Lester B. Pearson’s Temple University Speech Revisited: The Origins and Evolution of the Proposal for a Bombing Pause

Abstract

ABSTRACTLester B. Pearson’s speech at Temple University in April 1965 suggesting a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam enraged United States President Lyndon B. Johnson, who in private the next day at Camp David strongly rebuked the Canadian prime minister. While their stormy encounter has become the stuff of legend, just how the controversial proposal for a bombing pause appeared in Pearson’s speech in the first place has received far less attention. Making use of new archival material, including the private diary of Canadian Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs Marcel Cadieux, among other original sources, this article revisits previous accounts of the Temple speech, offering new details on the origins of the proposal for a bombing pause and examining the hitherto unknown but crucial drafting changes that were made prior to its becoming public. In doing so, this article sheds new light on one of the most significant events in the history of Canadian–American relations.