Eamon de Valera to Robert Brennan

Acknowledge Memo L-15¹ I know Hernan. Note summary referred to not received.

Re correspondence with Trade Department, your letter is quite right. All letters from that Department going by hand must for convenience pass through the Foreign Affairs office as the general clearing house. It is not necessary that the correspondence be left unsealed, provided the Minister of that Department accepts the responsibility of informing you fully by other means of that portion of their contents which would in any way affect your Department.

Our Diplomatic and Consular services and their functions - political, commercial, and general propaganda, are not yet sufficiently distinct to make it possible to have absolutely water-tight compartments without running the risk of very considerable overlapping, and what is more serious, wide discrepancies and omissions.

Close co-operation between the Trade and Propaganda and Foreign Affairs Departments, with the latter as the more general, the centre, is vital and must be arranged.

I am waiting for you to arrange that Conference with the Director of Publicity.

Small Nation Pamphlet: Have you considered all the independent sovereign states? It would be well to have as complete a comparison as possible unless the comparison is very much against us. I note that you have omitted the South American States. If we show up well as regards these, it would be well to include them for American purposes.

You have probably considered these points and found that the way in which you prepared it is the very best. I have of course always a craving for completeness and uniformity in these matters. The ideal leaflet of this sort is one that stands out ready for the mind to grasp at once as a whole. The test is the readiness with which it can be memorised. Following the sentence 'England tries to convey to the world that Ireland is a burden on her hands,' you should have inserted the amount of the imperial surplus and continued 'Besides she has a monopoly of the Irish market which, with the exception of the American, is her largest, etc, etc.'