TRIUMPHANT TORY

Leader of Canada's Progressive Conservative [Tory'] Party, which last-week downed the powerful Liberals: JOHN GEORGE DIEFENBAKER.

Early Life: Born in Normanby Township, Ont., Sept. 18. 1895. His father (a schoolteacher, later a farmer and civil servant) and mother were third-generation Canadians. When he was eight, the family moved to wheat-growing, western Saskatchewan, where John Diefenbaker helped break the land, fought prairie fires. Took political-science and law degrees at the University of Saskatchewan.

Career: After a year as a soldier in World War I, he built up a reputation as a defender of the underdog. Changed his Liberal sympathies in 1925, ran first of four unsuccessful races as a Tory, losing in one to famed Liberal Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Elected in 1940, has since 1945 been the only Tory M.P. from the Liberal and socialist stronghold of Saskatchewan. Won leadership of the Conservatives in December 1956, succeeded ailing, standoffish George Drew.

Politics: Accents the "progressive" in his party's official name, Progressive Conservative. Backs flexible farm supports, social security and health measures, more federal aid to penniless Atlantic provinces. Shunning a doctrinaire stand, he goes along with Can ada's pattern of government competition with private enterprise in rails, airlines, hotels, TV. He is temperately critical of the U.S. cultural, economic and political "invasion" of Canada, favors "Canada first," closer ties to Britain. When Herbert Norman, Canadian Ambassador to Egypt, killed himself after a U.S. Senate subcommittee charged him with Communist sympathies in the '30s, Diefenbaker sided with the resulting wave of anti-U.S. feeling, simultaneously attacked the Liberal government for covering up the facts about Norman.

Personality & Private Life: Sternly handsome, imposing in stature, personally charming, with pale blue eyes and a face that cartoonists can catch in a few lines. Approaches tasks with fierce vigor. Wears country lawyer suits, prefers milk to martinis. After death of first wife in 1951. married attractive, capable Olive Freeman Palmer. A thunderous, fire-snorting orator, during the campaign he spoke with evangelistic fervor even when there were no more than a dozen people listening. Major interests: work, an occasional fishing trip alone, and the Baptist Church, in which he is a leading layman.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.