Michael Shenstone (June 25, 1928 â September 9, 2019) was a Canadian diplomat.
He served in a variety of senior diplomatic posts, including as Canadaâ²s ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Canadaâ²s ambassador to Austria; Canadaâ²s representative to NATO - Warsaw Pact disarmament negotiations, and was the Department of Foreign Affairs director-general of African and Middle Eastern Affairs. He also played a role in the rescue of six American diplomats who managed to evade being taken hostage during the 1979 Iranian revolution.
In 1981, when he was an assistant under-secretary of state for external affairs, the Calgary Herald called him a bruised defender of Canadian Middle East Policy, quoting him from a conference on the Middle East.
In July 1986, Shenstoneâ²s attendance at Kurt Waldheimâ²s inauguration as President of Austria, stirred controversy. An editorial in the Ottawa Citizen reminded readers that Canada followed the British model of diplomatic relations, and â³Unlike the U.S., we do not use such events to express our approval or disapproval of the person or government concerned.â³
On November 15, 2012, Shenstone and American diplomat Robert Anders, compared their experiences with events of the â³Canadian caperâ³, with how those events were portrayed in the recent feature film Argo.
Shenstone died peacefully at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto on September 9, 2019.