Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Joseph P. Walshe (Holy See)

I find I have not replied to your letter 16/47 of the 20th March¹ about the International Red Cross.

Actually, we intend to propose to the Taoiseach at an early date that we should cease to use the International Red Cross for the distribution of our relief supplies. The title 'International Red Cross' is, of course, a misnomer in this connection. What we were using was, in fact, the Joint Relief Commission, which has now been replaced by an organisation called the International Centre. Both bodies are commercial concerns, and, in view of incidents which have come to our notice in the last six or nine months, we have come to feel that neither body was a reliable instrument for the distribution of our relief supplies. They cannot be relied on to resist the temptation of using our supplies to buy goodwill in Soviet-controlled areas in their own commercial interests.

I hope the Taoiseach will agree to our using in future the American War Relief Service - which would mean, in practice, the organisation operated in Europe by the NCWC. Whether we will have much, if any, relief to distribute in Europe in the future is, of course, another question. There is no question, however, of our doing our own distribution. We have not the organisation for that, and it would take a long time to build one up. Certainly the Irish Red Cross Society - which, at the moment, seems to be at a particularly low ebb of efficiency - could not be entrusted with the work.

Although the distribution in the past has been unsatisfactory in the sense that too many of our supplies were allowed to be used by Communist, Leftist, and similar organisations as a means of enhancing their own prestige, I think that most of the people who got the supplies realised that they came to them as a gift from Ireland. On the whole, we are not dissatisfied with the publicity we received.