There was labour unrest galore on the Great Lakes during the fall of 1963 with trade between Canada and the USA, and the entire world, threatened. The issue became so serious that Canada’s Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy had an urgent private discussion about it on their secure telephones on this date in 1963.
Thanks to JFK’s secret telephone taping system – and you thought the evil Richard Nixon did that first – we can today listen in on the call. The hard-working archivists at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston have even placed the recording of the two leaders at work on-line so all can hear today.
Over to you, Jack and Mike... click here to listen in.caption id="attachment_1310719" align="alignleft" width="278"
Leaders Lester Pearson and John Kennedy, at Hyannis, Massachusetts/captionArthur 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.
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.