Happy Birthday, Lester Pearson

Lester Bowles Pearson, born April 23, 1897, was a participant in the Dumbarton Oaks Conference that led to the United Nations, and was there in San Francisco when the foundation for the UN was laid. As External Affairs Minister, Pearson wrote Prime Minister St. Laurent's speech proposing the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and signed the NATO treaty in 1949. He was head of the Canadian delegation to NATO until 1957, and chairman of the NATO Council (1951-1952). He headed the Canadian delegation to the UN from 1946 to 1956, and served as president of the 7th session of the UN General Assembly in 1952-1953. As chairman of the General Assembly's Special Committee on Palestine, he laid the groundwork for the establishment of the state of Israel in 1947. He's best known for his work in the Suez crisis of 1956, which led to the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force, which evolved into what we know today as "UN Peacekeeping," which won him the Nobel Prize.

Which reminds me (especially from 3:45 in) of something that's "firmly in the tradition of what was fathered by Lester Pearson":