Bad Neighbor Policy

In little over a month Canadian voters will have to decide whether to retain Conservative John Diefenbaker as Prime Minister or to replace him with Liberal Lester Pearson. Diefenbaker fought his last election on a platform objecting to what he considered excessive United States influence in Canadian affairs, and particularly to the high volume of American investment in Canadian industry. His original platform did not denounce continued co-operation with the United States in matters of defense. But the bullying tone of a recent United States diplomatic note, which insisted that Canada accept nuclear warheads for its Bomarc missiles, has joined two problems of excessive U.S. influence and defense co-operation. As a result, the April general election will be a crucial test of American prestige in Canada.

The United States has helped create this situation itself. The text of the note which Diefenbaker objected to so violently was approved by Special Presidential Assistant MacGeorge Bundy, rather than by Secretary Rusk. Bundy does not have a reputation for stupidity, irresponsibility, or extremely poor judgement: one suspects that the note was purposely made offensive in order to force Diefenbaker into an explicit refusal to accept the American weapons.

In any event, the American note linked the whole of Diefenbaker's anti-American campaign with the present, impractical concept of North American defense upon which Diefenbaker insists. To return to power, he must manage to appeal both to those who distrust excessive American influence and to those who do not wish to see atomic weapons in Canada. The Nation has editorialized support for Canada's continued reliance upon conventional weapons, but Diefenbaker's test compromise suggestion--that the warheads be stored on the American side of the border and rushed into Canada when needed--is hardly that. If Diefenbaker can stomach the prospect of firing nuclear weapons from Canadian soil, one wonders why he objects to storing them on it in the meanwhile.

Diefenbaker, who has split his own party, may well lose his office in April to Lester Pearson--but if he doesn't he will have received a mandate for a much more active anti-Americanism that he has practiced up to now. Diefenbaker and the Kennedy Administration have succeeded in fusing Diefenbaker's previous mild anti-Americanism with a refusal to co-operate in defense matters. But at the same time, the American government has provided an example of that high-handed diplomatic bullying upon which anti-Americanism among U.S. allies feeds. Even Pearson condemns the insulting U.S. note and limits his support for defense to a statement that Canada must honor her commitments.

If the April election signals the end of Diefenbaker's Government, anti-Americanism and all, his defeat will not provide sufficient justification for what seems to have been the premeditated policy of the Kennedy Administration. By forcing Diefenbaker to identify his opposition to American control of Canadian industry with opposition to all forms of U. S.-Canadian co-operation, the Administration has re-affirmed its insistence that a country cannot be an ally of the United States without supporting U. S. policy on all issues.

And, if the Conservatives should happen to achieve majority in the Parliament at Ottawa this April, American policy and Diefenbaker opportunism will have combined to bring U. S.-Canadian relations to what is really an unnecessary impasse.