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Madame Chancellor: I Have the Honour to Present Sir William

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Madame Chancellor: I Have the Honour to Present Sir William Madame Chancellor: I have the honour to present Sir William Stephenson, eminent native son turned world citizen; a man whose endeavours, successes and acumen have contributed so much to our well-being. Sir William's accomplishments could fill the lives of other men many times over. Decorated war veteran, championship boxer, inventor, entrepreneur, advocate of public broadcasting - these have been some of his vocations. But to the public, he is perhaps best known as Intrepid - an aide to national leaders and a central figure in Allied intelligence operations during the Second World War. Sir William was born at Point Douglas in 1896. Upon graduation from Argyle High School in 1914, he enlisted as a private in the Royal Canadian Engineers, achieving field commissions in France as second lieutenant and then captain. Disabled during a gas attack in late 1915, he was sent back to England, but he refused to remain there. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and soon was back in France. He shot down 26 planes before being taken prisoner in July, 1918. He escaped just a few weeks prior to the armistice. His courage and determination were rewarded with the Military Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross, French Legion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre avec Palmes. Enter Sir William's exploits as an athlete. In early 1918, he won the world amateur lightweight boxing championship and remained undefeated until retirement from the ring in 1928. Also following the war, he attended Oxford University and the forerunner of the Cranwell Aeronautical College where he specialized in radio communications. Sir William returned to Winnipeg to take part in Manitoba's experiment in public broadcasting. He lectured in 1920 to students at the University of Manitoba in mathematics and high frequency electronics. He left for England the next year, disappointed at the Canadian response to public broadcasting but undeterred in his conviction that this was a powerful communication tool. He, Lord Beaverbrook, and fellow pilot Gladstone Murray developed a case for formation of the British Broadcasting Company. In the years following, Sir William's talents as inventor and international businessman emerged. He produced radio sets within the means of common people; invented a wireless photography transmitter; and wrote papers on what he called "tele-vision". His knowledge of industrial cipher machines, his international contacts, and his interest in intelligence systems were to prove of the greatest importance to Britain, the Commonwealth, and their allies when war again broke out in 1939. From 1940-46, he served as Winston Churchill's personal envoy in New York and director of British Security Coordina­ tion in the western hemisphere. He directed an organization involved in intelligence and subversive activities and in the recruitment and training of hundreds of gallant individuals to whom, Sir William later wrote, "the free world owes a debt that cannot be repaid". In a forward to the biography A Man Called Intrepid, he gives tribute to these "amateurs steeped in the traditions of freethinking individuals" who "assumed frightful risks, carried the responsibility of countless lives in the solitary missions they accepted on trust, and often were forced to make lonely decisions that could mean merciless death to their families and countrymen." Surely none assumed a more awesome, agonizing or lonely role than their director, a veteran this time of secret warfare; of the kind of conflict which continues today and poses, as Sir William points out, a conundrum for democracies as they try to preserve secrecy without endangering constitutional law and individual freedoms. Sir William was knighted by King George VI in 1945. After the war, he resumed his successful business career and because of his leadership and ability became chairman of the Caribbean Development Corporation. Madame Chancellor, Sir William is a man who has excelled in all of his endeavours - most particularly in his foresight, courage, loyalty and service to humanity. It is he who honours the University today with acceptance of this degree. It is a privilege for me to ask, in the name of the Senate of the University of Manitoba, that you confer upon Sir William Stephenson the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa. D. R. Camp bell President December 16, 1979 .
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