April 2, 2013

FINEST HOUR, SPRING 2012

Former Prime Minister Turner was interviewed both by Terry Reardon for his upcoming book, Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King (see page 36) and by Gordon Walker QC, for Finest Hour. Many of Mr. Turner’s comments also appear in Mr. Reardoin’s book. Both texts are published with the approval of Mr. Turner. Mr. Walker also helped research Mr. Turner’s 2004 speech to the ICS Canada dinner, where Mr. Turner made the same points about Churchill’s 1941 Ottawa speech.

ABSTRACT
THE RT HON JOHN NAPIER WYNDHAM TURNER PC CC QC WAS THE 17TH PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA IN 1984, HAVING BEEN MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND MINISTER OF FINANCE IN THE TRUDEAU GOVERNMENTS. HE STAYED ON AS LIBERAL LEADER AND HEADED THE OFFICIAL OPPOSITION THROUGH HIS RETIREMENT IN 1990.

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Finest Hour: Prime Minister, we are fascinated with your account of meeting Churchill in Ottawa on 30 December 1941. You could not have been very old.

John N. Turner: I was just a kid. My mother was a senior civil servant in Ottawa and I was twelve. She knew Prime Minister Mackenzie King, so we were well positioned just outside the House of Commons during one of his great speeches: “Some chicken!—Some neck!” I could hear every word because there were loudspeakers outside so we could listen. The speech is remembered for that line, but it also mobilized Canadian public opinion in the unity of the Commonwealth. I probably did not recognize its importance at the time, but I certainly did later in life.

I stood there with my sister as the great man came down the laneway. He mingled with the crowd and my mother introduced us to him. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Good of you to be here, good luck!” That meeting became indelible in my memory. I have met a lot of people in my lifetime, but I can say without hesitation, he was the greatest person I have ever met. He was already a hero in Canada, and to me at that moment even more so.

FH: When you had your encounter, he had just come from his photo session with another Canadian, Yousuf Karsh….

JNT: Oh yes! It was moments after those memorable photographs. Karsh was a friend of our family whom I saw frequently. He displayed his own kind of bravery when he yanked the cigar from Churchill’s mouth just before snapping the first picture. Can’t you picture that scene? The result was the signature photograph of Winston Churchill. Here we are nearly half a century after his death and the photo turns up every few weeks, just about everywhere.

FH: In the Fifties you studied in England. Did you get to see him in that period?

JNT: No, but my impression of him at that time, which I still hold, is that he was the greatest man of the 20th century. He rescued Britain and saved the free world. It was one man’s courage, one man’s voice. His leadership, and later his close relationship with Roosevelt, were crucial to turning near-defeat into victory.

FH: You are one of several Prime Ministers who crossed paths with Churchill. How did your predecessors see him?

JNT: Mackenzie King was our Prime Minister in 1941, in fact our longest serving Prime Minister. He acted as an intermediary between Churchill and Roosevelt before the USA entered the war. King had some very odd ways that Terry Reardon sets out in his forthcoming book, but he had a remarkable career. He was constantly back and forth to Washington and certainly Roosevelt and Churchill used him as a go-between. Really only after Pearl Harbor did their relationship cement. Up until then, what King provided was the “Linchpin” between London and Washington, which Churchill spoke about so fondly.

In my early years in the House of Commons, the prime ministers were the Conservative John Diefenbaker and the Liberal Lester Pearson, both great admirers of Churchill. Although I belonged to a different party from Diefenbaker, the Members who enjoyed the House of Commons, like myself, had his affection. I was very fortunate in 1965 to be on a beach in Barbados with my wife when she said that there was someone in trouble in the water. I rushed in and grabbed him by his trunks and swam him back to safety. It was John Diefenbaker! I am still the only non-Tory on the board of the Diefenbaker Foundation.

Diefenbaker was a teetotaller, which didn’t bode well for meeting Churchill, but they liked each other. I enjoy the story of a meeting when Diefenbaker refused a drink, saying he was not however a prohibitionist. Churchill responded: “Ah, I see you only hurt yourself.”

Mackenzie King prided himself on keeping control of his emotions, but Diefenbaker recorded one occasion in May 1942 when King lost his temper. On entering his office King accosted him: “What business have you to be here? You strike me to the heart every time you speak. In your last speech who did you mention? Did you say what I’ve done for this country? You spoke of Churchill. Churchill! Did he ever bleed for Canada?” There were tears in his eyes, rage on his face. Then the storm blew over and he said with impressive calm, “I regret this, but something awful has happened. A great British battleship, the Hood, has just been sunk. Where will we go from here?”

FH: Along with King acting between the President and the Prime Minister of Britain, didn’t Beaverbrook also play an integral role?

JNT: Yes, he was Churchill’s great friend, although in their early days this remarkable Canadian was not a political supporter. Beaverbrook was born William Maxwell Aitken in Maple, Ontario, in 1879. Successful in Canada, he moved to England in 1910, entered Parliament and started a newspaper chain which included the Daily Express. He was also close to Mackenzie King, but far better known in England than Canada. As Churchill’s Minister of Aircraft Production he was instrumental in getting planes moved from the States across the border into New Brunswick and from thereferried across the ocean to Britain. He made the deal with Roosevelt—a convenient way for the U.S. to get around its neutrality legislation, part of Roosevelt’s secret war. He was a good friend of my stepfather, Frank Ross. We had him over to dinner at our house in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick, on several occasions. The last time I saw him, at the Ritz Hotel in Montreal, we downed a scotch together.

FH: We all remember the Ottawa speech, but Canadians also lent a hand to Churchill in his 1946 Fulton Speech.

JNT: Yes indeed. Mr. King seemed to be ever-present when the President and Churchill met, but I recall a part Lester Pearson played. Churchill had asked Mackenzie King to look over the Fulton speech but King hedged, as he did not want to take responsibility for anything Churchill might say. He did suggest that his “dear friend” consult Pearson then the Canadian Ambassador in Washington, who knew his views on these matters and had his confidence.

Pearson was ushered into Churchill’s bedroom, and there he was in bed with a big cigar and a glass that evidently did not contain water. Churchill proposed to read his speech. Pearson writes: “This would have been a memorable experience for me, I know, but of course I would have heard him out without daring to interrupt the performance, which may have been what he had in mind. Hence I suggested that he let me take the script into a nearby room where I could read it with the care it deserved.”

After a page or so, it was evident that this would be an important speech. Pearson made a minor correction of the status of Missouri in the American Civil War, and had a major question about referring to World War II as “the Unnecessary War.” True, it could have been stopped by the right policy and actions in the 1920s-30s; but it could also be interpreted, especially in the American Midwest, as a justification for future U.S. isolation. Pearson states that “Mr. Churchill was courteous enough to agree with my two small suggestions and to thank me for them. That was my contribution to the famous Iron Curtain speech; a tiny footnote to history.”*

On 9 December 1951, when Pearson was External Affairs Minister, he visited Churchill at Chequers. The PM was in a grumpy mood, but the “pre-lunch drinks arrived and things looked up; our host came to life. He got even livelier as the lunch went on, with the accompanying wines. Over coffee and brandy Churchill continued to get brighter and brighter as I got droopier and droopier.”

FH: Sir Winston died when you were an MP from Montreal. Were you at the funeral?

JNT: Yes, though not in any official capacity. I think my leader, Prime Minister Pearson, was in the Cathedral along with other world leaders. I was on hand as the procession marched past and I had that last opportunity to pay my respects to him. For a brief moment in time I was in his presence, in a way. I could not help but feel how proud I was to have met him ever so briefly on that day in 1941.

For me he was a role model. I would like to think that in my nearly twenty-five years as a Member of Parliament, much of it as a Privy Counsellor and Minister of the Crown, and briefly as Prime Minister, that I conducted myself in the way of Winston Spencer Churchill. To me he always did what was right. I would like to think his example rubbed off on me. 

*Churchill first used the phrase “the Unnecessary War” in a speech to the Belgian Chamber and Senate, 16 November 1945. —Ed