John Diefenbaker was in Yukon on this date in 1961 while rookie U.S. President John F. Kennedy was at his family’s compound on Cape Cod. Via a telephone conversation, the pair of North American leaders dedicated a cooperative communications system for missile detection that would improve continental defence during that Cold War period.thanks to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library’s hard-working staff, you can listen to the telephone call between the two leaders, at this link.And, I would be remiss if I did not mention that it was on this date in 1950 that the great Mackenzie King died at Kingsmere, leaving his personal diary behind for political historians to pore over. It enthralls us still!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.