Minute from Cornelius C. Cremin to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin) enclosing a memorandum of a discussion between Cremin, Thomas V. Commins and Edward McLaughlin

On the 11th instant, I asked Mr. McLaughlin, of the American Legation, to come to see me so that I might speak to him about the statement made by Mr. Bissell in regard to the ECA loan-grant policy before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the 15th February. Mr. Commins was present at the interview. We showed Mr. McLaughlin page 306 of the record of the hearings on the extension of the European Recovery Programme, and called his attention to the lack of logic in the classification proposed by Mr. Bissell. We explained to Mr. McLaughlin that we wished to call his attention to the statement because of the efforts Mr. Garrett has been making over the past nine months to have ECA funds made available to Ireland in the form of grant. Mr. McLaughlin took with him the text of Mr. Bissell's statement.

When this particular part of the interview had been concluded, I remarked to Mr. McLaughlin that it was rather striking how, in going over the records of the hearings on the extension of the European Recovery Programme before the Senate and House Committees, one still found evidence of an attitude of distrust, and almost hostility, on the part of certain Congressmen towards Ireland because of her neutrality in the recent war. Mr. McLaughlin declared that this was indeed the case and that matters had not been made any better from that point of view by our attitude towards the Atlantic Pact. He went on to say that the Minister and himself, when they first came up against the loan-grant issue, thought that the hostility towards this country, which was, in their view, at the basis of the decision to give us funds only in the form of loan, rested primarily in the State Department, that they had subsequently formed the impression that it was really to be found in the Treasury, but that they had latterly came to the conclusion that the attitude of the State Department was actually the determining factor. He then remarked that he was not clear as to the precise wishes of the State Department in the matter of our participation in the Atlantic Pact. The State Department had recognised the strategic importance of this country. The Legation had not, however, any definite evidence that the State Department wished to bring us into the Pact at any price; while this may be the real sentiment in Washington, the Legation had no knowledge of that fact, and was, indeed, in the dark on the point. Mr. McLaughlin then expressed the opinion that Iveagh House (as he put it) and the Government as a whole seem to attach much too much importance to Irish-American opinion in reaching decisions involving American interests. He claimed that this opinion has very little weight in Washington, and referred in derogatory terms to the activities, in Congress and elsewhere, of the spokesmen of the American League for an Undivided Ireland; most of these men were, he thought, speaking primarily with an eye to securing votes in their local wards, rather than out of a deep-rooted sense of the necessity for ending Partition. He thinks that Ireland had drawn, during the recent war, to a very large extent on the fund of goodwill which she enjoys in the U.S.A. He believes that this fund has been seriously run down and that we could not expect that it would suffice to maintain a friendly disposition towards us in America in another such crisis. He admitted that Americans naturally look at our present stand from an entirely different viewpoint to that which we have; they have not the acute consciousness of the various events in the past, including the civil war, here which must inevitably colour our approach to major problems. He stressed the fact that the U.S.A. regards the general situation and her own position now as quite as serious as, and even more serious than, in 1940. He mentioned, in this connection, that, during his recent visit to Frankfurt, he had, in discussing with military people there our attitude to the Atlantic Pact, endeavoured to justify it, but that he had the reverse of a sympathetic hearing.

He went on to say that Americans generally have a feeling that we are devoid of any real appreciation of the 'practical values' which count in the modern world. Our attitude to the Atlantic Pact tends to confirm this feeling, which is nourished also by our decision to leave 'the British Empire'. He gave it as his opinion that we made a mistake in not entering the Pact, as we could have hoped to achieve some result from within, but can hardly expect to reap any benefits from staying outside.

Mr. Garrett and himself had, he said, become discouraged in recent months by the lack of receptivity in Washington to their suggestions for treating us more leniently in the matter of the loan-grant issue, and Mr. Garrett had practically decided that there was no use in making further efforts. He expected that Mr. MacBride's conversations in Washington would throw light on the real attitude of the American Government towards this country in the present juncture, but thought that he would be likely to be told that there is a complete lack of sympathy with our position.