“The President telephoned to say he had just been reading about our deteriorating relations with Canada, which was something he had not been aware of; that we have done so much to keep good relations,” Herter wrote in a report he made of his conversation with the President. “The Secretary said he had not been aware of this either; that we have had many meetings with the Canadians and they all went off well. The President said he has not had Diefenbaker down here and, while he is merely a Prime Minister, the President thought he could give him a little more of the red-carpet treatment since he is the Prime Minister of such a close neighbor. The President said if we could get him down, the President would be glad to give him a dinner.”

The President and Herter agreed that a visit by Diefenbaker that coming June would be issued. Dief, in turn, was invited to Washington where he was feted by America’s 34^th President.

You can read a more complete report on the conversations between Herter and Eisenhower on this topic at the following link: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v07p1/d310 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.