[1] In 1943, he graduated from the University of British Columbia, and joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, serving as a lieutenant for the next three years until his honorable discharge in 1946.
[2] However, the Premier of Quebec, Jean Lesage, was a federalist, but also a French-Canadian nationalist who started to develop ties with France on his own, a policy that was continued by his successor, Daniel Johnson Sr.
In November 1966, Jean Marchand, the federal minister of manpower and immigration, visited Paris, and de Gaulle refused to meet him under the grounds that he did not represent Quebec, a statement that enraged Marcel Cadieux, the undersecretary at External Affairs, who pointed out that de Gaulle had just met several visiting Quebec cabinet ministers.
[5] After Trudeau became Prime Minister in February 1968, Halstead became one of his leading advisers on foreign policy with a special focus on relations with Europe.
[9] During the minority Trudeau government, Canadian foreign policy moved sharply to the left with the House of Commons voting on January 4, 1973, to pass a resolution condemning the American Christmas bombings against North Vietnam between 18 and 29 December 1972 as a war crime.
As a consequence, Canadian-American relations which were already strained because of the mutual loathing between President Richard Nixon and Trudeau, reached a post-war nadir.
[11] In October 1973, Halstaed went with Trudeau for a visit to Brussels to meet François-Xavier Ortoli, the president of the European Commission (the body that controlled the EEC).
[11] A major problem with Halstead's economic "rebalancing" concept was that the Canadians were far more desirous of a free trade agreement with the EEC than vice versa.
[11] In 1974, the United Nations General Assembly invited Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to speak about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which posed a quandary for Canada.
[12] The Arab oil embargo, which lasted from 17 October 1973 – 17 March 1974 ended the "long summer" of prosperity for the West that began in 1945, causing the steepest economic contraction since the Great Depression.
[13] The end of the "long summer" of prosperity, which many people in the West had assumed would last forever, caused considerable angst at the time.
[16] The oil shock caused a major realignment in international relations as leaders of Western nations such as Britain and France were forced to court the favor of Middle Eastern leaders such as King Faisal and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, and even the American secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, declared the United States would henceforward be "even-handed" with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
In a memo of 2 October 1974 addressed to MacEachen, Halstead advocated that the Canadian delegation at the UN deliver a statement with "an implicit reference to a Palestinian personality".
[12] Halstead's memo influenced MacEachen to deliver a statement before the UN General Assembly speaking about Israel's "legitimate" security concerns while also admitting to "the concept of a distinct Palestinian entity and personality".
[18] Halstead stated that Pitfield was an intriguer with a lust for power who tried to limit the access of others to Trudeau in order to enhance his own influence and that he together with many others in the government greatly disliked him.
[6] Halstead stated that the "no tanks, no trade" dispute that said to have occurred at a 1975 Trudeau-Schmidt summit with the latter threatening to use West German influence within the EEC to impose punitive tariffs on Canada unless Trudeau agreed to spend more on defense was a "myth".
[19] The Canadian uranium embargo caused much ill-will in European capitals, and ruined the possibility of the frame-work economic agreement becoming a free trade pact.
The German historian Peter Slingelin wrote the major responsibility for the uranium embargo rested with the Europeans, who failed to understand the domestic furor in Canada caused by the Indian nuclear test, which made the Canadian government appear gullible and foolish.
As the Canadian representative on the NATO council, Halstead was involved in discussions about drawing up a contingency plan to deter a Soviet invasion of Poland without triggering World War Three.
[22] In December 1981, the Polish crisis came to an abrupt climax with a military coup d'état bringing a new government in Warsaw that declared martial law and banned Solidarność.
Halstead described Trudeau as clever, but superficial as he never read policy papers and preferred short briefings on complex subjects, hoping that he could just "wing" his way through international meetings with his intelligence and wit.
Too easily a vicious circle can be created in which freedom of action is brought at the expense of international cooperation without which the policies undertaken cannot in fact, succeed".