Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Western Europe and Canada, Volume XXVII

375. Memorandum of a Conversation, Prime Minister Diefenbaker’s Residence, Ottawa, July 28, 1957¹

Ottawa, July 28, 1957

PARTICIPANTS

• Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker
• Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles
• United States Ambassador, Livingston T. Merchant

SUBJECT

• The Norman Case

The Prime Minister raised on his own initiative the question of a reply by the United States to the April 10 Canadian Note arising out of the Norman case and dealing with the question of exchanging security information.² He said that he didn’t want to push us to the point of inconvenience but that he was awaiting our reply. The Secretary said that there had been some question in his mind as to whether the new Government would not in fact prefer that the whole matter be shelved and no reply given.³ The Prime Minister replied that on the contrary he and his Government were interested in a reply as soon as it could be conveniently made.

The Secretary told Mr. Diefenbaker that he would look into the matter of the status of the reply and indicated that he thought one would be forthcoming in the not too distant future.

Mr. Diefenbaker then said he had taken the time the day before to read through the dossier on Ambassador Norman from start to finish. He said that there was no doubt in his mind that in 1935 or 1936 or thereabouts, Norman had been a communist. He said also that after reading the file, the most generous description he could give to the past Government’s statement on the case and their replies to his questions in the House was that such statements were evasive, misleading and inaccurate. He then went on to say that he had read the full texts of the two notes which Norman had left at the time of his suicide and that they bore no resemblance to alleged texts printed by a certain American newspaper. He said that they contained no reference whatsoever to Emmerson⁴ nor did they give any specific reason for his suicide but merely seemed to reflect that he was living in fear and could not go on.

Subsequently, the Secretary asked me whether the draft note⁵ which he had in his briefing papers seemed to be satisfactory and I told him that I so considered it. After leaving the Prime Minister’s residence, the Secretary considered the possibility of signing and dispatching the note immediately. I thought this might be tactically unwise and suggested that he wait a few days for its dispatch until he had returned to Washington.

1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. Secret. Drafted by Merchant on July 30. See Documents 374 and 376 for memoranda of other parts of this conversation.
2. See Document 365.
3. It was the hope of the Department of State that after the Canadian election, the Canadian Government might not desire a reply to the April 10 note. (Memorandum of conversation by Nugent, June 13; Department of State, Central Files, 711.21/6–1357) Ambassador Merchant, however, informed the Department that the new Conservative government was expecting a reply. (Telegram 39 from Ottawa, July 11; ibid., 611.42/7–1157)
4. John K. Emmerson, Counselor of the Embassy in Paris, appeared at a hearing of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on March 21. During his testimony, Emmerson made references to Norman’s past political activities. (Letter from Eastland to Herter, March 22; ibid., 711.21/3–2257)
5. On August 13, the U.S. reply was handed to the Canadian Ambassador in Washington by Deputy Under Secretary of State Murphy, who expressed the hope “that there would be no further official comment on this subject and that the matter would be allowed to subside.” (Memorandum of conversation by Nugent, August 13; ibid., 711.21/8–1357) The U.S. note of August 13 is printed in Department of State Bulletin, September 2, 1957, pp. 384–385.