Tory Leader Robert Stanfield: "I Am What I Am"

THAT much-abused political adjective charismatic has never been applied to Robert Lome Stanfield. In personal appearance and public demeanor, he makes Richard Milhous Nixon seem almost gaudy. His balding head seems to come to a point, his chin is somehow thin and droopy at the same time, his lips look pinched even when he smiles, and he has a fondness for gray suits. Even after five years as Canada's Opposition Leader, Stanfield conceded that "there are a good many Canadians to whom I'm still a bit obscure."

It is unlikely that Stanfield's image will change very much, even if he becomes the next Prime Minister. "I am what I am," he once said. "I can't change without being phony." But as more Canadians get better acquainted with Stanfield, they will learn that beneath his bland public exterior lies a compelling private man. "To know Stanfield is to like him," reports TIME Correspondent Geoffrey Stevens, who has closely followed the Tory leader's career since 1965. "He is a 'nice' man in a game that is not at all nice. His honesty and integrity are unquestioned. He has dignity, humility and stability. He also has a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor that can make him the funniest man at a small party. Discussing his public speaking style, he once told me: 'I've been taking immersion courses in French, you know. Some of my friends say what I really need is an immersion course in English.'"

Although, at 58, he is only five years older than Pierre Trudeau, Stanfield often seems a generation apart. Indeed, he has a married daughter and a son older than Trudeau's wife Margaret (who is 24), as well as two younger daughters. Stanfield's first wife was killed in an automobile crash in 1954; his second wife Mary is the daughter of a former justice of Nova Scotia. With the children scattered, the Stanfields have been living quietly in Ottawa at Stornoway, the official residence of Canada's Opposition Leader. His favorite pastime is gardening ("It's good for the soul"), but Stanfield also enjoys the theater. When he saw Hair in Toronto a couple of years ago, he jumped up on the stage at the end of the show and danced with the cast.

Stanfield was born in the small industrial town of Truro, N.S. He studied political science and economics at Dalhousie University in Halifax and in 1939 graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an associate editor of the prestigious Law Review. A wealthy man, he inherited a fortune from his family's underwear-manufacturing business. Though he is no longer personally associated with the firm, political cartoonists continue to sketch him in long Johns. After practicing law and spending eight years as Nova Scotia's opposition leader, Stanfield served as the province's Premier for 11 years.

As Prime Minister, Stanfield would not depart radically from the general policies of Trudeau's administration. On domestic matters Stanfield would undertake some economic reforms such as lightening the personal-income tax burden and increasing old-age pensions. On foreign investment, long a ticklish issue in Canada, he would probably favor incentives to Canadian investors rather than a Liberal-proposed scheme to screen foreign takeovers. Stanfield would continue to develop closer ties with the Soviet Union and China, but he also would be apt to place more stock than Trudeau has in Canada's traditional alliances, both political and military. Stanfield's interest in the United Nations more closely resembles that of Trudeau's predecessor, Lester Pearson, another Liberal. Perhaps significantly, Pearson also was held to lack charisma--yet he ruled Canada successfully with a minority government for five years.

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