House of Commons, response to Norman’s death

Canada, House of Commons, Debates
4 April 1957, pp 3058-9

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO EGYPT

On the orders of the day:

Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North): Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Has the minister any comment to make on the tragic event which took place today in Cairo? I refer to the death of Mr. E. H. Norman.

Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I think perhaps the best way I can answer that is to read to the house a statement I issued to the press earlier this morning. That statement is as follows:

For 18 years Mr. Herbert Norman served his country as an official of the Department of External Affairs with loyalty, devotion and ability. During that time all his actions served only to confirm and strengthen my faith in and my admiration for him.

During recent critical months in the Middle East, he has been working—or, rather, overworking—under great pressure at Cairo; at times right around the clock.

He has also been deeply and understandably distressed by the resurrection by one or two persons in Washington of certain old charges affecting his loyalty, and which were disposed of years ago after a careful investigation. The reasons for these renewed attacks might be obscure, but the tactics used degraded only those who adopted them.

The combined effect of overwork, overstrain and the feeling of renewed persecution on a sensitive mind and a not very robust body produced a nervous collapse, the tragic result of which has brought to me personally and, I am sure, to his colleagues and friends, both shock and grief and a sense of great loss.

My deep and heartfelt sympathy goes out to his widow and to his family at this dark hour.

That was the statement I gave, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps at this point I should add that after this matter was raised in the house on March 15 I received a telegram from Mr. Norman in Cairo as follows:

I have been deeply moved by the generous and forthright terms of your statement in the house concerning the recent allegations against me. While on the one hand, the persistent renewal of these allegations have a vexing and discouraging effect, yet, on the other hand, the reaction to them in the House of Commons has increased, if that were possible, my pride in and devotion to our institutions and our sense of fair play. [...]