King's Man

From Bohola-born Mayor Bill O'Dwyer down, New York's Irish seemed to think that Sir Basil Brooke, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, ought to be ashamed of himself. When he arrived in the U.S., 200 of them thronged out, under the leadership of a Brooklyn judge, to see that he was. When his plane arrived, they booed him lustily--partly for banning a Saint Patrick's Day parade in Londonderry, partly for representing the hated partition of Ireland, and partly for supporting the British Crown. "There'll Always Be An England While She Can Deal from the Bottom," read one placard.

But Sir Basil, a tall, spare tweedy fellow, not only exhibited a rather devilish pride, but took a loftily critical view of their performance. Listening to the volume of booing, he said rather sniffily, "I am not at all impressed." A reporter asked him for his wife's first name. Said he: "Do you know your first name, my dear?" She said it was Cynthia, and he beamed. "That," he cried, "is why I married her. She has a terrific sense of humor."

In Washington last week, he went right on acting as if he were happy to be a King's man. Beaming with good humor, Sir Basil told the National Press Club that one of his ancestors, a Sir Arthur Brooke of Fermanagh, was none other than the man who set fire to the White House during the War of 1812. He added: "When I passed the White House today, and saw the scaffolding, I thought to myself that he did a pretty good job."*

When he returned to Manhattan to address the Ulster-Irish Society, "1,000 pickets serenaded him with The Bronx cheer. He seemed as unruffled as ever. What were his plans? He thought he would go to Canada for a bit of fishing--"If I'm not killed with kindness first."

* Led by Admiral Sir George Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross, the British force which raided Washington on Aug. 24, 1814 not only fired the White House, but the Capitol, the Arsenal, the War Office and the Treasury. The invaders numbered three brigades. Sir Arthur Brooke, a colonel, led a brigade composed of the 44th Regiment (his own) and the 4th, commanded by his brother Francis.

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