The historian and author John Boyko discusses his new book Cold Fire: Kennedy’s Northern Front (Knopf, 2016) and the relationship between John F. Kennedy, John Diefenbaker, and Lester B. Pearson during the Cold War, with Joseph Planta.

Cold Fire: Kennedy’s Northern Front/em> by John Boyko (Knopf, 2016). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Cold Fire

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Cold Fire: Kennedy’s Northern Front is a new book from the historian John Boyko. It’s a fascinating look at the relationship between the United States and Canada in those years that John F. Kennedy was president, and John Diefenbaker was prime minister. Lester Pearson, the country’s opposition leader, had just become leader of the Liberal Party. We see how Mr. Diefenbaker’s rhetoric reflects a move to a new Canadian autonomy and nationalism in the post-World War II era. Kennedy faces challenges to America’s interests abroad and at home from the Soviet Union. The book features newly released documents including revelations that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Canada suffered a silent coup d’état, with Canadian ships and planes guarding America’s Atlantic coast. The book is a great look at Kennedy, Diefenbaker and Pearson, their personalities and the politics surrounding them at the start of the 1960s. We chart Diefenbaker’s fall from office, and Pearson’s rise. Mr. Boyko also illustrates the influence the Kennedy White House had on politics here, especially with the reduction of Mr. Diefenbaker’s majority in 1962, and the election of Pearson’s minority in 1963. John Boyko is the author of five previous books including Blood and Daring: How Canada Fought the American Civil War and Forged a Nation, and the biography Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation, both books he was on with when they came out. He is the former dean of history and now an administrator at Lakefield College School in Ontario. His website is at www.johnboyko.com, and the Twitter handle is @johnwboyko. The book is published by Knopf. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program in Lakefield, Ontario, John Boyko; Mr. Boyko, good morning.

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