Basic HTML Version
PAST OR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 19, 1982
PAGE 23
The author's final piece of advice was this:
My message to you is that we in Ireland may well be getting quite
near the brink of British withdrawal, followed by civil war.
American pressure for unity helps to bring us still nearer that
brink. You are the most influential of the politicians who have
been applying that pressure. I ask you to reflect, and desist.
Negative ad,,ice, I agree.
But there are times when the only
helpful advice is "Stop!" and, if that advice is not heeded, no
further advice will be of any use.
Mr. O'Brien has given a very clear and plausible scenario of events likely
to occur in Northern Ireland.
And when it does, with all the resultant
chaos and bloodshed, Britain will be blamed for letting it happen, just as
she is now accused of forestalling Irish unity.
British standing in
largely-Catholic Europe and the world at large will suffer dramatically.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau