THE private reaction of US President Ronald Reagan to news of the IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative party conference in 1984 is recorded in files released by the Public Record Office in Belfast.
The blast killed five people including MP Sir Anthony Berry and the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, narrowly escaped injury.
The president’s remarks are contained in the minutes of a meeting between Secretary of State Douglas Hurd and the US Ambassador to Britain, Charles Price, on November 5 1984.
The Ambassador said he had had dinner with President and Mrs Reagan during a recent trip to the US.
"The first thing the President had mentioned had been the Brighton bomb and he had known that Mr Price had been in Brighton on the day of the explosion.
"The President had shown his concern about the bomb, about the shipment of arms from the US to the IRA and about financial support from the US for the IRA.
"[He] was concerned to know how the message could be got across to the tiny minority in the US who provided support for the IRA that they were not helping the victims of suffering but helping to create new victims."
