Memorandum by Seán Nunan of an interview with Edward R. Stettinius

In accordance with an appointment made on October 31st, I¹ called on Mr. Stettinius on Thursday, November 2nd at 3.30 p.m. to discuss, on the lines of the Department's cablegram 297,² the observations of the State Department on our reply of October 9th³ to the American Government's request regarding the question of asylum for Axis war criminals.

I told Mr. Stettinius that we could not understand why the American Government failed to find in our reply the assurances they requested, as it seemed to me to be perfectly clear from the last paragraph of our reply what our intentions were. I explained in detail the procedure that would be followed by our authorities, in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations made under the Aliens' Act, in the case of illegal entry into Ireland of any alien, and emphasized particularly the reference to aliens whose presence in Ireland would be inconsistent with our desire to avoid injuring the interests of friendly states – pointing out that the expression 'friendly states' meant the United States and Great Britain.

Mr. Stettinius asked what we would do if Hitler landed in Ireland by plane and I said that if he should land in Ireland his presence in the district where he landed would become known to our Authorities in a very short time and his arrest and deportation would follow in due course. Mr. Stettinius asked would we hand him over to the United Nations, to which I replied that that was a matter to be determined at the time when it would become an issue and that as far as I could see, by the time such an event took place, the Allies would be in such complete control of the seas and of points of entry into Germany that there seemed to be no reason why the provisions of the Aliens Order in regard to the deportation of undesirable aliens should not be carried out by deportation on an Irish ship.

Mr. Stettinius said that the whole question of asylum of war criminals arose from 'Hull's Easter speech' in which he called on neutrals to state their position in the matter and that while the replies received from other neutrals had been definite, the wording of our reply was not. I said that our reply was the only sort of reply an independent neutral could make in view of the indefiniteness of the categories of war criminals, and after further discussion in which I again elaborated on the meaning of our reply Mr. Stettinius said he was very glad to have had the discussion as 'You have fully convinced me that your intentions are right', but that the political men of the Department were not satisfied. He asked whether I would like to discuss the matter with one of the technical men or would I prefer to leave the matter over until the Minister 's return from Chicago. I said I was prepared to discuss it and he left the room to see if anyone was available. On his return he said he had talked with Mr. Dunn (James Clement Dunn, Political Adviser of the Department) who expressed himself as not satisfied with the wording of our reply, but who thought it just as well to leave the question until the Minister's return.

Mr. Stettinius then asked me would we be prepared to change the wording of the reply to conform plainly to our intentions and I said that was a question to be decided by Dublin.

At the end of the interview, which lasted twenty five minutes, I mentioned to Mr. Stettinius that the newspaper correspondents were waiting in the corridor to question me as to the nature of our talk (they had asked me this before I went in and had a suspicion of what it would be about) and that I assumed he did not want it mentioned. He said he would rather we settled the matter before the newspapers got to know anything about it, and in order to avoid my being questioned, he accompanied me to the elevator and waited until I entered.

His attitude during the whole interview, which took place in the Secretary of State's office, was most cordial and friendly.