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Renegade in Power
Book by Newman, Peter C.
535 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Peter C. Newman
56 books27 followersPeter Charles Newman (born Peta Karel Neuman), CC, journalist, author, newspaper and magazine editor (born 10 May 1929 in Vienna, Austria; died 7 September 2023 in Belleville, ON). Peter C. Newman was one of Canada’s most prominent journalists, biographers and non-fiction authors. After starting out with the Financial Post, he became editor-in-chief of both the Toronto Star and Maclean’s. His 35 books, which have collectively sold more than two million copies, helped make political reporting and business journalism more personalized and evocative. His no-holds-barred, insiders-tell-all accounts of Canada’s business and political elites earned him a reputation as Canada’s “most cussed and discussed” journalist. A recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, Newman was elected to the Canadian News Hall of Fame in 1992. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1978 and a Companion in 1990.
Early Life and Education
Originally named Peta Karel Neuman by his secularized Jewish parents, Peter C. Newman grew up in the Czech town of Breclav, where his father ran a large sugar beet refinery. As Newman wrote in 2018, “I lived the charmed life of a little rich boy in Moravia, Czechoslovakia — until age nine, that is, when the world as I knew it vanished.” Fleeing the Nazis, his family came to Canada as refugees in 1940.
Newman initially attended Hillfield School in Hamilton, Ontario, a prep school for the Royal Military College of Canada. But, envisaging a business career for his son, Newman's father, Oscar, enrolled him as a “war guest” boarder at Upper Canada College in 1944. There he met future members of the Canadian establishment whose lives he would later document.
After graduating, Newman joined the Canadian Navy Reserves. He was a reservist for decades and eventually reached the rank of captain. For many years, he was rarely seen in public without his signature black sailor cap.
Career Highlights
Once he mastered English, Newman began writing, first for the University of Toronto newspaper, then for the Financial Post in 1951. By 1953, he was Montreal editor of the Post. He held the position for three years before returning to Toronto to be assistant editor, then Ottawa columnist, at Maclean's magazine. In 1959, he published Flame of Power: Intimate Profiles of Canada's Greatest Businessmen. It profiles 11 of the first generation of Canada's business magnates. In 1963, Newman published his masterly and popular political chronicle of John Diefenbaker, Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years (1963). According to the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the book “revolutionized Canadian political reporting with its controversial ‘insiders-tell-all’ approach.” Five years later, Newman published a similar but less successful study of Lester Pearson, The Distemper of Our Times (1968).
In 1969, Newman became editor-in-chief at the Toronto Star. During this period, he published some of his best journalism in Home Country: People, Places and Power Politics (1973). He then published popular studies on the lives of those who wielded financial power in the Canadian business establishment. These included his two-volume The Canadian Establishment (1975, 1981), The Bronfman Dynasty (1978; see also Bronfman Family), and The Establishment Man: A Portrait of Power (1982). A third book called Titans: How the New Canadian Establishment Seized Power was added to this series in 1998.
Newman was also editor of Maclean's from 1971 to 1982. He transformed the magazine from a monthly to a weekly news magazine — the first of its kind in Canada — with a Canadian slant on international and national events. In 1982, he resigned to work on a three-volume history of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Honours
Peter C. Newman received the Canadian Journalism Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Toronto Star's Excellence in Journalism award in 1998. He received a National Newspaper Award and in 1992 he was elected to the Canadia
Early Life and Education
Originally named Peta Karel Neuman by his secularized Jewish parents, Peter C. Newman grew up in the Czech town of Breclav, where his father ran a large sugar beet refinery. As Newman wrote in 2018, “I lived the charmed life of a little rich boy in Moravia, Czechoslovakia — until age nine, that is, when the world as I knew it vanished.” Fleeing the Nazis, his family came to Canada as refugees in 1940.
Newman initially attended Hillfield School in Hamilton, Ontario, a prep school for the Royal Military College of Canada. But, envisaging a business career for his son, Newman's father, Oscar, enrolled him as a “war guest” boarder at Upper Canada College in 1944. There he met future members of the Canadian establishment whose lives he would later document.
After graduating, Newman joined the Canadian Navy Reserves. He was a reservist for decades and eventually reached the rank of captain. For many years, he was rarely seen in public without his signature black sailor cap.
Career Highlights
Once he mastered English, Newman began writing, first for the University of Toronto newspaper, then for the Financial Post in 1951. By 1953, he was Montreal editor of the Post. He held the position for three years before returning to Toronto to be assistant editor, then Ottawa columnist, at Maclean's magazine. In 1959, he published Flame of Power: Intimate Profiles of Canada's Greatest Businessmen. It profiles 11 of the first generation of Canada's business magnates. In 1963, Newman published his masterly and popular political chronicle of John Diefenbaker, Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years (1963). According to the Writers’ Trust of Canada, the book “revolutionized Canadian political reporting with its controversial ‘insiders-tell-all’ approach.” Five years later, Newman published a similar but less successful study of Lester Pearson, The Distemper of Our Times (1968).
In 1969, Newman became editor-in-chief at the Toronto Star. During this period, he published some of his best journalism in Home Country: People, Places and Power Politics (1973). He then published popular studies on the lives of those who wielded financial power in the Canadian business establishment. These included his two-volume The Canadian Establishment (1975, 1981), The Bronfman Dynasty (1978; see also Bronfman Family), and The Establishment Man: A Portrait of Power (1982). A third book called Titans: How the New Canadian Establishment Seized Power was added to this series in 1998.
Newman was also editor of Maclean's from 1971 to 1982. He transformed the magazine from a monthly to a weekly news magazine — the first of its kind in Canada — with a Canadian slant on international and national events. In 1982, he resigned to work on a three-volume history of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Honours
Peter C. Newman received the Canadian Journalism Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Toronto Star's Excellence in Journalism award in 1998. He received a National Newspaper Award and in 1992 he was elected to the Canadia
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 3, 2014
This is a very unbalance and unfair book about a good hearted man who had a habit of making himself appear to be a fool even when he was right.
John Diefenbaker was a colourful and morally righteous opposition Member of Parliament who became leader of the Federal Conservative Party because no Conservative of national stature wanted the thankless task of trying to lead the party against the seemingly unbeatable Liberals. Diefenbaker relished the task. He believed that any effective government needed a loyal opposition. Much to everyone's surprise he put an end to 27 years of Liberal government in the 1957 elections.
Peter C. Newman paints his years in office as ones of carnavalesque, incompetence. The real problem was that Diefenbaker had no cabinet experience to prepare him for the top job. At the same time, his Ontario caucus tended to underestimate him as a colourful eccentric from rural Saskatchewan. The civil servants after 27 years of Liberal rule felt comfortable defying him in public.
To compound his problems, Diefenbaker was an idealist and a moralizer. He felt that as a member of the British Commonwealth, Canada should have taken the side of Great Britain against the US in the Suez crisis. He tried to extricate Canada from the Norad treaty under which Canada agreed to house US nuclear missiles on its territory. He led the movement to have South Africa expelled from the British Commonwealth and it was his government that first gave Canadian Indians the right to vote.
After losing the 1963 election, Diefenbaker spent another 16 wildly histrionic years in parliament thoroughly destroying his legacy. His greatest fiasco was his 1964 parliamentary filibuster that he mounted against the Liberal's project to give Canada a flag. (Being part of the British Empire, Canada's official flag had been the Union Jack until the Pearson liberals decided that Canada needed its own flag.) Diefenbaker quite literally forgot the old rule of electoral politics that you cannot run against the flag.
The role of the journalist or historian however is not to compile a list of gaffes so as to discredit a clumsy politician. Diefenbaker was at times inept but always principle and never mean spirited. He deserved far better than Newman's nasty attack on him.
John Diefenbaker was a colourful and morally righteous opposition Member of Parliament who became leader of the Federal Conservative Party because no Conservative of national stature wanted the thankless task of trying to lead the party against the seemingly unbeatable Liberals. Diefenbaker relished the task. He believed that any effective government needed a loyal opposition. Much to everyone's surprise he put an end to 27 years of Liberal government in the 1957 elections.
Peter C. Newman paints his years in office as ones of carnavalesque, incompetence. The real problem was that Diefenbaker had no cabinet experience to prepare him for the top job. At the same time, his Ontario caucus tended to underestimate him as a colourful eccentric from rural Saskatchewan. The civil servants after 27 years of Liberal rule felt comfortable defying him in public.
To compound his problems, Diefenbaker was an idealist and a moralizer. He felt that as a member of the British Commonwealth, Canada should have taken the side of Great Britain against the US in the Suez crisis. He tried to extricate Canada from the Norad treaty under which Canada agreed to house US nuclear missiles on its territory. He led the movement to have South Africa expelled from the British Commonwealth and it was his government that first gave Canadian Indians the right to vote.
After losing the 1963 election, Diefenbaker spent another 16 wildly histrionic years in parliament thoroughly destroying his legacy. His greatest fiasco was his 1964 parliamentary filibuster that he mounted against the Liberal's project to give Canada a flag. (Being part of the British Empire, Canada's official flag had been the Union Jack until the Pearson liberals decided that Canada needed its own flag.) Diefenbaker quite literally forgot the old rule of electoral politics that you cannot run against the flag.
The role of the journalist or historian however is not to compile a list of gaffes so as to discredit a clumsy politician. Diefenbaker was at times inept but always principle and never mean spirited. He deserved far better than Newman's nasty attack on him.
Displaying 1 of 1 review