By Sean O’Driscoll 

FORMER President Richard Nixon avoided a potentially embarrassing meeting with the Irish prime minister after Bloody Sunday by claiming that he was too busy with a trip to China, White House phone transcripts released to the Irish Voice have revealed. 

In a conversation with the then U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, shortly after crowds burned down the British Embassy in Dublin in response to Bloody Sunday, Nixon discussed sending an envoy to Ireland to cool tensions. 

Possible candidates included preacher Billy Graham, self-help guru and author of The Power of Positive Thinking Norman Vincent Peale, and Cardinal Terence Cooke, the Catholic cardinal of New York. 

During the nine-minute conversation on February 2, 1972, Nixon and Rogers repeatedly show bias towards the British position. At one point, President Nixon asked Rogers to talk to the British ambassador and assure him that the U.S. wanted British troops to remain in Northern Ireland. Twice he said that he did not want to embarrass the British. 

Nixon also said he was willing to meet with Taoiseach Jack Lynch after Nixon’s visit to China from February 21-28, 1972. Rogers then advised Nixon not to give in to Irish demands, including that the British should withdraw from Catholic areas of Northern Ireland. 

The transcript was released to the Irish Voice by James C. Warren, a deputy managing editor at The Chicago Tribune and a Nixon expert who obtained an exclusive scoop on the tapes and later transcribed and interpreted them for the Atlantic Monthly and many major publications. 

Last month, the Irish Voice published the first half of the February 2, 1972 conversation, which took place between 8 p.m. and 8:09 p.m. on the same day as both the burning of the British Embassy and the funerals of 11 people shot dead by British troops on Bloody Sunday.

In the remaining excerpt, obtained this week, Rogers told Nixon that Lynch wanted a meeting to discuss the worsening crisis: 

Rogers: “Well, in the first place, Lynch wants to come to visit you. And I don’t think you should do that.” 

Nixon: “Well, not now. We should say, ‘Look, we’re totally committed until after we get through the China trip. We’ll be glad to have him come then.’ Would that be all right?” 

Rogers: “Yuh, I think that’s the way to do it. They’re also going to ask us to put pressure on the British to do different things, like getting out of the Catholic areas and some other things. And I think we have to resist that. But on the other hand I don’t think we should remain silent.”

The two men later discuss who to send to Ireland.

Rogers: “You know one thought that occurred to me, and I talked to (British ambassador) Cromer about it today, was whether there would be any point of encouraging, not publicly, but privately, someone like Norman Vincent Peale or Billy Graham or Cardinal Cooke or maybe a combination, privately, to go over there to see whether there’s anything they can add, to help with. And it wouldn’t be identified with you, but everybody would know that.”

Nixon: “Probably Cooke might be the best, being a Catholic, being reasonable.” 

Rogers: “Well, you might even think of Cooke and Peale together.”

Nixon: “Yeah, two...”

Rogers: “I asked him (Ambassador Cromer) about that and he says, ‘Well, it has possibilities.’ We don’t have to decide that now.” 

Nixon: “Well, we don’t want to embarrass the British terribly at a time when they’re ... We cannot be in a position of saying we’re not concerned about the Irish. Well, sort of play it that way.” 

Rogers: “I will call Cromer tomorrow, too.” 

Nixon: “Make sure that he knows. And say, ‘Look, we don’t want to embarrass you. And we want to keep the forces in this country.’”