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the responsibility for the decision whether to arm or not to arm the   
Irish army. The policy aclvocated by the British representative in   
Ireland, Sir John Maffey, and which I unqualifiedly endorse, is to   
conciliate the Irish army and to obtain its good will by procuring from   
time to time equipment, which it greatly needs but of a nature which in   
the vent of an Anglo-Irish crisis would not seriously threaten Britain.  
The effect of this attitude on the part of the British reprosentative,   
and the effect of my attitude in refusing to recommend arms without an   
explicit undertaking as to their use, have tended to drive the Irish   
Government into a more friendly attitude to the British and to encourage   
resentment-against the American Government and myself, as its   
representative. I am convinced that Mr. de Valera entertains a very   
bitter personal resentment against the President, who has refused to be  
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intimidated by the Irish in American pressure groups, which in the past   
have been so powerful in American politics. Mr. de Valera made a serious   
tactical error in sending a member of his Cabinet, Frank Aiken, to the   
United States with authority to utilize the efforts of the Irish   
Nationalist Parties and to identify himself with them as he did by making   
speeches to the friends of Irish neutrality. This has given me a just   
grievance which I have pressed home in every way short of a formal   
protest and which will, I believe, have more effect as time goes on   
and  Mr. Aiken's report as to the unwillingmess of the American people   
to support the President's defense policy becomos apparent. It is   
inevitable that Mr. de Valera, should at last come to realize that he has   
backed the wrong horse, and that I very explicitly amd in writing   
warned Mr. Aiken against just the mistake that he has made before he   
                     left for America.