Former Taoiseach Mr Jack Lynch was privately scathing about the appearance of defence minister, Mr Jim Gibbons, at the 1970 Arms Trial and he thought he might have to sack him, according to secret documents written by a former British ambassador to Ireland, Sir John Peck.
In the documents, released at the Public Record Office in London under the 30-year rule yesterday, Sir John noted that while Mr Lynch publicly supported Mr Gibbons following what the ambassador described as his "evasive" performance at the trial, privately Mr Lynch spoke to him of his "exasperation" with the minister.
In a confidential letter to the then foreign secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, on December 16th, 1970, the ambassador wrote: "He defended Mr Gibbons, the minister of defence, at the operative period, although his performance in the witness-box had been so damaging and inept that 10 days previously Mr Lynch had privately told me of his exasperation and said he thought he might well have to get rid of him."
Discussing Mr Lynch's decision to retain Mr Gibbons in government after the trial - he moved to the Department of Agriculture - Sir John told London on November 10th, 1970: "Whatever his reasons for supporting rather than sacking Mr Gibbons, now minister of agriculture but at the crucial period minister of defence, his judgment in doing so must be, by any objective standard, debatable.
"For poor Mr Gibbons was the anti-star of the trial; from his evidence it is hard to avoid drawing a number of inferences, all unflattering: he seems to have been foolish to the point of idiocy.
"Mr Lynch, before he went to New York and while the trial was still in progress, told me privately that he was furious with Mr Gibbons for his performance as a witness, and that he seemed to be getting into an impossible position. I thought it very likely that his resignation would be ready to be put in the Taoiseach's hands when he re turned," the ambassador said.
He added: "But it has not worked out that way. Mr Lynch has retained Mr Gibbons in his government and given him his full backing.
"He is a severe political embarrassment, and he still has hanging over him the unrefuted charge of misleading the Dail when he said on the 8th of May that any attempt to import arms took place `without his knowledge and consent'.
"The judicial process is ended, and the affair passes back into the arena of politics impure and unsimple."
In a letter to London on December 16th, 1970, Sir John observed that after the trial the attack on Mr Lynch's leadership by former minister for finance Mr Charles Haughey and Mr Neil Blaney was "an open declaration of political war . . . and a bid for personal power in Fianna Fail".
In an earlier dispatch, written by Sir John on November 10th, 1970, he commented on some of the evidence given at the trial and referred to a Dublin businessman, the late Gerry Jones.
"The deputy prime minister told me that to his certain knowledge this Mr Jones had tracked down and `got in touch with' all 12 jurors in the trial." The Tanaiste at the time was Erskine Childers.