Dr. O.D. Skelton was King's top civil service adviser on foreign and domestic affairs. The under-secretary of state for external affairs is shown here on the right with Mackenzie King and King's sister at the prime minister's Quebec estate, Kingsmere, just outside Ottawa. Skelton's appearance was drab and austere; he normally wore thick glasses and he had shaggy eyebrows and colourless, unruly hair. He cared little for his personal appearance and his office was perennially chaotic with desk, couches and chairs overloaded with diplomatic papers and documents. Few men really knew Skelton, who assumed a position of power and authority perhaps unparalleled by that of any other civil servant in Canadian history. His considerable warmth and dry wit were reserved for a small circle of friends. To others, like his young subordinate Lester Pearson, Skelton was "somewhat shy, even distant."
