When violence erupted in the Congo, Canada had set aside an infantry brigade especially for the use of the United Nations. When Dag Hammarskjold received the offer to send the Canadian Brigade to the Congo he refused stating that "If outside help was required to resolve the developing crisis, they preferred non-African states to be used as a last resort." The United Nations did not wish to turn the Congo Crisis into a Cold War proxy war and so tried to pick peacekeepers from neutral countries. This trans-Atlantic French–speaking country would be Canada, even though as Dr. Spooner put it "Canada: Just West of Neutral." Canadian forces were perfectly suited for a peacekeeping mission in the Congo because they were bilingual, this allowed them to communicate with the mostly English speaking UN troops as well as the French-speaking Belgian and Congolese forces. They could also communicate with the Congolese people.