Camelot and Canada : Canadian-American relations in the Kennedy era

313 Pages·2016·15.275 MB·English

by  McKercher, Asa

Camelot and Canada

Camelot and Canada
CANADIAN–A MERICAN RELATIONS
IN THE KENNEDY ERA
ASA McKERCHER
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: McKercher, Asa, author.
Title: Camelot and Canada : Canadian-American relations in the Kennedy era /
Asa McKercher.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016001625 (print) | LCCN 2016002585 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190605056 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190605063 (Updf) |
ISBN 9780190605070 (Epub)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—Canada. | Canada—Foreign
relations—United States. | United States—Foreign relations—1961–1963.
Classification: LCC E183.8.C2 M364 2016 (print) | LCC E183.8.C2 (ebook) |
DDC 327.7307109/046—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001625
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
This one’s for Dad.
Qualis pater, talis filius.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Good Fences: Canadian– American Relations from Eisenhower
to Kennedy, 1957– 1961 20
2. New Frontiers: Kennedy in Ottawa and the Cold War
in the Third World, 1961– 1962 54
3. Atomic Anxieties: Berlin, BOMARCS, and the Bomb,
1961– 1962 88
4. Grand Designs: Canada– US Economic Relations, Nationalism,
and Global Trade, 1961– 1962 117
5. Cuban Crises: Canada– US Relations and Cuba, 1962 148
6. Troubled Endings: From Diefenbaker to Pearson, 1963 176
Epilogue: The Spirit of Hyannis Port and the End of Camelot 207
Abbreviations 229
Notes 231
Bibliography 277
Index 291
vii

Acknowledgments
A book such as this one is hardly the result of individual effort alone. Thus,
first, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the John F. Kennedy
Library Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada. While doing fieldwork on other projects I also conducted research
for this book, and so I thank the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation and the
Dwight D. Eisenhower Foundation. As well, the expert help of Sharon Kelly and
Stephen Plotkin at the Kennedy Library, Sharlaine McCauley at the LBJ Library,
and Herb Pankowitz at the Eisenhower Library was irreplaceable. I thank also
the staff at the Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton, the Massachusetts
Historical Society, the US National Archives and Records Administration,
and the National Archives, Kew. My appreciation, too, to a host of friends and
former colleagues at Library and Archives Canada: Cathryn Walter, Kaelan
Murray, Daniel Lahaie, and Marie Blake.
Certainly, I owe many thanks to Susan Ferber at Oxford University Press.
A more enthusiastic and kind editor surely does not exist. Len Husband at
the University of Toronto Press is a close second, however. For the permis-
sion to quote from the papers of Livingston Merchant and of George Ball,
I thank the Princeton University Library, just as I thank the family of Richard
Wigglesworth for permission to quote from his papers. I am also thankful to
the International History Review, Cold War History, Canadian Historical Review,
and The Historian for allowing me to quote from portions of my own work that
appeared in their journals. Furthermore, I thank the reviewers of this manu-
script for their suggestions and a reviewer for Diplomatic History who rejected
an article- length version of this study on the grounds that it “would be more
fitting as a book”—a criticism I took to heart and one that underlines the im-
portance of that charming aphorism Illegitimi non carborundum.
I would be remiss if I did not thank Serge Durflinger both for his early sup-
port of this project and, more generally, my academic career. To Galen Perras
I owe a great debt, both professionally and personally. I also had the great
ix