Ted Kennedy and the Troubles, part 1

On May 16th, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate hosted a symposium on Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland at the Library of Congress, highlighting the Miller Center’s oral history interviews with Senator Ted Kennedy on the Northern Ireland peace process.

Growing up in an Irish-American family, Kennedy saw the conflict in Northern Ireland as a deeply personal issue. When Jimmy Carter entered the White House in 1977, it created an opportunity for Kennedy to work with the incoming Democratic administration to change America’s policy towards Northern Ireland. Officially the United States had no position on the conflict. It was strictly considered to be an internal British matter. Kennedy adopted a two-pronged strategy aimed at moderating incendiary behavior on both sides of the conflict. He formed the Four Horseman with Tip O’Neill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Hugh Carey to issue a St. Patrick’s Day statement condemning violence and calling on Americans to stop funding the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The Four Horsemen also began to pressure Carter to launch an unprecedented presidential initiative encouraging England to moderate its support of the Protestant government in Belfast at the expense of the Irish Catholics. In August 1977, over the intense objections of the U.S. State Department and the British government, President Carter issued a historic statement promising aid to all parties in Northern Ireland to support a peacefully negotiated democratic settlement.

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Kennedy: It was very clear from what [Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John] Hume was pointing out to me, certainly, that if we were going to have any success with a political process, we had to stop the flow of arms and funds for arms to the IRA from the U.S…

The issuing of the [Four Horsemen’s] statement, which we did on St. Patrick’s Day, was one way of indicating a different course to follow for Irish Americans but it needed to be followed up with policy actions and policy expression, and the place to do that was with the Democratic President, who was President Carter. We started on a personal campaign to see how we could involve him in a way that would also begin to express a viewpoint that had not been expressed by any previous American Government, and that was that America had an interest in a peaceful resolution in the North and how the North was eventually going to develop democratic institutions… 

We talked about trying to persuade President Carter to appeal for a partnership in the North with a promise of substantial economic aid linked to accepting a political solution… What had some particular appeal was the fact that it was being done by Carter—a Protestant, a southerner…

Carter had a very interesting group that was strongly committed on human rights. They had Mark Schneider, my former aide. He had four or five very leading, outstanding human rights people that he brought in and they worked very closely with [Secretary of State] Cy Vance. Vance was really—if you look historically—the go-to person on a range of different human rights issues. We had a good relationship personally with Vance… So we went in early. We were faced with the historical posture and position by both the United States and Great Britain, where the United States policy considered Northern Ireland issues to be an internal British affair. In the absence of a particular request from the British Government, it was always our government’s position that U.S. intervention would be inappropriate and counter-productive…

In early June, [Speaker of the House] Tip [O’Neill] and I and [Senator] Pat Moynihan went to the State Department to present a proposal to Cy Vance. This was the proposal—if there was going to be progress made in terms of the two different traditions in the conflict, the United States was prepared to offer economic aid and assistance in order to try to move the conflict into the political sphere and political resolution. We had a proposal and we pointed out that it fit perfectly into President Carter’s commitment to a moral foreign policy and his strong commitment on human rights…

Cy Vance understood what we were attempting to do and I think he had a broader view in terms of understanding the dimensions and the implications and the positive aspects that this could provide. He was empathetic and sympathetic and he was a very skilled diplomat. He was able to use his very considerable skills to try to buck the tradition of the State Department, the bureaucracy, on this, which was very strong and very deep…

At the end of August, President Carter issued the statement and it was the first time an American President had spoken out for the human rights of the minority in Northern Ireland. We sent a note over to Carter saying that no other President in history had done as well by Ireland…

I think the significance of the Presidential statement on Northern Ireland, and one that was accepted both by the British and the Irish, is that they’ve established publicly the United States now has an official interest in Northern Ireland and a continuing role in determining what happens there.

Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume: To get pressure put on the British government to do it [work with the Irish government], we were looking for assistance from the United States; Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill and Pat Moynihan and [New York Governor] Hugh Carey agreed to support us to get the British and Irish governments to work together. But until then, no President of the United States would make a statement interfering with the internal affairs of Britain… But finally, President Jimmy Carter made the first-ever statement on Northern Ireland made by a President. That will go down in history as a very historic statement. He was persuaded to make the statement and the statement was drafted by the Four Horsemen, in consultation with myself. “The time has come,” Jimmy Carter said, “For the British and Irish governments to work together to solve the Northern Ireland problem. If they do so, we will support you economically."