Storm over Diefenbaker

The bestselling book in Canada last week was a work of harsh political criticism -- Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years. It deals with John G. Diefenbaker, the controversial Conservative who held power from 1957 until he was toppled last April by Lester Pearson's Liberals. The first edition of 8,500 was sold out in five days; by Christmas the publishers expect a sale of 25,000 copies, which is brisk demand in a country of 19 million.

"Backwoods Barrister." Author Peter C. Newman, 34, national affairs editor of Maclean's magazine, is an Austrian-born Canadian who first regarded Diefenbaker with great admiration. He now sees the ex-Prime Minister as a messianic orator who in office "turned out to be not a spiritual leader at all, but a renegade. He interpreted the people's splendid acclaim of him as adequate proof of his greatness." Diefenbaker's administrative skills were those "of a backwoods barrister," says Newman, describing weeks of fran tic search by Diefenbaker's staff for a letter from President Eisenhower -- a hunt that ended when Diefenbaker found the letter under his own bed. In Cabinet meetings, says Newman, Diefenbaker acted the tyrant, treating his colleagues like a "delinquent scout troop," refusing to allow smoking and demanding unanimity on all questions.

At the same time, "he seemed temperamentally incapable of assuming the blame for mistakes himself."

For the U.S., Diefenbaker had only distrust. He privately called President Kennedy "that young fool," says Newman, and when Kennedy made a state visit to Ottawa in 1961, the welcome was chilly. At a breakfast meeting, Kennedy showed Diefenbaker a five-item U.S. "working paper" for the talks (samples: inviting Canadian support for the Alliance for Progress, more Canadian backing for foreign aid). Diefenbaker neatly wrote "no" beside each item. Later Kennedy misplaced the paper. Diefenbaker found and kept it.

One of the intriguing small flurries of the 1962 Canadian election was the report that the memo contained an additional notation in Kennedy's writing:

"What do we do with the now?"

(Some storytellers filled in the blank with s.o.b.). Newman says that Diefenbaker threatened to make the paper public to ensure his re-election on an anti-U.S. issue but changed his mind after U.S. Ambassador Livingston Merchant informed him that all further dealings between the two chiefs of state would then become impossible.

"Nest of Traitors." Diefenbaker survived the 1962 election with a minority government, but relations with the U.S. steadily worsened when he refused to keep his nuclear-defense commitments. At last, just before the 1963 elections, Diefenbaker's Cabinet revolted.

As Newman reports the scene, Diefenbaker raged at this "nest of traitors," pounded the table and demanded that all his supporters stand up. When nine ministers remained seated, he was stunned. Then he turned away muttering, "I resign."

Diefenbaker quickly recovered his fighting spirit and stayed on to contest the 1963 elections--in which, says Newman, Kennedy unofficially lent the anti-Diefenbaker Liberals the services of Political Pollster Lou Harris, whose studies of Canadian voting behavior proved invaluable to Pearson.

Where did Newman get his facts? Mostly, he says, from long interviews with Conservatives who agreed that the record was worth publishing while it was still fresh. As for Diefenbaker, he said he never finished reading the book: "In the first eight pages I found--I think it was--16 mistakes."

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