The Irish ambassador William Warnock's reports from Washington to Iveagh House provide some interesting insights into US politics in 1972, a presidential election year.
Warnock commented in March on the virtual eclipse of William Rogers as President Nixon's secretary of state for foreign relations, noting that Dr Henry Kissinger, who had been appointed by Nixon as a Special Adviser on Security Affairs, had emerged as "the leading figure" in foreign relations.
The impression was that Kissinger was the man "who makes the country's foreign policy" and this was a widespread belief among the Washington diplomatic corps.
"There is no doubt that a certain amount of demoralisation has set in among career foreign service officers, who feel that the State Department is being reduced to the level of an institute of foreign affairs, without any say in policy making."
Warnock joined other members of the diplomatic corps as guests of the State Department at the Republican Convention in Miami in late August.
"Briefing sessions were arranged for us daily. Unfortunately the senior politicians and party officials who were expected to address us rarely appeared."
One who did was George Bush, a future president and then Nixon's ambassador to the United Nations.
Bush spoke "with an air of what he undoubtedly intended to be amusing cynicism" about how the Republican convention worked.
But Warnock reported that he "fared very badly" when questioned by one Swiss diplomat as to why there was no mention of the United Nations in the Republican party platform.
Bush had already stated that party platforms were "merely for show".
But he was now obliged to admit "that he had not read the platform! He tried to pass this off as a joke but the effect on his audience was, of course, the reverse."
Reporting in November on Nixon's landslide victory over George McGovern in the presidential election, Warnock complained of the disproportionate financial backing which Nixon enjoyed.
He wrote that "the blatant use of financial strength was, to a European observer, one of the most striking features of the campaign, and, I must say, a rather unpleasant one".
Nixon had managed despite this and also "the unsavoury Watergate affair" and some business scandals to get across the idea "that he was on the side of the small man of the middle-classes."
McGovern on the other hand "allowed himself to be manoeuvered into a position of appearing to represent the long-haired intellectuals and the radicals".
