Today in Canada’s Political History: Canadians protest to the State Department in Washington after the death of Ambassador Herbert Norman

Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, Arnold Henney, joined by his colleague Saul Rae (father of current UN Ambassador Bob Rae) had harsh words for the U.S. Congress on this date in 1967. Henney and Rae traveled to the State Department to officially register Canada’s protests over the role the naming of Norman as a suspected communist by a Congressional committee had played in the suicide of Canada’s Ambassador to Egypt. An American memorandum of the conversation attests to the gravity of the situation. Norman had jumped to his death from a Cairo rooftop only five days before. “The (Canadian) Ambassador said he could not over-emphasize the seriousness of the situation,” the memo stated.