Did Free Love in the 60s Start with Dief the Chief?
As most of you probably don’t know, I am a history major, and so history is what really interests me. Sometimes when I am reading the news, I really find some stories interest me on a historical level. Such is the case with an article I saw on the CBC a few weeks ago about a man in Ontario, John George Dryden, that claims he is the son of former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
Now, I think at some point or another all of us have questioned whether or not we are really the offspring of our parents (I mean, come on, they are so lame and listen to lame music and are totally embarrassing) and imagine that we are the children of famous people that were given up for adoption. And when it comes to Canadian history, there are few people more “cool” than Prime Minister Diefenbaker. I mean, he was called the “Prairie Populist” for crying out loud. It sounds like a totally wicked wrestling name, right? He also had the jowls of the Greek god of face sagging (or he would, if such a god existed in Greek mythology).
Finally, he totally hated the United States and relations between him and President Kennedy were famously icy. So it comes as no surprise that John Dryden, in trying to prove he is Diefenbaker’s son, is suing his mother, father, and the rest of his family for $30 million to fund his quest to get the Diefenbaker Centre in Saskatoon to fork over anything that might have Diefenbaker’s DNA on it so that a paternity test can be conducted. I mean, if there was even the remotest chance that my mother had been in a position to possibly maybe perhaps have sex with Prime Minister Diefenbaker back in the 60s and that I might be the illegitimate son of the jowliest Prime Minister in history, I would be suing her and my whole family too. So good luck, John George Dryden. May your quest to become known as the son of the only Prime Minister from Saskatchewan, who cancelled the Avro Arrow, passed the Canadian Bill of Rights, and sent a case of Prem to every poor farmer, be not in vain.
Needs more research.
Diefenbaker did not hate Americans and President Eisenhower was a good friend of his. He did not get along with the Catholic President Kennedy but since Diefenbaker was a member of the Orange order this was not much of a surprise. It is also well known that people south of the border came up to Canada to help defeat Diefenbaker. What is not known is when the conspiracy against him started or how many people were involved.
As far as cancelling Sir Roy Dobson's British-owned Avro Arrow goes it is hard to fault Difenbaker. The Liberals started the program and decided to cancell it in 1957. Before they could act the Progressive Conservatives took over and were advised by the military in 1958, "Finally, the cost of the CF-105 programme as a whole was now of such a magnitude that the Chiefs of Staff felt that, to meet the modest requirement of manned aircraft presently considered advisable, it would be more economical to procure a fully developed interceptor of comparable performance in the U.S.”
Note that the military is advising that the U.S. interceptor has "comparable performance" and is "more economical".
Subtract the stuff about Kennedy and the Arrow and the biggest thing is the Bill of Rights which is a good thing. The Prime Minister from Saskatchewan was not really as bad as most people seem to think.