He became a National Affairs reporter and columnist in 1952, and then served as a foreign correspondent in London (1957–1960) and Washington (1960–1964) before returning to the Ottawa bureau.
[7] In his column (which appeared five times a week in the Globe), he occasionally offered comic relief for his readers under the title of Letter from Lilac, ostensibly written by Clem Watkins, Jr. of Lilac, Saskatchewan (where the local branches of the Royal Canadian Legion and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament had a joint membership arrangement).
"[9] In one such letter, which was an allegory for the 1960s controversy over the unification of the Canadian Forces, Clem reported on the Lilac town council's move to unify its police, fire and ambulance services: Also, they'll all be in the one hall.
[11] The Globe refused to print his final column, but Doug Fisher subsequently arranged to have it appear in the Toronto Sun.
[12] In it, he said: The eventual final parting has been in the works for some time in circumstances of extraordinary unpleasantness ... and when I sat down this morning ... ready to add another to what must be more than 3,000 columns, on this page, I found myself asking, "What in hell am I doing here?"
[13]He continued to write his "Media Watch" column for Maclean's, wine pieces for Toronto Life and enRoute, and weekly political commentary for The Chronicle Herald and The Mail-Star in Halifax, Nova Scotia.