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With his election as prime minister in the spring of 1968, Pierre Trudeau deliberately set out to challenge the relatively narrow orientation of Canada’s post-war foreign policy with its emphasis on relations on Western Europe and the United States. His e ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike many others who have served as prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau assumed office with a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish in the realm of Canadian external relations. Shortly after his election in June 1968, he set in train a policy re ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will revisit the Prime Minister John Diefenbaker era and the origins of the Canadian Cuba policy. Recently declassified documents form the basis for this new reading of Diefenbaker. These documents reveal a different Diefenbaker, one that contradicts the traditional view of him as a "rebel" that took a stand against the U.S. with Canada's Cuba policy. Diefenbaker had little choice but to follow the U.S. lead on Cuba, whether this meant maintaining trade relations under Eisenhower or ignoring John F. Kennedy's strong arm tactics to join the U.S. embargo. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy had a greater hand in shaping Canada's Cuba policy than previously believed. Even as a Canadian nationalist, Diefenbaker's Cuba policy was influenced and in many ways constrained by the United States. Canada's Cuba policy derived initially from the idea of an allied North American front against the Soviets. But by the 1960s it became a symbol of Canada's independence in foreign policy. By revisiting the nationalist myth of Diefenbaker, Canada's Cuba policy appears to be more dynamic, evolving and self-serving than previously thought. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]