Letter from Robert Brennan to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(Pol. 5/45) (Special Airmail)

In spite of or perhaps because of the almost frantic desire for a real world peace organisation there is considerable and growing criticism here in the press and on the radio and even more so in private conversation of the plans of the Big Three for the San Francisco Conference. Mr. Roosevelt has been denounced for his blunder in giving away at Yalta the principle laid down at Dumbarton Oaks of equal representation in the assembly by yielding to Russia's demand for three representatives and for his own counter-demand for three representatives for the United States. The fact that this latter demand has now been abandoned has not helped matters because apparently Mr. Roosevelt's pledge to support the Russian demand still stands. How this pledge will be implemented it is impossible to foresee because the United States delegation to San Francisco will be divided on the issue since Senator Vandenberg¹ has openly stated he will not support it.

Even more than the commitment itself the fact that it was concealed from the American people for over forty days has caused a feeling akin to dismay.

There is widespread comment on Stalin's apparently contemptuous attitude towards the Conference as shown by the fact that not Monsieur Molotoff² but Ambassador Gromyko will head the Russian delegation and by his demand that the Lublin government of Poland be invited (in spite of the Yalta decision) as well as by his continued unilateral policy in various quarters, particularly in Romania and Turkey.

The public mind here is full of misgiving about the whole situation. It is feared that if Russia is antagonised to the point where she will decide on noncooperation only a third world war can result. On the other hand people ask how far they can go in following Russia's lead before the American people will revolt at the spectacle of their ideal of peace based on justice being thrown overboard.

The representatives of most of the small nations here – and indeed of most of the nations outside the Big Three – are full of uneasiness regarding the future. They say they do not know what the outcome is to be but they fear they will have to string along with the Big Three whatever comes.

Numerous Irish groups, particularly in New York and Boston, are passing resolutions to the effect that Ireland should be represented. I am neither encouraging nor discouraging these. The line I am taking is that as Americans they are quite entitled to take any view they like in this matter. If the time comes when there is a world organisation we want to get into their help will be useful.

P.S. Since the above was written there has been another of those startling changes in public opinion so characteristic of America. Today the Russians are again the white-headed boys thanks to their denunciation of the neutrality pact with Japan.³

Furthermore Arthur Krock states in the N.Y. Times that the entire American delegation to San Francisco will support Russia's claim to three seats in the Assembly if such claim is put forward.