Who is lester pearson

Making his way to Washington, D. He became ambassador to the United States in and led Canada in discussions for the founding of the UN. As the world entered the Cold War, Pearson signed the North Atlantic Treaty and helped orchestrate the armistice agreement that would end the Korean War.

After retiring from politics, he served as a lecturer in history and political science and Chancellor of Carleton University until his death in In , the Lester B. Pearson entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto in at the age of sixteen.

Too young to enlist as a private when Canada declared war in , he volunteered to serve with a hospital unit sponsored by the University. After two years in England, Egypt, and Greece, he was commissioned and transferred eventually to the Royal Flying Corps, but, sustaining some injuries from two accidents, one of them a plane crash, he was invalided home.

He served as a training instructor for the rest of the war, meanwhile continuing his studies at the University. He received his degree in and then worked for two years for Armour and Company, a meat processing firm; years later he said, with the wit for which he is renowned, that the Russians were claiming he had once worked for an armament manufacturer.

Returning to academic life, Pearson won a two-year fellowship and enrolled at Oxford University. There he excelled not only in his chosen field of history where he received the bachelor and master degrees, but also in athletics where he won his blues in lacrosse and ice hockey.

In Pearson joined the staff of the History Department of the University of Toronto, leaving it and academic life in to accept a position as first secretary in the Canadian Department of External Affairs.

In this post until , Pearson received an education in domestic economic affairs while «on loan»; in as secretary to a commission on wheat futures and during as secretary of a commission investigating commodity prices; the same post provided him with an apprenticeship in international diplomacy when he participated in the Hague Conference on Codification of International Law , the London Naval Conference , the Geneva World Disarmament Conference , another London Naval Conference , and in sessions of the League of Nations Pearson moved forward rapidly.

From to he served in the office of the High Commissioner for Canada in London; in May, , he was appointed assistant undersecretary of state for External Affairs at Ottawa; in June, , named minister-counselor at the Canadian Legation in Washington; in July, , promoted to the rank of minister plenipotentiary and in January, , to the rank of ambassador.

Pearson took over the post of undersecretary of state for External Affairs in the fall of , but gave it up two years later for the possibility of action in a larger arena.

In that year, Louis S. Laurent, the secretary of state, became prime minister of a Liberal government, replacing his retiring leader, Mackenzie King.

Pearson drafted the speech in which Prime Minister St. Pearson also headed the Canadian delegation to the UN from to , being elected to the presidency of the Seventh Session of the General Assembly in In the Suez crisis of , when the United Kingdom, France, and Israel invaded Egyptian territory, Pearson proposed and sponsored the resolution which created a United Nations Emergency Force to police that area, thus permitting the invading nations to withdraw with a minimum loss of face.

Diefenbaker ridiculed the idea; in the subsequent general election, the Liberals were reduced to 49 of the seats in the House of Commons. See also Elections of and Pearson began the slow task of rebuilding the party.

With the assistance of parliamentary debaters such as Paul Martin and J. Pickersgill , as well as party workers such as Walter Gordon , Mitchell Sharp and Maurice Lamontagne, Pearson re-established the Liberals as a national party.

In , the Diefenbaker government collapsed over the issue of nuclear weapons. See Cuban Missile Crisis. In the election that February, the Liberals won seats to form a minority government. Pearson took office on 22 April In , Pearson called a general election but again failed to secure a majority.

In the next year, the Munsinger scandal erupted with even more partisan bitterness. In December , Pearson announced his intention to retire. In April , a Liberal convention picked Pierre Trudeau as his successor. For all its superficial chaos, the Pearson government left behind a notable legacy of legislation: a Canada Pension Plan ; a universal medicare system; a unified Armed Forces ; and a new national flag.

Not all of these initiatives proved fruitful and some were costly; but they represented the high point of the Canadian welfare state that generations of social thinkers had dreamed about.

In retirement, Pearson worked on his memoirs and on a study of international aid for the World Bank. From the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. From the Nobel Foundation. Extraordinary Canadians: Lester B. From indigo. Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me. I forgot my password. Why sign up?