10 February 1944: Letter from Robertson to Pearson

Once again, Robertson’s response to Pearson was delayed, but in that time, the Canadians seem to have resigned themselves to the situation. Robertson indicated that no formal telephone censorship exemption was in place for the U.S. Embassy. And his advice to Pearson was plain: 

“I would be inclined to the view that it would be better not to bring this matter up with the United States authorities. Mr. Stone reports to me that you and he discussed this matter and came pretty well to the conclusion that the State Department would not be able to give an assurance that all of our Embassy calls from Washington were exempt from monitoring or if they did give such an assurance it would be very doubtful whether they would be able to persuade the F.B.I. to act upon it.”

Without any leverage, and with no way to secure a real guarantee of privacy from the Americans, the Canadians simply cut the conversation on the censorship issue.