Ireland’s Phoney Neutrality during World War II

In his final article on the 70th anniversary of the American Note, Ryle Dwyer says an apparent intelligence leak from Ireland was part of a plan to deceive German diplomats.

WHILE the suggestion by America’s minister to Ireland, David Gray that US President Franklin D Roosevelt demand that Éamon de Valera expel German and Japanese representatives from Ireland was being considered in Washington, the Americans got hold of an array of German documents, some of which suggested that the legation in Dublin had been furnishing Berlin with extraordinary intelligence information.

It would be hard to exaggerate the extent of the alarm, because some of the documents exposed a leak within Roosevelt’s cabinet. These were to change the course of American history.