The Emergency (Ireland) - Ireland and The Neutral United States

Ireland and The Neutral United States

At the beginning of the Second World War, the United States president was Franklin Roosevelt. The United States was neutral, and Roosevelt's actions were circumscribed by neutrality legislation; however, Roosevelt was a vehement anti-Nazi, an unequivocal supporter of the UK in the war, and personally close to Churchill. The U.S. minister to Ireland was David Gray, a personal friend of Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. De Valera saw the U.S. as a bulwark against invasion from any party, while the U.S. saw the support of Britain in the war as the priority, and so while supportive of Irish neutrality was sceptical of it extending over the whole island and wanted an arrangement to be made with the UK over ports, possibly through the leasing of them.

The sale of arms was a major issue. The declaration of war legally impeded the U.S. from selling any arms to belligerents under the laws in force at the time, this led to Ireland being briefly considered as a possible conduit for arms sales to circumvent the law. However, in November 1939 Congress agreed to change the law to allow the sale of arms to all belligerents on a "cash and carry" basis. Nevertheless the Irish government wanted the U.S. to sell them arms. This was supported by Gray, and by the British government, but only if not at the expense of their own allocation. As a result, in 1940 all surplus U.S. arms were sold to the UK and Canada.

The strong support of the UK by the Roosevelt administration led the Irish government to try to bolster anti-Roosevelt isolationist opinion in the November 1940 presidential election and a Christmas radio broadcast by de Valera to the U.S. supporting isolationism. An attempt to influence Roosevelt's special emissary, Wendell Willkie, on a visit to Great Britain and Ireland January 1941, failed. In a further attempt to obtain arms from the U.S. de Valera decided that Aiken should visit Washington. Gray supported the idea of a visit, but had doubts over whether Aiken was the right person to make it, and stressed that the Irish were only likely to obtain arms if they co-operated with the British Purchasing Commission. Aiken left Ireland in March 1941. For his St Patrick's day address, de Valera claimed that Ireland was under blockade from both sides and that neutrality protected Ireland from "the hazards of imperial adventure". Aiken's visit was disastrous. His anti-British views and, in American eyes, overestimation of Ireland's military capabilities went across all the administration's policies towards the war. As well as alienating Roosevelt and other members of the administration, he failed to use the letters of introduction to senior Democrats, including Eleanor Roosevelt, provided to him by Gray. Aiken spent the last seven weeks of his visit on what was seen as an anti-administration speaking tour, associating closely with isolationist opinion. The result was that the U.S. would not sell any armaments to the State, and relations between the two countries significantly worsened, the U.S. becoming even more unequivocal in its support of the UK. In October 1941 on receiving a note from the Irish government asking for its intentions with regard to Northern Ireland on the stationing of personnel associated with lend-lease, the U.S. State Department referred them to the British government as Northern Ireland was, they insisted, part of the UK.