In winter of 1989, five years after his department led effort to establish Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APFC), secretary of state for external affairs, Joe Clark, met with foundation's board of directors in small meeting room just off reception area on ninth floor of Pearson Building in downtown Ottawa. minister's comments were upbeat and supportive. He was very pleased with foundation's progress. He understood frustrations that accompanied its lonely task as a catalyst for others, and difficult challenges it faced wrestling with an imprecise mandate and uncertain funding.1 In private, however, his advisors were less kind. The jury is still out on foundation, they wrote. Its staff worked in isolation and at cross-purposes and its programs suffered from lack of urgency and too much dispersed activity. foundation's progress, they concluded grimly, was disappointing and has not met expectations.2The department's disillusionment with APFC was unfortunate but understandable, and perhaps even predictable. foundation concept emerged as an important initiative of Asian and Pacific bureau of Department of External Affairs in late 1970s. At time when department was searching for new roles and new ways to relate to Canadians, prospect of foundation that would unite policymakers with crosssection of Canadians interested in Asia was novel and exciting. As Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau' s government sought to demonstrate the reality that Canada is Pacific country, foundation idea emerged among its main bureaucratic supporters as potent symbol of Canada's future Asian destiny.3 Promoting foundation as vehicle to underscore Canada's maturing political commitment to Asia, they confronted officials and politicians who continued to define Canada's stake in Asia in traditional terms as largely, if not exclusively, economic. However satisfying, victory in this struggle was short-lived. As department sought public support it needed to transform its vision of foundation into reality, it was forced to cede some control to its outside partners. Led by John Bruk, Vancouver businessman and mining executive recruited to study foundation's feasibility, department's collaborators increasingly forced pace, naturally determined to create an independent voice on Canada's relations with Asia- Pacific world. tension that emerged during final round of activity leading to establishment of APF hinted at unsatisfactory partnership to come.In spring of 1979, Tom Delworth settled into his new job in Department of External Affairs as director general of bureau of Asian and Pacific affairs. Like many foreign service officers recruited in 1950s, Delworth was more familiar with Asia and Canada's stake there than most of diplomats who had joined department in 1930s and 1940s. Steeped in prewar North Atlanticism, this fading generation had been inclined to see Asia as foreign territory - rich certainly, but often dangerous and politically treacherous. D el worth' s views were different. Since joining department in 1956, he had been extensively exposed to Asia and its challenges. He cut his diplomatic teeth on peace commissions in Indochina, managed department's Vietnam desk from 1964 to 1970, and served as Canada's ambassador to stirring Indonesian giant from 1970 to 1974. Indelibly shaped by Asian Cold War, Delworth was convinced that Canadian interests in Pacific went well beyond economic issues and included broad range of military, security, and political ties.From Delworth' s perspective, Canada had still failed to acknowledge these interests. Indeed, by late 1970s, Trudeau's early efforts to engage Asia were badly stalled. Relations with India had ruptured over New Delhi's nuclear tests in 1974, while Commonwealth ties with Australia and New Zealand had been allowed to fade until it seemed that like Alice's Cheshire Cat, nothing [would] remain but smile. …