Oligarchs at Otta-wa

Austin F . .Cross

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-that's all.' Through the Looking Glass.

'AFFAIRS of State in Canada today by the lop-sidedly Liberal St. Laurent are far too important to be run by Administration, perish the thought. Hard- 'The Government'. We use Brain Trusters ly a major decision is taken today in the instead. Once upon a time we were a Capital, scarcely any important task has Dominion, ruled in theory by a Governor been undertaken in the coup.try in this General, a Senate, and a Commons. In last decade, without an OK from some fact, we were ruled by the Prime Mini- Brain Truster. The Minister merely signs ster and his Cabin.et, responsible, in theory where the Brain Truster puts the dotted at least, to a popularly elected Parliament. line. More and more today, we are confined, This blunt assertion reflects not merely controlled and ,contained by a group of the casual obl;'.ervation of correspondents senior civil servants, far from lovingly in the Parliamentary, Press Gallery. It dubbed 'Brain Trusters,' and responsible rests on far more authoritative sources. to none other than their several and col- Dr. H. A. Innes, Dean of the Faculty of lective consciences. Constitutionally we Graduate Studies of the University of are no longer The Dominion of Canada, but Toronto, if the reader will forgive a learned The Government of Canada. Anyhow that reference remarked as long ago as 1941: is how it is listed in the Ottawa telephone directory. The change was hemmingly "The voice of the economist is heard and hawingly confirmed subsequently by throughout the land. In every investiga- wobbly-syllabled politicians, both with- tion economists of quality and quantity in and outside the House of' Commons. have contributed substantially either by But regardless of how we are described giving evidence or by stuffing the shirts of their betters, i.e., writing the final constitutionally, and no matter what new reports. The rise of economists has been nomenclature has descended upon us, we an important practical trend of the post- are still run by Brain Trusters. These war years. They have captured crucial are our new masters, our latter day bosses, positions in the civil service, 13specially our Public Service Politburo. with the Bank of Canada, and the dis- cussion of t'he problems of Canadian If by some quirk or fancy, anyone cher- recovery has taken on the air of rational ishes the illusion that Canadians in the calculation ... A new religion has emer- Year of Our Lord 1951, are run entirely ged." OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA 17

The business of government has become get the number of "Yeas" it wants, just so complex and intricate that parliamen- aR Hitler used to get his full quota of tarians tend more and more to rely on "Ja's". And back of the government the advice of the "experts" of the public hill just assented to, was the Brain Truster- service not only for the carrying out but who dreamed it up for the Minister, way also for the making of policy. Whether back six months ago. Ottawa's Brain this trend is good or bad we leave to Trusters never sleep .. others to judge. Such are, however the facts of public life in Canada today. HEN there is the interlocking direc- T torate. Ottawa's Oligarchs, like those O get down to cases-there is a growing new streamliners in the United States, T tendency, especially in the Capital, where each single car is so softly and yet to pooh-pooh the notion that Public Works so closely bound together, that the whole Minj_ster George Prudham, for example, can streamliner slides along as if one were put down a hammer andsawinEdmonton, riding on a cloud rather than a coach, come to Ottawa, and in sixteen months, moves forward so intimately articulated by virtue of the "Honourable" prefixed to that one hardly realizes how it runs, his name, manage national affairs as well separate, yet a unit. Talk about the as any longtime deputy. Super Chief. The St. Laurent Brain• On Parliament Hill, even the more Trust Limited has it beaten all hollow! ardent admirers - of able Bob Winters, This has ramifications. No Brain Truster Minister from Nova Scotia, are disposed functions in single capacity. Remember to rank his experience and executive Poo Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's ability after that. of a Clark, or a Pickers- operetta, The Mikado? There poor Koko, gill, or a Robertson. Much as one may contemplating matrimony, approaches Poo admire the spirit and personality of House Bah, who holds all the portfolios, and all Leader Alphonse Fournier, it is easy to the power. In one capacity Koko is name a round dozen brain-trusting civil advised "Don't stint yourself." But Poo servants who have had more impact on Bah also urges Koko in another capacity the lives of everyone of us during the last that "due economy must be observed." decade than the amiable Alphonse. Again Poo Bah in still another role suggests True, there are such people as 'Trader' that Koko "chance it". Then the same Howe and Finance Minister Abbott and Poo Bah in a different capacity diametri- External Affairs Minister Pearson. Yet cally opposes himself and tells Koko that even back of such strong-mided indivi- he must see that "the law isn't violated." dualists as they, there lurks a Mackenzie, It would hardly be fair to carry the ana- a Clark or a Heeney. logy as far as Poo Bah seems to do, where As for the private Members of Parlia- he tells Koko he might "cook the accounts" ment, they have their day only just as although as Archbishop of Titipu he would every dog has his day. But merely that. have to denounce himself for his knavery. You get a pyrotechnical Pouliot, a Jack- Write in the word Canada for Koko, in-the-Box Knowles, a devastating Diefen- and sometimes you have the Gilbert and baker. In the past, R. B. Hanson, har- Sullivan setting here, where a Brain Truster angued us, and Wa1ter Tucker trumpeted has to urge something in one capacity, from his barrel chest. Yet in all those but as the chairmen of another committee, years, Donald Gordon, not elected by the he had to countermand himself. people at all, had more power over any of us than the greatest of these, No, the Canada's Shadow Cabinet Commons nowadays is just what the old ERE, then,is the Brain Trust, Ottawa's French root-word means. A Parliament H full-time Shadow Cabinet. It is is a place where people parler, or talk. Canada's nearest equivalent to the Soviet Chances are those who talk loudest in Politbureau, the Committee of top Bol- Commons may be absent when the vote sheviks which directs the affairs of the is taken. A top-heavy government will Soviet Union. 18 PUBLIC AFFAIRS ·

The parallel is not intended to be taken Whatever their economic convictions too literally, for the members of Mr. St. may be- and that is something which Laurent's full-time shadow cabinet have it is virtually impossible to define - the nothing like the absolute power enjoyed fact remains that the Brain Truster, wise by their counterparts in the Kremlin. in the ways of Ottawa, gifted with that Their influence makes itself felt in more special timelessness peculiar to orientals subtle and less sinister ways. Their scope and old governments, has already left an of action is delimited in greater or less indelible· 1mpression upon the economic degree by the Oppsoition in Parliament life of the nation ·and of its millions of and by public opinion. Where the parallel individual citizens. with the Politbureau begins to take sub- stance is in the profound influence exer- Canada Under Clarkism cised by the Brain Trusters over individual members of the Cabinet in the realm of ITHOUT a doubt, the greatest economic policy. The members of Mr. W Brain Truster of them all is Wil- St. Laurent's full-time shadow cabinet liam Clifford Clark, Deputy Minister of would deeply and properly resent, in the Finance. He is the Super Duper of the ordinary sense of the term, being de- Species, the great grand-daddy of all scribed as politicians, Yet, if politics, Brain Trusters, the very apotheosis of as has been said, is the art of the possible, cerebral controls. Indeed, as much of it is hardly logical to deny that the archi- what we live under today is Clarkism as tects of Government policy can escape Canadianism. Much more of our latter the argument that they exercise substan- day economy may be traced back to tial influence in the realm of public affairs. Clark than to the Fathers of Confedera- In his recent study, 'l'he Canadian tion. Bureaucracy, Dr. Taylor Cole of Duke The cherub-faced deputy with the China University-and here we go again with a Doll eyes has left his mark on our times. Lofry reference-has this to say regarding He is one of the very few economists who Ottawa's Brain Trusters: ever got his theories into practice. One still talks of the Malthusian Theory. De- "These men met together socially and kept in frequent official contact in Ottawa, puty Minister Clark's administration of where contacts are easy to maintain. price and wage control during World Their relationships permitted of frank War II were anything but theory. We discussions and differences of opinion were already far into Clarkism by Novem- where departmental outlooks were ignored. ber 1941, while even Karl Marx isn't. Though there were fri3quent disagreements, some of them over basic matters, most doing so well yet, and his supporters are of the members of this group might be still groping in the nebula of his theory classed as Keynesian in their economic while Clark's principles are as provable views. They were consequently not as the workings of a Ford VS motor. averse to "planning" and to the extension There is much, prating of what Lord of governmental controls when considered necessary. The over-all price ceiling, Keynes may or may not have believed, which was originally advocated by Tow- and equal verbiage pro and con as to its ers, and the family allowance system, practicability. One b.ears of Beveridge which was later initiated by Clark, illust- and Ruml and their effects on our age. rate vital public policies which emanated But these latter ·two, as in the case of fromt his source." many another textbook technician, are There in essence lie the basic issues in mainly economic swordsmen who merely the conflict which rages around the domi- "pinked" u.s. Clark has run us through, nant personalities of the Brain Truster ·impaled us. We are skewered securely. group, most of whom entered the public To change the figure, Clark's onetime service during the dismal thirties, when theories have long since jelled into fact. they were confronted. with the urgent For the man who used to countersign our necessity for devising policies designed dollar· bills, no mere textbook tenets. to lift Canada out of the depth of depression. What Clark did was to knead his econo- OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA 19 mies into the history of Canada. His fresh orange juice in Canada than in Cali- planned policies are as much the law of fornia. Under Clark's guiding hand, we the land as .the Income Tax, or a Howe quickly evolved a system of controls and Order-in-Council. This, no fooling, is the controllers which, backed up by the moral Clark Era! suasion of patriotic appeals really worked, When Prime Minister R. B. Bennett and kept the war running smoothly and got into power, he managed to fire 14 efficiently on the economic front. deputies in all. But Mackenzie King, Then came VE day, and VJ day, and returned to office in 1935, fired nobody. Canada was suddenly in the Post-War In no instance did this policy pay off Era. But Clark could beat a sword into better than in the case of W. C. Clark. a plowshare with the best of them, and he King admired Clark and, with his instinct went to his little smithy and quickly forged for spotting talent, saw to it that this a weapon to win the peace. He de-con- deputy ran his own show. trolled and devised, and he took Canada So, when Germany invaded Poland, and out of the extremities of war like a solici-- Canada entered hostilities, King was able tous company takes a sand hog out of to send for Clark and say: "It's your war!" the compression chamber, so that he will Thus did the deputy Minister of Finance not suddenly collapse with "the bends." open his own war on the economic front. Clark got us out of the high pressure of He looked ahead and saw many things. war into the postwar epoch with a niini- Among the things that Kewpie Doll face muin of aches and pains. of his noted was that we were heading Since then he has survived the caprice for shortages. He recalled the difficulties of novice British politico-economists who -not to say scandals- in World War I. seem more anxious to make socialism work He remembered the brief but impressive than to run the country properly. He has looting era of the so-called Pork Barrel endured the Cold War Economy inspired Barons, and he wanted no part of that. by the Iron Curtain, and withstood the So he began evolving a system of controls. selfishness of pressure groups across the line in Washington. In no smaJI measure T is easy to sit back in judgment now, is it attributable to him that by September I as the end of 1951 looms large, and say Canada had already piled up a surplus of that controls were no great discovery. more than $400,000,000 over budgetary Cliche of cliches is that hindsight is easier planning with only one-third of the :fiscal than foresight. But it is well to remember year gone. If such surpluses are good- that when our whole system of controls, and it may seriously be questioned whether and their economic corollaries were being they are - then Finance Minister Ab- dreamed up in the summer of 1941, they bott could conscientiously call Deputy were as new then as the a tom bomb was Clark out from the wings for a long bow. in July, 1945. Clark's impact on the war and the ·epoch was more than just con- T is sometimes said that our national trols. For he gave Canadians not only I economic and :financial a-ff airs are some- controls, but also worked out the in- how settled at a long table, with W. C. volved paraphernalia of economic, legal, Clark, Deputy Minister of Finance, at :financial and other gadgets, subsidies, one end, and Graham Towers, Governor quotas and priorities without which a of the Bank of Canada, at the other. controlled economy would be chaos worse The fiscal pundits in Ottawa more or less confounded. tend to line up as Clark men and Towers Clark made our system work so · well men. Then there have been times when that while we were knee-deep in steaks, Mackenzie King (or now Louis St. Lau- the Americans, with a higher per capita rent) sided with Clark, and other times consumption of meat, were jamming the with Towers. The chances are, however, bridges to Canada to buy our by-now that these disputes in the Ivory Tower unrationed supplies. Under his system are mostly hyperbole, and that the two of subsidies it was easier to get a glass of men co-:-operate like two paddlers in the 20 PUBLIC AFFAIRS

same canoe. each using his own stroke, but who shuns the limelight and loves anonym- both going the same way, in the same boat. ity. He combines to an incredible de- If one were to analyse the contrast gree, an exaltedly encyclopedic knowledge between the two, Towers would probably of political theory with a crackerbarrel emerge as the pure banker, and Clark the cuteness about how to put it across. He pure economist. It is tempting to ima- sits at once on Olympus and around the gine the immaculate, austere, fastidious cuspidor with the Boys in the Back Room, Towers settling an issue merely by asking, and yet all at the same time in the Prime "Is it good banking?" Minister's svelte offices. Economics-wise as Clark is, it is doubt- Walk down . a hundred 'main streets' ful whether he would be too much con- from Sydney to Skeena, and in not one cerned with so academic a question as town woµ.ld more than half a dozen people "Is it good economics?" Rather,· he have heard of Jack Pickersgill. Yet, would ask "Will it work?" For, behind that is the way the Prime Minister's the studied detachment of the economist, personal secretary wants it. He revels in those who know Clifford Clark can detect anonymity. It suits him fine, that, after human qualities in full measure. more than a decade in public life, Canada Clark, were he a vain man, had he a self- has never heard of him. consciousness about his own achievements, Jack Pickersgill is another one of the would never need to worry about mnem- late Mr. King's 'Bright Young Men.' In onics. Remember how it was with Sir a somewhat spectacular secretariat, Jack Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's, was more than able to hold his own. But when people asked where Wren's memorial while the other young worthies waited was? "Look about you", was the terse patiently for Mr. King to pass them a answer. plum in the form of a career on a platter If of Vfren it was said: "Look about for life, to Pickersgill his affair with King you", then of Clark let it be said: "Listen was something like a marriage vow, "till about you." death do us part." A job in the Prime Today people are clamoring more than Minister's office, to Jack Pickersgill, was ever for controls. Like the Prisoner of ·not just a ride on the Gravy Boat. Chillon who came to love his own chains, So this particular brain truster found a so have the Canadian taxpayers come to niche for himself. He was Mr. King's worship the economic fetters W. C. Clark 'Joe'-Boy' ; no drudgery too drear, never forged about them in wartime, little real- a job too long but what Jack tackled it izing that such remedies as were applied willingly. Almost lovingly. By now it to the nation's body economic in the is pretty well known that those who forties might, in 1951 boomerang like a worked with Mr. King had no set hours. bottle of Scotch in a gathering of alcoholics ·More than one wife, indeed, contemplated anonymous. suing her husband for divorce naming Lest it be thought that Dr. Clark has Mr. King co-respondent. It is impossible been accorded more attention than his to exaggerate the Simon-Legree-ish way ' colleagues of the Public Service Polit- Mr. King treated his slave labour on bureau, suffice it to repeat that Canadians Sundays, holidays and Holy days. today live under Clarkism. Of all the On this rugged regime Jack Pickersgill galaxy of Brain Trusters, he ranks primus throve. It goes without saying that a,s he inter pares. worked these long and exhausting hours he came to know a great deal about The P. M.'s. Private Brain Truster Canada. He also got to know a great deal about people. In fact he got to know ACK PICKERSGILL is Prime Minister a great deal about everything. St. Laurent's own private Brain Trus- Jter. Surviver of the Augustan Era of T is not the purpose of this article to at- Mackenzie King, as indispensable to the I tempt to assess Jack Pickersgill's intelli- new incumbent as the old, here is a man gence in relation to the science of govern- OLIGARCHS AT OTTAWA 21

ment. Suffice it to say that he knows of the Privy Council for Canada. An old this government and this country as few do. hand at brain trusting, he was a power in He's a walking encyclopaedia of political External Affairs as far back as 10 years intelligence. He's the kind of fellow who ago. After brain trusting 'in absentia' reads the fine print and finds the lurking while serving as Canadian High Com- booby traps among the 'whereases'. missioner in London, now he's back in Where Pickersgill really coruscates, how- the old East Block on a new job. But still ever, is in 'cracker barrel' political science. brain trusting. Take the riding of Durham, for instance, Mr. Robertson, as so many able young Pickersgill probably knows not only who men at Ottawa do, rose to the top very won it in the last Federal election but the early and very quickly. The late Oscar time before and the time before that again. Douglas Skelton, snatched by Mr. King It is a better-than-even bet that he can from a happy Deanship at Queen's tell you how Durham voted every election University for a harassing career (which this century. Some would say that this ultimately killed him!) as Under Secretary is idle knowledge. Yet it is such "idle of State for External Affairs, early dis- knowledge" which keeps political parties cerned the real brains in Mr. Robertson. in power. Pickersgill would be able to They were concealed behind a rapidly bald- forewarn Prime Minister St. Laurent, for ing dome, a slovenly dressed chassis and an instance, that when he got to St. Joseph eternally buttoned lip. This facade didn't in Huron county he could expect to speak fool Dr. Skelton and later on was easily • a few words of French.. This is not to say penetrated by Mr. King, who saw in that Pickersgill did tip off Mr. St. Laurent Norman Robertson, what he really was, that he might expect to find this French a powerful brain in bureaucratic harness. Language pocket in the heart of English When he was Under Secretary of State, Protestantism. But it is exactly the kind Norman Robertson was a hard customer of knowledge Jack Pickersgill would have. to do business with so far as the Press In a Canada of 262 different ridings Gallery was concerned. He simply that have to be won, with a Prime Minister wouldn't talk. Not only would he refuse responsible to his party for winning as to get between quotes but he was equally many as he can, Pickersgill cracker barrel adamant when asked if he would "fill in" knowledge is invaluable. for background. As well expect a good Nor must this man be assessed solely story from the stone lips of the statue of on his knowledge of ridings. He has a Queen Victoria on Parliament Hill as ' profound appreciation of regional as well from Norman Robertson. However, he as provincial problems, and this intelli-- didn't lick this silence off the grass. His gence is for the exclusive and private chief, Mr. King, never tired of preaching ear of the Prime Minister. It was precisely and preaching again and again that no this knowlegde which made him indispen- man can ever be sorry for something he sable to Mr. St. Laurent when he took didn't say. office. There was a lot for the new Leader The clam- like Robertson however, was to learn. If the truth were known, Mr. a powerful personality. During the war St. Laurent, it is certain, would confess he was often in effect Canada's Minister that he was a bewildered man when he of External Affairs. It was he who, more first started to survey his job from the often than not, devised foreign policy, standpoint of winning the next election. leaving only space and a dotted line for Yet he must have felt within a very few days his minister, Mr. King, to supply the signa- that this strange kind of James Farley at his ture. Robertson, was deputy in External elbow was good for many a political win. Affairs during strenuous days. He saw us slowly slide into a war with Japan. Keeper of the Public Conscience H e had more than his share in the epoch OLL gate keeper for the Cabinet, between the time we had no relations T Fidus Achates of the Public Weal, whatever with Russia and the time when Norman Alexander Robertson is Clerk we lovingly effected an exchange of am- 22 PUBLIC AFFAIRS bassadors with the Kremlin. He was his strength lie; in his own undoubted around till long after VE and VJ days, intellectual talents and his rock-ribbed and right here in Ottawa till the former integrity. A veteran of the public service enemies started coming back, in good for at least a quarter century, wise in standing again. Then, tired perhaps al- foreign affairs· as he is rounded on domestic most exhausted, he was appointed Cana- issues, here indeed is a mind upon which dian High Commissioner to the United Cabinet Ministers lean and whose wisdom Kingdom on September 4, 1946. they trust. This is the voice of experience, Whether in. his sloppy old office in the even if never audible to the world outside _East Block or as plenipotentiary at Lon- the East Block. Almost unique in that don's Canada House or back again as his long ·years with external affairs inte- Clerk of the Privy Council, no one can grates so well with his not so short years deny Norman Robertson played a great with internal affairs, Norman Robertson part behind the scenes in foreign policy. offers balance with brains. Few would believe that now, in a different sphere as Secretary of the Cabinet, he Wizard of Oz has ceased to be a potent actor in Canada's external relations. OUIS (THE BRAINS) RASMINSKY, L is about as smart a man as we have ONCERNING himself mainly with in Ottawa. Alternate Chairman of the C domestic matters, Norman Robertson Foreign Exchange Control Board, execu- is still a great and mysterious power in tive assistant to the Governors of the • the land. Consider for a moment what Bank of Canada, all that in itself has a the job he holds means. First of all, · sonorous sound to it. Actually, Rasmin- anything that comes before the Cabinet sky is to be assessed for himself rather has to go through Norman Robertson's than his labels. He is not only able, but hands. It has been suggested that he is, he has one glorious attribute- a sense of in a sense, the Cabinet's toll gate. Extend humor. the idea by saying that tribute of some He likes too, the hard slugging . of a kind must be exacted before Robertson high level fiscal dispute. Some time back, says "enter." 'rhat payment is in ideas. Commons saw fit to have a monetary If the idea in Norman Robertson's judg- committee, and such things always pro- ment is not good enough, then the matter vide a field day for the Social Creditors. does not get before the Cabinet. Without The Socreds put up their best man, bothering about further imagery, just Victor Quelch, MP for Acadia (Alberta), picture the position the Clerk of the Privy The two money solons took off their gloves Council holds. He could at least stave and went at each other, and it was all off things he did not like for a long time. good clean fun. To most of the rest of Items agreeable to him would obviously us listening, the talk was strictly gobblede- move to council table with accelerated gook. But each adversary understood despatch. Rather than growls of protest the other perfectly, and this battle on from Cabinet Ministers at things kept out Olympus they enjoyed. Rasminsky relished of Privy Council, the chances are that this the chance to meet an intellectual equal harassed body would voice grateful phrases from the other side of the fiscal fence. of approbation. The Cabinet would get But without in the .least being patroni- through their shorter agenda that much zing, he'll discuss finance with you till faster. gradually you have ·waded out over your Not for one moment is it suggested that depth, when he will smile tolerantly, Norman Robertson leads the Cabinet spell it out for you like a patient kinder- around by the nose, through his own garten teacher, then you go on from there. whimsical drafting of the agenda paper. Naturally, he does not spend all his time The ultimate value of Norman Robertson trying to get a few simple facts through is not so much the vital power he wields, the heads of newspaper correspondents, however obliquely, at Cabinet. Rather, but he does appreciate, as some of his OLIGARCHS AT -OTTAWA 23

Ivory Tower inmates fail to do, that it before he burst his bonds and became a is important that the Press pass on to the fugitive from the Striped Pants Brigade. people of Canada "what is happening" Then or now, John Deutsch, the boy from financially. the prairie, and quondam Winnipeg jour- Rasminsky served nine years with the nalist, seems to have just the right quali- economic and financial section of the old ties to get the best possible deal for his League of Nations. One of his most country. picturesque assignments was when he was A lot has been made, from time to time, despatched to Bolivia to give President of the integration and inter-w~rking of B~sch a leg-up on finance. Rasminsky one department with another. Much of made a thorough and a learned report, and this is carried on the elegant and erudite it was immediately pigeon-holed forever. shoulders of our Brain Trusters. No one (Oddly enough, another fellow Ottawan, better can do this better than John former Deputy Minister Hugh Keenley- Deutsch. Was it 'l'eufeldruckh who put side, was despatched on the same assign- on one hat, and was one person, put on ment by the League's successor, the U. N. another and was another? No matter; the Dr. Keenleyside also surveyed the financial idea is the same. John . Deutsch could status of Bolivia, also made a report. talk to the Ruritanians or Upper Slobo- Probably also nothing will come of it!). vians around an international council table Since reaching Ottawa, Rasminsky has in one breath as a Finance man; then in made 'the Grand Tour' just like any top the next syllable could double as an tier civil servant is supposed to do. He External Affairs man. What is true inter- was at San Francisco to hear Molotov's nationally is also true locally. For the endless "Nyets" and earlier he was at interlocking directorates of big industry Bretton Woods where under the influence have nothing on the integration of cerebral of the late Maynard Keynes they worked cells here in Ottawa. And in no place is on a fiscal idyll which later emerged as this articulation more smoothly accom- the twin financial partners of UN, the plished than when John Deutsch is around. World Bank and the International Mone- Stroll into Murray's Queen Street Res- _tary Fund. He attended the First General taurant in Ottawa, and the chances are As3embly of the UN in London during you will see a thick set, dark haired chap '4 7 and has been in his time one of the with a rather r_uddy complexion, talking Hotel Biltmore commandos handling Can- earnestly over the table d'hote. That will ada's interests at the New York head- be John Deutsch. It is hard to realize quarters of the United Nations. Louis when you see him there that he has been Rasminsky has been around. gone for weeks, sometimes months, on Rasminsky is a good-looking man with a such far-off operations as the Torqu_ay tailor many might envy, a sprightly car- talks, or that he has been week-ending, riage, and a willingness to talk rarely perhaps in ·washington. But in between found in bankers. As such he is naturally times, there he will be. Murray's seems one of the Press Gallery's Pin-up Boys. to offer suitable background for Brain Most observers in Ottawa like the way Trusters, and thus is dispelled the canard he operates, and admire the way he goes that these people need a rarefied _atmos- about - his job. Ottawa has not given phere for their lofty thoughts. Louis him as good a deal as he had a right to Rasminsky of the Bank of Canada; or expect, but even here in the Capital we Supreme Court judges like Taschereau have politics. and Kerwin hobnob as often in the hubbub of this civil service noon rush as in some Ace Negotiator whispering club. It is characteristic of Deutsch to be there. For, despite all OHN DEUTSCH is our ace negotiator. the alluring assignments a grateful govern- The now minion of Finance was for a ment has given him, the man is so natural, Jlong tim~ a Trusty in External A:ff airs, so real, so earthy, that a popular restaurant 24 PUBLIC AFFAIRS seems as logical a background for him as phase shows the handyman characteristics the protective covering of underbrush of the prairie boy. does for a partridge. A modest man, a rounded official, a good diplomatic representative, possessing mental resilience and the proven capacity HE conference expert came originally to take on anything as it turns up, John to Ottawa in 1936, and was highly T Deutsch is a formidable asset in Ottawa's regarded in External Affairs. . Like almost intellectual arsenal. everybody who ever worked on a daily newspaper, Deutsch not infrequently lets Bureaucrats Anonymous his sentiment get the better of him, looks back on his journalistic days with wist- F there is one glory of the sun, and fulness and nostalgia. To go back to the another of the moon and another of city room and try to recapture the good I the stars, and if as Biblically indicated each old days is to try and be 21 again. But differeth from another in glory, so it is if his absence from Ottawa pointed that with Brain Trusters. up, it also served to remind a hitherto Chance, therefore; rather than design, heedless government that they had let governs the fact that' the foregoing -para- a good man go. Thus, after a breather graphs touch upon a Clark, a Robertson, again in journalism, John Deutsch turned a Pickersgill, and a Deutsch, and leave to back to Ottawa, like Dick Whittington a later article the no less redoubtable did to London. He's been here ever since; personalities of an Eaton, a MacNamara, is likely to ·stay, now. a Bryce, a Towers, a MacKenzie, a Heeney "John Deutsch", said a fellow Brain and a dozen others whose place in the Truster, appraising him, "is a chap who firmament of the Brain Trust is firmly set. is wonderful on the international side of Lest the reader conclude that those ·finance." It is thus that he is used. He men are demi-gods, let it be recalled that speaks for Canada when it comes to a the universe in which they move is the money deal with another soverign power. relatively prescribed area of Ottawa and He understands credits and loans; he knows in the rareified atmosphere of international tariffs inside out. He can negotiate trade conference rooms in London, Paris, Wash- treaties about as easily as he can order ington and Colombo. In the wider galaxy a meal. That is why he was so valuable of industry and finance, of labour and at Torquay. Equally so why he was agriculture-in that vast expanse of human useful much earlier, when we were trying endeavour still happily untouched by the to do our brave best at Bretton Woods way hand of government, it might be that back in 1944. It was this quality which laurels which, in the eyes of Ottawa, fall impelled the St. Laurent regime to rush naturally about the brows of the Brain Deutsch to London to help line up the Trust, would look out of place, or might Colombo Plan. even be withheld. It is in order that their In wartime he played an important part impact on the lives of ordinary folk in in helping to organize the selective service. Halifax, or Saskatoon or Victoria may be This was one time when he was seconded understood and assessed that this series to the Department of Labour. This labour 1s written.

"Oligarchs at Ottawa" is the first of a series of articles on the senior officials of the Public Service, by Austin F. Cross. The second of Mr. Cross' articles will appear in the Winter '52 issue.