Office of the Historian

841D.01/215: Telegram

The Minister in Ireland (Gray) to the Secretary of State

Dublin, November 1, 1943—7 p.m.
[Received 8:48 p.m.]

136. Personal for the Acting Secretary. Appreciate your 116, October 28. The British representative here received instructions last week to go to London early this week for discussion of the note in question. Yesterday, October 31, he received a telegram postponing indefinitely his mission. He believed they might be waiting for Eden’s return.

I gain the impression that possibly no one in the British Cabinet except Churchill and Morrison32 appreciate clearly the desirability of placing de Valera on the record from the viewpoint of the American situation. There is little accurate knowledge of de Valera or of his political strategy in British Government circles, and as long [Page 160] as he is making no immediate trouble the “better not” school of thought in the Cabinet gains ground.

You must also keep in mind that there are powerful trade interests suspicious of American inroads on Eire trade, also the bureaucratic view which is reluctant to recognize Eire as not a dominion and under British tutelage.

From our viewpoint, this seems the time to prepare a case that will protect us against the pressure of subversive groups using the Irish cause for attacks on our Government’s postwar policies. As previously reported (reference my telegram No. 124, October 1, 8 p.m.) de Valera asked and received, authorization from his recent party convention to communicate the program for agitation to compel Northern Ireland to join Eire to associations in America which support the Irish cause. Of course, no overt support of the American cause would be permitted in Eire. The crux of the matter as I see it is your appraisal of the embarrassment which these produce. If they are regarded as something likely to prove serious, I would recommend that for the furtherance of American and incidentally British interests also, the President’s policy should prevail.

Gray
  1. Herbert Morrison, British Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Minister for Home Security.↩