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"No, I am too da-rn sure right now of what the solution is and that's no way to examme a real problem." I think only once I saw him angry. The Russians had been wasting time for days in a vital debate in the UN's first committee, of which he was chairman. Suddenly the old Another memory is his going to a ball game in New York when he had just got oft a plane from a délicate UN mission abroad. I had imagined he would have closeted him- self to write his report: lit 1937-8 in London this sympathetic, cheerful man tried to guide me through the pitfalls of reporting British and Common- T wealth politics, sometimes on a golf course in the rain and he swinging as with a base- ball bat. “Gosh rid, if I did I wouldn't sleep!" I think he meant it. One time in New York amid a serious UN crisis I asked if at night he puzzled over what he would do next day if such and such a thing happened in the debate. Since then at the UN, in Russia, the Far East and at home I've seen him under great pressure but rarely if ever out of sorts and never other than himself. Now that the nation has so movingly paid its tribute to the man and leader, I think he would like us to remember the fun he had along the way, the light touch he had in a heavy world. _ ' But he would not want us to mourn very long. He cared more about beginnings than endings, about looking ahead. His centenary year speeches wanted us to build rather than dwell on the romance of the log-chute days. The flag he flew for us was to unify Canadi- ans for the future though he too honored his- tory and tradition. By Norman Smith .(Mr. Smith recently retired as editor of the Ottawa Jaurnal.) So Mike has gone. In any role, hhike, Pearson was never other than This reminded me of a Russian delegate to the UN saying of Mike: "He is clearly a re- actionary but a very able one." When I told Mr. Pearson of that he chuckled and cried out as if in pain: "That's two of the most in.. suiting compliments I've ever had!" But let's get back to Canada, and some random glimpses of the style of his phrase and thrust. Mr. Pearson decided if this was to be the language of the summer house he should use it. He pitched back: "If Russia does not like NATO she must remember she created it by making the United Nations a laughing stoc ." ”Whggare §df1ido~inéin NATO?" the Rus- sian premier had demanded, almost before the introductions had been epmpleted. Speaking of Russia, I was lucky enough to go in there with his party in 1955 when the curtain was opaque. What an eight days he lived and never cried "uncley' Not only East and West met but night and day. It was vig" orous politics and vodka, but I was told by those in on the talks that our foreign minis, ter remained robust and cool. Enroute out of there for Singapore our plane, paused in 112 degrees of wet heat at Basra. There in the unlikely setting of the date palms and muddy water of the Eu- phrates this stout Canadian told of the final meeting with Khrushchev at his summer house on the Black Sea. "Ah yes," he twinkled, "but I was chair- man of the committee, he was just chairman of all the Russias." athlete, soldier and crusading son of a Meth- odist minister' took over from diplomat Pear- son: he not only slugged his gavel on the desk but stood up to get more height and weight into it. Years later, after Khrushchev had taken off his shoe to beat his desk in the UN As- sembly, I reminded Mike of his own gavel- crashing: Whén he was Opposition leader: sel it." It was also before he was in power when he used to pass on, approvipgly: Dean Ache- son's maxim that "policy should bubble up from the people, not trickle down from the bureaucracy." (It didn't always work up that way, even when Mike came to power). In February of 1967 I had two long talks with him in his study, devoted largely to my general question of what could be done to improve what seemed to be a creaking Par- liament. He agreed the process had run down and I wrote two articles of his views on that, but here let's savor just this charac- teristic Pearson simile: "Some parliamenta; ry procedures have become sacred cows and .. - 2, “my.” unnrp difficult to streamline It was also before he used to pass on, 4 son's maxim that l from the people, not bureaucracy." (It dit way, even when Mike - -r 1!“ lllULlaLJ uuvu.. .. 9, so he may hit below them hand, looking for a paradi "The good Opposition leader in a guuu w mocracy doesn't go around looking for belts so he may hit below them, or, on the other - ' “MAD merely to head iian, or, on 1 parade merely answereu: il, - "What would I di‘lln the Senate, I'm a sur- geon? I would wast‘l my time Up there. What do they do in the sj,,srr.1ate that I could do as well as what I am 931%?” That reply took me back to a long walk we had one evening when he wanted to get away from the UN corrIdOI‘S. They? had been ru- mors he might enter the cabinet, He raised the subject, saying he had decided not to. He felt he could do more good for Canada and maybe the UN and world peace by "staying in a work I think I reallxknow. Perhaps I am vain but I suspect my influence in inter- national affairs is stronger as a working dip- lomat than it would be as as a politician. Probably at home too. I would become just one of many members of cahmet but as the responsible adviser on fore.ig.n affairs the deputy-minister has , Spgelal wallop. Be- sides, I'd be no good 1,',1 politics, have always steered clear of them. ”Well, perhaps that Was not the time to en- ter politics, but. there came a time, and mil- lions of Canadians are glad there came a Mike had a great affinity tor youth. It was sad he was robbed fy, one more Christmas with his wife and children and grandChil- dren: he loved childF8n._ “My difficulty," he said in 1968 when making his farewell ad- dress to the Lpsral,joartf, "my difficulty is that as I get older , refuse to feel older, or at times even act my age. I have grandchii- dren whom I embaliass and exhaust'. This is disconcerting." I There was some’ disappointment in MR Pearson's mostly 'pil/ir')"! appointments to the Senate. He gaV; one reply to this in an interview with CF. I,“ May ot 1968 by telling of a very distingu‘s} ed surgeon he had invib. ed to join the senaFe. It seems the surgeon for poise. He doesnt say 'l selfish or slothful; he says 1 ance - and the inference stuffiness or contentment of in part to blame. A agessxf’zvgyme athlete's desire he":- no counygpth IS wrong qr “m'uy tot, youth. It was of one more Christmas Children and grandchil- ken: "My difficulty," he Ie/e/yr his farewell ad- says tiCy "iire"iiii"'bir is'leit that the adult Canada is time. Yet he never quite got free of the com- plex, for he told CP, in talking of the disas- trous move he made in the Commons on his first day as leader of the oppositi?n, “I think my basic disadvantage, in those days, and it remained to some extent right to the end, was that I hadn't gone through the political mill." / " - ruin." Aid vnll measure up A man of contradictions, too, fof though he was the Nobel peace-maker he would plunge into a fight with righteous indignation and A man whose "intuition" was linked al- ways with hard work, for apart from watch- ing sport he spent most of his "leisure" hours with briefcases and pen - perhaps to a fault. The "happy warrior" was also a shirt-sleeved student until he died. m“A EEK-Willis? procrastination sometimes worsened the crises when .they lid, cope; yet he made crises productive of lasting -re, forms: such as the UN peace force that came out of the Suez war - and his building on the growing Canadian willingness to un- derstand Quebec that came out of the earlier separatist outbreaks. l man whose judgment was said to be largely from intuition - but an intuition surely composed less of hunch than wide ex- perience in public service, in compromise, in diplomacy, in perception of the public's will before the public was aware of it. CP pressed on: "How cue to your own standards si leader?" "Well, no man, I hope, measures up to his own they are too low. . ." __ _i-_ "nu-n ih, they are TOO iuw. . . Well, then, what were the qualities of this man? They were varied, sometimes contra- dictory - always his own. A man with a legion of friends and yet per- haps relatively few very close friends, for aside from his wife, he marched alone. A man too soft sometimes to dismiss inad. equate cabinet colleagues and yet willing to grasp such nettles as a new flag, bilingual- ism and unification of the armed forces. Well, then, what were man? They were varied dictory - always his ow A man with a legion of ssed on: "How did you own standards since ie' ii' tiie Commons of the opposition, $( tage in those days, hope, ever completely own standards, unless Lallunu, -e" the Commons on his a opposition, “I think in those days, and it nt right to the end, through the political measure up you became Imse How say farewell to a man like that? Reporters still savor his very last sentence to the press conference in which he an- nounced he had asked to be replaced is Lib- eral leader. With a wisp of sentiment in his voice but still a twinkle in his eye, he said: "Well, goodbye; c'est la vie," . As Dr. Arthur Moore said in the cathedral last Sunday, that grey, raining day in Cana- dian history: "He saw his life as a trusteeship and not his own to be grasped selfishly." IVU'U. Z6. 2Wil Dear Eric: . .. I am indeed sorry that I am not able to ad- dress the men's Canadian Club in December --it is something I would have enjoyed doing. If I am well and strong on my return from the South I will be glad to address the Club at that time. With warm regards, yours sincerely, . L. B. Pearson But more recent, and after the last fatal return of his malady had set in, was this let. ter sent to the President of the Canadian Club of Ottawa which the president, Erie Morse, has permitted me tn "ca- even joy. "Don't be dowppearted in the thick of battle," he once said, "it is the place where all good men would wish to be." 7, "out w 1):. Retirement was. to him only a relative word. He kept hard at work. I hope I won’t offend good taste by quoting two sentences related to his retirement, from among many letters I have cherished over the years. Nine months after resigning the prime ministership he ended one letter: "As for me and my 'retirement' ca marche; or, as Mar.. yon would put it, 'What retirement?' " Just a few days after my leaving theJour- nal editorship owing to a health problem, I received (Sept. 5, 1972) a most generous hand-writteh letter closing with the hope "we may have more. opportunities to see each other now, especially if I decide to retire myself." , . ,V....... “nu 1.1“; has permitted me to use: was to him only a relative t hard at work. I hope I won’t aste by quoting two sentences retirement, from among many cherished over the years. Nov. 28, 1972