Andrew George Latta McNaughton
In war or peace, whether as a scientist, an army commander, or an international diplomat, General A.G.L. McNaughton left a legacy that reaches far beyond his homeland.
Born in 1887 in that part of the Northwest Territories today called Moosomin, Saskatchewan, Andrew McNaughton joined the militia when only 18 years old. By 1912 he had obtained a Master’s degree in electrical engineering from McGill University. Two years later he led the Fourth Battery of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces overseas to fight in France “for King and Country.”
In World War I, McNaughton applied science to military gunnery. Twice wounded in action, by war’s end he was commander of Canada’s artillery in France. Following the armistice, he entered permanent military service, becoming Deputy Chief of the General Staff in Ottawa by 1922 and full Chief from 1925 to 1935, all the while modernizing and mechanizing Canadian forces. In 1935 he became president of the National Research Council of Canada, the main federal scientific authority. While at the NRC, he promoted research into radio and ballistics and, with Col. W.A. Steel, in 1925 developed a cathode-ray tube direction finder that led directly to the development of radar. Radar, permitting the early tracking of enemy air attacks, would prove vital to Britain in meeting the on-slaughts of the German Luftwaffe in World War II.
McNaughton’s contributions to science were significant, but he nevertheless left his position at the outbreak of World War II to return to military affairs as Major-General. He was named commander of the First Canadian Infantry Division, which crossed the Atlantic to Britain in the fall of 1939.
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A.G.L. McNaughton became a compelling public figure for almost two decades after World War II. Slated to become the first Canadian-born governor general, McNaughton instead became the Canadian representative on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission as well as the permanent Canadian delegate to the United Nations. This view was taken when McNaughton was president of the United Nations Security Council, 1949 |
By 1942, as Canadian units increasingly arrived in Britain, McNaughton had risen to command a full Canadian army. Training the army for a scientific war, he strove to keep it together as a unified fighting force, always resisting political pressures from Ottawa to dispatch units for service with other allied commands. The resulting friction with his superior, Minister of Defence J.R. Ralston, led to McNaughton’s dramatic resignation late in 1943.
Back in Canada he nevertheless became Minister of Defence in 1944-45. He was brought into the Cabinet by Prime Minister Mackenzie King to replace Ralston, who had been lobbying for conscription: King still hoped to head off that controversial issue through the appointment of a highly regarded military figure such as McNaughton who still supported voluntary enlistment. But the General met little success in politics, and conscription was carried. Nonetheless, McNaughton went on to important diplomatic posts before his death in 1966.
In the late forties he represented Canada on the UN Atomic Energy Commission, while presiding over Canada’s own Atomic Energy Board. He served as president of the UN Security Council in 1949 and was Canadian chairman of the International Joint Commission, 1950-62, and of the Canadian-American Permanent Joint Defence Board, 1950-59. Altogether, “Andy” McNaughton — uncompromising in his independent views but foresighted as a scientist, devoted as a military commander, and widely respected as a diplomat — left an outstanding mark on Canadian and world affairs.
