Allan Gotlieb

Life and career

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Gotlieb received his BA from the University of California at Berkeley, his MA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and his LL.B degree from Harvard University, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. In 1957 he joined the Department of External Affairs. In 1965, he wrote the book Disarmament and International Law, a book discussing disarmament during Cold War tensions. From 1967 to 1968 he was assistant undersecretary and legal adviser. From 1968 to 1973 he was deputy minister of the Department of Communications, and from 1973 to 1976 deputy minister of Manpower and Immigration. From 1977 to 1981 he was an undersecretary at External Affairs.

Most notably, Gotlieb was Canadian ambassador to the United States from 1981 to 1989. During his high-profile years in Washington, D.C., he got to know then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Vice-President George H. W. Bush, and many senior officials in the Reagan White House, such as Caspar Weinberger, Michael Deaver, James Baker III, and George P. Shultz. An advocate of realism in international relations, Gotlieb became known as a skillful and respected player in the complex world of Washington power politics.

He and his wife Sondra Gotlieb were known for their dazzling parties attended by powerful figures in Washington. Sondra's book Washington Rollercoaster recounted the Gotliebs' high-powered years as glamorous hosts in Washington, when she also wrote a column for the Washington Post. Sondra attracted a blaze of international publicity in 1986, when she slapped her social secretary at an official dinner she and her husband were hosting in honour of the Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. Vice-President George H. W. Bush.

After he and Sondra returned to Canada in the early 1990s, they moved to Toronto and became the centre of establishment society in that city. Sondra began writing newspaper columns for The Globe and Mail and the National Post. After his return to Canada, Allan Gotlieb became an influential figure and was well-connected in both the Canadian and American corporate elites. This marked a shift from his earlier career as a senior mandarin in Ottawa, where he had been a powerful figure and architect of many of Liberal prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's interventionist policies.

From 1989 to 1994 Gotlieb was chairman of the Canada Council. He was also publisher of Saturday Night magazine when it was owned by Conrad Black, and a senior counsel at the law firm, Stikeman Elliott. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982 and was promoted to Companion in 1987. In 1992, Gotlieb was the Canadian representative on the arbitration panel that decided the Canada–France Maritime Boundary Case; Gotlieb dissented from the panel's decision in the case and wrote a dissent.

Gotlieb was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Toronto in 2002 and by Concordia University in 2005. Gotlieb is an honorary and former fellow of Wadham College, Oxford and was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.

Hollinger Inc. was among his numerous corporate directorships. He is a member of the Carlyle Group's Canadian advisory board and a member of the Trilateral Commission. He is also chairman of Sotheby's Canada, former chairman of the Ontario Heritage Foundation, and serves as chairman of the board of governors of the Donner Canadian Foundation, known for its annual literary prize. He is also a senior advisor in the law office of Bennett Jones.

Gotlieb is a prodigious art collector, notably of the work of 19th-century painter James Tissot. He and his wife donated their Tissot collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Gotlieb also collects wall tiles by the famous English tile manufacturer and designer William de Morgan a close friend of William Morris with whom he collaborated on numerous occasions. De Morgan is famous for his lusterware tiles a process he rediscovered after it had been lost from the Middle Ages. Allan Gotlieb has some 150 De Morgan tiles including some of the best examples of the luster ware tiles and multiple tile compositions comprising pictorial designs. The Gotlieb collection is a major collection of the work of one of the most talented Victorian artists.

He is a strong proponent of a North American Union between Canada, the US and Mexico authoring a new article titled "Why not a grand bargain with the U.S.?" which popularized the phrase "Grand Bargain".

When Ronald Reagan died in 2004, Gotlieb provided expert help in the commentary for CBC Newsworld's coverage of the state funeral, helping the CBC's senior parliamentary editor, Don Newman, who anchored the coverage, drawing from his experiences as Canadian ambassador to Washington when Reagan was president.

On the art of diplomacy in Washington, he recently said, "You have to get the power shakers, including the media, into your dining room. When an ambassador makes a phone call to a powerful congressman, he’ll return the call once, but after that you have to make a personal relationship." Gotlieb published his diplomatic memoirs, The Washington Diaries, in 2006.

Family

He married Sondra Gotlieb (née Kaufman) in December 1955. The Gotliebs had three children: Rebecca (1958-2003), Marc (born in 1959), and Rachel (born in 1962).

Honours

In 2014, he was made a member of the Order of Manitoba.

Publications