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Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)

Record of Meeting between Ian Burns and John Hume on 29 November 1989

Wednesday, 29 November 1989

i23256

This document provides an account of a short meeting between John Hume and Ian Burns that took place on 29 November 1989, where Hume passed on to Burns some papers that had been delivered to him between 25 and 26 November 1989. Burns records that while he did not read the papers, he did see that the cover letter of the papers was signed by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and that Father Alec Reid was among the authors of the papers. Burns notes that copies of the correspondence had been sent to Gerry Adams and Taoiseach Charles Haughey.

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FROM: I M BURNS DUS(L)
29 November 1989

cc Mr Thomas + encs. - Copy No.2
Mr Miles - ” - 3
Mr J McConnell + encs. - ” - 4
Mr Kirk - ” - 5
File copy No. 6 of 6 copies

MR DANIELL- Copy No. 1

I enclose, for placing on our 'Father Reid' file some papers which were given to me by John Hume on 29 November. They had, he told me, been delivered to him "over the weekend", that is 25/26 November.

2. Hume gave them to me on a strictly confidential basis and I would be grateful if that confidentiality could be observed. At least for the moment, I will be grateful if Mr McConnell could pretend to be ignorant of them.

3. My conversation with Hume was very brief and hurried (we met by chance at the airport, with both of us going for different planes) and there was little time for him to say more than that copies of the correspondence had gone to Gerry Adams and to the Taoiseach; and that he was not very happy at the way the proposal in the papers claimed to be based on his talks with Sinn Fein.

4. I have no time to do more than see that the covering letter was signed by the Cardinal; and that one of the signatures of the underlying papers was Father Reid. I therefore suggested, and Hume agreed, that we needed to have a further word about all this: this fuller conversation may take place later this week. Noting the Cardinal's covering letter, I asked Hume whether he thought that the Cardinal's remarks over the weekend were in any way connected with these papers: Hume thought they might be, but clearly did not know.

5. In addition to the set of papers which I am sending you with this minute, I am also sending a set to Mr Mcconnell (which I would be grateful if he would show also to Mr Miles) and to Mr Thomas; and I have given a set to the Secretary of State, who knows that I expect to be seeing Hume again shortly.

6. I will be grateful if you and Mr McConnell would consider what light this material sheds on the conversations Father Reid has been having with Mr McConnell.

SIGNED

I M BURNS
29 November 1989
OAB 6447
DUSL/MR/13214