Extracts from a confidential report from Frederick H. Boland
to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Confidential)

We continue to receive favourable comments about the speech on Algeria which we made in the Political Committee on the 5th instant. What is more extraordinary, the favourable comments come from people of widely different views. The unofficial agent of the Algerian National Movement here in New York thanked me for it most cordially. On the other hand, M. Pineau, when I met him at a reception this evening, complimented me on the speech very warmly and went on to tell me that his maternal grandmother was born in Ireland and was named Boland! Excerpts from the speech were broadcast on the CBS network on the evening of its delivery and the ‘New York Times’ gave it a front-page headline the following day. Several other speakers in the debate have since expressed agreement with our views – each of them, of course, picking out the passages in the speech which happened the best to fit in with his own particular standpoint. Although the Afro-Asians have been most cordial in their expressions of congratulation and agreement, Sir Pierson Dixon told me that their delegation admired the speech greatly and felt it would be very helpful to the French; and Mr. John Holmes, of the Canadian delegation, told me that it was just the speech which the Canadians would have liked to have made themselves if they were not partners of France in NATO! Apart from what Mr. Pineau said to me this evening, our information is that the French delegation, as a whole, are grateful to us for the speech – not only for the opposition we expressed to the adoption of any resolution by the Committee but for the tributes we paid in the speech to France and the French influence throughout the world.

[matter omitted]

I have had several conversations with the unofficial representative of the Algerian national movement here, who moves around freely among the delegations. He strikes me as a moderate and not unreasonable man. He agrees that the difficulties of the Algerian problem are not so unbridgeable as spokesmen on both sides try to make them appear. He is particularly interested in the negotiations which led up to the Truce in 1921 and preceded the signature of the Treaty on the following 6th December. He asked me for information about this phase of our recent history and I documented him fully with regard to it. Although the circumstances of the two cases are very different from many points of view, he may possibly find our case a source of useful suggestions.

[matter omitted]

The Assembly debate on Egypt will be followed next week by a debate in the Political Committee on Cyprus. We propose to intervene in this discussion, basing ourselves on the general principles outlined in the Minister’s speech in the general debate² and on the broad lines of the policy outlined by the Taoiseach in his memorandum to the Government after his return from the United States.³ In view of the current suggestions that the Cyprus problem might be solved by the partition of the island, we propose to devote a substantial part of our remarks to the evils of Partition as a political expedient. The debate on Cyprus will be followed by a debate on West New Guinea. We propose to intervene in this discussion also on the lines approved by the Minister when he was here. I was canvassed during the week by the Indonesian Ambassador to support their stand on this issue. I explained to him the reasons of principle why we felt unable to do so. Lord Radcliffe,⁴ who drafted the most recent constitutional proposals for Cyprus, has now joined the British delegation. I met him at a dinner party the other night. From his conversation, I would judge that he approached his task as a lawyer rather than as a diplomat or a statesman.

[matter omitted]