The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957

This Remarkable Study Looks at the Small Group of Mandarins Who held sway in Ottawa at the time of the W.L. Mackenzie King and Louis St Laurent governments. Men like O.D. Skelton, Clifford Clark, and Graham Towers dominated the era, with power bases in External Affairs, Finance, and the Bank of Canada. They recruited junior men like Lester Pearson, Jack Pickersgill, Robert Bryce, Louis Rasminsky, and others, who in turn rose to hold positions of enormous power. Granatstein argues that they created a modern governmental apparatus that could respond effectively to the most sophisticated economic and political advice.

The Ottawa Men explores the family, social, and political links that bound together this influential group of men. Based on extensive research in governmental and private archives, on interviews with the mandarins themselves, and with family, friends, and the politicians they served, this first-rate history is once again available to the public.