton
Alan Beesley
John Halstead
Gordon Smith
Hon. Gordon Osbaldeston
de Montigny Marchand
Thomas Delworth
III The Defence and Foreign Policy Reviews and After
Hon. Mitchell Sharp
Hon. Léo Cadieux
Hon. Paul Hellyer
Hon. Donald Macdonald
Hon. Otto Lang
Ross Campbell
John F. Anderson
H. Basil Robinson
John Halstead
Michael Shenstone
Rear Admiral Robert Murdoch
Gordon Smith
Hon. Donald Macdonald
Sylvain Cloutier
General Jacques Dextraze
IV Canada and the United States
Ivan Head
Rufus Smith
A. Edgar Ritchie
Emerson Brown
Marshall Crowe
Peter Towe
Hon. Mitchell Sharp
Russell McKinney
Richard Post
Thomas Enders
Robert Duemling
Hon. Donald Macdonald
Allan Gotlieb
Edward Nef
Robert Hunter
Hon. Mark MacGuigan
Paul H. Robinson, Jr.
Richard Smith
V Canada and Europe
Hon. Gérard Pelletier
François Leduc
Max Yalden
Pierre-Marc Siraud
Hon. Léo Cadieux
John Halstead
Jacques Viot
Michel Dupuy
de Montigny Marchand
Jean Béliard
Drs. Heinz Schneppen and Rüdiger von Lukowitz
VI Canada and the Soviet Union
Rt. Hon. Paul Martin
Robert Ford
John Halstead
Peter Roberts
William Hooper
Peter Hancock
Vernon Turner
James (Si) Taylor
Geoffrey Pearson
VII Canada and the Far East
Rt. Hon. Paul Martin
Yao Guang
John Fraser
Maurice Copithorne
Yu Zhan
Yasuhiko Nara
Thomas Delworth
Richard Gorham
Michel Gauvin
VIII Canada, the United Kingdom, and Patriation
Rt. Hon. Paul Martin
Hon. Mark MacGuigan
Sir John Ford
Reeves Haggan
Peter Meekison
Daniel Gagnier
Thomas Wells
Rt. Hon. Lord Pym
Eddie Goldenberg
IX The Peace Initiative
Louis Delvoie
Peter Hancock
Thomas Delworth
de Montigny Marchand
Allan Gotlieb
Geoffrey Pearson
X The Trudeau Conversation
Rt. Hon. Pierre Trudeau
Conclusion; Index