Abstract
Reviewed by: Stephen J. Randall (srandall@ucalgary.ca ), University of Calgary
Bill (William Thomas) Warden served in the Canadian foreign service from the early 1960s until his retirement in the late 1980s, when he joined the University of Calgary as director of the newly established International Centre. This memoir, ably edited by his daughter Lisa, encompasses his student days in Berlin, his first overseas posting in Moscow and subsequent increasingly senior postings in Havana, as well as his time as commissioner in Hong Kong, consul general in Macao, ambassador to Pakistan and Nepal, high commissioner to India, and two risky but fascinating missions to Revolutionary Teheran. These were major postings, all of them of critical importance during the Cold War. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not know Bill until he joined the University of Calgary, but thereafter worked closely with him on a number of projects, including our early 1992 trip to the newly established Gorbachev Foundation to invite Gorbachev to Canada.
Three things come through most strongly in this memoir. The first is that, in spite of the word “dissident” in the title, Warden firmly accepted the basic Western assumptions about the sources of East–West tensions during the Cold War, and he served in the areas—Moscow, Havana, Pakistan, and India—where those assumptions were fundamental to Canadian and Western diplomacy. He expressed no discomfort during his time in Havana in providing regular reports to the CIA on Cuban developments, hence the “spook” in the title. He was, he concedes, a Cold Warrior, but a Cold Warrior who then and later understood the complexities of East–West relations and the internal dynamics in the countries where he served.
The Berlin section reveals an intelligent young man exploring politics and ideology in the charged atmosphere of East and West Berlin. His first overseas posting to Moscow sheds light on the paranoia of a closed Soviet society, the restrictions imposed on Western diplomats, and the internal dynamics of a large Canadian embassy. Cuba followed Moscow. His posting coincided with the FLQ Crisis in Quebec and Cuba’s acceptance of the FLQ leaders. Canadian interest in Cuba was primarily political, aside from some minor economic interests and the fate of expropriated Canadian companies. The intelligence gathering was not high tech, but involved getting out and talking to Cubans, a method that had been virtually impossible in Moscow. The section dwells overly on the case of US Major Richard Pearce, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who defected to Cuba with his young son.
The second aspect that is striking in the memoir was Warden’s capacity to engage people in the countries to which he was accredited. The memoir is replete with his references to senior officials with whom he became friends. This characteristic is also evident in the warm foreword that Gorbachev provides for the memoir: “From the moment we first shook hands I felt a deep empathy with him,” Gorbachev writes. One senses that the same capacity contributed to Warden’s success in Havana, Hong Kong, Islamabad, and New Delhi, as well as in dealings with other Canadian officials. The memoir is not narrowly concerned with the details of Canadian foreign policy, and this makes the book of much broader interest. There are only rare references to prime ministers (Pierre Trudeau in India as an exception) or foreign ministers and their ideas. Rather, what the volume does provide are insights into the socioeconomic, political, and military development in the countries where he was posted. This is especially evident in his commentary on Hong Kong as it began the transition from British colonial rule to control by the People’s Republic of China. The chapters on Pakistan and India are rich with observations on the military and political personalities of the two countries. Warden arrived in Islamabad in the early 1980s after the coup that removed Ali Bhutto from power and established a dictatorship, resulting in Pakistan’s expulsion from the Commonwealth. Canadian diplomats were well received in Pakistan. These were the “halcyon days for Canadian diplomats in the country,” he writes, untainted by US superpower status, the British colonial legacy, or Japanese commercial opportunism (207). Canada’s main concern in the region was the influence and objectives of the Soviet Union. As Warden observed: “the brutal Soviet invasion (of Afghanistan) and equally merciless resistance by the mujahideen dominated our world” (181). Warden felt no common cause with the mujahideen, however, observing that he was “under no illusion that our alliance was other than of momentary convenience” (183), and he sensed the irony that the allies would shortly become antagonists. Canada pressed Pakistan, unsuccessfully, to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, something Pakistan was unwilling to do as long as India pursued its own nuclear program. Canada was, as Warden concluded, “left only with needlessly guilty consciences” (205). Refugees from the Afghanistan war, and to a lesser extent narcotics trafficking, rounded out the focus of Canadian policy.
In his subsequent posting to India (1983–1986) Warden found that one of the major sources of friction was Canadian policy over the impact of Sikh extremism in the Punjab on Sikh communities abroad. Indian officials perceived as positive British and US efforts to contain local extremism, but found Canadian efforts lacking. The tensions boiled over with Indira Ghandi’s assassination by Sikh guards. Warden pressed Ottawa on the implications of domestic Sikh activities, without success, and believed that a more effective domestic Canadian policy might have prevented the Air India disaster. If the “dissident” in the title is appropriate, it applies to the last years of his diplomatic career and those that followed.
Readers will find Warden’s memoir a beautifully written, thoughtful, insightful, and often humorous account of the life of a Canadian diplomat from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, decades when it was thought Canada still “punched above its weight” in global affairs.