The Taoiseach

With consciously maddening meekness, the Taoiseach* (Eire's Prime Minister) turned his other cheek. To Winston Churchill's blistering attack on his World War II neutrality (TIME, May 21), Eamon de Valera replied: "I have deliberately decided that ... I will not be guilty of adding any fuel to the flames of hatred and passion which, if continued to be fed, promise to burn up whatever is left by the war of decent human feeling in Europe. Allowances can be made for Mr. Churchill's statement, however unworthy, in the first flush of his victory. . . .

"It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards. By resisting his temptation in this instance [i.e., by not occupying Eire when the German invasion threatened], Mr. Churchill, instead of adding another sordid chapter to the already bloodstained record of the relations between England and this country, has advanced the cause of international morality an important step."

Suddenly, out of the literary bushes dashed Bernard Shaw, twirling his verbal shillelagh. To the London Times he wrote:

"I have not always agreed with the Taoiseach's policy. Before the ink was dry on the treaty which established the Irish Free State, I said that if England went to war she would have to reoccupy Ireland militarily, and fortify her ports. When this forecast came to the proof, the Taoiseach nailed his colors to the top gallant, declaring that with his little army of 50,000 Irishmen he would fight any & every invader. . . . And he got away with it triumphantly, saved, as Mr. Churchill has just pointed out, by the abhorred partition, which gave the Allies a foothold in Ireland. ... It all sounds like an act from Victor Hugo's Hernani rather than a page of modern world war history; but Eamon de Valera comes out of it as a champion of the Christian chivalry we are all pretending to admire."

* Pronounced Tee-shach.

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