Another King diary theory

As a Cold War historian, I have reviewed these postwar diaries, as well as associated files from External Affairs and National Defence. The author provides some plausible and substantiated reasons for the missing portions of the prime minister’s diaries. While I have no proof to suggest Mackenzie King had removed these diary entries himself, he had reasons to do so.

In light of the shocking revelations by Igor Gouzenko of wartime spying in Ottawa (and in the US) by the Soviets, the Canadian prime minister agonized over his duty to reveal these facts to the Americans and British. Mackenzie King was even more reluctant to reveal this treachery by a recent wartime ally to the Canadian public. Mackenzie privately feared that postwar agreements to ensure global peace would come to naught with the Gouzenko confessions.

The prime minister wrote in his diary: “The United Nations is as dead after three months as the League of Nations Covenant after fifteen.” He also feared an American response in light of her possession of the atomic bomb. While Mackenzie King travelled to Britain in the late fall of 1945 and briefed Prime Minister Clement Attlee on the Gouzenko file, the reasons for this trip remained secret. In fact, the Gouzenko revelations only became public knowledge when an American journalist printed the story in the spring of 1946 after the Canadian prime minister briefed President Truman. I’m going to give Tristin Hopper the benefit of the doubt and assume he was put up to this historic drivel by an editor. Ireland clearly did not invade Canada with the Fenian Raids. Some Irish American radicals in the name of Ireland did that. An Ireland legally capable of making war on anyone did not exist.

It was a totally subjugated, horribly oppressed colony of Great Britain.

Moreover, any treatment of the Fenian Raids ought to deliver the historical context, which was the starvation of the Irish people due to British policies permitting the export of food from the country at the same time millions died. he is not particularly young among French leaders or heads of state.

Louis XIV was much younger both when he became King and when he became sole ruler and Napoleon was slightly younger when he became Emperor of France.

Young French leaders appear to have tendencies both for centralizing power and for war. Canada can be thankful that Joe Clark did not share these inclinations. It may be a misjudgment to claim that the French election has “curbed the global tide of anti-establishment populism”. Macron’s election may well be another example of this exact same phenomenon.

How can this result be anything but anti-establishment when a country votes for a 39 year old political virgin, without a real party behind him?

Securing two-thirds of the popular vote, if that isn’t populist what is?