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

Sir John Maffey came to see me at 12 o'clock today. He began by expressing regret that everybody had so much worry and so much work in connection with the events of recent days.

He then said that he most earnestly hoped that there would be a few days of complete quiet. Above all, he urged that we should do nothing and say nothing to provoke further acts or provocative statements from the other side. He said that we could regard him as thinking what the British Government was thinking, and what the normal Englishman who counted was thinking, when he said he was perfectly certain that there would be no sanctions.

I asked him if he had any instructions within the last twenty-four hours empowering him to make that statement.

He answered that he had not, but he could go so far as to say that he knew Lord Cranborne would resign if sanctions were taken against us. The whole series of events began under pressure from Eisenhower,¹ and, of course, he could not conceal, even if he wished to do so, the well-known fact that Churchill had a strong edge against us. But he did not think that Churchill's statement, or the widespread Press campaign against us, would have any serious effect on the relationship between the two countries.

I said I disagreed profoundly with him in that view. Churchill's statement would envenom British public opinion against us. The statement was not relieved by any expression of gratitude or satisfaction for the help that we had given in a thousand and one ways since the war began. It appeared to us to be calculated to give the worst possible impression of our attitude towards the United Nations. The mind of the ordinary man in the street in England would now be prepared to accept anything and everything in the nature of espionage bogies. After such a statement, how could the average Englishman think of Ireland for the remainder of the war as anything but a German espionage stronghold. The British Press took good care to put in the high-lights, to invent the appropriate stories and to suggest the sanctions most calculated to bring us to our knees. Much as we should like to take his advice about keeping absolutely quiet, the Government were under an obligation to the people to refute the falsehoods, both the alleged facts and deductions, and to give as much publicity as possible to the truth. We should be letting ourselves down before the whole world, as well as before Britain and the United States, if we gave no reply to this most unjust campaign.

I read him extracts from the British and American Press, and I instanced in particular the malevolent report in the 'Daily Telegraph' of Monday about the supposed German 'plane which flew over Monkstown. I reminded him that most of the really bad despatches in the American Press – such as those of Reston, Geoffrey Parsons and Michael Sawyers, came from London. It could not be said that the Ministry of Information were ignorant of the activity of these correspondents since their messages had to be passed by the British Censor. The London Press and the wireless could not have been worse if there had been some evil genius in the Ministry of Information to push them on. We found it extremely difficult to understand this new campaign.

The Government was very grateful to him (Maffey) for all the good work he had done in maintaining – and, indeed, considerably improving – the good relations between the two countries. He would, of course, readily admit that he had got the greatest possible cooperation from the Irish Government.

As Maffey kept referring to the un-wisdom of our doing any act that might encourage reprisals, I thought it best to answer the question which was obviously in his mind. I told him that we were holding up the workers because of the obscurity of the situation. If there were to be sanctions notwithstanding his feeling of certainty and his good will, we should be obliged to keep every worker for the service of our own people. Moreover, it would be hardly fair of the Government to allow more workers to go over to England so long as the Press and the radio were accusing them of being potential spies and a menace to British security. The presence of more workers could only make the situation worse. The Government had, therefore, decided to wait, for some days at least, until they were quite sure of the British attitude.

Maffey agreed that we were justified in safeguarding our own interests, and he repeated his conviction that the situation would soon be clarified in the sense he had already mentioned.

He spoke a good deal about the source of the leakage. He said the 'beans were spilled' in Dublin, within forty-eight hours of the presentation of the Note by David Gray. He himself heard it all over the place in the greatest detail.

I asked him would he mind telling me the name of somebody who knew it within forty-eight hours.

He immediately replied that Smyllie of the 'Irish Times' knew it 'at once'.

He also asserted, with considerable conviction, that the Opposition Leaders had not kept their tongues quiet.

I said that there was one thing absolutely certain – that, if anything got out from Ireland, it did not get out through our Censorship. The 'Washington Times Herald' and other American papers published an Associated Press despatch on March 10th with a Belfast date-line stating that the United States had asked Ireland to oust the German Minister. On March 4th, the 'Observer ' had the full story ready for issue: on March 5th they had given us a copy of the article through the High Commissioner 's Office, and, as he would remember, his Secretary, Norman Archer, on our request, protested to the Dominions Office and a general note was issued to the Press in London to keep off the story. In the 'Observer ' story, the news was said to have come from Washington. Whatever the gossip here might have been, the Press publicity began in Washington, with London as a close second on the B.B.C. of 10th March.

I used the opportunity to mention in particular some of the chestnuts which are being reproduced in the American and British Press these days: The thousands of British and American lives lost in bringing food to Ireland, the diplomatic bags and couriers going to Berlin, the re-fuelling of submarines, etc., and I reminded him of the fact that we were sending considerably more goods to Britain than we received from all of the United Nations. I said that I knew it was not necessary to refer to these matters so far as he was concerned, but I wanted him to remind his own people of the truth so that they might make some effort to prevent the Press continuing its line of campaign against us.

Maffey went away giving me further assurances that everything would be all right and again urging that we should be extremely careful.