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In April, 1965, the low-key [Prime Minister of Canada] Lester Pearson challenged, albeit mildly, LBJ's brand-new bombing campaign against North Vietnam by proposing a limited "suspension," which, "at the right time might facilitate the development of diplomatic resources which cannot easily be applied to the problem under existing circumstances."

The president's subsequent meeting with Mr. Pearson went badly from the start, with Mr. Johnson refusing to meet the prime minister's helicopter. Provoked, it seems, by Mr. Johnson's coldness at lunch, Mr. Pearson provoked in turn by inquiring what the big Texan thought of his speech.

As Lawrence Martin describes the scene in his book, The Presidents and the Prime Ministers, "[Mr. Johnson]clutched the prime minister by the upper arm, and led him on to the terrace where there was room for wrath." While Canadian ambassador Charles Ritchie and presidential aide Jack Valenti looked on through a window, "the president of the United States grabbed [Mr. Pearson]by the shirt collar, twisted it and lifted the shaken prime minister by the neck . . . 'You pissed on my rug.' "