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    "label": "Report, Central Intelligence Agency, Ireland, Situation Report 48",
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    "title": "Report, Central Intelligence Agency, Ireland, Situation Report 48",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 1,
            "logicalDate": "1949-04-01",
            "month": 4,
            "year": 1949
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{
    "seq": 39,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
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    "ocrText": "SECRET\nof strict neutrality and active cooperation with the United States and Great Britain.\nHe resigned from the Fine Gael Party, of which he was a Vice-President, because of his\nstand on this issue. Prior to the 1948 election, however, he attempted unsuccessfully\nto negotiate a fusion of Fine Gael with Clann na Talhman, and evinced a desire once\nagain to become a political regular. But he is still an independent. It is possible\nthat he is thinking in terms of a new center party.\nA bitter enemy of De Valera and Fianna Fail, he and the Government's agricultural\npolicy are the favorite targets of Opposition attack. His tendency to dogmatize and\nexaggerate is sometimes embarrassing to the Government, but he is a capable Minister\nfor Agriculture. With his brilliant wit and great talent for invective and bombast he\nis one of the most colorful and effective orators in the Dail.\nLike Costello, he is a conservative and a former supporter of the Commonwealth\nwho favored the Republic of Ireland Act. He is pro-American and sees in the existence\nof Partition a situation exploitable by Communists. Although he has recently declared\nthat he would like to see a close economic union of English-speaking countries, to be\nexpanded later to include others, he also probably regards Partition as sufficient justifi-\ncation for Ireland's abstaining from defensive alliances involving the United Kingdom.\nLEMASS, SEAN (Age 50)\nMember of Fianna Fail.\nLemass fought in the Easter Rising, in the Anglo-Irish War, and in the Civil War.\nHe was one of the founders of Fianna Fail and has been elected to the Dail continuously\nsince 1924. He was the economic brain of the De Valera Government and, as Deputy\nPrime Minister and Minister for Industry and Commerce, was De Valera's most respected\nand capable lieutenant.\nHe is the type of politician who remembers well both his friends and his enemies.\nPersonally, he is something of a bon vivant. He is a managing director of the Irish\nPress, the Fianna Fail newspaper. Next to De Valera he is probably the most popular\nFianna Fail leader and is generally regarded as De Valera's successor-designate. How-\never, he has not been particularly effective as an Opposition spokesman in the Dail;\nand it is possible that his place in the party hierarchy is being usurped by Frank\nAiken.\nAIKEN, FRANK (Age 51)\nMember of Fianna Fail.\nBorn in Ulster, Aiken was one of the bravest and most renowned leaders of the\nIrish Republican Army during the Anglo-Irish War and the Civil War. He is devoted\nto De Valera and accompanied him on his 1948 anti-Partition speaking tours abroad.\nHe was Minister for Defense and later Minister for Finance under De Valera; during\nWorld War II he administered, quite ruthlessly, the censorship regulations designed to\nprevent a compromise of Ireland's neutrality. He is by some reports extremely anti-\nBritish and anti-American. Pleasant in manner, he is a shrewd politician and a clever\nand effective speaker, but he lacks Lemass' administrative ability and general com-\n39\nSECRET"
}