Volume 8 1945~1948


Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 469 NAI DFA Secretary's Files P253

Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Daniel Costigan (Dublin)
(Confidential)

Dublin, 21 January 1948

When he was here on another matter yesterday afternoon, the Belgian Minister1 said that he had been asked by his authorities to enquire whether there was any truth in a recent report published in a Belgian newspaper that Léon Degrelle is in hiding in this country.

I told the Belgian Minister that the report was certainly false. If there were any evidence of Degrelle being in this country, this Department would know of it, and experience had shown that the chances of foreigners coming here and escaping observation were practically nil.

It is better to give a positive answer at once in such cases. I presume that, if you had any reason to believe that the Belgian report was correct, you would let us know.

1 Comte Jacques de Lalaing, Belgian Minister to Ireland (1945-9).