Getting on With the Americans: Changing Canadian Perceptions of the United States, 1939–1945

Getting on With the Americans: Changing Canadian Perceptions of the United States, 1939-1945 J. L. GRANATSTEIN The Second World War is regularly trumpeted as the period in which Canada came of age. The nation contributed very substantially to the Allied victory in men, materiel, and foodstuffs, and as a result of this effort Canada emerged from the war as perhaps the leader of a group of middle powers. There was a very great distance between a middle and a great power, to be sure, but there can be no doubt that fortunate geographical circumstance and economic power had combined to give Canada a status far beyond anything she had enjoyed before. But in a sense this was artificial. During the war, as Professor C. P. Stacey has effectively demonstrated in his magisterial study of Canadian war policies, Canada was essentially unsuccessful in getting much of a share in Allied decision-making. 1 Power was concentrated in the hands of the 0 Big Three"' and there was no disposition to share it, no matter how valuable the contribution of Canada and other lesser states might be. This was no less true of the United States than of the Soviet Union or Great Britain,. and this came as something of a shock to Canadian statesmen . Relations with the Americans had become increasingly warm after 1935, and Prime Minister Mackenzie King for a time was fully convinced that his destiny was to serve as the linch-pin that would link Great Britain and her erstwhile colonies. With their heavy capital investment in Canada and a growing trade surplus to protect, American leaders reciprocated Mackenzie King's friendship,. and a special relationship seemed firmly established. The outbreak of war made this a valuable asset to Canada and to Britain, and King was exceedingly successful in the way he exploited his position in the period before Pearl Harbor. Perhaps he was too successful, for the war linked the two North American states into economic lockstep, while the military exigencies led to a large American presence in Canada. This state of affairs might have been marginally acceptable to Canada if there had been an accretion of influence in Washington to offset it, but if such an intangible as influence can be measured, after mid-1941 there was probably an absolute decline. The effects were serious to Canada, and they preoccupied planners more and THE CANADIAN REVIEW OF AMERICAN STUDIES VOL. V, NO. 1.1 SPRING 1974 more as the war progressed and planning for the peace began. For the ordinary-sized, relations with giants must always be careful, and it is this delicate condition that forms the subject of this essay. * * * The requirements of defence began to force closer cooperation on Canada and the United States even before war began in 1939. A first meeting between military staff officers of both countries, arranged in secret and with the direct authorization of President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister King, took place in January, 1938 and a second meeting followed eleven months later. 2 More important, since offered in a public statement, was Roosevelt's pledge in a speech at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in August, 1938: "The Dominion of Canada is part of the sisterhood of the British Empire. I give to you assurance that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire." 3 ...,What I said at Queen's University," Roosevelt wrote in a private letter to Lord Tweedsmuir , the Governor-General of Canada, "was so obvious that I cannot quite understand why some American President did not say it half a century ago."4 The importance of the American pledge became evident after September , 1939. The war was supposed to be one of 0 limited liability" for Canada, one that could be won without huge expenditures of men or money. The British and French shared similar views, too, and the Allied leaders and press talked optimistically of the blockade that would force Germany to its knees. The dreams of easy victory, however, dissolved into the reality of May and June, 1940. Suddenly Britain found herself in danger of...