Jim Coutts was the brains behind Pierre-Elliott Trudeau. Well, no, Trudeau has his own brains. But Jim Coutts was his indispensable righthand man, more powerful than cabinet ministers or deputy ministers, maybe the first hired strategist to have that much power. And he kept voluminous diaries.
Coutts died in 2013. His diaries, selected and edited by Ron Graham. will be published September 16. I'm now looking at an advance copy, courtesy of the publisher. It's going to make some news among political scientists, commentators, and backroom types for sure. I'd say historians of late twentieth-century Canadian politics writing after September 16 will be quoting extensively from it. Pre-orders are being taken here or via your favourite bookstore.
More about Coutts here on the pub date.
