Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was one of many Canadians who paid tribute 25-years-ago today upon the loss of Canadian diplomat Escott Reid. He had died, age 94, two-days before. Reid joined the department of External Affairs in 1939 and rose to occupy the most senior positions in his department and then served Canada overseas. A close colleague of Lester B. Pearson’s, he played a proud role in the founding of the United Nations and NATO.
"Escott Reid was one of the most able and insightful diplomats that Canada has ever produced,” Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said in his tribute to Reid, released on this date in 1999. “At a time of profound change and uncertainty, he was a voice of innovation and stability. Through the brilliance and foresight of his vision and his skilful advocacy, he gave Canada a strong voice and an indispensable role to play in the creation of NATO - the most successful defensive military alliance in history. As such it can be said that he was a chief architect of the victory of democratic values we have seen in Europe over the past decade. His passing is an enormous loss.”
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.