Excellency,

I am directed by the Taoiseach to acknowledge your letters of the 5th and 12^th instant, together with the enclosures which were all duly received.¹

With regard to the memorandum of your conversation with him on April 28th, whilst he is grateful for the copy which you sent him,² he directs me to say that his attitude in this case had better be the same as that which he took up in regard to your notes on a former conversation. To give a faithful picture of the conversation from his view point, the memorandum would require not simple emendations but extensive re-writing. The Notes as they stand are what they purport to be – your recollection of the conversation and its general tenor as you appreciated it. He does not think it desirable that he should in any way interfere to alter its character as such.

With regard to your letter of the 12th instant,³and the clipping which you were good enough to enclose giving the comment in the Washington 'Merry Go Round' on Mr. Aiken's mission, the Taoiseach directs me to say, and he feels confident that you will agree, that newspaper comments on the one side or the other, at a time like this, are no fair index of either Mr. Aiken's views, or of the manner in which he is carrying out his mission.