No. 719
Editorial Note

On September 30, 1953, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland, Sean Lemass, paid a courtesy call on Secretary of State Dulles in Washington. He was accompanied by Ambassador Hearne and the [Page 1562] Irish Secretary of Industry and Commerce, Sean Leydon. After a warm exchange of amenities, Secretary Dulles reviewed in general terms some of the major world issues, touching in particular on Korea, Indochina, Vietnam, Iran, Egypt, German participation in the defense of Europe, and the situation in the Soviet Union. Lemass raised only one question and that pertained to the status of the longstanding Irish application for membership in the United Nations. Secretary Dulles raised three possible means of achieving Irish membership, but did not offer hope for the early success of any of them. G. Hayden Raynor, Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs, was present at the meeting and recorded in his memorandum on the United Nations discussion that, after leaving the Secretary’s office, Lemass commented to him that despite some feeling in Ireland to the contrary, the government’s position was to permit Ireland’s membership application to remain on file at the United Nations as it had for the last several years. Raynor’s memorandum of the discussion pertaining to the United Nations, dated September 30, 1953, is in Dublin Embassy files, lot 62 F 81, “350—Ireland (Membership U.N.)”. His separate memorandum of the same date covering the earlier part of the conversation concerning world events is in file 740A.13/9–3053.