Pearson supported the United States during the Korean War. Canada sent 20,000 troops to join the UN force there. He considered the war a test of collective security which the UN must meet successfully.

In 1952, Pearson became president of the United Nations General Assembly; he declined an offer to become secretary general of NATO, a more time-consuming proposition. Meanwhile, he was honing his skills as a grass-roots politician. He became an accomplished performer on the church-basement, chicken-supper circuit, where his gregarious charm and endless stories put him in great demand as a Liberal Party campaigner.

Yet, foreign affairs occupied the bulk of his attention. In 1956, Secretary of State Dulles sponsored a high-level committee, known as “the wise men,” to explore non-military functions for NATO (Pearson commented at the time that “some are born wise, some achieve wisdom, and some have wisdom thrust upon them”). Mike served along with foreign ministers Martini of Italy and Lange of Norway. Although the committee tried its best to come up with practicable recommendations, nothing came of its efforts. The 1956 Suez War, in which Israel, Britain, and France conspired to take over the Suez Canal from Nasser, proved to be Pearson’s major diplomatic test. He insisted that the United Nations handle the crisis, and, by dint of extremely hard work, obtained passage of a resolution setting up an international force along the border between Israel and Egypt even before British and French forces landed at Alexandria. Egypt accepted the force on its side of the border; the force served to keep the peace in that area until 1967. Late one night shortly after the crisis, Mike’s phone rang. When he answered, a reporter told him he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the Suez War; Mike’s response was simply the exclamation “Gosh!” The citation referred to Pearson’s “never tiring determination and his exceptional ability to put forward constructive ideas for the solution of the Suez problem.”

The cornerstone of Pearson’s foreign policy had become the American alliance, although he did not agree that China constituted the threat that the United States claimed. However, the Conservative Party led by John Diefenbaker won the 1957 election, depriving Mike of an active role in world affairs for six years. Former Prime Minister St. Laurent retired as Liberal Party leader and in so doing paved the way for Mike, now sixty, to succeed him. He accepted the leadership apparently from a deep sense of responsibility, as well as old-fashioned ambition. A prominent Canadian commentator, John Byrd, wrote at the time, “Mike Pearson’s best claim to leadership is not his undoubted popularity, his common touch. It is that indefinable thing called size. Mike is a big man, big enough to be leader.”

He won the Party vote for leader in 1958 and immediately set about assembling the men and ideas he thought would be necessary to recapture power. He picked Walter Gordon, Tom Kent, and Mary McDonald as principal assistants. The Liberal platform they produced included what was then revolutionary elements, such as a national pension plan, universal medical insurance, urban renewal, regional development, and a national flag to replace the Red Ensign. The election of 1963 brought Mike and his associates to power in spite of bitter controversy over announced intention to permit U.S. nuclear weapons to be based on Canadian soil.

Soon after the election President Kennedy invited Pearson to visit him at Hyannisport. The two leaders got along famously and a series of bilateral agreements were soon spawned on subjects such as automobile production, joint defense, and joint utilization of the Columbia River.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, Mike’s cabinet colleagues saw to it that the Liberal’s social program was enacted. He supervised passage of the legislation, leaving the details to his colleagues better versed in domestic politics. However, the nature of the Canadian constitution required extensive negotiations with the provinces to bring the new legislation into effect. Here Mike’s considerable negotiating skill was invaluable, especially in dealing with the French Canadian government of Quebec.

The immediate justification for the debate over the flag was Nasser’s refusal to allow Canadian troops to participate in the international force along his border with Israel because of the British insignia. Pearson set about selecting a purely Canadian flag. The issue raised intense emotions among those who valued the British tie, but finally the maple leaf motif won out.

An important motive underlying Pearson’s choice of a purely Canadian flag, the social legislation, and a Royal Commission on bilingualism and biculturalism was to meet the desires of French Canadians and counter the growing nationalism of Quebec Province. ln spite of his efforts, the Quebec provincial government signed an international agreement with France on educational and cultural matters without reference to the central government in Ottawa.

Pearson’s second term as prime minister, beginning in 1965, was not as productive as his first. He got bogged down in relations with Quebec and with France itself. When De Gaulle demanded removal of Canadian NATO troops from French soil, Pearson asked pointedly whether he was also expected to move the bodies of the 100,000 Canadians who died fighting for France during World Wars I and II. Diplomacy and domestic politics required Pearson to invite De Gaulle to visit Canada and the resulting trip was a thorough disaster from the former’s point of view. The Quebec provincial government set about making plans directly with the French Government, but Pearson considered visits of foreign heads of state to be a responsibility of the government in Ottawa. Bickering, bad feelings, and duplication resulted. De Gaulle went first to Quebec city and then like some royal progression he moved slowly towards Montreal, where a half million people thronged the streets to witness the great moment of his arrival. Then De Gaulle spoke the fateful words “Vive Montréal, vive Le Québec, le Québec libre.” Mike was shocked and called an emergency cabinet meeting. Afterwards he made a public statement that Canadians were already free and didn’t need to be liberated. Instead of meeting with Mike as planned, De Gaulle, having done his mischief, promptly returned to France.

In a tremendous effort to hold Canada together, Mike made numerous concessions to Quebec, but the more he made, the more the Lesage government in Quebec demanded. On the other side, Diefenbaker, Mike’s bitter Conservative Party opponent, castigated him for appeasement. It was a no-win situation for Pearson.

To the South, Mike’s cordial relationship with Kennedy did not continue when Lyndon Johnson took over as President. Pearson thought him crude personally and he thoroughly distrusted his Vietnam policy. Although he warned his fellow Canadians against pulling the big bird’s tail feathers, he took the huge risk himself of calling for a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam in a speech given in the United States. The President was furious and personally berated Pearson as if he were a naughty school boy. From that time on, Johnson cut the Canadians out of the circuit on all matters pertaining to Vietnam and much else. Relations between the two men never recovered.

By this time, Mike was growing weary of public life and announced his intention to retire in December 1967. He arranged for Pierre Trudeau to succeed him and then left. He began to write furiously, as though there were no tomorrow. In fact, there wasn’t. A cancer developed behind his eyeball. But he never lost his sense of humor and remarked that the people were right who said they never knew what was going on in his head. He died on December 29, 1970, at the Pearson’s vacation spot in Florida.

At his funeral service in Ottawa, the minister concluded his remarks with these words, which include a reference to a Chinese poem Mike had enjoyed:

And thus Mike Pearson makes his way into the distance. The dawning of a new day in which he believed is still not with us, but he is playing his flute as he goes and we hear the sad and joyful music of humanity and follow.