The close contacts developed between the Government and the Clinton Administration over the peace process in the North help to explain why the US Secretary of State, Mrs Madeline Albright, took a telephone call on East Timor yesterday morning from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews.
Mrs Albright was in Vietnam on her way to New Zealand for this weekend's APEC Asian economic conference, which begins tomorrow and may have an important bearing on what the international community does about the situation in East Timor.
Yesterday's telephone call lasted about 10 minutes. Mr Andrews, in his capacity as EU special envoy to East Timor, urged her to commit the US to use its "political, economic and financial muscle to get Indonesia to face up to its obligations to restore law and order or to allow the international community to intervene".
The interest of Mr Andrews in East Timor dates back to the mid-1980s several years before the retired CIE bus driver Tom Hyland started the East Timor Ireland solidarity campaign.
Mr Hyland who succeeded in heightening Irish awareness of the situation in the former Portuguese colony believes "the personal commitment of David Andrews to East Timor is beyond question".
When Mr Andrews visited Indonesia and East Timor last April the long time campaigner from Ballyfermot was among the group accompanying him.
The five-day fact-finding trip was the first visit by a Foreign Affairs minister to East Timor. Mr Hyland says the Minister "was visibly shaken and concerned" by the situation that existed in April when 13 people supporting the independence campaign were killed by Indonesian-backed paramilitary forces.
That trip, and his personal interest in the region, contributed to Mr Andrews's appointment as EU special representative to East Timor to monitor and oversee the vote for independence.
In the course of a week Mr Andrews met the main politicians from the separatist and anti-independence sides. He visited several polling stations in Dili on August 30th when 98.6 per cent of the electorate came out to cast their vote. In terms of fulfilling the objective the EU had set him as special envoy, Mr Andrews and his delegation had succeeded.
The Fine Gael spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Mr Gay Mitchell, said: "He's done quite well. He may have had a blunder or two on Northern Ireland and other issues but on East Timor he has followed his instincts which have been quite good."
But whatever sense of achievement Mr Andrews felt, when the result in favour of independence was announced, would have quickly disappeared as armed militia took to the streets in East Timor. When the Minister met President Habibie of Indonesia last Wednesday the situation in East Timor was tense.
He had already assured the East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao "that he would do all in his power to ensure the safety of the people of East Timor in the weeks and months ahead".
However, the past seven days have significantly tested that commitment. Mr Andrews said he was "appalled by the massacre of innocent civilians and other acts of wanton terrorism".
Mr Mitchell believes the Minister's involvement in East Timor provides "an example of the influence which Ireland could have on the international agenda if we took ourselves a little more seriously". However, in reality Mr Andrews has been powerless to influence events and is now understood to be "deeply depressed about the situation".