George Ignatieff: A feisty disarmament diplomat in the Cold War era

Abstract

George Ignatieff had a long and distinguished diplomatic career, but only his last posting to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament in Geneva (1969–1972) enabled him to focus on the existential threat posed by weapons of mass destruction and what could be done through arms control and disarmament to avoid a nuclear Armageddon. He was adept at maneuvering within the limits available to middle powers during the Cold War. Ignatieff was ahead of his time in proposing a professionalization of the policy development process for Canada, and in suggesting means to bridge the gap between bureaucratic and political institutions in defining security policy. Several of his ideas would be realized only years afterwards. Throughout his life he was “indefatigable in his work for peace and international security,” and his contribution to disarmament diplomacy merits renewed attention as the world enters another period of nuclear threats.

George Pavlovich Ignatieff (1913–1989) was an eminent Canadian diplomat who served in wartime London as well as Ambassador to Yugoslavia, NATO and at the UN in New York. His last diplomatic assignment from 1969 to 1972 in Geneva was as Canada's representative to the forum now known as the Conference on Disarmament with its sixty-five member states, but which was then the Eighteen Nation Conference on Disarmament and, for most of his tenure, the 30-member Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD). After his ambassadorships at NATO and the UN, Ignatieff might have been in the running for a senior posting (and he was in contention to be named High Commissioner in London), but he appeared satisfied with the Geneva assignment. The Geneva position, while rather obscure, was devoted to an issue that had animated Ignatieff throughout his career, namely, how to prevent nuclear war and curb the arms race between superpowers, which had the potential to eradicate humanity.

Ignatieff's exposure to and concern with the existential threat represented by nuclear weapons was salient during an early assignment as principal advisor to General Andrew McNaughton, Canada's representative to the UN Atomic Energy Commission from 1946 to1949, and throughout his final diplomatic posting to Geneva and the CCD. Notably, his engagement with the disarmament subject did not end with his retirement from public service in 1972, but continued throughout the rest of his life as a prominent leader of the civil society organizations of Canadian Pugwash Group and Science for Peace, and as a respected “elder” who was at ease in communicating with foreign ministers and prime ministers alike to promote arms control and disarmament ideas amidst the intense ideological and armed confrontation between East and West that marked the Cold War. This situation was not unlike the great power rivalry and deteriorating international security condition that characterize our current era. Some of Ignatieff's proposals are as relevant today as they were when he put them forward half a century ago.

This article examines the evolution of Ignatieff's thinking about nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and the efforts to control or eliminate them, through three major phases of his life: his early assignment to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, a period in Geneva at the CCD, and his post-retirement activism from his academic positions at Trinity College and the University of Toronto (where he served as provost and chancellor respectively), as well as his time heading prominent non-governmental organizations. The relationship between his own thinking and the security policy of the Canadian government, especially under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, is explored. Next, the article discusses some of the innovative proposals that Ignatieff championed over many years, such as his espousal of an expert committee to guide Canada's official arms control and disarmament activity. The article concludes with an assessment of his legacy, including how his chief ideas have fared between then and now.

Present at the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)

The United Nations was preoccupied with the atomic bomb from the start. The shock waves engendered by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were profound as officials from around the globe struggled to comprehend the significance of this new and devastating weapon. The first-ever resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly was devoted to atomic energy, with its Janus-faced capacity for both power generation and mass destruction. Entitled “Establishment of a Commission to Deal with the Problems Raised by the Discovery of Atomic Energy,” the resolution created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) which comprised all the members of the UN Security Council plus Canada when that country was not a member of the Council (a special consideration that was shown to Canada, in light of its role as a supplier of uranium and contributor to the development of the atomic bomb). It is worth citing the resolution's operative paragraph, as it sets out a four-point work plan for the AEC that in many ways has guided the efforts of the UN ever since: “In particular, the Commission shall make specific proposals:

(a) for extending between all nations the exchange of basic scientific information ¹ for peaceful ends;

(b) for control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to ensure its use only for peaceful purposes;

(c) for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction;

(d) for effective safeguards by way of inspection and other means to protect complying States against the hazards of violations and evasions.”

Prime Minister Mackenzie King decided that General McNaughton would be Canada's representative to the new body which would meet at the UN Headquarters in New York, and George Ignatieff, a relatively junior foreign service officer, was assigned on a temporary duty basis to serve as McNaughton's External Affairs adviser. Information regarding the atomic bomb was closely held, and it is not clear how much background material was available to Ignatieff to prepare for his new duties. In information conveyed to him from John Starnes at External, it seemed that National Defence was assuming that “no nations other than the US, Canada, and the UK could be expected to produce atomic bombs in any quantity before 1956.” National Defence also downplayed the uniqueness of atomic weaponry, suggesting that “atomic explosives must be considered simply as another weapon with which to wage war.” ²

Ignatieff shared the skepticism of his External Affairs colleague Starnes and replied that McNaughton considered this projection of a monopoly on the bomb until 1956 as “purely guesswork.” Ignatieff acknowledged the open question as to whether the atomic bomb should be considered as “simply another weapon or the ‘absolute weapon,’” suggesting that the employment of the bomb would depend on the objective and that “one can conceive of wars between great powers where other forms of warfare would be more effective.” ³ Here we see an early appreciation on Ignatieff's part that the atomic bomb, for all its destructive power, may not be the most suitable or the most useable weapon for pursuing a military campaign.

The focus of the AEC, which held its first session in June 1946, was the presentation by Bernard Baruch, the US AEC representative, of a proposal that “all aspects of the production and use of atomic energy should be entrusted to an international atomic development authority” ⁴ to which the US would relinquish its nuclear monopoly. However, as Ignatieff explained in his memoir, The Making of a Peacemonger, “The trouble was that Baruch tried to embellish the [proposals] by adding a clause to the effect that any breach of the agreement would trigger ‘condign punishment,’ and that this punishment would not be subject to a Security Council veto.” ⁵ Not surprisingly, the Soviet Union rejected this override of the veto and suggested that the American arsenal be eliminated prior to any consideration of establishing an international control agency. The impasse in the AEC might have been overcome if there was a greater willingness to show some flexibility in considering the Baruch plan, but as Ignatieff describes, “Baruch was too rigid a negotiator even to contemplate a compromise, and his take-it-or-leave-it attitude cut no ice with the Soviets.” ⁶ Not for the last time, Ignatieff also encountered the reality of US expectations that their allies would fall into line, no questions asked. He notes a subsequent exchange during a visit to Washington with the US undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, who asked him, “Are you one of the mice nibbling away at the noble edifice which David [Lilienthal] and I so painstakingly built up?” ⁷

The pressure for Canada to line up behind the rigid US position as set out by Baruch was evident, although, in his own interactions with US delegates to the AEC, Ignatieff reported that “the US delegation is very alive to the danger of pushing discussions in the Commission to the point of a break with the Russians…” ⁸ The Canadian delegation was also concerned with what failure at the AEC might mean for subsequent US action. In a letter to the acting undersecretary of state for external affairs, Hume Wrong, copied to Ignatieff, the Embassy in Washington reports on a conversation with Acheson in which he mused as to what would follow if there was no international control: “Do we wait like a sitting duck for the other fellow to develop his bomb and to blast us out of existence without notice and before our defences could be organized, or do we take the initiative and make use of our advantage in a way which might or might not lead to a shooting war in order to enforce international control?” ⁹ In his own communication to Wrong, Ignatieff agreed that “we need to give most careful consideration to the various possibilities which need to be explored in the event that present negotiations for a plan of international control fail of achievement.” ¹⁰

Failure at the AEC was indeed the outcome of the Baruch Plan and the unwillingness to seek a compromise formula for the crucial element of international control. Ignatieff later wrote, “My involvement in the Baruch Plan negotiations had left me with a gnawing feeling of opportunities lost,” and he lamented that “1946­–[19]48 period was probably the last time when an agreement on nuclear arms control might have prevented the arms race that was to follow: some trade-off of non-proliferation in return for an exchange of information.” ¹¹ Ignatieff was affected by this early failure of nuclear diplomacy due to an inflexible American negotiating position influenced by the assumption, soon to be proven false, that their monopoly of the atomic bomb would remain unchallenged for many years to come.

The “cool” seat in Geneva

With characteristic humour, Ignatieff employed the above phrase as the heading for the chapter of his memoirs that covered his assignment to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD) in Geneva from 1969 to 1972. He was signalling that in his view the forum was “cool” in its handling of the “hot” problem of weapons of mass destruction.

It is not clear from the archives how Ignatieff received the idea of a posting to Geneva. The then undersecretary of state for external affairs, Marcel Cadieux, sent a telegram to Ignatieff at his UN New York post in August 1968 with the proposal that he replace General E.L.M. Burns as the Canadian representative at the CCD. General Burns had benefited from a special status as adviser to the government with direct access to the cabinet. When the designation of “Ambassador and Permanent Representative” was specified in the communication confirming Cabinet approval of his posting, Ignatieff expressed concern that he would not enjoy the same status as General Burns. As described in the memoirs, “a peremptory note from Cadieux set me straight. Unlike Burns, said the under-secretary, I was not of deputy minister rank; I would therefore report through ‘normal’ channels and receive my instructions from an interdepartmental committee of External Affairs and National Defence. To say that disarmament did not rank as a high priority with either department would be an understatement.” ¹²

Part of Ignatieff's concern with the downgrading of the reporting channels and the access to Cabinet seems connected to his interest in the government continuing to prioritize arms control in its foreign and security policy. Ignatieff was the principal pen for the “United Nations” section of “Foreign Policy for Canadians” (the rare 1970 effort of the government to publicly set out its foreign policy). The treatment of the risk of nuclear war in this section is striking in its recognition that exclusive reliance on nuclear deterrence was not a sustainable policy and needed to be complemented by arms control that would counter the destabilizing effects of an arms race. As the section noted, “a sharply-accelerated pace in the competitive evolution of strategic nuclear weapons could upset the existing balance … and make it less stable. Potentially destabilizing developments in the strategic arms race are capable of presenting grave risks for international security in the 1970s. This adds urgency to the search for successful nuclear arms control measures.” ¹³

Ignatieff's disgruntlement with the “lowest–common denominator” outcomes of the inter-departmental committee process did not inspire confidence as to how disarmament would figure in Ottawa's priorities as he proceeded to his Geneva posting. He took some heart, however, from the importance the subject apparently had for Prime Minister Trudeau. He recounts a surprise invitation from the prime minister to 24 Sussex Drive during a brief visit back to Canada, at which their discussion led Ignatieff to conclude “that we were in fundamental agreement on the need to do whatever we could to slow down or preferably reverse the nuclear arms race.” ¹⁴ As Trudeau's direction of the foreign policy review “had successfully shaken up the entrenched bureaucracies of External Affairs and National Defence,” and “he had force-fed new ideas into the bureaucracy,” ¹⁵ it suggested that the prime minister's interest in arms control and disarmament could prevail over the relative indifference Ignatieff detected within the bureaucracy.

The Canadian mission to the CCD was staffed with only two foreign service officers (A.G. Campbell and J.R. Morden), with a third position vacant. It did not take Ignatieff long to size up the dynamics of the CCD with its leadership in the hands of the two superpowers and its consensus decision-making procedures. The permanent co-chairmanship of the United States and the Soviet Union meant that they decided what would be negotiated at the CCD, regardless of what other members might wish. In an article penned some years after his retirement, Ignatieff wrote, “As the two leading powers, they of course set the pace for the arms race. It is a paradox of the disarmament negotiating process (as I repeatedly pointed out in Geneva, when I was Canadian representative) that these same powers also set the pace for any movement in the direction of disarmament or arms control measures. As with the wartime convoys, the rest of the delegations have to move at the pace set by the slowest in the convoy—the superpowers.” ¹⁶

Ignatieff, like many of his counterparts from non-nuclear weapon states, was frustrated with the imposed constraints of the CCD, which left very little room for maneuvering or creativity. Issues such as a comprehensive nuclear test ban ¹⁷ or restrictions on chemical and biological weapons were prominent on the CCD agenda in part because the core nuclear weapon problem was excluded from consideration.

Particularly salient in this regard was the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, an agreement to prohibit the placement of nuclear weapons on the ocean floor and one on which the Canadian delegation laboured at length, despite Ignatieff considering it a peripheral issue. When an agreement was finally reached, “we announced with a flourish that we had succeeded in prohibiting the use of underwater platforms as launching pads for nuclear weapons. Yet we had not even discussed, let alone reached an agreement to limit the movement of nuclear submarines, which constituted a much greater menace.” ¹⁸ It is noteworthy that the US shared Ignatieff's low opinion of the treaty. In an interview years later, the US ambassador at the time described the Seabed Treaty as “basically a nothing treaty … So they [US leaders] fixed on this seabed treaty as something that would fill in a dull period and show that the US and the Soviet Union could deal with each other, could negotiate without engaging any really important interests on either side.” ¹⁹

The verification working paper bruhaha

If one incident symbolized both Ignatieff's commitment to addressing essential features of proposed arms control agreements and the American resolve to control its allies’ actions at the CCD, it was the altercation in October 1969 regarding the Canadian delegation's plan to table a verification proposal that was then under negotiation for the Seabed Treaty. Verification is a crucial element of arms control and disarmament agreements and was appropriately the focus of much attention at the negotiating forums. Canada had made some investment in its verification capacity, and the Canadian delegation stressed the need for practicable verification provisions in the draft accords under consideration at the CCD. The United States had in May 1969 presented the CCD with a draft text for the Seabed Treaty which had not contained significant verification provisions. The Canadian delegation had developed some verification proposals which it was contemplating circulating as a possible amendment to the draft treaty text. Initial consultations within the Western group had suggested support for the Canadian input, although it wasn’t yet clear how many co-sponsors would be available. The Canadian cabinet had approved the verification proposal, which, if nothing else, indicates the importance the political level attached to disarmament matters in that era.

Although the original intention was to present the Canadian ideas as a proposed amendment to the treaty text, the delegation received instructions dated 7 October 1969 under the signature of the minister which noted that the US had made strong representations in Ottawa against the Canadian initiative, and in their light, directed that the proposal be circulated on 9 October as a working paper rather than as an amendment. This was duly done by the delegation, but Ignatieff reported that he was accosted by his American colleague (Ambassador Leonard) who “alleged that I was acting contrary to instructions, and he had been given specific assurance not only that no amendment would be tabled, but no paper at all would be tabled.” ²⁰ Ignatieff continued by stating “When I found this difficult to believe he showed me a telegram in which you [Mac Bow] were quoted by some official from the US Embassy as saying that you weren’t quite sure what Ignatieff was up to, or what commitments he had made, but that they could be assured that no paper would be tabled on October 9.” ²¹ Another US delegate repeated the charge of acting contrary to instructions, alleging that the undersecretary himself (Basil Robinson) “had given assurances that there would be no tabling of any kind.” ²²

Ignatieff, who had immediately conveyed his concerns to Bow in a telephone conversation after the episode, noted in his letter that “the [US] objective was quite clear, and that was to prevent our verification proposals [from] seeing the light of day at any time, except in terms which had been predetermined as acceptable to them.” ²³ Ignatieff continued: the delay in tabling in Geneva, which the US had urged on the Canadian delegation, was intended “to permit collective pressure to be brought to bear on the Canadian Government to, in effect, withdraw from the position which had been determined by the Cabinet. As to the future, if the intention is to drop our position on verification then I think I should be told frankly.” ²⁴ Ignatieff stressed the importance he attached to receiving a reply to his concerns and noted in closing, “There is no more disagreeable sensation than the implication, even from prejudicial sources, that one is acting in some way in disaccord with one's government.” ²⁵

The episode of the tabling of the verification paper clearly had wounded Ignatieff, who in a subsequent letter to Bow said that he “was exposed to two hours of the most painful pressure that I have ever been exposed to in thirty years of my diplomatic experience.” ²⁶ Obviously, Ignatieff's refusal to bend to American pressure coloured how he was viewed by his US counterpart. It was with some relish that in a letter to Reid Morden not long after the incident, he recounted that he had information that at a dinner for a visiting British official the US representative had stated “Ignatieff is a big problem around here.” ²⁷

In a detailed reply to Ignatieff's 9 October letter, Bow laid out the sequence of events regarding the US démarche in Ottawa, confirming that neither he nor Robinson had agreed to any cancellation of the tabling of the working paper in Geneva. It would seem to be a case of a deliberate distortion in the message the US Embassy had sent to their delegation in Geneva, which subsequently had been used in the effort to block any Canadian action. Bow noted, “Obviously, someone is toying with the truth in this affair and it is of some importance to locate the culprit.” ²⁸ Ignatieff, in his response, rightly warned Bow that “pressure will continue until the very end” of the negotiations and relayed thinly-veiled threats originating with US representatives that “if we continued rallying support for our amendment it would affect friendly relations.” ²⁹ The fact that US diplomats had played hardball with an ally would not have been a shock to Ignatieff, but it was a reminder that in the context of the CCD the US was used to getting its way with allies and did not appreciate those engaging in independent thinking.

Supporting the NPT with a nuclear test ban and a fissile material cut-off treaty

Ignatieff's tenure at the CCD coincided with the emergence of the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as the principal framework for global governance of nuclear affairs. The treaty, negotiated in 1968 by the CCD's predecessor forum, entered into force in March 1970. The NPT enshrined a tripartite bargain whereby non-nuclear weapon states foreswore the acquisition of nuclear weapons; the five nuclear-weapon states (US, USSR, UK, France, and China) committed to negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament; and all parties would cooperate on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Although recognizing the importance of the NPT as a legal framework for countering nuclear proliferation, Ignatieff knew that it was not itself a panacea and would require supplementary agreements to unlock its potential.

In a statement to the CCD, Ignatieff observed that progress on related measures, including “strategic arms talks, the Comprehensive Test Ban, and the Cut-off are required to reinforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ensure that it becomes and remains effective.” ³⁰ He recognized the symbolic importance of a test ban as a tangible measure of curbing the nuclear arms race at a time when it was only accelerating between the superpowers. Similarly, the envisaged Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) would turn off the production tap for fissile material, the essential ingredient for nuclear weapons. Speaking to an informal meeting of the CCD devoted to verification of a test ban, Ignatieff noted that the UN General Assembly had tasked the CCD “as a matter of urgency” to conclude a test ban, “and no wonder since, as everyone knows, there is nothing more symptomatic of the continuation of the nuclear arms race than the continuation of testing of nuclear weapons.” ³¹ The informal meeting had been called by Canada to highlight a presentation by a Canadian seismologist on the use of seismology to detect an underground nuclear explosion. This represented an early application of science to the field of arms control verification, which Ignatieff championed and for which Canada later became known as a leader. At the same time, Ignatieff recognized that “the means of bringing the nuclear arms race under constraint rests on political as well as technological factors” one could not substitute for the other. ³² It would take another quarter of a century for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to be concluded in 1996, but throughout its long gestation Canada was a strong proponent, and via a series of working papers demonstrated how such a ban could be effectively verified.

Outlawing chemical and biological weapons

Besides nuclear weapons, the remaining weapons of mass destruction namely, chemical and biological weapons, were high on the CCD's agenda. The 1925 Geneva Protocol had banned the use of chemical weapons in warfare, but no comprehensive prohibition existed. Besides sitting on WWII­-era legacy stockpiles, states were developing new types of chemical weapons through binary processes in which the deadly product was mixed shortly before use. According to Ignatieff, “The only antidote to such horrors, as I saw it, was to outlaw chemical warfare in all its hideous manifestations.” ³³ Ignatieff thought that an unconditional ban was the best objective to deal with the chemical weapon threat and that Canada should take a leading role in advocating this. Although he obtained support at External Affairs for this approach, it wasn’t long before his instructions were altered, presumably at the behest of National Defence, to have Canada reserve the right to use tear gas for domestic riot control purposes. Ignatieff thought this posture not only “utterly irrelevant since all we were discussing in Geneva was a ban of chemical weapons in wartime,” but detrimental in that “we would open the door to other reservations and controversies.” ³⁴ It is revealing as to Ignatieff's readiness to engage with the political level when he was upset with the instructions received from officialdom that he wrote the minister of national defence, Donald Macdonald, a “personal and confidential” letter arguing against the position he had been instructed to take. In this letter, he warned that “to change the ‘no gas’ prohibition in war to ‘some gas’ we run the risk of escalation and unpredictable results such as those which have followed when gas has been used in World War I or in Vietnam. The risk involved retaliation (or reprisals) with lethal gas, when any gas weapons are introduced.” ³⁵ Ignatieff lost this round, but his conviction against introducing any dilution of a total ban on chemical weapons was eventually validated. Here, again, it would take another twenty-three years before a Chemical Weapons Convention enshrined the comprehensive prohibition approach that Ignatieff had championed. The Chemical Weapons Convention, like most multilateral security accords, depends on referral to the UN Security Council for enforcement. This can be problematic when the permanent members of the Security Council are divided (as in the case of Russia utilizing its veto to protect its Syrian ally from criticism for employing chemical weapons), although the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was in the Syrian case still able to conduct an investigation and publicly point to the Syrian regime's culpability. Having a comprehensive prohibition in a disarmament treaty, rather than only restrictions on certain weapon systems, renders the verification task simpler and less susceptible to disputes over exceptions.

A prohibition treaty for biological weapons proved an easier task for the CCD, which finalized the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1972. This was facilitated by the fact that, unlike chemical weapons, no major stockpiles of biological weapons existed and accordingly, no verification provisions for the treaty were deemed necessary (later attempts to develop a verification protocol to the Convention were squashed by the US under the George W. Bush administration). Ignatieff attributes the rapid success of the Convention at the CCD in part to American scientists raising the alarm over the potential of biological warfare and the decision by US President Richard Nixon to unilaterally destroy its biological weapons arsenal.

From the start, Ignatieff recognized that minor achievements at the CCD would not compensate for a failure to halt the nuclear arms race and the existential danger it represented. As he stated in the summer of 1970, “Completion of the work on the seabed treaty and progress on Chemical and Biological Weapons at this session, important as they are undoubtedly are, if viewed against the risks and costs of the continuing nuclear arms race cannot be regarded as adequate responses by themselves.” ³⁶ Ignatieff was not prepared to let his CCD colleagues off the hook for the lack of progress, nor downplay the gravity of the outstanding nuclear threat. He reminded the plenary that “unfortunately the record of this Committee suggests that we have approached nuclear arms control negotiations at a leisurely pace which appears grotesquely at odds with what is literally an issue which affects human survival.” ³⁷ Here, as elsewhere, Ignatieff stressed the disconnect between the tempo and progress of nuclear arms control and the existential threat to humanity posed by these weapons of mass destruction.

Establishing an advisory council for arms control—an innovation long in the making

By the time of his posting to Geneva, Ignatieff was expressing his disenchantment with the policy development process in Ottawa as it pertained to arms control and disarmament. Shortly after his arrival in Geneva, while hosting a visit by a Canadian parliamentary committee delegation, he advanced an idea that was close to his heart and to which he would frequently return in later life. Ignatieff advocated the passing of legislation that would “establish an advisory panel of experts from the worlds of science, law, defence, and diplomacy. By asking pertinent questions, relating disarmament to national security, and suggesting a range of available options, such a panel could provide Parliament and the government with something that was sadly lacking, namely an objective, non-partisan, thoroughly researched basis for disarmament debates and policy decisions.” ³⁸

Ignatieff probably misjudged in voicing this idea in front of visiting parliamentarians prior to developing the concept further within the Department. Not surprisingly, Ignatieff's remarks found echo in questions in the House of Commons and an editorial in The Globe and Mail had a garbled version that suggested Ignatieff was calling for “some form of coordination of weapons technology” amongst the departments. Ignatieff had his knuckles rapped by the undersecretary, who interpreted his remarks as “implying inadequate interdepartmental coordination.” Far from being ignorant of the existing machinery of inter-departmental consultation, Ignatieff stated that “I was only too familiar with the mind-numbing futility of these so-called liaison meetings … [which] on the rare occasions when a decision was reached, it invariably represented the lowest common denominator among divergent points of view.” ³⁹

At its core, Ignatieff's proposal was a cry for a professionalization of the disarmament policy development process and for making it more transparent vis-à-vis Parliament and civil society. He was all too aware of the limited nature of the public service's capacity to deal with the problems that the advent of the atomic age had engendered. In a letter to his predecessor in Geneva, General Burns, Ignatieff elaborated on his idea: “I have pleaded and continue to plea for a high-level panel which might meet once or twice a month with a full time research director … I had in mind people of the calibre of yourself and Omond Solandt to be members of this panel, which should be appointed by the Cabinet.” ⁴⁰

Ignatieff could point to models for such an independent expert body, like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), but timing is everything and there was in 1969 too much political and bureaucratic resistance to gain traction for an initiative of this nature. Ironically, a couple of decades later the government of the day found it expedient to establish the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (1984–1992) as well as subsidizing the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament (1984–1992). Both these institutions were established as independent, non-partisan research bodies generating the expert assessment of arms-control and disarmament options that Ignatieff recognized was desirable to inform both political and public discussions. Tellingly, both were terminated after a new government came to power and resources and policy attention moved on to other matters.

Ignatieff continued to espouse variants of his “advisory council” idea for the rest of his life. In his view, it was necessary to bridge the gap between the bureaucratic and political machinery with respect to international security issues, and arms control and disarmament in particular. In the summer of 1981, Ignatieff even engaged in an effort to win over Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to the idea. The prime minister's reply was cool towards the notion, citing that security matters were already the purview of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence and that the new mechanism of the Consultative Group on Disarmament and Arms Control Affairs allowed for non-governmental organizations to exchange views with government officials on disarmament and arms control matters. Ignatieff pulled no punches in his rejoinder to the prime minister. The problem, he stressed, “lies in the inadequacy of the relationship between the public represented by various non-governmental organizations and Parliament and the government … [the Consultative Group] suffers from the serious defect that it simply enables officials to tap information about some of the plans and ideas circulating among non-governmental organizations, but provides no effective access to the government or to Parliament.” ⁴¹ Ignatieff went on in his letter to reformulate his advisory council concept in a more political rather than bureaucratic manner. The council could be comprised “of members appointed by the government, reporting annually to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence, and would be staffed by officials drawn from External Affairs and National Defence … Such a Council would provide a means of channelling public concerns into a specific mechanism, and its annual report to Parliament would … serve as a basis for an adequately researched and prepared debate in Parliament.” ⁴²

Exit from the foreign service and re-emergence as civil society spokesman

Ignatieff had for some time harboured concerns as to the direction External Affairs was taking and his belief that it was losing its former influence on governmental policy. In January 1970, he confided in a letter to his friend and former colleague, John W. Holmes, that while he was willing to give the Department's new management under Ed Ritchie a chance, “I see no really good prospect of things improving unless the present chasm between the administrative and political side, as it affects External Affairs, is effectively bridged.” He continued that in light of this situation, “I am inclined to leave the Foreign Service, as I see no way in which the present defects show any prospect of being remedied,” and he asks Holmes to inform him of any “possibilities of research in the arms control and disarmament field or lecturing at the University of Toronto.” ⁴³

In the event, an offer in 1971 from his alma mater to become Provost of Trinity College provided Ignatieff with an elegant exit from the Foreign Service, as well as a respected position from which to continue his engagement in arms control and disarmament matters. As Provost at Trinity (1972–1978) and later as Chancellor of the University of Toronto (1980–1986), he was active in advocating for a progressive and independent foreign and security policy for Canada. He accepted leadership roles with the Canadian Pugwash Group and Science for Peace civil society organizations and initiated, along with John Polanyi and Bill Epstein, the practice of annual communications to the Canadian government proposing specific policies in the arms control and disarmament field. These included an end to cruise-missile testing, the completion of the CTBT, support for a “No First Use” policy and a “freeze” on nuclear weapons, rejection of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and promotion of a ban on space weapons and the testing of anti-satellite weapons. Ignatieff's passing in 1989 was marked by an “In Memoriam” essay for Science for Peace by his long-time friend and fellow disarmament advocate Epstein, who detailed Ignatieff's life-long contributions to peace and disarmament. ⁴⁴

His reputation as a respected statesmen and public intellectual resulted in the late summer of 1984 in an aborted effort by the short-lived government of Prime Minister John Turner, in the midst of his election campaign, to appoint Ignatieff as Ambassador for Disarmament. This had been established in 1980 as an Ottawa-based public-facing position. Ignatieff, who was then seventy-one years old, accepted the role, on the condition that he would not be expected to travel. When Turner lost the election that September, Ignatieff was approached by Joe Clark, who as Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's minister of foreign affairs re-offered him the position, although the expectation remained that he would be able to travel to head the Canadian delegation at the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly's First Committee in New York. Ignatieff was unable to commit to this requirement, and when during the conversation with Joe Clark, Doug Roche was mentioned as an alternative, Ignatieff immediately expressed his support for this nomination. ⁴⁵ Although this return to an official role was not to be, Ignatieff remained an active member of the Consultative Group on Disarmament and Arms Control, over which Doug Roche presided as Ambassador for Disarmament from 1984 to 1989.

A legacy of thought and action

In describing the legacy left by George Ignatieff in the realm of disarmament diplomacy, elements of both his intellect and personality stand out. As with many far-sighted individuals, his ideas often were met initially with resistance and only embraced later on. Notable among his insights which eventually shaped Canadian policy were: 1) his recognition that officialdom would need to find ways to tap into expertise outside of government in order to develop more effective and publicly-credible policies; 2) his championing of verification as a crucial component of arms control accords and his effort to foster Canadian expertise in this realm; 3) his recognition that nuclear deterrence was a policy fraught with risks, that the superpowers were “more interested in nuclear one-upmanship than in arms control,” ⁴⁶ and that the dynamic of the arms race would exacerbate those risks until the political will existed to counter them.

His sustained efforts to address the weakness of the Canadian policy development process for international security through his “advisory council” was a prominent contribution. Although not realized in the fashion he envisaged in 1969, his idea helped spawn the independent research institutions of the Canadian Institute of International Peace and Security and the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament. In their heyday, these institutions produced quality work in the field of arms control and disarmament that lent practical support and credibility to Canadian diplomacy. His recognition of the need for government to engage the non-governmental community with respect to disarmament issues contributed to the eventual establishment of the Consultative Group on Disarmament and Arms Control, in which he took an active part in his later years. Underlying his advocacy of an advisory council was his conviction that this type of professional capacity was essential for Canada to maintain an independent foreign policy and not simply parrot whatever the national security establishment in Washington produced.

His championing of the importance of verification as a crucial dimension and facilitator of multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements informed subsequent Canadian leadership in the verification space. Although there is no direct connection, the decision taken by Trudeau in 1984 to establish a Verification Research Program within the Department of External Affairs reflected Ignatieff's stress on the need for quality research to back up official positions in disarmament forums and his nurturing of Canadian expertise. For 15 years of its operation, the Verification Research Unit amassed an international reputation for applied research regarding a range of arms control and disarmament issues, from monitoring a nuclear test ban to the use of satellite imagery for verifying space and terrestrial agreements. Although without the benefit of this in-house unit, Canada continues to support verification work, including as a participant in the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification launched by the United States in 2014.

Ignatieff's critique of the perils of relying only on nuclear deterrence and the destabilizing consequences of the arms race helped frame Canadian policy on arms control and disarmament for the decades that followed. His realization that the inherent “one-upmanship” of the nuclear arms race would preclude meaningful reductions in armaments contributed to the thinking behind Trudeau's “strategy of suffocation” set out at the UN's First Special Session on Disarmament in 1978. This strategy aimed to deny “oxygen” to the strategic arms competition of the superpowers through a set of restraint measures. Ignatieff's early espousal of “No First Use” declarations in order to reduce nuclear risks did not find favour in Ottawa, but continues to be seen by many in and outside governments as a practical step towards restricting reliance on nuclear weapons by those states possessing them and reducing the risk of nuclear escalation.

Last, but far from least, by his personal example, Ignatieff demonstrated a deep commitment to the cause of peace and disarmament, one that he pursued tirelessly in both the official and civil society phases of his life. His willingness to speak to a wide assortment of student and public groups on the issues that were close to his heart reflected his sense of responsibility to educate the public on the ever-looming danger of nuclear war which he tried to counter throughout his career.

Despite the many frustrations he encountered in his long public career, he managed to hold on to his sense of humour. Perhaps this is best exemplified by a comment made during a speech to the CCD in February 1970: “The occupation of those concerned with arms control and disarmament has to be (like marriage) a triumph of eternal hope over experience.” ⁴⁷