Letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Robert Brennan (Washington DC)

I am sending you herewith a statement of our grounds of complaint against Mr. David Gray,¹ the American Minister. The various documents referred to in the statement are also enclosed.

I would invite your attention particularly to the first paragraph of the statement. Much of the evidence available to the Department regarding Mr. Gray's activities is of such a nature that it cannot be disclosed without betraying confidences. Examples of that are within your own experience.

One of the difficulties about indicting Mr. Gray on the basis of concrete examples is that he has shown undeniable cleverness in giving his activities against this country a veneer of official zeal and diplomatic correctitude. He is less clever than usual, however, in the correspondence with Sir Hubert Gough,² of which copies are enclosed.³ In this, he throws discretion to the winds and actually tries to buttress up the Six-County position against the declared policy of the Government of this country in a letter to a former British General. The picture of a diplomatic representative of the United States attacking an Imperialist and ex-Unionist British General for trying to be friendly and fair to this country is a new and strange phenomenon; no clearer instance could be found of the lengths to which Mr. Gray is prepared to go in his irrational bias against this country and the Government to which he is accredited.

Mr. Gray's hostility to Ireland is, of course, a Secret de Polichinelle⁴ in this country. It is a matter of general public knowledge. That he has done, and is continuing to do, great harm to American prestige in this country is undeniable. In view of our traditional friendship for the United States, the Taoiseach has always been anxious to avoid the public break in our relations which an official request for Mr. Gray's recall would inevitably occasion. That is still his attitude. The Taoiseach is sure, however, that any impartial examination of Mr. Gray's reports to the State Department will establish beyond all doubt the fact of his irrational bias against this country and his hostility to the Government; and he sincerely hopes that a spread of the knowledge of the true position in the right quarters will result in putting an end to a situation which is contrary to the interests and dignity of both countries.