Memorandum from Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin) to Eamon de Valera (Dublin)

The Taoiseach, Minister for External Affairs.

The State Department have now given us a chance to get down to fundamentals. They have exposed the weakness of their democratic protestations – the point on which they are most sensitive – and the more sharply we reply the more likely we are to secure their respect. Their statement about the recognition of the six Counties as part of the United Kingdom was such a blunder that they must already be regretting it. But for the strength of your attitude towards the State Department, we should already have had to put up with much positive pressure and bullying from them. No doubt also, that attitude to the State Department has had its reaction on the British Government, who must be kept closely informed by them. So that, in a sense, the attitude you adopt towards the United States is becoming more and more an exceedingly important factor in our relations with Britain.

Just as the Portuguese reply, based on the equality of the rights of nations, has sobered the American desire to occupy the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, a reply from us, based on the same principle, will at least make the State Department less anxious to violate our rights. It is, of course, also the only way to force them to think of Ireland in a constructive manner as a problem of world importance that must be solved as part of America's moral justification for assuming the dominant role in the world.

I am sometimes discouraged by hearing the view expressed by otherwise intelligent people that we should now be enjoying prosperity and plenty if you had been more pliant and 'nicer' with the British and the Americans. The whole history of international relations proves quite the contrary, and the best proof we ourselves have is that you have succeeded by firmness in maintaining our neutrality against these same critics who said that such a policy was quite impossible.