Documents on Canadian External Relations, vol. 23 : 1956-1957, Part 2 (review)

This volume of the DCER is the second of two collections of documents on Canada's foreign policy and international relations in the last eighteen months of the St Laurent Liberal government, from January 1956 until its defeat by the John Diefenbaker-led Conservative Party in the general election of June 1957. Whereas the first focused on the Suez Crisis and developments in the United Nations, nato, and the Commonwealth, this volume contains chapters on Canada's relations with the United States, Western Europe, the Far East, Latin America, and North Africa and on Canadian policy towards issues of atomic energy and international economic relations. Ably compiled by Greg Donaghy of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's Historical Section, these documents compellingly depict the triumphs and tribulations of Canadian foreign relations in the volatile international environment of the mid to late 1950s.

Canadian-American relations dominate this volume and, to the reader in the early years of the twenty-first century, the issues addressed seem strikingly familiar. In 1956-57 external threats compelled the Canadian government to debate the merits of joining with the United States in an integrated air defence system for North America. At the same time, many Canadian officials worried about the effect of such integration on Canada's independence, and the suicide of Canadian diplomat Herbert Norman, suspected of subversion by a us Senate subcommittee, renewed concerns in Canada about the over-zealousness of the American government's crusade against its enemies at home and abroad. Despite the increasing integration of the Canadian and American economies, protectionism and contentious trade disputes characterized Canadian-American trade relations with respect to wheat, oil, lead, zinc, and Canadian magazines, for example, while the negotiations over the joint construction of the St Lawrence Seaway were far from easy. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, the documents on the negotiations regarding the development of the Columbia River system demonstrate that the relationship between Canada and the United States was fundamentally sound, with the two governments able to find constructive ways to resolve important bilateral issues such as the sharing of the continent's resources.

Elsewhere in the world, Canada faced similar opportunities and challenges. The slight easing of tensions with the Soviet Union in the years after the death of Joseph Stalin raised the prospect that Canada could play a more direct and forceful role in encouraging the independence of the communist states of Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union. While the Canadian government did help arrange the return of the Polish art treasures to Poland and provided much needed financial credits to the Polish government, however, in the midst of the Suez Crisis it only feebly protested the Soviet suppression of the nationalist uprising in Hungary and was equally hesitant to welcome any of the Hungarian refugees who fled the Soviet invasion of their country. Similarly, while the Canadian government hoped to establish beneficial relations with newly independent countries in the Third World, its attempts to do so with Tunisia and Morocco were hampered by France's desire to maintain its predominance in French North Africa. In Indochina, Canada's peacekeeping efforts through the International Commissions for Supervision and Control in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam helped stabilize a wartorn region, but Canadian diplomats found working with the Polish and Indian delegations and North Vietnam's constant efforts to deceive the commission for Vietnam increasingly frustrating.

Together, these documents reveal that even during the golden age of Canadian diplomacy, with Canada and its officials at the peak of their international reputation and influence, Canadian foreign policy was severely constrained by the parameters of Canada's world view, the exigencies of its relations with its friends and allies, and its own geopolitical limits. Nonetheless, the documents also reveal that the Canadian...