Memorandum from Frederick H. Boland to Éamon de Valera (Dublin)

I saw Sir Owen O'Malley, the British Ambassador to Portugal, yesterday evening. He is over here on a holiday.

He told me that on his way through London he had had about a half an hour's conversation with Mr. Ernest Bevin. He was much struck by the change in Mr. Bevin's views where Ireland was concerned. 'The whole climate of his mind had altered'. Mr. Bevin had spoken in a very friendly way about this country and about the Taoiseach personally.

The point of the conversation was, however, this. Mr. Bevin told Sir Owen that it was one of his ambitions to establish a firm friendship between Ireland and Great Britain, and he realised that Partition was the great obstacle in the way of achieving this. He appreciated that, if there was to be real friendship between Ireland and England, Partition had to go. How it was going to be got rid of he could not see for the moment, and, although he would like to give more time to the question, the problem of Germany was going to keep him fully occupied for the next year or so. In the meantime, he felt that the closer the nations of Western Europe drew together, the easier the solution of Partition would become. Our entry into UNO would help.

Sir Owen said that he had told Mr. Bevin that he was coming to Dublin and had asked him whether he might make these observations known to you. Mr. Bevin had said that he had no objection to your knowing, in the strictest confidence, how his mind was moving, but he did not want to be tied to any details or suggestions.

I told Sir Owen I would pass on this information to you and I felt sure that you would appreciate Mr. Bevin's attitude that Partition made really friendly relations between the two countries impossible. That was exactly your view. It would be a great advance if the British Government would publicly take the same sort of courageous, forthright attitude with regard to Partition as they are taking in the case of Egypt and India. The one case seemed to be the logical corollary of the other two. Britain's respect for our neutrality had caused a lot of people here to take quite a different view of Britain than they took before the war, and even a public statement by the British Government saying no more than that Britain would try to bring Partition to an end as soon as it could be done would do a great deal to extend and consolidate that gain.

In the course of further conversation, Sir Owen said that, if he might venture a personal suggestion, we should try to heal our feud with the Dominions Office.

I expressed surprise and said I was not conscious of anything between ourselves and the Dominions Office that could possibly be described as a feud.

Sir Owen said that, speaking confidentially, he thought that Sir Eric Machtig had a contrary impression. Sir Eric seemed to think that the Irish had a 'down' on him personally.

I said I was very sorry to hear that, but that the impression was quite unjustified. We would be very anxious to remove it and we should be glad of anything that Sir Owen himself could do in that direction.

Sir Owen spoke enthusiastically about Dr. Salazar. Although Portugal was still a backward country compared to Ireland, it owed a lot to Dr. Salazar's efforts. Dr. Salazar frequently spoke to him about the Taoiseach, for whom he (Dr. Salazar) has a great personal admiration. Sir Owen said that he hoped that the Taoiseach and Dr. Salazar would be able to meet some time.

I asked Sir Owen was Dr. Salazar likely to go to New York if Portugal were admitted to the United Nations.

Sir Owen said he did not think so. He would probably send Da Matta, his Minister for Education.

Sir Owen told me that Dr. Salazar had been reasonably accommodating about Axis assets, but, of about 200 Axis agents in Portugal known to have been extremely active during the war, only about 70 had so far been expelled. Dr. Salazar was of a humanitarian cast of mind and had so far declined to expel the others. Sir Owen said that he spent his time pressing Dr. Salazar to surrender these remaining Axis agents, and pressing the Foreign Office not to press Dr. Salazar any further.