When I was in high school and beginning to get interested in politics and public affairs, I remember the fear all of us had over the possibility of a nuclear war between the Soviets and the West breaking out.  Tensions were very high, particularly after the Soviets shot down a Korean passenger plane in September 1983, killing all 269 passengers and crew. During this period Canada’s Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, embarked upon his famous (or infamous depending on one’s point of view) Peace Initiative.  He visited the heads of all the nations who had nuclear weapons encouraging them to open channels of communications further and take other steps for peace.  (Canada has never deployed its own nuclear weaponry but did allow US warheads to be stationed on Canadian soil for 20 years, until 1984.) Many were quite cynical over Trudeau’s peace mission but, at the time, I wasn’t one of them.  Impacted by fears, as I mentioned, of nuclear war, I recall being inspired with our Prime Minister’s efforts.  At one point I wrote to Mr. Trudeau about it and received back from the PMO a copy of the Prime Minister’s official speech to the Commons reporting on his Peace Initiative. So, I’m pleased to note that it was on this date in 1984 that Prime Minister Trudeau delivered that address.  You can read the speech at this link. caption id="attachment_537490" align="aligncenter" width="400" Art Milnes with Pierre Trudeau, 1984. (Art Milnes photo)/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.