The Eisenhower Administration was then getting ready to admit some Soviet secret policemen to attend a meeting of the World Council of Churches - but poor Pierre they kept out. Why? Pierre later explained that while in Moscow for the conference he actually threw snowballs at Stalin's statue - and remember that Stalin was still alive. Isn't the man's overwhelming masculinity overwhelming?
But Toronto Telegram correspondent Peter Worthington checked the meteorological records and found that there was no snow in Moscow during that conference in April, 1952. Worthington published that fact, and for some reason Pierre has since been angry at him.
During the next few years, Trudeau clashed frequently with the Quebec Provincial Police, published various Communist articles and organized Le Rassemblement, a political front so communistic even the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation - now the Socialist New Democratic Party - refused to join. He applied several times for a teaching job at the University of Montreal, but his Communist activities led Paul-Emile Cardinal Léger to reject him.
Pierre apparently had developed a taste for leading delegations to Communist countries. In 1960 he led another - to Communist China. He participated in a Communist "victory celebration."
He met his idol, Mao Tse-tung. He collaborated on a book called Two Innocents In Red China. (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1968.)
Trudeau describes his meeting with the Communist leaders like this:
"...It is a stirring moment: these greybeards, in their ripe old age, embody today the triumph of an idea, an idea that has turned the whole world upside down and profoundly changed the course of human history."
Of the greybeard who has murdered more than 30 million Chinese, Trudeau says:
"...Mao Tse-tung, one of the great men of the century, has a powerful head, an unlined face, and a look of wisdom tinged with melancholy. The eyes in that tranquil face are heavy with having seen too much of the misery of men."
You don't believe he said it. I know. Neither did I. Get the book. Notice that the typical Trudeau sarcasm and condescension are gone. Now the Lord Protector of the Realm fawns and scrapes.
Indeed, says Trudeau:
"Everyone knows that the Communists summarily rushed to the gallows or to jail many of the great landed proprietors. It was the genius of Mao Tse-tung to realize the extent to which his revolution must depend on the peasants, and he mercilessly suppressed the class that inspired in these peasants awe, respect, and submissiveness towards outworn traditions."
This you still may not believe, even if you read the book yourself. Here, Trudeau not only justifies Mao Tse-tung's mass murders - he applauds them. They are good, he says. They are necessary. They prove Mao's genius.
Lucky Pierre loves to travel. He was in Ghana when Communist Kwame Nkrumah took control. We don't know why. Pierre won't say. He was in Algeria when Communist Ahmed Ben Bella took over. We don't know why. Pierre won't say. Early in 1961, at about the time of the Bay of Pigs, the U.S. Coast Guard picked him up.
Pierre was paddling a canoe to Cuba from Key West. We don't know why. Pierre won't say. The Coast Guard deported Pierre to Canada, but he did get to Cuba in 1964, after all. He doesn't say what happened there. Neither does Fidel.
"When a question is tough or Mr. Trudeau wishes to avoid it, he goes into an elaborate performance," writes Peter Worthington.
"His hands start gesturing, the shoulders wriggle, the eyebrows squirm, the mouth puckers and after some groping for appropriate words Mr. Trudeau invariably says something that is often irrelevant, usually amusing and always evasive. His listeners laugh or giggle as is their individual wont, and the moment is past. Next question."
By 1962, traditionalist Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis was dead, and Trudeau finally became a professor at the University of Montreal, overcoming the usual protests. He went right to work turning out Fidelistas. Indeed, the school is now teeming with them. Apparently he admires Castro as much as Mao.
And in 1963, he campaigned vigorously with the Marxist New Democratic Party against the Liberals, who roughly correspond to the Democrats in the States. Trudeau called the Liberals "idiots" because they had decided to use nuclear weapons for defense. The Liberals, he said, were "a spineless herd."
So much for Trudeau's biography. What about his ideas? What's behind his policies?
Thoughts Of Chairman Trudeau
"...The drive towards power must begin with the establishment of bridgeheads," says Trudeau (Federalism And The French Canadians, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1968)," since at the outset it is obviously easier to convert specific groups or localities than to win over an absolute majority of the whole nation."
So Trudeau isn't simply trying to govern Canada. He isn't just trying to protect the realm, as he should. What he is really doing is using his powerful position as a weapon.
What he really wants, like his idol, Mao Tse-tung, is power.
Indeed, says Trudeau,
"the experience of that superb strategist Mao Tse-tung might lead us to conclude that in a vast and heterogeneous country, the possibility of establishing socialist strongholds in certain regions is the very best thing..."
It's unnecessary and infeasible to establish Socialism all at once, he says.
In a big country like China, or like Canada, the best way to impose Socialism is to manipulate group after group and seize region after region. He says,
"Federalism must be welcomed as a valuable tool which permits dynamic parties to plant socialist governments in certain provinces, from which the seed of radicalism can slowly spread."
Notice the crucially important fact that Trudeau's famous opposition to separatism isn't based, like Lincoln's, on a desire to keep his country together. Federalism for Trudeau is like everything else a tool - with which to impose Communism on Canada.
Socialism in one province will seep into another, he says. But if the separatists are successful - if a Socialist province becomes a foreign country - then that seepage is made more difficult.
On the other hand, without the degree of provincial autonomy federalism allows, Trudeau says, he would be faced with the difficult task of imposing Socialism at once. Federalism allows it to be done province by province. That is why he wants just enough autonomy - but not too much. What about specific tactics?
Trudeau explains that,
"in terms of political tactics, the only real question democratic socialists must answer is, 'Just how much reform can the majority of the people be brought to desire at the present time?' "
People are "brought" to desire what Pierre wants. They are manipulated.
The Socialism is slyly slipped over on them.