With reference to previous correspondence concerning the appointment of Mr. Garrett as Minister to Ireland,¹ I desire to report that in the course of conversation with Mr. Garrett at a farewell cocktail party which Mrs. Nunan and I gave in his honour on Thursday last he told us, 'off the record', that he had spent half an hour with the President that afternoon and that the President told him that he wanted him to do everything in his power to put the relations between Ireland and America back to the position of the close friendship which had previously existed. He said the President was most anxious that this should be done.

At the same party Mr. Wailes, Chief of the British Commonwealth Division of the State Department, also told me that the Department was anxious that our relations should be restored to the plane they were originally on and that he felt that Mr. Garrett would be most helpful in attaining that object.

[matter omitted]