JFK and Why Camelot Was a Living Nightmare for Canada

On May 16, 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, along with his glamorous wife, Jacqueline, arrived in Ottawa for a fateful meeting with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. With 50,000 people lining the streets to get a glimpse of the inspirational Kennedys, the acrimony to come was almost unimaginable. This fall, amid renewed scrutiny of JFK’s life and legacy upon the 50th anniversary of his assassination, Star Washington bureau chief Mitch Potter explores the president’s toxic relationship with the PM. In JFK and Why Camelot Was a Living Nightmare for Canada, Potter details the escalating enmity between them, a feud that included distinctively undiplomatic behaviour, outright nastiness and allegations of hysteria. 

Star Dispatches is a weekly series of quality journalism in ebook form from the newsroom of the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper.