How Dorothy L. Sayers Helped the Prime Minister of Canada Rally His Country before D-Day

In May 1944, Dorothy L. Sayers exchanged letters and had a phone conversation with William Lyon Mackenzie King, the prime minister of Canada. Sayers's letter made such an impression on King that he saw mystical and prophetic significance in its arrival and used it in a speech he gave in the Canadian House of Commons. This study uses the digitised archives of King's diaries and the parliamentary records of his speech, as well as Canadian media accounts from the time. It will be shown that Sayers played an underappreciated role in helping the Canadian prime minister rally his country during the war, as the speech that used her letter met with acclaim across the political spectrum and received positive notice in Canadian newspapers. In the weeks leading up to D-Day, Sayers played an integral role in building up the morale of Canada's prime minister, as he endeavoured to inspire his country. Finally, King's diaries offer first-hand testimony of how one important contemporary figure reacted to the radio broadcasts of The Man Born to Be King, as he particularly enjoyed Sayers's portrayal of the masculinity of Jesus.

The St. Louis Crisis in the Canadian Press: New Data on the June 1939 Incident

Starting in late May 1939, a humanitarian crisis developed when some 900 German Jews were denied the use of prearranged Cuban temporary immigration permits in the port of Havana after having arrived on board of the MS St. Louis, a luxury German liner. The event soon attracted much media attention because of its dramatic character and negotiations immediately began to find a safe haven for the stranded passengers elsewhere on the Atlantic seacoast. Eventually, after a few days, all efforts in this respect failed and the captain of the MS St. Louis, Gustav Schröder, was forced to contemplate bringing his human cargo back to Western Europe where four countries allowed the passengers to disembark. This article discusses the involvement of the Canadian government and media in this crisis, and the role that the Mackenzie-King cabinet played in denying the German Jewish refugees any hope of being welcomed in the country. Of particular interest here is the fact that the Canadian public was not well informed of the fate of the St. Louis passengers, in either official language, and that largely for this reason no serious pressure was put on the government to bring a different resolution of the crisis. À la fin du mois de mai 1939, une crise humanitaire est apparue quand quelque 900 Juifs allemands, arrivés à bord du paquebot le Saint-Louis, n’ont pu bénéficier dans le port de La Havane de permis d’immigration temporaires cubains déjà émis. L’événement n’a pas tardé à attirer beaucoup d’attention de la part des médias par son côté dramatique et des négociations ont immédiatement été lancées afin de trouver sur la côte atlantique un autre port d’accueil pour les réfugiés apatrides. Après quelques jours, le capitaine du navire, Gustav Schröder a toutefois dû se résoudre à regagner l’Europe de l’Ouest, où quatre pays ont accepté de prendre en charge les passagers. Cet article s’intéresse au rôle joué par le gouvernement et par les médias canadiens dans cette crise, et en particulier au fait qu’aucun geste concret n’ait été fait pour accueillir les réfugiés juifs au pays. L’auteur porte une attention spéciale au fait que le sort des passagers du Saint-Louis n’ait pas fait l’objet de reportages dans les journaux canadiens, dans aucune des langues officielles, et que pour cette raison le cabinet de Mackenzie-King a senti peu de pression de la part des citoyens canadiens pour trouver une résolution différente à la crise.

Foreign policy advice in the Prime Minister’s Office: Mackenzie King to Brian Mulroney

The Department of External Affairs (DEA) has always been anomalous—more closely associated with the prime minister than any other department, yet also more independent from cabinet in its necessarily far-flung structure than any other department. The unique position of the DEA has meant that its influence has been closely tied to changes in the structure of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). This article examines the ways that the advisory capacity of the DEA has gradually been eroded, while the foreign policy advice from the PMO has concomitantly increased, in the period between the 1930s and the 1990s.