HILLARY Clinton's emails reveal how she juggled maintaining relations with nationalists and unionists amid crunch devolution talks.
Officials advised her in December 2009 to telephone Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness following news reports of tensions over efforts to devolve policing and justice powers.
However, the then US secretary of state was advised to "keep the calls at a very high level" because both will "go to the press after they speak with you".
"You would be mostly in listening mode and wouldn't engage substantively on the issues that are dividing them – parades," an adviser wrote.
The declassified correspondence also reveals how she was kept up to speed with breaking political developments in Northern Ireland.
Among the emails sent to her were notifications of Gerry Adams's intention to run as TD for Louth.
They also show the management of sensitive protocol issues by Clinton's aides, and offence taken by a former British secretary of state for Northern Ireland over his exclusion from a conference in Belfast.
In October 2010, Mrs Clinton's then economic envoy to Northern Ireland Declan Kelly tried to ease tensions with former British secretary of state for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward.
He told Mr Woodward that he was being excluded from an economic conference she was hosting in Belfast because of "a number of protocol issues".
He accepted his exclusion was not for "personal" reasons but said: "It seems regrettable that in such a challenging global economic environment that those of us who helped build the peace are not even invited to continue helping," he said.
