Letter from Robert Brennan to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin) enclosing memorandum of 30th December from Michael L. Skentelbery
(Confidential)

I enclose copy in duplicate of a noteworthy memorandum made by Mr. Skentelbery as a result of a talk he had with two officers of the State Department. We do not yet know whether the talk was inspired or not.¹

[enclosure]

Confidential Report to Minister at Washington by Mr. M. L. Skentelbery

I had lunch today with Messrs. D. Linebaugh and J. Sweeney, of the State Department, at their invitation. The former is a junior officer in the British Commonwealth Division. He is what is called a 'country specialist', dealing only with Ireland, and he is on the administrative or 'policy-making' side. He visited Ireland last year and came back to America with Gray. Sweeney is in the same division, but he is on the research side and his function is to supply detailed factual information on Ireland as required by those formulating policy. He is the specialist on Ireland in the State Department.

They were both extremely well-informed on the country and on all matters concerning Irish affairs, e.g., anti-Partition movements abroad, and they were both very interested in future developments, e.g., Ireland's role in the Commonwealth. Sweeney, in particular, had a personal as well as an official interest in the country, as both his grand-parents were Irish. He exchanged a few sentences in Irish with me, and appeared keenly interested in the language and the revival movement. Linebaugh is a young man of twenty-eight who has been two years in the State Department. Sweeney looks older, but has only been in the Department for four years.

After general talk about Ireland, they came to what was apparently the reason for the meeting. They said rather shyly that they would like to have a frank discussion on present Irish-American relations. Sweeney did most of the talking, and the following is a summary of what they told me.

They are both very much perturbed at the present state of Irish-American relations, and they feel that Gray is to blame. Due to the lack of a well-informed and intelligent publicity service for Ireland in the United States, American public opinion on such questions as neutrality, has been determined largely by Gray's outlook. Neutrality had not been properly understood by the American people and had been wrongly interpreted, which was a great pity since, if it could only have been presented in the right way, Americans would have realised its true significance. Although Gray has a sincere love for the country, the Ireland which he is living in mentally is the one which he first knew, the pre-1916 Ireland of the Ascendancy. He does not appreciate Irish nationalism and is blind to present-day Irish political realities. Consequently, his outlook is based on what he thinks Ireland should be rather than on what Ireland is. It has been said for a long time now that he is about to retire, and he himself has said it is time he did, but he is still there and there is no age limit for persons in his position. It is all very regrettable because Dublin is an important post (Dublin and London are regarded as plums), especially from the point of view that, with air travel, prominent American politicians pass through Ireland on their way to Europe and are entertained by the American representative there and are, of course, largely influenced by his views.

One of the things Linebaugh said confirmed what you told me the other day - that articles by Herbert L. Matthews in the 'New York Times' were inspired by Gray; and he quoted a sentence which he read in a dispatch of Gray's and which appeared in one of the articles. He recalled that the implication in the article on the Visa delays that there was some connection between the shortage of staff at the Consulate General and the question of Axis diplomats in Ireland was denied in a reply to a Press question by the Under Secretary of State. The delays were due to the fact that the State Department was waiting for Congress to sanction the expenditure necessary to increase the staff, and this could not be obtained before the Spring or Summer. A Vice-consul and two clerks had just been sent.

They had heard Governor Tobin, of Boston, mentioned for the Dublin post, and seemed doubtful of the wisdom of such a choice. It would be better to have an American with no Irish connections, provided he were the right type, than to have an Irish-American who might so easily be the wrong type. The post, being a plum, would probably go to some good Democrat.

They thought that the best way to improve the present state of relations between the two countries would be to have some organ of publicity here, such as a Press Attaché or a weekly bulletin published by the Legation, which would give the United States public a well-informed and intelligent presentation of the facts in Ireland today. Irish-American papers like the 'Irish World' were a very poor substitute indeed, and yet, unfortunately for the mass of American people, they were the links between the two countries and the voice of Ireland in America. It was deplorable that relations between the two countries were left so much in their hands.

Another helpful factor would be a student-exchange or scholarship system under which American students could study at the National University or at other educational institutions where they would get the right orientation on Ireland's history, language and literature. The tragedy was that, when American students did go to Ireland, they went almost invariably to Trinity.

Both Linebaugh and Sweeney seemed very sincere and inspired only by that type of idealism which is peculiarly American. I got the impression that they were genuinely worried over the present difficulties and that they had at the backs of their minds things like the Air Agreement. Their attitude was: 'We don't like these things coming between the best of friends. They embarrass us and make us a little shamefaced because we know that, unfortunately, the trouble is mostly caused by the man who was appointed by our country there but who, we know, is most unsuitable and quite harmful. There is little any of us can do about it now, but you might be able to help improve matters by a better publicity system'. They concluded by suggesting that we have another meeting some time to continue the talk.

Naturally, I was very surprised at two officers of the State Department going out of their way to say all these things to me, and I wondered whether it was pure altruism on their own part or whether the whole thing was done at the instance of persons on a higher level who thought that this was perhaps the best way of communicating something to us.