840.20/4–1149
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
Mr. McBride1 at his request saw me alone. He said that he had two matters which he wished to discuss—the first was the present state of Europe, the second the question of partition in Ireland and Irish adherence to the Atlantic Pact.
On the first question, Mr. McBride felt that so far our efforts in Europe might be described as propping up a wall which was leaning. This was necessary and had been successful. He felt it was not of enduring success unless we rebuilt the wall and gave lasting vitality and strength to European life. He felt that military alliances while of great importance and wholly right in the present case would not furnish alone what was needed. In fact, to some extent they had the opposite effect by frightening the people in such countries as Austria and Czechoslovakia, where there was the belief that if war came whatever the result they would be destroyed. The Marshall Plan, he felt, was a most constructive step, but he felt that the hope that this was going to result in a real economic and political integration in Europe was not being fulfilled. Specifically, he said that while progress along these lines had been made by some of the leaders of Europe, the idea had not permeated to the people. There was too much of a feeling among the people in Europe that the OEEC, the Council for Europe, and similar organizations were merely methods by which American dollars became available and were not appreciated in and of themselves for their effect on European unity.
I said to the Minister that we did not disagree with the ends which he had in view. We believed with him that the Atlantic Pact and the Arms Assistance Bill had their chief value as preventative measures which contributed toward a sense of security in Europe and toward European recovery. We believed also that economic assistance and economic recovery were again means to an end which was a more stable and satisfying life for the people of Western Europe, which if achieved was the real answer to Communist infiltration.
The Minister then said that he thought that the chief appeal to non-Communists by the Communists was an idealistic one and this had to be met by Western civilization coming forward with a more appealing ideal. I asked him to be more specific about this, which he was not able to do, but I think in general he referred to the sort of thing about which the President spoke in his inaugural.
I then asked the Minister whether there were any specific suggestions [Page 293] which he could make whereby we could be more helpful in forwarding the idea of European political and economic unity in saying that we had been apprehensive that too positive an attitude on our part would produce a negative reaction in Europe. He had no positive suggestions, but thought that it was not true that strong leadership in this direction would be resented in Europe. I asked him to let me know whenever he had a suggestion that he would like us to consider along these lines. He said that he would be glad to do so.
The Minister then turned to the partition issue. He said that Ireland was strongly in favor of the Atlantic Pact and would have liked to join in signing it, but that no Irish Government could have lasted two months which had done this as long as the partition question remained unsettled. He said that his policy toward Great Britain had been one of eliminating sources of conflict. He thought that whereas a few years ago there had been a score of such sources there now remained only one—the partition question. If this could be removed, he felt that Ireland would be a strong friendly supporter of British and Western European policy. If it were not eliminated, it would be a constant irritant and might be an explosive. He thought that the Atlantic Pact furnished an opportunity for the United States in some tactful way of assisting in the solution of this problem, and he ventured to suggest that it was in our interest as well as in the interest of the Irish and British to do so. He said that he had reason to believe such an attitude on our part might not be resented by the Labor Government, which he felt was over-cautious about partition for fear of eliminating middle class support.
The Minister added that he felt that American reluctance to be involved in the partition question had in the past been associated with the idea that this might be regarded in England as an anti-British attitude for the reasons given above, and he thought this no longer was a valid reason for reluctance on our part. I said to the Minister that we here believed first that for us to become involved in the Irish partition question would be to bring us into a matter which was not an American concern, which would be resented in England and which in my judgment would cause far more harm than it could possibly do good.
After some further discussion along these lines, he asked whether I still adhered to this point of view. I said that much as I would like to agree with him from the point of view of politeness, I regretted that I could not do so and reiterated the position that we regarded partition as wholly unconnected with the Atlantic Pact and were not willing to become involved in discussions of partition.
- Sean MacBride, Irish Minister for External Affairs.↩