Editor
Irish Examiner
New York City
Dear Editor:
Pat Hurley's commentary on the late Senator Kennedy's role in Ireland's conflict has much to commend it. As the only person to serve on the National Boards of three major Irish-American organizations and as a member of several others for over 30 years I can relate to much of what Mr. Hurley says.
Senator Kennedy was nowhere on the US-UK Extradition Treaty vote and never used his knowledge of Senate rules and procedures to delay or prevent the vote. It was Senator Kerry who was in the media explaining the real meaning of the Treaty to an unsuspecting public. Senator Kennedy never used his Senate pulpit to disclose the British role in the assassination campaigns of Sinn Fein elected officials or their role in the largest atrocity of the conflict, the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. Instead he would threaten other countries with fund cut-offs and sanctions whose death squads killed political opponents and whose human rights records were abysmal.
Indeed, on every major issue of concern to the small but activist Irish-American community, Senator Kennedy's role was minimal or non-existent.
MacBride Principles? Nice but toed the John Hume line that we dare not put them into action for fear of offending the British.
Visa denial? Despite repeated efforts on the part of several organizations to secure his interest in a lawsuit to challenge the U. S. denial of a visa to Gerry Adams, an elected Member of Parliament, Senator Kennedy and his 'whiz kids' staff never took an interest in the issue and thus upheld the British veto. It was not until President Clinton took the position he did that Senator Ted jumped on the train leaving the station pretending to be the engineer.
Corruption of justice in the North? You would think a 'gimme' for this "lion of liberalism" but not so. The conveyor belt imprisonment of thousands through Diplock Courts, the Birmingham 6, Guildford 4 and other symptoms of British lawlessness never drew more than platitudes, press releases and meaningless resolutions from one of the Senate's most powerful members.
There was plentiful concern for injustice elsewhere on which he took serious action e.g. El Salvador etc, but not for the Irish that needed his concern most. When the British weren't playing him like a Stradavarious they were more than likely buying his silence or inaction with deals, the likes of which only history may reveal.
What can explain this truth? First, the Senator was largely ignorant of the conflict's origins and chose to remain so because there was always bigger fish to fry. The small Irish-American lobby had only truth, facts and justice to work with while what impresses the Kennedys is well - monied lobbyists with spin machines to match. Secondly, and this is in part a defense of his inaction, during most of the conflict the Dublin governmant would parade an endless stream of foreign affairs mouthpieces who had never been to the North of Ireland and who were first and foremost afraid of offending their British "betters". In 1970, it took James Heaney, a lawyer from Buffalo, NY to shame the Irish government into joining a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights. That's how pitiful the Irish government was and, in some respects, still is.
Now that the Senator has been laid to rest, let the emphasis on his life be on his personal qualities as a father, husband or friend. No amount of media spin can change the fact that if the Senator was a true friend of Ireland, he could have literally saved the lives of thousands by learning about and standing up for the afficted Catholic community that endured 30 years of systematic oppression without his voice to help them.
Michael Cummings is a former member of the national boards of the Irish Northern Aid Committee, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and a current member of the Irish American Unity Conference.
Michael J. Cummings
Albany, New York
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