Review of David Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994

Lenarcic, David A.

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\u3cem\u3eTrue Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898–1960\u3c/em\u3e by David Jay Bercuson [Review]

Wilfrid Laurier University

Canadian Military HistoryVolume 3 | Issue 2 Article 211-23-2012True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898–1960by David Jay Bercuson [Review]David A. LenarcicWilfrid Laurier UniversityThis Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian MilitaryHistory by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationLenarcic, David A. (1994) "True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898–1960 by David Jay Bercuson [Review]," Canadian MilitaryHistory: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 21.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol3/iss2/21True Patriot The Life of Brooke Claxton 1898-1960 David Jay Bercuson. True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton 1898-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) 363 pages, $35.00. P olitical biography has become something of a lost art within the Canaclian historical profession. It has suffered from the misfor-tune of combining the two types of history whose efficacy has been most challenged in recent years within the field. Once a staple of Canadian historiography, it has been relegated to the backwater. This is not to say that the "great man" approach to the study of the past was without shortcomings. As that term itself implies, it was not. But in harping on the inad-equacies of political biography and forgetting how riveting it can be when done properly, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water. Thankfully, for those who recall the sheer joy in reading Creighton's Macdonald or Careless' Brown, there remain some scholars willing to try to maintain the high standards and tradition such classics established for the genre. David Bercuson is one, and in True Patriot he succeeds admirably in doing just that. This is a well-written and exhaustively researched study of an important individual who wielded power and exerted influence within the highest government circles. It is the tale of" a doer, not a thinker" (p.63) whose contributions to establishing the CBC, building the welfare state, creating the modern Canadian military, and setting up the Canada Council are a testament to "the power of his intellect, the drive of his will, ... his incredible energy, and his organizational skill." (p.5) But it is also the story of a man: his voyage from adoles-cence to adulthood, his inner battles with depression, and his relationships with father, wife and children. Bercuson's ability to construct a portrait of Claxton based on both his public and private lives is perhaps the book's main forte. Readers of this jour-nal will be particularly interested in the author's description of Claxton's military service with the 1Oth Canadian Siege Battery in France during 1918, the repugnance for war it produced in him, and the key effect it had in turning him into an ardent Canadian nationalist, his "only real ideology." (p. 67) Claxton was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal and eventually became the highest-ranking NCO in his unit. As the book unfolds, a picture emerges of a very complex man. At the same time that "intelligence, imagination, and a willingness to work," were his strengths, (p.126) a tendency to "be extremely impatient, intolerant, and judgmental with those he either disagreed with or thought of as less principled than he," proved a weakness. (p.95) As Bercuson so eloquently puts it, by his own design, [Claxton] came to possess two personae: one for the world, which was ebullient, fun-loving, vigor-ous, active, and a believer in and leader of causes; and an inner man who experienced the same self-doubt as other mortals but who also knew despair and loneliness. This inner man could be extraor-dinarily sensitive and empathetic, but few people were ever to know that. That struggle of the one persona for mastery over the other helped determine the course ofBrooke Claxton's career and his personal life. (p .43) The author never loses sight of the interrelationship between personality and policy. It is in the examination of Claxton's public service where his "overriding ... desire to be useful to his country" (p.287) shines through. Those attracted to military history will especially enjoy Bercuson's treatment of Claxton's tenure as Minister of National Defence from 1946 to 1954. The author discusses the major part he played in shaping Canadian defence policy through the early years of the Cold War, including Canada's role in NATO, laying the foundation for joint North American defence with the United States, participation in the Korean Conflict, and particularly his efforts at rebuilding and reorganizing the nation's armed forces in the immediate post-World War II period which saw their largest peacetime mobilization ever. Here, too, the book's central strengths are represented. Bercuson tackles controversial historiographical debates head on. Some historians have portrayed Claxton as a budget slasher who at Prime Minister Mackenzie King's command willingly initiated deep cuts in defence spending. Bercuson demonstrates convinc-ingly that Claxton "bitterly resisted" the wholesale gutting of his ministry's resources (pp.166-169). Oddly enough, though, the author does not explicitly situate his interpretation of Claxton's realistic approach to the Canadian-American defence relationship (pp.190, 289-290) within the academic debate over the merits of post-war Liberal policy toward the United States. 115 1Lenarcic: <em>True Patriot</em> [Review]Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 1994Bercuson also delivers on the promise made in the Preface to tell Claxton's story '"warts and all."' (p.xii) This, of course, is precisely what good biography should do and Bercuson does not disappoint. The book's tone is generally sympathetic and the author displays great admiration for Claxton's accomplishments; these he stresses in a positive manner, and rightly so. However, Bercuson does not hesitate to find fault when criticism is warranted; there are few sacred cows when it comes to both character and policy failings. For example, Bercuson notes how Claxton's successful opposi-tion to Canadian participation in the Berlin airlift of 1948 not only "ignored the basic fact ... that if war broke out over Berlin, Canada would be in it up to its neck," but also "flew in the face of everything that he had believed in since the mid-1930s ... collective security short of war ... [and] standing up to a power that ... was expansionist and inherently aggressive." Bercuson concludes that Claxton "clearly missed the import of the Allied airlift and the possible consequences of its failure." He speculates that Claxton might have believed that taking the same attitude on the subject as Mackenzie King would improve his prospects for landing the long-coveted External Affairs portfolio. (p.197 -9) Claxton's intense ambition sometimes got the better of him. Bercuson is similarly candid regarding Claxton's reluctance to see Canada involved in the Korean War. "When Claxton examined this issue from the perspective of cold military logic, he concluded that Canada should avoid entan-glement in Korea. But [as a close friend] pointed out, this was one of those circumstances 'in which cold logic [could not] be the 116 controlling factor."' (p.212) Here and elsewhere, Bercuson does well in explaining the motivations behind Claxton's actions; he recognizes the tension, inconsistency, and even contra-diction which sometimes existed within them. While "Claxton's faith was his liberalism," he was very much "the pragmatic liberal." (p.8) Yet, one particular area might have been fleshed out more fully. Prior to taking on the reins at National Defence, Claxton was Minister of National Health and Welfare from 1944-46. There he became "one of the architects of the Canadian welfare state." (p.4) He accepted the National Defence portfolio only after being per-suaded by Mackenzie King that so long as the armed forces were eating up such a large portion of the budget the social reforms he championed would never be implemented. (p.l51) Yet, as Bercuson emphasizes, Claxton proved very protective of his new ministry's turf, even in the face of pleas from his successor at Health and Welfare, Paul Martin, who "pointed out, correctly, that 'Canada would be unable to continue the heavy expenditures which modem defence programs entailed and at the same time expand social services."' (p.205) Bercuson acknowledges that Claxton's "constant struggle for defence dollars made him less sympathetic to welfare spending," (p.8) but what Claxton thought about the relationship between his work at both ministries-and the basic incompatibility of his achievements while heading each of them- is not fully clear. When one also considers Claxton's apparent modification of other deeply-held views like those regarding collective security mentioned above, the author's contention that his subject's "goals and objectives for himself and for his country remained surprisingly constant ... "(p.8) becomes some-what problematic. It is here, perhaps, that the absence of much ofthe correspondence-destroyed after his death-between Claxton and his wife, in whom he confided his deepest feelings, is most regrettable for what light it might have shed on these matters. Readers should also bear in mind that permeating Bercuson's appraisal of Claxton is his agreement with what Claxton fundamentally believed in and fought for. Bercuson concludes that one of Claxton's most serious sins was sharing the Liberals' belief that "their party was Canada's only hope and that preserving it in government was a truly sacred national trust." This was "a peculiarly arrogant way of thinking," the author concedes, "but looking at the record of Canada's federal governments since 195 7 does far more to uphold that belief than to undermine it." (p.288) Not everyone would agree with this assessment of Liberal centralization. The author's additional claim that "the belief of Claxton and his colleagues that this country needed effective national government is only confirmed by the chaos that has attended the transformation of a once-united Canada into a 'com-munity of shopping centres ... "' (p.289), likewise injects an un-derlying bias into an otherwise balanced account. How much Claxton himself -"a true party man" (p.121 )-might have contributed to those long-terms reasons for the Liberal Party's defeat in 195 7 which he identified at the time (p.281) remains unclear as well. In the end, though, there is much more to recommend than to criticize about this book. In retrieving Brooke Claxton from "a crack in history" (p.4) and 2Canadian Military History, Vol. 3 [1994], Iss. 2, Art. 21http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol3/iss2/21recounting his many impressive achievements in the cause of Canadian unity and the country which he loved, David Bercuson builds a persuasive case for why "one of the most interesting Canadians of the twentieth cen-tury" (p.xi) should be remembered by a generation that does not seem as sure as he was of what binds them together. David A. Lenarcic Wilfrid Laurier University * * * * * The Battle of Lundy's Lane On the Niagara in 1814 Donald E. Graves. The Battle of Lundy's Lane: On the Niagara in 1814. (Baltimore, Maryland: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1993) 342 pages, $24.99 US. B attle campaigns of the War of 1812 generally go unnoticed in the larger history of warfare, and in many cases are neglected altogether by students of military history. Thus it is a matter for celebration to find a superb history of one such battle, Donald Graves' Lundy's Lane. This book promises to revive our interest in the Anglo-American war in which Canadians played such a conspicuous part in the defence of their homeland. More than this, however, this study will stimulate the reader to wonder why the great conflict ever happened in the first place and, equally important, to ponder the legacies of this bloodiest of Anglo-American encounters. In one of the many quotations that pepper this book, with profit, Donald Graves cites C.P. Stacey's quip: "The War of 1812 is one of those episodes in history that make everybody happy, because everybody interprets it in his own way. The Americans think of it primarily as a naval war in which the pride of the Mistress of the Seas was humbled by what an imprudent Englishman had called 'a few fir-built frigates manned by a handful of bastards and outlaws.' Canadians think of it equally pridefully as a war of defence in which their brave fathers ... saved the country from conquest. And the English are the happiest of all because they don't even know it existed." These assessments derive basically from the fact that the war tended to settle few if any differences exist-ing between the United Kingdom and the United States. Although the diplomacy of the war, and the making of the peace which followed it on Christmas Eve 1814, fall outside of the focus of this book we generally conclude that the war altered hardly at all the relations between the two powers: what mattered most was the successful defence of Canada. If Loyalist settlement moulded the political character of the western frontiers of what was then the Province of Quebec, and shaped the destiny of Upper Canada, then surely the War of 1812 congealed Canadian attitudes against any future American invasion. Lundy's Lane was the anvil, and here the Americans decided to hammer their great blow. They did not succeed. On the sultry evening of 25 July 1814, almost within sight of Niagara Falls, American troops attacked British regular forces that were assisted by Canadian fencibles and militia. It was a savage encounter, the most bitterly contested in the War of 1812. It began with parry and thrust, and continued into the night as troops. in pitch darkness, struck at the enemy with determination. What are now called "losses from friendly fire" were regular occurrences. The power of the Royal Artillery, advantageously placed on an eminence, wasted unprotected American infantry. Royal Scots and the 8th, 41st and 89th Regiments of Foot put up stout resistance. The officer commanding British forces was Canadian-born Sir Gordon Drummond, who was wounded, and his second-in-command was captured. By early the next day the British and Canadians had kept their ground, and the Americans retired toward Fort Erie, there to fight again in what is an important coda to this story. As a battle, Lundy's Lane offers the historian rich possibilities for research. Donald Graves has mastered all known sources. In particular he has used to great effect the official reports of General Drummond and those answering to him. Drummond faced two great adversaries, both of whom went on to subsequent distinguished careers in the United States Army-Major-General Jacob Jennings Brown and Brigadier-General Winfield Scott. The contribution of Lundy's Lane to the making of the careers of Drummond, Brown and Scott can be imagined, for all three went on to distinguished careers in the military and public service. Graves scrupulously scans the official reports of these field commanders against other evidence, and it is pleasing to see him check Drummond's enthusias-tic report on his own success. Similarly, Graves notes numerously how E.W. Cruikshank lacked full access to documentation that would have given a more even-handed assessment of 117 3Lenarcic: <em>True Patriot</em> [Review]Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 1994

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\u3cem\u3eTrue Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898–1960\u3c/em\u3e by David Jay Bercuson [Review]

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