Donald Macintosh and Michael Hawes describe how the Department of External Affairs used sport in its foreign policy initiatives, from the beginning of its involvement in 1972 to the recent initiative of former Secretary of State for External Affairs Joe Clark, to provide assistance to third-world Commonwealth countries and to create greater stability and harmony in the Commonwealth Games Federation.

The authors examine the key events of the Department's involvement: Prime Minister Trudeau's quarrel with the International Olympic Committee over the conditions under which Taiwan could compete in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the Canadian government's successful efforts to avoid a boycott of the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games by black African nations, government acquiescence to demands from the United States that Canada support its boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, government use of sport in the 1980s to maintain a leadership role within the Commonwealth in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, and government motives in announcing in October 1987 that sport would be used more frequently to further wider foreign policy objectives.