Escott Meredith Reid

Reid, Escott Meredith

Escott Meredith Reid, diplomat (b at Campbellford, Ont 21 Jan 1905; d at Ottawa 28 September 1999 ). A graduate of U of T and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar from 1927 to 1930, Escott Reid concentrated on Canadian foreign policy and neutrality after he became national secretary of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs in 1932. In 1938 he joined the Dept of External Affairs; he served in Washington (1939-41, 1944-45), in Ottawa, where he helped shape air transport policy, and in San Francisco and London, where he worked on the creation of the UN.

Lester PEARSON'S chief aide 1946-49, Escott Reid was instrumental in devising the idea of a collective security alliance of Western democracies, which culminated in NATO. Thereafter, his career led to New Delhi and Bonn, to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and to Glendon College, York U, as first principal. Reid's own important writings on politics and diplomacy include Time of Fear and Hope (1977), Envoy to Nehru (1981) and Hungary and Suez, 1956: A View from New Delhi (1987). His memoirs, Radical Mandarin, were published in 1989. Reid was named a Companion of the ORDER OF CANADA in 1971 and received the Pearson Peace Medal in 1993.