There is so much in Senator Hugh Segal's speeches and commentaries on Canadian foreign and security policies that is enlightening and provocative - and often debatable - and his article, Grappling with in the International Journal's special issue on John Holmes, is no exception.1 That said, and genuinely so, his conscription of Holmes in support of the notion that diplomatic effectiveness is earned predominantly by armed forces cannot credibly be based on the 1961 quote that opens the Segal article. When Holmes argues that working in laboratories on lines will get us closer peace, he simply doesn't speak to, much less support, the central claims of the article.Segal equates Holmes's doubts about the utility of technicians with his own apparent doubts about peace diplomacy. Segal argues that 'peace' is uniquely the product of diplomatic consensus, the engineering of treaties, interventions by 'honest brokers' or well-intentioned intermediaries, or inspired 'wordsmithing'. He then goes on suggest that Ernie Regehr is co-founder of Project Ploughshares.1 Hugh Segal, Grappling with International Journal 65, no. 2 (spring 2010): 331-38.these pursue the kinds of theoretical that Homes rejects in the opening quote.In fact, Holmes's comment had nothing do with diplomacy, treaties, honest brokers, or wordsmithing. To the extent that Holmes disparaged technicians, he did so in the context of a debate about peace research, diplomacy. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a lively debate about peace research, with one school of thought putting much store in the idea that a approach peace research could move beyond what some thought were moralistic and values-based appeals embrace a more objective approach that would scientifically explain the roots and components of both conflict and peace. The quote used by Segal is from a letter that Holmes wrote the UN Quaker office in which he was responding an appeal for support for the then-emerging Canadian Peace Research Institute under the late Norman Alcock, in cooperation with Hannah and Alan Newcombe.Holmes expressed admiration for Alcock, saying I would very much like join him in the good work, but he then went on question Alcock's basic and technical approach, calling it not very practical. It was in that context that he said: I do really think that we will get closer peace by multiplying the number of peace working in laboratories on lines. In other words, he was questioning scientific peace research and by inference defending diplomacy as the way to with the untidy problems ofthe real When he questioned the value of theoretical solutions, it was a reference diplomacy but the solutions that would come out of what he regarded as the artificial world of peace research.I can't claim sufficient familiarity with Holmes's writings know the full extent of his attitude towards the relationship between diplomacy and military force, but my sense (aided by a wonderful series of conversations with him during a 10 -day visit the Soviet Union with a small group that included Holmes and was led by Geoffrey Pearson) is that Holmes regarded diplomats, supported by a mix of professionalism, moral suasion, fealty national interests, and national and collective coercion, as the people on whom we primarily depend grapple with the untidy problems ofthe real world.Senator Segal, however, uses the quote imply that diplomats are somewhat removed from reality and inclined design the perfect world, which makes one wonder where he has observed diplomats in action. It can't have been in the United Nations, or treaty negotiations, or peace talks. The last thing on diplomatic minds in those settings is a perfect world. Negotiators tend be so deeply immersed in the untidiness of the world and the compromises it requires that, if anything, their expectations are often too diminished. …