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In 1951 Pearson ably demonstrated the technique of the international honest broker, though his interventions sometimes got him labeled as a neutralist in the U.S. When Red Chinese armies marched into Korea, and the U.S. proposed a hard U.N. resolution that Britain feared would extend the war, Pearson frankly told the U.S. that its policy was about "to go off the rails." Then he nudged Commonwealth Prime Ministers, meeting in London, closer to the U.S. position, and a compromise resolution was passed. Conceded a U.S. diplomat: "We would never have taken so much arm-twisting from anyone but Mike."
On the day Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur, Pearson made a prescient speech that was all but ignored: "The days of relatively easy and automatic political relations with our neighbor are, I think, over." He was talking as much to Canadians as Americans, and urging a mutual realization that with a next-door view, Canada could speak up to—and for—U.S. leadership more usefully if its voice was more than merely an echo.
After sitting on the three-man U.N. committee that negotiated the Korean ceasefire, Pearson in 1952 was elected U.N. Assembly President. For his unruffled performance. Pearson was nominated by Denmark, with Britain and France, to succeed Lie as Secretary-General, once again was vetoed by the Russians. The job went to Dag Hammarskjold. In 1955 Pearson took off for Moscow at the invitation of Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov—something that no NATO Foreign Minister before him in the tense 1950s had done. Pearson talked trade with the Russians, "did my best to disabuse them of some of their ideas about Americans in general and Mr. Dulles in particular." On a memorable October day he flew to the Crimea and a first meeting with Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin. After some 19 toasts and some hard talk on NATO, Pearson and three aides marched straight, heads up, to their car, noted with pride that they left their hosts in worse condition than they were.
When Friends Fell Out. Pearson's most anxious diplomatic hours came in November 1956, after Israel, Britain and France invaded Nasser's Egypt. The crisis split Canada, which had always loyally supported Britain in time of war, but now found itself ranged alongside the U.S. and most of the Commonwealth in disapproval. Pearson had long talked of a U.N. force. At a quiet conference with Dulles, during a late General Assembly session, Pearson brought his idea forward "to prevent the deterioration of the conflict into war, and give the British and French a chance to get out with some kind of honor." He got Dulles' approval, sold the idea to Hammarskjold. President Eisenhower had already impressed on the British that they must back down. The Canadian resolution calling for "an emergency international United Nations force" passed 57-0, with 19 abstentions. Within two weeks, the first U.N. troops were on their way.