US Presidents Haven't Always Gotten Along with the Leaders of Canada

Kathleen Harris, in the Toronto Sun (11-28-04):

THEY'VE BEEN golf buddies, duet singers and insult-hurling arch-enemies.

Canadian Prime Ministers and American Presidents have enjoyed -- and endured -- a necessary relationship that swings from cordial to confrontational through history.

While Canada and the U.S. have long been considered "best friends," there was no love lost between former PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau and then-President Richard Nixon. Nixon called Trudeau a "pompous egghead" and an "asshole."

"I've been called worse things by better people," was Trudeau's unabashed response.

The language wasn't much sweeter in the earlier John Diefenbaker-John F. Kennedy era. Diefenbaker once called Kennedy a "boastful son-of-a-bitch," while the U.S. President returned the compliment by calling Dief a "prick."

But the personal rapport between the neighbouring nation's leaders hasn't always been so dire. Ex-prime minister Brian Mulroney got along famously with a string of U.S. presidents -- especially Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. At the 1985 so-called "Shamrock Summit" in Quebec City, Mulroney took a pro-military stand before joining Reagan in a rolling rendition of When Irish Eyes are Smiling.

Leading Canadian historian Jack Granatstein denounced the public display of "sucking up" to Reagan as "the single most demeaning moment in the entire history of Canada's relations with the U.S."

But Tory Senator Marjory LeBreton, a former aide to both Diefenbaker and Mulroney, said kinship between the two leaders is key to strong bilateral relations. While Mulroney had major disagreements with the U.S. on a range of issues, she said he always explained his position in a respectful way. It paid off with a free trade deal....

In 1965, Lester B. Pearson spoke at Philadelphia's Temple University and sharply criticized America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Hours later on a visit to the President's Texas ranch, Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly grabbed Pearson by the lapels and angrily shook him in frustration for meddling....