DEAR MR DE VALERA, I have just read the letter you had delivered to my office this morning.
While it has done something to reassure me, I have to say that I continue to hold fast to the views expressed in my letter of last evening.
You guess correctly that I did not have a copy of your speech of yesterday to hand when I wrote the letter. But this, in my view, adds weight to my argument, for it is my decided view that it is on the basis of impressionistic comprehension, rather than calm, analytical study, that posterity will remember this speech and form judgments about it.
A fair-minded observer, sitting with a copy of your text in front of him (or her! We mustn't forget the ladies!) would have to concede that the speech married a range of political, cultural and metaphysical considerations with great delicacy and skill. But my point is precisely that the judgment of history will not emanate from fairness or objectivity, but from the distorted perspectives which unfold from hostility based on bad faith. My views, therefore, were quite deliberately formed on a single hearing of the speech on the wireless yesterday. You, Taoiseach, are in the business of leading; I, of following. It is the nature of my work to attempt to replicate the perspective of the average mind.
I accept entirely your point that nobody in their right senses would take at face value all that guff about frugal comfort and so forth.
You are quite correct in saying that the Irish people are far too intelligent not to see that this is simply the kind of rhetorical flourish which politicians are duty-bound to put into speeches - especially with an election in the offing. Your comparison with the 1937 Constitution is an apposite one, and I believe it is true to say that our people possess a remarkable ability to understand that the subtext of a public statement can often be the precise opposite of its surface meaning.
And, of course, you are probably right in your speculation that, as of this morning of March 18th, 1943, not a single citizen of this State is giving one moment's thought to what you said yesterday.
There's nothing like an Emergency to keep people's minds off political gamesmanship. But the Emergency will not last forever. And my main concern is not with the attitudes of the present moment but those of the future. Call me paranoid if you like, but I am deeply worried about the interpretation which might be placed on certain sections of yesterday's address by a perverse and disingenuous posterity.
I feel you are altogether too dismissive of these dangers. Your faith in the intelligence of the "grandchildren of the nation" is deeply inspiring but I wonder if you are not being just a little naive. As your public relations adviser, I would be failing in my duty if I did not seek to advise you of my deep misgivings.
My concern is that, stripped of their context and essential intention, some of your remarks of yesterday might one day turn into a kind of political wild card, on which your good self might feature in a joker's hat. We should not underestimate the capacity of future generations for dishonesty and spite. I accept that you believe the speech to be unexceptional and unexceptionable, but I believe there is a certain risk that it might do damage to your image as a progressive and visionary leader.
Don't get me wrong. Line for line, it was a good speech. And the section which disturbs me amounts to no more than 5 per cent of the whole. As a matter of fact, I liked the stuff about the fields and villages being joyous with the sounds of industry. So much better than promising them factories. And that line about the firesides being forums for the wisdom of serene old age should deliver every voter over 60 who doesn't believe you are the devil. But still, Taoiseach, something bothers me.
CALL me superstitious if you like but I too had a dream last night. And in my dream, Mr de Valera, I dreamt that, 50 years from now, Ireland would be in the grip of a war between two tribes, one of whom worshipped clay, the other concrete. I know it sounds stupid but bear with me. In the middle of the dream, a very serious young man stood up in front of an audience of people who all looked exactly like you and started reading out the speech you made yesterday. I regret to say, Taoiseach, that they were all laughing their socks off.
When he got to the bit about the maidens, I realised that they didn't look like you at all but were all wearing some kind of india-rubber masks with your features on them. At this point they pulled the masks off and started to throw them in the air, shouting "Yahoo" and "Getupyabollixya".
What worries me most is that, in my dream, this serious young man actually said the c-word. I know you decided to take my advice and change it at the last moment but I'm going to have nightmares about that word for the rest of my life. I looked it up in the dictionary and, apparently, it can mean "suitable", "symmetrical" or "well-proportioned". Sweet Mother of Divine Jesus between us and all harm! Symmetrical, well proportioned maidens! Suitable? For what? Thank God we nipped that one in the bud, eh? But perhaps I am being a little over-anxious. Maybe it doesn't matter that some eejit issued the first draft, complete with c-word, to the press. As you say, it's the taped version that counts. They would hardly be so dishonest as to nail you for something you didn't actually say. "Happy" was a nice compromise, although one of its meanings is "being in the enjoyment of agreeable sensations". Yes indeedy.
Maybe you did get away with it. But for God's sake, lay off the bucolic bliss for the time being. That kind of stuff goes very well down the sticks, when you're perched on a butterbox outside some chapel gate of a morning talking to bog-monsters. But as we smarten the place up, there'll be a lot of fellows about who won't want to be reminded that all belonging to them came up from the bog without an arse in their trousers. You don't want to become a sitting duck for every corner-boy turned newspaper columnist in the free Ireland you are single-handedly creating. I need hardly point out to you that those fellows have a tendency to lack any facility for irony.
Maybe, in a week or two, you might consider making another speech emphasising the urban dimension. I know we're fairly new to the joined-up housing lark but that's the way things are going to go from now on. Maybe a few well-chosen words about our cities of the future "united by the glue of community", or a tribute to "ecstatic youths delirious from the crack of urban living helping old ladies to carry their handbags across the road". And so on.
Here, I am teaching my granny to suck eggs. There's no better man than yourself for the gas spakes.
Mise le meas An Dochtuir O Spin