(4 of 10)
Changing Jobs. Until the 1920s, the British Foreign Office spoke for Canada in matters of state. But as the growing nation sought an independent voice, it augmented its dozen-man Department of External Affairs. A friend persuaded Pearson to take the exam for first secretary, and he walked away with top marks. Posted to London in 1935, and then reassigned to the U.S. as minister counselor and ambassador, Pearson quickly built up the best Washington contacts in the whole foreign diplomatic corps. A close set of intimates gathered nights around the Pearson piano, talking shop, singing and sipping rye. "We envied his ability to keep a foot in our embassy as well as in the State Department," recalls a British contemporary. "We naturally told him all, and so did the Americans."
A State hand remembers why: "He was one of the bounciest and most ebullient men I have known. There was never any side to Mike, and that was refreshing in the field of diplomacy." Pearson was frequently nettled by official Washington's offhand manner to sturdily independent Canada, but just as often amused—as when he left Washington, D.C., with President Harry Truman's farewell: "I don't know why the King doesn't leave you here."
Creating NATO. The King that Truman was not referring to—Prime Minister Mackenzie King—called him back to Ottawa in 1946. By then, Pearson had ' mastered the technique of the new internationalism. He helped to draft the U.N. Charter as senior adviser to Can ada's delegation, and chaired the U.N. interim commission on food and agriculture. He was one of several men mentioned for the post of U.N. Secretary-General, "a job I would have liked." Though the Russians agreed that Pearson had the qualifications, they insisted on a European, settled on Trygve Lie.
Pearson returned to Ottawa as deputy minister to External Affairs Secretary Louis St. Laurent, and drafted for him the historic speech that first suggested a North Atlantic treaty. "This treaty," Pearson said at the signing, "though born out of fear and frustration, must lead to positive social, economic and political achievements if it is to live." Though proud of his role in creating NATO, Pearson still finds a military alliance not enough.
At the U.N., he negotiated—and guided through the General Assembly—the plan that established the State of Israel (thereby earning Israel's Medallion of Valor). By now, Pearson had won such fame as a civil servant that the courtly St. Laurent, succeeding aging Mackenzie King as Prime Minister in 1948, brought him into his Cabinet as External Affairs Secretary—and into Parliament as a reluctant politician. Asked on the day he joined the Cabinet when he had become a Liberal, Pear son grinned: "Today."
Vodka & Mr. Dulles. It used to be said that when New Delhi wanted to talk to Washington, the call went first to Ottawa. As an interlocutor, Pearson attained a rare influence for Canada; Senator John F. Kennedy wrote that the Canadian Foreign Service for its size was "probably unequaled by any other nation." A colleague describes Pearson's talents as a negotiator: "He sits down with a person from another country without ingrained hostility or prejudice or superiority. He has a sense of humor that helps."