<p>What does a kid from Nanton, Alta., write in his private journals after spending his days influencing some of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's most controversial policies?</p><p><br></p><p>This week on <em>West of Centre</em>, host Kathleen Petty takes a peek into <em>The Coutts Diaries: Power, Politics, and Pierre Trudeau 1973-1981</em>, with the book's editor, Ron Graham. As the prime minister's principal secretary, Jim Coutts was said to have exercised more backroom power than anyone else in modern Canadian political history. He was everywhere that mattered during the Trudeau era 50 years ago, and then went home and wrote a lot of it down.</p><p><br></p><p>Just as you'd expect from a diary, Coutts' offers juicy insight into exactly what he thought of both Alberta premier Peter Lougheed and Progressive Conservative Party leader Joe Clark. His entries reveal how influential he was as the reviled National Energy Program was being devised in the spring of 1980. And his private anxieties ...