Suicide at Nile View

To his villa in suburban Cairo one night last week went Canadian Ambassador Herbert Norman. 47, just back from seeing the Japanese movie, Mask of Destiny, with an Egyptian friend. Alone in the villa's great, silent library after midnight, Norman poured himself some straight shots of whisky while his wife slept in her bedroom. Next morning, weary from months of overwork, heavy-eyed from an almost sleepless night, Norman left home without waking his wife, walked slowly to the eight-story Nile View apartment building near by. Moments after he entered the building, he appeared on the roof--a tall, handsome man with greying hair. While passers-by stopped to watch in horror and some screamed. "Beware, khawaga [foreigner]," Norman removed his watch and sunglasses, laid them on the parapet. Turning his back to the street, he moved three steps backward, dropped to instant death on the pavement.

Herbert Norman's suicide would have attracted relatively little attention had it not been for the fact that the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, headed by Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, last month revived a charge that Norman had been a Communist at Columbia University 19 years ago. Because of the charge, his death caused worldwide headlines and recriminations.

Scholar & Diplomat. Born in Japan of Canadian missionary parents, Norman studied at universities in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, and became in his early 30s one of the world's ranking scholars on Japanese history and culture. He joined the Department of External Affairs in 1939, and the following year was assigned to the Canadian legation in Tokyo. The Japanese interned him at the time of Pearl Harbor, repatriated him the following year; he spent the rest of the war years at an Ottawa desk.

By 1951 Norman had risen to the top rank of Canada's professional diplomatic corps. He was serving as acting permanent delegate to the United Nations in New York when his name cropped up in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, then headed by Nevada Democrat Pat McCarran. Testifying on Communist infiltration in the U.S., German-born Karl Wittfogel, onetime professor of Chinese history at Columbia University and a professed ex-Communist, said that in 1938 he and Norman, then a student in the Japanese department at Columbia, had attended a Communist study group on Cape Cod. Wittfogel. now a contributor to the New Leader, testified that he had known Norman as a Communist.

Canada's Department of External Affairs took pains to say that Norman had never visited Cape Cod. External Affairs Chief Lester Pearson told a press conference that he had sent a message to Washington, expressing "regret and annoyance" that Norman had been named "on the basis of an unimpressive and unsubstantiated allegation by a former Communist." The charges against Norman, Pearson said, had been investigated in two Canadian security checks, "as a result of which Mr. Norman was given a clean bill of health, and he therefore remains a trusted and valuable official of the department." At the same time Pearson pointedly named Norman to a new and responsible job: chief adviser to the Canadian delegation negotiating the Japanese Peace Treaty. Evidence and testimony in the Canadian security check have never been revealed.

Anchorman. Norman went on to serve as High Commissioner to New Zealand, and last August was assigned to Cairo as Ambassador to Egypt and Minister to Lebanon. In Cairo he served as Pearson's Middle East anchorman during the Suez crisis and the creation of the Canadian-inspired United Nations Emergency Force. He also handled Australia's affairs in Cairo after Canberra broke off relations with Gamal Nasser's Egyptian government.

Norman's tense trials in this job were just easing when the charge of Communism fell anew on him. In Washington the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee called in John K. Emmerson, deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Beirut, questioned him about Norman and the 1951 Wittfogel charges. Emmerson, who had worked with Norman in Tokyo and the Middle East, told the committee he had no reason to think that Norman had ever been a Communist. When Committee Counsel Robert Morris released the testimony, there was a new flurry of news stories.

"Mike" Pearson sent a fresh complaint to Washington, took the floor of the House of Commons to reaffirm his confidence in Norman's loyalty. The U.S. State Department disowned the committee's charges, said they did not represent the views of the U.S. Government.

Undermined Spirit. From Cairo Herbert Norman cabled Pearson thanking him for his support. He began to spend long hours in his study writing: then he would summon his Nubian servant, Mohammed Daoud. and ask him to burn the writings in the ambassador's presence. In the pocket of his suit when he died, he left two scrawled notes. One said: "I have no option. I must kill myself because I live without hope." Another, to his wife, said: "I kiss your feet and beg you to forgive me for what I am doing."

When news of Norman's death reached Ottawa, Mike Pearson rose in the House of Commons to pronounce an epitaph: "All his actions served only to confirm and strengthen my faith in and my admiration for him. The combined effect of overwork, overstrain, and the feeling of renewed persecution on a sensitive mind and a not very robust body produced a nervous collapse." But Pearson refused to send a new official protest to Washington: "There is no point in making an international issue of this."

Others turned Norman's suicide into an anti-U.S. romp. Tory Leader John Diefenbaker attributed Norman's death to "witch-hunting proclivities of certain congressional inquisitors," and the CCF's Alistair Stewart cried that Norman had been "murdered by slander." Editorials in general were bitter.

In a calmer vein the Toronto Star reflected: "We believe it wiser to think of him as a victim of sacrificial service to his country than to say that he was 'murdered' by the slander of a few irresponsible men in Washington. Mr. Norman will carry the truth of his motivation to the grave with him."

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