Letter from Seán Nunan to John J. Hearne (Washington DC)
with enclosed memorandum
(Secret) (Copy)

Mr. Brennan’s report on his conversation with Lieut. Colonel Macken, which you forwarded with your minute of the 9th instant, was read with great interest here.¹

There is one point, however, that the CIA may have overlooked and, so that they may be kept straight in that regard, the Minister wishes Mr. Brennan to study carefully – in fact, to memorise – the enclosed memo and convey the views expressed therein to Colonel Macken.

[enclosure]

The military people in Ireland see the Turko-South-Russian area as a ripe source of incidents and as the area of a limited struggle for oil, but they cannot envisage an all-out Western offensive in that region. If such has been worked out, it would probably come as a complete strategic surprise to the Russians.

In regard to the question of Irish airports, military circles in Dublin think that the combined Chiefs-of-Staff have ignored important psychological factors if they count on a balance of advantage in seizing Irish airports by force.

The Irish people have a traditional goodwill and affection for Americans. They regard the United States as a greater Ireland for which Irishmen did more than all others to free and keep one. But the depth of this sentiment would mean real civil war bitterness against American treachery towards a partitioned Ireland. The humiliation of seeing Americans join their traditional aggressors – the very thought of British sneers – would strengthen their determination to fight it out for another seven hundred years.

Major military resistance could only last for a few weeks, but guerrilla warfare would continue even though American troops ‘Oradoured’ every town and village in Ireland.

One of the factors, of course, that would encourage determined resistance would be the hope of Irish political influence in America.

It is assumed in Ireland that Washington has been getting, and will continue to get, the same sort of cockeyed reports as they got during the last war: that the Irish people are rearing to join the Allies en masse only de Valera wouldn’t let them. A careful check by trained intelligence officers will show that such reports emanate from sources that will have as little influence over events in the next war as they had in the last.

The Irish people are like any other people. They are interested first of all in getting their own freedom before they start fighting for the freedom of others.

The recent proclamation of the reunity of Germany as one of the major points in American policy has been keenly noted in Ireland. Irishmen never asked anybody to fight for them and, indeed, they lent others a hand from time to time, but they would think it a bit thick that a partitioned Ireland should be forced to join in a war to re-unite Germany.