Ireland’s pull on America’s politicians

Ryle Dwyer on how Irish affairs figured in US politics as Reagan came to power

IRISH affairs have rarely figured prominently in American Presidential elections, but for a time it looked like it might be very different in 1980, especially after Senator Edward Kennedy launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President on November 8, 1979.

He enjoyed a commanding lead in the initial public opinion polls. A New York Times poll put him 54% to 20% ahead of President Jimmy Carter, who was bidding for re- election. But the Kennedy campaign quickly became unstuck with the revival of stories surrounding his expulsion for cheating as a student at Harvard University and a 1969 car accident in which a young woman drowned after he drove off a bridge.

Carter won a crushing victory in the first Democratic Primary in Iowa, beating Kennedy by 60% to 31%, and he beat him again the following month in the New Hampshire primary. Although Kennedy did win comfortably in his home state of Massachusetts, he lost by wide margins in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Illinois. Thereafter his campaign was essentially doomed.

But he did manage to get Carter to agree to the inclusion of an Irish plank in the Democratic Party Platform. It was on the lines of a St Patrick’s Day statement in which he and other prominent American politicians called on the British Government “to express its interest in the unity of Ireland and to join with the Government of Ireland in working to achieve peace and reconciliation”.

The Republican Party essentially ignored Irish affairs. There was no Irish plank in the party platform. Although Ronald Reagan was of Irish extraction, it was a part of his background of which he was not very proud.

“I have met Reagan on three occasion during the campaign but conversations were limited and of no substance,” Ambassador Seán Donlon reported.

Reagan depicted his father as a typical first generation Irish-American Catholic. His older brother was a bit more specific about what he considered a typical Irish-American. He added that their father was, “Happy-go-lucky, jolly, very sensitive — too sensitive for his own good — too much of the juice.”

The father apparently had a drink problem. As a boy in the small town of Tampico, Illinois, Ronnie came home to find his father passed out drunk on the front porch one day. He dragged him into the house and put him to bed. Friends believed the incident had a profound impact on Ronnie, because he never drank much and only imbibed a little on rare occasions.

He, and those around him, did not have much interest in Ireland. “Two points which frequently arose in the course of our contacts with Reagan advisers were our non-membership of NATO and our alleged softness on terrorism,” Donlon reported. At one point Reagan’s advisers were prepared to recommend a pro-Unionists position viewing the affairs of Northern Ireland as an exclusively internal matter for Britain. This attitude was softened by the intervention of John Moore, the former American ambassador to Ireland, and his brother Richard, who had been an influential member of the Nixon Administration.

In April 1980 Reagan did issue a pertinent statement: “The divisions in Northern Ireland are deep and of long standing. The wounds can be healed only through the goodwill of reasonable men and women on both sides. Compromises will be needed and these must be arrived at by those involved. It is not for the United States to interfere in this process or prescribe solutions, but rather to urge the parties to come together to work for a solution and to join in condemnation of terrorism by either side.

“Peace cannot come from the barrel of a terrorist’s gun. Americans should question closely any appeal for funds from groups involved in the conflict to make sure that contributions do not end up in the hands of gunrunners. Further, as terrorists on either side are apprehended and jailed, extradition procedures should not be relaxed on the grounds these are ‘political’ prisoners. Terrorism is just that and must not be allowed to be condoned or excused.”

President Carter, on the other hand, did try to play the Irish card but did so with little finesse.

In late October Ambassador Donlon was approached by Senator Kennedy, Speaker Tip O’Neill and Governor Hugh Carey of New York to back their representations to the White House not to write a proposed letter about Northern Ireland to Congressman Mario Biaggi, who was widely regarded as acting on behalf of the IRA in the US.

Donlon sought authority from Dublin, but Haughey and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Lenihan promptly insisted that “no action is to be taken”. Donlon was instructed to “limit himself to saying that any comment by us at this stage might be inappropriate in view of the imminence of the US elections”.

Carter’s letter to Biaggi was essentially innocuous. “As President I formulated this country’s first comprehensive policy dealing with the issue of Northern Ireland,” he wrote. “I spoke out on this early in my administration. Specifically I condemned the use of violence and stated that a permanent solution will come only from the consent of all the parties.”

The New York Daily News, which enjoyed the largest circulation of any newspaper in the US, denounced Carter for sending “an official letter on US policy that could well be interpreted as a White House blessing on Biaggi’s pro-IRA activity”.

Carter had ignored the four leading Irish-American politicians who “have sacrificed political support” to oppose IRA violence in Northern Ireland, the Daily News editorial continued. “The White House has seriously insulted the Republic of Ireland, infuriated four nationally prominent Democrats, and given us all another display of insensitivity and incompetence — all for a few votes in the Bronx.”

Carter was heavily defeated in the ensuing election.

Carter’s political ineptitude was further highlighted when Biaggi was jailed in 1988 and forced to resign his seat in Congress after being convicted of accepting bribes, obstructing justice, and other felony counts.

While Ronald Reagan had showed little interest in Ireland during the campaign, this was before he realised that he was supposedly descended from Brian Boru. At 1.30pm on Christmas Eve the author Morgan Llywelyn was working in her study when the telephone rang. “This is Ronald Reagan,” the caller said.

“When I picked myself up off the floor, the President Elect told me he had called me to say how impressed he is with Lion of Ireland,” she wrote. “I just wanted you to know that you are interfering with the transition process dreadfully because I sneak away every chance I get to read your book.”

They talked for seven or eight minutes about Ireland and Brian Boru. “He has obviously read the book thoroughly and with high retention, for he can quote chunks of it,” she wrote to Con Howard at the Irish embassy in Washington, DC, on December 26, 1980. “He was warm and friendly, easy to talk with. He told me he has found much that is thought-provoking and analogous to current situations in Lion, and that he was grateful to have knowledge of that distant ancestor of his. He indicated that some of Brian’s strategies and philosophies had impressed him deeply.”

“He is now interested in learning more about Ireland and the Irish,” she continued. “He wants to know the positive things; like so many others, he has heard for too long only the negative, the downgrading.”

“The incoming President is half Irish and glad of it, according to his own words,” she concluded. “With so many other major and immediate problems vying for his attention, he has taken the time to express a sincere and personal interest in Ireland.”