Remembering the Kennedy-Diefenbaker dispute

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/01/2025 (270 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Why should anyone be surprised? Incoming U.S. president Donald Trump says it was his actions that actually precipitated the political demise of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Right…

Not surprisingly, his right-hand man — Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and X – is not far behind him in taking some credit for Trudeau’s eventual departure. It is worth recalling that Musk’s endorsement may have boosted the electoral fortunes of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party before the country’s February 2025 national elections.

I’m confident, though, that neither Musk’s nor Trump’s social media interventions had anything to do with Trudeau’s resignation. But in another attempt to insinuate himself into domestic Canadian politics, Musk has been far more effusive recently in his praise of Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.

It is worth remembering that it wouldn’t be the first time that a U.S. president sought to put his fingers on the federal electoral scale in Canada. Indeed, John F. Kennedy sought to do just that against then-prime minister John Diefenbaker, whom he intensely disliked.

Since 1961, the Kennedy Administration had been strongly urging the Diefenbaker government to accept the nuclear warheads for its Bomarc-B surface-to-air missiles in Canada. Diefenbaker had been trying every diplomatic trick in the book to avoid giving the Americans a definitive answer on the warheads issue. In his heart-of-hearts, he basically sided with the Canadian people and opposed the acceptance of U.S. nuclear warheads.

With U.S. pressure and bilateral controversy growing, Diefenbaker rose in the House of Commons in early January 1963 and declared that there was no pressing need for Canada to accept the nuclear-armed Bomarcs. To no one’s surprise, the Kennedy White House and the U.S. State Department were stunned and outraged, and they both felt that they had been badly misled by Diefenbaker’s government.

The consensus thinking in Washington had also become hardened around the notion that Diefenbaker’s government had not been open to resolving serious defence-related issues through normal diplomatic channels. While the Americans were certainly cognizant of inciting harmful anti-American sentiments in Canada, they were convinced that they could no longer look the other way when it came to Diefenbaker’s repeated intransigence.

His distortion of the official U.S. record in his speech to Canada’s Parliament terribly upset the diplomatic apple cart. And his public disclosure of the secret negotiations with the U.S. over the warheads was just too much for the American side.

After a few days of debating various options, and knowing that they had to respond forcefully, U.S. officials decided on disseminating a State Department press release on Jan. 30, 1963.

But it wasn’t just any dry, boiler-plate press release from the U.S. government. It basically refuted what Diefenbaker had said in the House, sought to set the bilateral record straight, and, for all intents and purposes, amounted to calling Diefenbaker a bold-faced liar. Though Kennedy himself never held the pen when it came to drafting the official U.S. statement, he was aware of its general contents and thrust.

Needless to say, Diefenbaker was livid — as was the Canadian public at the time – and he accused the Americans of blatant interference in Canada’s internal affairs. But he was always conscious of U.S. efforts to treat Canada as a pawn or stooge, to undermine Canadian sovereignty and autonomy, and to turn every U.S. entreaty into a personal slight.

Within a few days, and reminiscent of what is happening today in Canada, all hell broke loose in Ottawa. However, there is no real sense from the extant literature (though there are differing academic views on this point) that the State Department, the Kennedy White House or even U.S. Embassy officials in Canada had planned on deliberately destabilizing the Diefenbaker government via a non-confidence vote. Nor could they have predicted that three of Diefenbaker’s top cabinet ministers, including Doug Harkness, minister of defence, would resign out of exasperation with the prime minister’s characteristic indecisiveness.

Some senior U.S. officials later boasted that it was the first time that Washington had actually toppled a foreign government with a simple press release. Others maintained that they had absolutely no idea what sort of a “bomb” they had detonated in official Ottawa.

There were real concerns in Washington, which Kennedy himself shared, that Diefenbaker would try to use American interference to boost his re-election campaign in the spring of 1963. But Diefenbaker wisely thought better of it.

In the end, he lost the 1963 federal election to Lester Pearson – though Pearson could only secure a minority government. But as Pearson would later confirm to Kennedy, it was U.S. efforts to interfere in Canadian politics that actually cost him a parliamentary majority.

So Trump should learn from the past and remember that the most calculated political attacks or endorsements can often backfire. Indeed, Poilievre can ill-afford to be perceived by Canadian voters as kowtowing — or selling out Canadian interests — to Trump and his trusty sidekick.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.