Letter from Robert Brennan to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)

The inauguration ceremony on the 20th January was very simple. It was fortunate that it was so because we were standing in the snow some 30 feet below the south portico of the White House on which the ceremony took place.

It was noticed that the President, though his voice was strong, had a wretched pallor and his face was heavily lined.

After the ceremony there was a reception at which neither the President nor the Vice President appeared, the honours being done by Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Truman. It was the first time in a long time that we had seen the members of the Cabinet and the members of the Supreme Court, heads of the Army and the Navy, Senators and members of the House all together.

They were one and all very cordial and friendly. In this connection I might say that since the intermittent controversy about Ireland started over four years ago we ourselves have experienced nothing but courtesy from all these people with very rare exceptions. Only one member of the State Department, for instance, allowed us to see that he preferred our social relationship to be on a less cordial scale than hitherto and even he has been trying lately to make amends for what he apparently now considers his blunder.