Article

Norman Alexander Robertson

Published Online December 2, 2007

Last Edited December 15, 2013

Norman Alexander Robertson, public servant, diplomat (b at Vancouver 4 Mar 1904; d at Ottawa 16 July 1968). Well educated at UBC, Oxford and the Brookings Inst, he joined the Dept of External Affairs in 1929. He drew the attention of PM KING and O.D.

Robertson, Norman Alexander

Norman Alexander Robertson, public servant, diplomat (b at Vancouver 4 Mar 1904; d at Ottawa 16 July 1968). Well educated at UBC, Oxford and the Brookings Inst, he joined the Dept of External Affairs in 1929. He drew the attention of PM KING and O.D. SKELTON when he worked out trade policies during the Depression, and in 1941 became undersecretary. Aided by Lester PEARSON and Hume WRONG, Robertson directed Canadian diplomacy during WWII along new and untried paths - with great success. His postwar service saw 2 terms as high commissioner in London (1946-49, 1952-57), where he dealt with financial problems and the SUEZ CRISIS, one year (1957-58) in Washington as ambassador, and a second term as undersecretary (1958-64), where his deeply held antinuclear convictions reinforced those of Howard Green, his minister, and helped bring about the collapse of the DIEFENBAKER government in 1963. In his last years he was a professor at Carleton.