Quebec City lawyer Charles Fremont and the feminist Thaïs Lacoste-Frémont. The couple had four children Lucie, Benoît, Denyse and Michel. Diplomat and civil servant After the end of the war, Côté left the Army to purse a diplomatic career, joining the Department of External Affairs as a second secretary. As a World War Two veteran, his work as a diplomat was much influenced by his war experiences. Côté believed it was the failure to uphold collective security against fascist aggression in the 1930s that led to World War Two. As a diplomat in the post-war era, Côté believed very strongly in the value of collective security, multilateralism, and of institutions designed to foster international co-operation such as the United Nations. Mackenzie King always acted as his own foreign minister as he did not trust anyone else to hold the external affairs portfolio, and as such as the young diplomat Côté came to know the prime minister. Much to his disappointment, he discovered that Mackenzie King, who liked to present himself as the special friend of French-Canada, had no interest in changing the English-only work environment at the Ministry of External Affairs. In November 1945, he arrived in London as part of the Canadian delegation for the first ever general session of the newly founded United Nations. In 1946, Côté played an important role in writing the charter of newly formed World Health Organization. In 1947 and 1948, he served as the secretary-general of the Canadian delegation at the sessions of the United Nations, which were now being held in New York. At the 1948 fall sessions of the United Nations held in Paris, the Canadian delegation was headed by the Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Côté served as one of his advisers. Côté met every Canadian prime minister from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper. In 1949, Côté was stationed with the Canadian high commission in London, where he studied geopolitics at the Imperial Defence College, and then served as the legal adviser in the high commission based in Canada House. In 1952, he returned to Ottawa to take charge of the Consular Division and then served as the head of the Americas Division. In 1952, he also appointed legal counsel to the International Joint Commission in charge of waters shared by the United States and Canada. The chief Canadian delegate to the International Joint Commission from 1950 onward