Note from Art Milnes - Today, I am honoured to have Allan Rock serve as guest contributor for Art's History.   Though, as a former cabinet minister, Mr. Rock has his own distinguished place in Canada's history, his reminiscence below recalls the time he was part of musical history, well before his political career started. On June 1, 1969 Rock was a student leader at the University of Ottawa and talked his way into the hotel room at the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal on the very day when John and Yoko famously recorded Give Peace A Chance – yes, the future cabinet minister is also on the recording.  Later, John and Yoko accepted Rock's invitation to travel to Ottawa to a student-led peace conference at U of O. Indeed, and unlike most of us, Allan Rock has no need to imagine...by Allan RockYou enter the suite to find noise and chaos.  A radio station is broadcasting live from the entranceway. Hare Krishna monks chant in a corner of the living room.  Tommy Smothers and Al Capp carry on a spirited debate in the kitchen.  Celebrities, journalists and various hangers-on crowd the rest of the space, spilling into the bedroom.  You wonder how they can stand it—John and Yoko.  The bedlam must be unsettling.  Yet there they are, in the very eye of this swirling storm, placid, unperturbed and unaccountably calm.  In pyjamas.  In a bed framed by hand-drawn posters proclaiming their earnest message: War is Over if You Want it! Love is All You Need! Bagism!You wonder for a moment why they are here.  Two of the world's most celebrated people.  They could be anywhere, doing anything — why put themselves on display in this untidy place, in this unruly company?  But listening to them at the bedside, you hear authentic passion and fervour.It becomes clear this is not a stunt, or a ploy.  They mean it.  Their distress about war and injustice is deep and sincere.  So they are on a mission.  They are putting their celebrity in the service of their effort.  Using their global platform to call out hypocrisy, and racism, and exploitation.  To galvanize their public to oppose and resist.  And despite his undisputed status as the hippest and coolest guy on the planet— he of Lucy, the Walrus, Sergeant Pepper – John's heartfelt belief in their simple message is childlike—almost naïve. “We can end war, and we will!”Later, the suite becomes a makeshift recording studio, and everyone joins in the anthemic chorus that carries the same message.  “All we are saying” goes the refrain, “is Give Peace a Chance.”It's the same in Ottawa a few days later.  They had accepted your invitation to a “conference on world peace”.  Maybe it was because you had also invited Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau — himself new, young and hip.  The PM didn't come, but they did, telling an enthralled crowd about their dream of peace and fairness and equality.  Giving their admiring listeners a sense of possibility.  We can change the world!That warm June evening, with the microphones and cameras gone, they wanted to see some of Ottawa.  You drove them around town.  They were humble and real.  No “rock star” airs.  Grounded and interested in all around them.  A Beatles song came on your car radio, and you all sang along.  “Get Back!”You stopped by 24 Sussex, to see if he was in.  He wasn't, but John left a note, and returned a few months later for a meeting.And then they were gone.You thought about them often, and about their message.  And when, eleven years on, the news came about his murder, you felt with the sadness a profound sense of injustice.  How terribly wrong that such a gentle voice for peace had been silenced in such a brutal, senseless way.[caption id="attachment_562331" align="alignleft" width="437"] John Lennon and Allan Rock[/caption]Birthday Alert from Art's History: Sending out birthday greetings today to Nova Scotia MP Sean Fraser and Manitoba MP Larry Maguire.