McNaughton Talks

Last December Lieut. General Andrew G. L. McNaughton resigned as commander of Canada's overseas armies and came home. Last week at 57, after 34 years of soldiering, he asked to be retired from the Army. The National Defense Ministry was almost effusive: "Canada will be forever grateful." Then it upped Andy McNaughton to the rank of full General,* gave him an estimated $12,000 yearly retirement pay.

No one had yet told, out loud, the real reason why General McNaughton had resigned his overseas command. But last week in his small Ottawa apartment, Andy McNaughton talked. He had resigned his command, he said, because he had wanted to keep his Army, stationed in Britain, intact. The National Defense Ministry, yielding to complaints from impatient Canadians, decided to divide the Army, send a corps to Italy to fight.

"I still think I was right," said McNaughton. "It was a terrible mistake to break up the Army. That was a political decision. They thought they couldn't hold the patience of the country. I know Canadians and I know we could have held their patience and the Army's as long as necessary."

But the General was not even yet telling all. Said he: "In two minutes I could start a controversy the like of which you have never seen, but I'm not going to do it. ... I have given every report, every memorandum and every scrap of paper to the historians. Let them write about it 25 years from now."

* The third in Canada's history. The others: Sir Arthur William Currie, Sir William Dillon Otter, both of World War I.

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