Prime Minister Mackenzie King, accompanied by his future successor, Louis St.-Laurent, was in San Francisco on this date in 1945. He was there to sign the United Naton’s Charter on behalf of Canada. “At the ceremony… the arrangements were well worked out—a circular table in the centre of the stage; members of our party standing in a semi-circle immediately behind where we affixed our signatures,” King recounted in his famous diary.
America’s President, Harry Truman, who had assumed the office upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt only weeks before, represented his country at the UN ceremony. Prime Minister King took time to describe him in his diary. “There is an alertness about Truman’s steps and movements generally which impresses one,” he noted. “Also, his very pleasant smile.”
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.