No. 164  NAI DFA Secretary's Files P2

Personal code telegram from Robert Brennan to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(No. 481)

WASHINGTON, 15 December 1941

An Taoiseach's speech fairly fully reported in all papers and over radio.1 Points dealt with being policy unchanged, need of preparedness and greater production. Extension of war to America brought sorrow and anxiety to every part of Éire because of family ties and part America played in helping us with freedom, but neutrality only possible policy owing to circumstances of our history incompleteness of freedom owing to partition. Any other policy would divide our people, and for a divided people to enter war would be suicide.

No editorial comment so far seen.

1 Speaking in Cork on 14 December 1941 de Valera told his audience that the extension of war to the United States 'brings a source of anxiety and sorrow to every part of this land'. He added that despite Ireland's special connections with the United States of America 'the policy of the state remains unchanged. We can only be a friendly neutral'. See Maurice Moynihan (ed.), Speeches and Statements by Eamon de Valera 1917-1973 (Dublin, 1980), pp 461-2.



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