Memorandum by Frank Aiken
(Secret)

This morning I asked the Secretary¹ to get Mr. Tobin² to come to see me. When Mr. Tobin arrived, I apologised for asking him to come and added that I would not have an opportunity otherwise of speaking freely to him about certain matters. I commenced by say that it was a great misfortune that we had the United States represented as it had been in the last war.³ I felt I could speak freely to him because we knew each other for such a long number of years. I recalled that before the last war in 1935 the Taoiseach had announced that it was our policy not to allow this country to be used as a base of attack against England, that we carried out that policy to the letter during the war and to the certain knowledge of the British Government.

I said we had done our utmost to arm and equip the country in order to protect ourselves against a German attack and that we had made arrangements with the British as to how we would co-operate in case that eventuality happened. We failed, however, to get an assurance from the British Government that they would not attack us, but it was quite understood by the British that if they did so, we would resist to the utmost. I said that the situation would be the same in the next war, if it came; that we had been ‘played for suckers’ once in this generation and that we were quite determined not to be taken in again; and that as long as Partition lasted there would be no alteration in our attitude. I wanted to warn him, however, that they might get false reports to the contrary and that certain people here would say that we would change our attitude if sufficient persuasion or pressure were brought to bear upon us. I told him I felt that as the war fever got hotter, we would be accused of being pro-Communist, as we had been accused of being pro-German, but that he might know that one accusation was just as untrue as the other.

At this point he asked me if Partition was ended would we join in. I said that the situation here was that a declaration of war was a matter for Parliament and that no-one could commit an All-Ireland Parliament ahead of time. I felt if it were a clear case of right and wrong, that the Irish people would stand for the right, but whatever the decision of an All-Ireland Parliament might be, there was no doubt about the decision of a 26-County Parliament.

He asked me would we have a majority in the whole of Ulster if a plebiscite were taken. I said we probably would, but that the unit to be consulted was not the Six Counties or the Nine Counties, but the whole of Ireland; that the Irish people would hold by their democratic rights to have control of the country even though a minority was against it; that we had made every reasonable offer possible to the people of the Six Counties in order to get their goodwill for unity; that we had proposed that they would retain the local Parliament, the All-Ireland Parliament having all the powers over the Six Counties that now reside in the Imperial Parliament in London. I told him also that at one time Mr. de Valera had said to the British that it would pay us both to buy out those who refused to accept the unity of Ireland and that I felt that if unity were brought about there would be very few, even in the North, asking to be bought out.

I went on to say that I always felt that the British attitude towards Ireland was dictated by their General Staff and not by their politicians; that we had got Mr. Chamberlain to admit before the last war that Partition was a complete anachronism. However, General Staffs have a habit of exaggerating the importance of military bases, whereas they were of very much less importance than the goodwill of the people of the country in which the base was situated. I pointed out that in the present situation it was of the utmost importance that each of the peoples of Europe should be prepared to die on their own doorsteps, in the firm belief that the international relations between nations which the Western powers stood for were worth the sacrifice of their lives. I pointed out that as far as I knew, there was only one question of territorial boundaries outstanding in Europe and that was our own, and that in the interests not only of Ireland and Britain, but of the morale of the people of Europe, this question should be settled once and for all.

I pointed out that during the last war when I went to America⁴ I had said to General Marshall,⁵ Mr. Acheson and others that England could not win the battle of the Atlantic even if she had the whole of Ireland, or indeed an Ireland every 500 miles across the Atlantic, as at that time the fighter range was only 150 miles from its base; that I had said that the battle of the Atlantic could never be won unless the convoys were accompanied by small aircraft carriers. The British foolishly fought the battle for a long time from shore, because they had bases in the Six Counties. If they had had bases in the Twenty-Six, they would probably not have turned their attention to the small aircraft carriers until it would have been too late.

I said that at the present time the importance of Ireland, or even the Six Counties, as a strategic base was altogether outweighed by the importance of having the goodwill of the Irish people and their desire and ability to defend themselves in case the Russians overran Europe. I said that it was the policy of this Government to do everything in its power to increase its military and economic strength to a point where we would be able to put up a very sustained and hard fight against any attack, and that I hoped in that effort we would have the assistance of the United States in getting equipment.

I said that during the last three years I had met a number of British politicians and that I had urged them very strongly to make a declaration that it was a British interest that Ireland should be united. I mentioned that a number of them had said in public that they would like to see Ireland united, but that was of no use. I told them I did not care whether they wanted to see Ireland united or not, or whether in fact they were personally against unity so long as they recognised and said publicly that it was a British interest that it should be united. I told him that I recognised that the United States could not say publicly that it was an American interest that Ireland should be united, but I urged him that it should be said privately to the British and that the British should be urged to say publicly that it was a British interest. I said that if that statement were made in public, it would change the whole face of the situation, as over a number of years the bitterness in the North had died down and the situation had boiled down to the fact that there was a group in power in the North who wanted to hold on to power. But if a British Minister or a prominent Tory, or better still both sides, said that it was a British interest that Ireland should be united, the people in Belfast would know that the days of Partition were numbered and from that time forth relations between ourselves and Britain would improve and between ourselves and the Six Counties.

Mr. Tobin promised me that he would speak to President Truman and I urged him to ask him to make a declaration privately to the British about the ending of Partition being in America’s interest and to ask the British to make a public declaration about it being a British interest.

I said also to him that as President Truman had a great number of problems and would only act after getting advice of experts, I urged him to see the members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and urge them to advise President Truman on the above lines. He said he knew General Collins⁶ very well and would speak to him.