Irish mist
Sir: Your contributor, Jack Holland, urges the British Government to exploit Ameri- ca's interest in Northern Ireland, not scorn it CA little help from our friends', 9 Jan- uary). Since the Catholic birth-rate in the province will reverse the historical demo- graphic profile before the end of this centu- ry, this may be sound advice. It may, how- ever, be prudent for President Clinton to reflect on the government of Ireland's posi- tion when America fought to save Europe from Nazi oppression during the second world war.
Admiral Doenitz stated that Germany would have won the Battle of the Atlantic if the Allies had not had the use of the ports in Northern Ireland. President De Valera had refused to honour the treaty giving Britain access to the ports of the Republic in time of war. After America's entry into the war, President Roosevelt appealed to the Irish government to allow American vessels, as opposed to British, into the Southern ports. The Irish still refused. This refusal would have been understandable to those, like Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, who had predicted a Nazi victory. It would also have been understandable if the Allies in the second world war had been engaged in a power struggle between nation states like in the first world war. Allied defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic would have meant defeat in the second world war and there would not now have been a free European community of nations able to subsidise Ire- land's entry into that community. Your editor, in the same issue, reminds us that Hitler broke every treaty he ever signed. Fortunately for all of us, and for the Allied sailors, the link to the harbours of Ulster proved safer than the bridge at Chappaquiddick.
Claus von Bulow
Brooks's, St James's Street, London SWI
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