[1][2] Black was educated at Selwyn House School and studied law at McGill University.
[5] Canada–France relations were tense following Charles de Gaulle's Vive le Québec libre speech and, in 1969, Black was accused of interfering in French national elections.
[6] Years later, in 1996, Black published a book entitled Direct Intervention: Canada–France Relations, 1967–1974 (ISBN 0886292891).
[7] Graham Fraser, in a review published in the International Journal, praised it as "a valuable account, clear and detailed in its description of the challenge Canadian diplomats faced in dealing, day-to-day, with an ally whose government had taken a decisively hostile position on the central question of Canada's future.
[9] In 1978 Don Jamieson, Minister of External Affairs, asked Black to fill a new deputy under-secretary position in his department to deal with the increasing threat of terrorism.