Memorandum from John A. Belton to Liam Cosgrave (Dublin)

I attach hereto a memorandum by Dr. MacWhite on the recent visits of Mr. E. McAteer, MP.¹ I am of opinion that, if this matter is to be pursued, it should be at Ministerial level and the Minister concerned would, of course, be yourself. In this connection, Anthony Eden’s departure is all to the good. He had quite gratuitously gone out of his way to refer to the Six Counties as an integral part of the UK to the defence of which the Government was committed. Mr. Macmillan has never to my knowledge made any statement on the Six Counties position. This, of course, may be due to the fact that up to the present he has never held a Ministerial post where such a statement would be called for. He is, of course, a Tory of Tories, but nevertheless, in my opinion, may be inclined to take a saner view of the position. As a publisher he had many contacts with Irish writers notably with the late James Stephens² all of whose works were published by Macmillans.

I agree with Dr. MacWhite’s view that a failure to extract any concessions could be used to our advantage. The main thing that would be achieved, in any event, in the eyes of the people both sides of the Border and in world opinion, would be that a reasonable approach was made at high level with a view to alleviating the present position.

It is, of course, possible that the Earl of Home would be delegated to discuss the matter with you and that the Prime Minister would plead pressure of other business to avoid personal involvement. This procedure would enable the Earl of Home not to commit himself.

It is almost certain that the question of an Extradition Treaty would be raised. Our only answer to that would be to refer to the Taoiseach’s statement in the Dáil in 1955³ in the course of which he said: ‘I must, therefore, emphasise, in order to prevent any future controversy or discussion on this point, that there can be no question of our handing over, either to the British or to the Six-County authorities, persons whom they may accuse of armed political activities in Britain or in the Six Counties’.

A difficulty which I see about this proposal is that a visit to London would inevitably involve publicity even if you were in transit to say Paris or Strasbourg. A visit to London only would involve a statement to the Press or to the Dáil as to the purpose of the visit and the result. At the moment it might be possible, with the agreement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to use the European free trade idea as a cloak for these discussions.

I feel that before reaching a final decision in this matter Mr. Cremin’s opinion should be sought.