Inside the tent: Forty-five years on Parliament Hill

For forty-five years, Tom Van Dusen stood at the shoulders of Canada's leaders, first as a reporter, then as a political aide, observing, commenting, advising and serving with tenacity and wit. John Diefenbaker, Igor Gouzenko, John F. Kennedy, Gerda Munsinger, Pierre Trudeau, Allan MacEachan, Brian Mulroney: names in the news to most Canadians, but to Tom Van Dusen they were colleagues, mentors, enemies, friends. Here is an amusing, thoughtful and personal chronicle by a man whose career has given him an insider's view of the major political events of the last half-century.