Extract from a confidential report from Frederick H. Boland
to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Secret)

Todd Andrews¹ of Bord na Móna rang me on Monday to say that he had been told by the Tánaiste that the question of the proposed visit of Bord na Móna technicians to Soviet Russia had been considered on the Ministerial level and had been approved in principle.

When I saw my contact in the Soviet Embassy yesterday (Dr. Tikhvinsky),² he told me that the matter had been referred to Moscow; he thought they would have a decision within the next week or so and, personally, he thought it would be favourable. He mentioned that his people had been much gratified by the reports they had received of the hospitable reception accorded to the Soviet astronomers in Dublin,³ but they had been somewhat taken aback by our refusal of a visa to the First Secretary of the Embassy here.⁴ The only motive behind the proposal to send him over was that he should be on hand to help in smoothing out any incidents or difficulties which might arise in connection with the Soviet delegation to the conference. Happily, no difficulties had arisen – quite the contrary – but if anything had happened, the presence of Mr. Zhivotovski would have been useful and, in any case, the refusal of a visa to a career diplomat was hardly a friendly act. I told Dr. Tikhvinsky that personally I had been surprised when I heard that the visa application had been made, and even more so when I heard that it had apparently been made known to a journalist before it was lodged with us. Mr. Zhivotovski, as a diplomatic officer, would have been quite out of place at a purely scientific conference and his presence among the Soviet astronomers would have tended to put them in an invidious light; it would have tended to create difficulties rather than obviate or ease them. I gathered from Dr. Tikhvinsky’s attitude that he was not too certain that the application should have been made, and that his people were not too upset by its refusal – especially as the visit of the delegation had gone off quite smoothly.

When I mentioned that the question of Ireland’s admission to UNO was due to come up again in a day or two, Dr. Tikhvinsky said that Soviet Russia had nothing against Ireland’s admission and, if it stood by itself, it would not oppose it. The question of Ireland’s admission, however, could not be separated at this stage from the general question of the outstanding candidatures and, on this question, there were conflicts of principle between the Great Powers which remained unresolved.

[matter omitted]