The Making of a Peacemonger; The Memoirs of George Ignatieff

Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 265 pages. DJ has small tear at bottom of DJ front. Includes Illustrations, Preface, and Index. Signed and Inscribed by the author. Inscription reads: To Ambassador Niles, with cordial best wishes from a colleague in diplomacy. George Ignatieff, 26 February 1986. Title page is also signed Thomas Niles (presumably by Ambassador Niles). Also contains a sogned typed letter laid in from U. S. Ambassador to Canada Thomas M. T. Niles to Ambassador Nitze (Special Advisor to the President for Arms Control Matters, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20520)! The author became Chancellor of the University of Toronto. In 1984 he received the Pearson Peace Award for his outstanding contributions to the cause of peace. George Pavlovich Ignatieff, CC (December 16, 1913 - August 10, 1989) was a noted Russian-Canadian diplomat. His career spanned nearly five decades in World War II and the postwar period. In 1940 he joined the Canadian Department of External Affairs. He became personal assistant to the Canadian High Commissioner in London, Vincent Massey, and during his London posting began a friendship with Lester Pearson, later Prime Minister of Canada. Ignatieff was a key figure in Canadian diplomacy and international relations through the postwar period. He was Ambassador to Yugoslavia (1956-1958), permanent representative to NATO (1963-1966), Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations (1966-1969) and president of the United Nations Security Council (1968-1969). In 1984 Ignatieff was appointed Ambassador for Disarmament by Prime Minister John Turner. Standing on the roof of Canada House following one of the worst wartime air raids on London and surveying the devastation around them, two men resolved to devote their lives to the cause of peace. One of them was Mike Pearson, soon to become minister of external affairs and eventually prime minister of Canada. The other was a junior foreign service official by the name of George Ignatieff. The London blitz was not Ignatieff's first exposure to the horrors of war. As the Russian-born son of a famous aristocratic family, he was barely five years old when the revolution and civil war put an end to his sheltered childhood. His father was arrested and jailed by the Bolsheviks, then miraculously released in time for the family to escape to England and eventually settle in Canada. For the last event, he has never ceased to be grateful. With warmth, charm and unfailing humor, Ignatieff takes the reader through a remarkable life. The early years - from the elegance of his childhood home to the comic struggles of �migr� neophytes operating a dairy farm, from the pain of isolation at an exclusive Montreal boys' school and the challenges of railroad construction life in western Canada to the heady days as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford - developed in the young man the flexibility and adaptability required of a diplomat. His close-up observation of troops massed to parade before Hitler, his shock at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear arms race, and the Cuban missile crisis all reinforced his commitment to peace. Ignatieff served his adopted country as Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia and to the North Atlantic Council. He represented Canada on the United Nations Security Council and at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. He participated in tense negotiations over most of the world's hot spots of the 1950s and 60s: the Middle east, Suez, Korea, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus. He accompanied Pearson on his historic visit to the Soviet Union, and spent a memorable evening with Khrushchev and Bulganin. He discussed multiculturalism with Tito, the Suez crisis with U Thant, and disarmament with anyone who would listen. His colorful recollections offer a rare glimpse into the workings of international relations, of policy-making at the highest levels, and of people whose decisions affect the stability of the world. They are also the intensely personal account of an immigrant who rose to distinguished heights in service to his country and to humanity. Thomas Michael Tolliver Niles (born September 22, 1939 in Lexington, Kentucky) was a diplomat who served as a career Foreign Service Officer and United States Ambassador to Canada (1985-89), the European Union (1989-91), and Greece (1993-97). He served as President and Vice Chairman of the United States Council for International Business and was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 - October 19, 2004) was an American politician who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. He is best known for being the principal author of NSC 68 and the co-founder of Team B. He helped shape Cold War defense policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations. Sonja Morawetz Sinclair (born 3 December 1921) is a Canadian journalist, author, and cryptographer. From the 1950s to the 1990s she worked independently for major Canadian publications including Time, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Maclean's, Chatelaine, Canadian Business, Financial Post, authored four books and worked as Director of Communication for Price Waterhouse. In June 2017 she was honored by the British government for her service as a World War II codebreaker for an Ottawa branch of Bletchley Park Signals Intelligence between 1943-1945.