THE THIRD MAN

A historical work examines World War II diplomacy through the lens of a Canadian prime minister’s diary.

As the leader of Canada’s governing Liberal Party for nearly three decades and as prime minister through the entirety of World War II, Mackenzie King was “a vital link” between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. King’s 30,000-page typed diary provides a unique perspective on the American president and the British prime minister, who was loath to admit he needed a mediator between himself and Roosevelt. The diary challenges the prevailing notions, largely crafted by Churchill himself, of American and British diplomacy during the war. As a professor emeritus of history at the University of Western Ontario, Thompson expertly parses the voluminous diary and convincingly demonstrates that King, who was present during closed-door conversations, knew Roosevelt and Churchill “better than they knew each other.” Indeed, while Roosevelt and Churchill put on public faces of unity, strengthened by their mutual talents for rhetorical eloquence, behind the scenes both men had different visions of the postwar world. Whereas Churchill clung to past imagery of a benevolent yet dominant British Empire, Roosevelt saw the war as an opportunity to build a new world order. King’s accounts of conversations between the three range from lofty debates over the postwar landscape to more mundane discussions of “democratic management” of their respective cabinets and legislatures. They also deliver revealing personal details, such as King’s concerns over Churchill’s drinking habits that included half a bottle of brandy a day. By placing King as “The Third Man” alongside Roosevelt and Churchill, the book tells the Canadian leader’s own story as a man who felt “more at home in London, Washington, or New York” than he did in Toronto or Ottawa. Additional insights into Canada’s paradoxical history as both an American neighbor and member of the British Commonwealth receive keen analysis. But there is a noticeable absence in themes relating to racism, from Churchill’s views on the sustained colonization of Africa to Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans.

An impressively researched, cogently argued reinterpretation of World War II diplomatic relations.