Some artists, scientists, writers and philosophers are simply ahead of their time. Think Galileo, Da Vinci, Einstein and Kevin Lippert. Kevin’s name doesn’t ring any bells? He was my upstate neighbor, friend and publisher of the esteemed Princeton Architectural Press. His New York Times obit described him as the “Impresario” of architecture books. Kevin’s death to brain cancer in 2022 was sad for many reasons — he was just 63-years-old — but one of them was that he wasn’t around to witness, and perhaps profit, off the second Trump administration.
In 2015, Princeton Architectural Press published a book by Kevin — apparently one of the pleasures of having your own publishing house is that you can get your own work published — whose subject tapped his delight in irony. The topic also lent itself to the bold, imaginative graphics that PAP is known for: a cavalcade of archival photographs, illustrations, collages, documents, charts and maps.
The slim soft cover volume ran to a modest 144 pages, the final third of it appendices reproducing the United States’ 1935 plan to invade Canada and our northern neighbor’s scheme to return the favor. You heard that right. War Plan Red, as the book was called, “chronicles the little known — and often preposterous — history of US-Canadian fisticuffs, punctuated by border skirmishes like the Pork and Beans War, a brief contretemps between the bearded and pugnacious lumberjacks of Maine and New Brunswick, or the Pig War, fought on the San Juan Islands over none other than a pig.”
When I interviewed Kevin about the book for the Wall Street Journal — one of the pleasures of having your own column is that you can choose your topics — he told me that “Both sides thought a war between the U.S. and the British was inevitable for plenty of reasons. Britain owed the U.S. a large amount of war debt after Work War I.” In 1935 Canada was still formally part of the British Empire. Of course, by the time War Plan Red was published in the 21st Century a war between the United States and Canada seemed outlandish.
If you’ll allow me to quote from the back cover copy again. “The border between Canada and the United States is known as the friendliest in the world: five thousand benignly neglected miles of unfenced international coexistence and a symbol of neighborly good will.”
But what a difference an election makes! Since he returned to office Donald Trump has slapped high tariffs on our best friend, accused it of failing to control the flow of illegal immigrants and fentanyl into the United States, and threatened to annex it, turning it into our “51st State.” For all I know the Department of Defense — or are we already calling it the Department of War — is dusting off that Depression-era plan. Except probably not since I suspect they have no idea it exists. And even if they did the document is tainted because it was drafted under a Democrat. Was there ever a globalist it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Older listeners and readers may recall the time that he helped save the world from fascism.
Sales of Kevin’s quirky contribution to the history of Canada/U.S. relations did get one modest boost from contemporary events when it was published a decade ago. Scott Walker, then the governor of Wisconsin and a candidate for president, suggested building a wall along the Canadian border at the same time that Donald Trump was pushing his own edifice along our southern border with Mexico. At the time the governor’s idea earned a witty retort from Canada’s defense minister. “He said a wall is a great thing,” according to Kevin. “Canadians are more worried about people heading north than people heading south.” Ouch!
The fact that Walker’s candidacy fizzled and he dropped out of the race later that month and that Donald Trump strides the planet a puffy Colossus perhaps suggests that a northern snow covered border wall just wasn’t as evocative for voters as a black, sun-baked one, 30-feet high with all-weather roads, perimeter lighting, cameras, razor wire and glass shards. I’m not sure about the glass shards. That was my idea. The Department of Homeland Security is free to borrow it.
But times have changed. Now that Canada poses a mortal threat to our sovereignty, at least in the president’s eyes, it might be time to reexamine former candidate Walker’s idea. Since the black fence proposed for the southern border that will absorb the desert sun’s rays and scorch the bodies of anybody desperate enough to scale it might not pack the same punch up north where sunlight, especially in winter, tends to be anemic, I suggest one coated in butter and maple syrup. Anybody who has ever drizzled the substance over pancakes and spilled some knows it’s sticky stuff.
Unfortunately, Chronicle Books, Princeton Architectural Press’s parent company, has no plans to publish the volume which is out of print. “But it’s still available as an ebook for anyone who wants to read it that way,” Diane Levinson, Chronicle’s associate director of publicity informed me. I think Chronicle needs to reconsider. It’s their patriotic duty. They’ll be doing the nation a public service by exempting the Trump administration from having to spend time and money to come up with a plan to invade Canada from scratch.
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
