Hot Dogs and Cocktails by Peter Conradi

Author:Peter Conradi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alma Books

While the King and Queen had been greeted with enthusiasm wherever they went, security remained a concern, especially for the next stage of the trip. Since their arrival in Canada, Chief Constable Albert Canning of Scotland Yard, who was travelling on board the Royal Blue train, had been watching with concern the progress through America of Seán Russell, a militant veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising and Irish Civil War, who the previous year had become chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Canning’s concern was understandable. On 12th January, the IRA, under Russell’s leadership, had “declared war” on Britain in the name of the Irish people and given the government in London an ultimatum: pull all British forces out of Ireland within four days or they would start a campaign to sabotage the military and commercial life of Great Britain. The deadline came and went. Four days later came the first attacks, in London, Warwickshire and Northumberland. There were dozens more in the months that followed, on power stations, post offices, banks and railway stations, not just in the capital but in towns and cities across the country. Although the IRA’s main target was infrastructure, several people were killed and injured during the campaign, which was known as the “S-plan” (S for sabotage) and was to continue after the outbreak of war into early 1940. The group’s leaders had also started exploring the possibility of establishing links with the Nazis. The government was naturally worried about the possibility of “Irish outrages” in America to coincide with the royal visit.

That April, with the bombing campaign in full swing, Russell had set off to America on a propaganda tour to raise his own profile and that of the IRA. The forthcoming royal visit appeared to provide a potentially valuable opportunity for publicity. Once on American soil, Russell had given a series of inflammatory speeches to his sympathetic Irish American audience, in which he admitted to ordering the bombings and vowed to continue doing so until British troops left the country and his men were released from jail. “A state of war exists between England and Ireland and will continue until the British troops are withdrawn,” he declared.

Unknown to Russell, he was being trailed by American G-men at the behest of Canning (who himself arrived in New York on 20th April, bearing letters of introduction to Lewis J. Valentine, the city’s commissioner of police, and J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI). They finally sprang into action on 5th June, when Russell boarded a train in Chicago and arrived in Detroit, just over the border from Windsor, the day before the Royal Blue train was due to pass. He was arrested by three federal officers as he was about to get into a taxi outside Michigan Central Station and charged with entering the United States illegally.

Joseph McGarrity, from Philadelphia, a leader of an Irish American society who was with Russell at the time of his arrest, was indignant at his treatment. Speaking to journalists, he denied that he and Russell had any intention of going to Windsor.

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