Volume 6 1939~1941


Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 132 NAI DFA 2006/39

Handwritten letter from Joseph P. Walshe to John W. Dulanty (London)

Dublin, 2 March 1940

Dear John,1

I enclose the cuttings promised on the phone i.e. 1) Gogarty's2 Article in the 'Week', a weekly offshoot of the Herald – (see particularly last sentence): this is typical of other articles and lectures:- 2) series of articles by Douglas in the Washington Times Herald:- 3) Pender in W. Post of 5th Jan.

Our people here and in America are beginning to suspect that this is a B. campaign. In any case it is highly mischievous, and the British must at least take some responsibility for the stuff which they allow to go out from the London Correspondents of Am. Papers. We stop everything which might be injurious to the British. The continuation of the Unity move must be taken as inevitable. In yesterday's article Mrs. Long of the London Office of the Times tells America that the German Legation has the biggest staff of all the foreign missions in Dublin. This is such a palpable lie that it must have been told with a purpose. She has just been to Ireland and she knows damn well it is a lie. She says furthermore that the B. are at a greater disadvantage than in the last war in not having the ports, though she half admits that there are no secret refuelling stations.

The whole tone of the article is mischievous beyond description. There is nobody however in America who doesn't know that the significance of our ports and violation of our sovereignty would cause a revival of the conditions existing during the great war which allowed the existing of a sympathetic attitude towards G. submarines. The campaign is so madly conceived that the man or men responsible can only be described as worse enemies of the British than even the Germans.

It is said here and in America that Gogarty gets £100 a month from the British Council.

Yours
J.W.

1 On 5 March 1940 Dulanty wrote to Anthony Eden conveying the substance of Walshe's letter to him and adding 'couldn't something be done to stop these articles which give trouble where none is wanted?' (NAI 2006/39).

2 Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty (1878-1957), writer and surgeon.