Clinton Invites Sinn Fein Leader to a Fete : Ulster: President asks Gerry Adams to St. Patrick’s Day party at White House. He also lets him raise U.S. funds.

Brushing aside British objections, President Clinton gave Irish nationalist leader Gerry Adams permission Thursday to raise political contributions on his next visit to America and invited the once-outlawed official to a St. Patrick’s Day party at the White House.

The latest signal of a warming relationship came after Adams’ Sinn Fein party--the political wing of the Irish Republican Army--told the White House that it will consider surrendering IRA weapons as part of peace negotiations with Britain.

Protestant unionist and Roman Catholic republican leaders are now studying a framework document that would chart the way for all-party talks concerning the future of Northern Ireland.

White House officials said they saw Sinn Fein’s gesture as more evidence that nationalists, who have observed a cease-fire for six months, are increasingly committed to peace. “We see momentum that we hope is becoming irreversible,” a senior Administration official said.

But British officials indicated that they did not attach the same significance to Sinn Fein’s words. They did not attempt to hide their displeasure with Clinton’s decision to grant Adams a visa permitting fund raising.

While acknowledging that “these are decisions to be made by Americans,” a British spokesman said his government “remains concerned that the IRA maintains an arsenal and is still recruiting, targeting and training, and is still engaged in brutal punishment beatings.”

Diplomatic sources further indicated that the move is bound to increase running differences between the Administration and the conservative government of British Prime Minister John Major.

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The British government was expressing its disapproval even as Queen Elizabeth II visited Belfast and Armagh in Northern Ireland on Thursday. On her first trip to Ulster since the cease-fire took effect six months ago, she emphasized the province’s bright future rather than its violent past.

She waved to crowds in Belfast--including children from Protestant and Catholic primary schools--as she opened a new bridge over the Lagan River. The span is symbolic of a better economic future for Belfast and Northern Ireland if sectarian violence indeed ceases.

Later, she spoke at a tiny chapel in Armagh, Northern Ireland, which is Ireland’s ecclesiastical capital and home to the primates of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland.

“For many difficult years,” the Queen said, “the people of Northern Ireland have shown courage and compassion of an extraordinary kind. Today, as they begin to look toward a more peaceful future, Armagh, with its two great cathedrals standing so close together, presents a powerful symbol of the strength, spirit and hopes of people across Northern Ireland.”

Adams was openly dismissive of the event, saying: “This is a very local thing. . . . Mrs. Windsor can come and go as she wants. Our people will deal with that at the appropriate level.”

The Sinn Fein leader will receive a three-month travel visa, which, unlike an earlier version, does not prohibit fund raising. He will attend the White House party with Northern Ireland Protestant leaders and will travel to Capitol Hill to meet House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for lunch. He has said that his party will open an office in Washington during his visit and that he plans to visit New York, Boston and possibly other East Coast cities.

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The delicacy of the situation was made clear by American officials’ insistence that the St. Patrick’s Day party could not be described as a Clinton-Adams meeting--an event that would confer extra status on a man long described by some as a terrorist. “This is not a meeting with the President,” an Administration official said. Instead, Adams “will be at a reception at the (White House) residence.”

Even so, Adams’ presence at a White House gala hosted by the President is symbolically important. No American President has ever met with an IRA leader.

Adams last visited the White House in December, when he met with National Security Adviser Anthony Lake. But Clinton and Vice President Al Gore pointedly remained in other West Wing rooms.

Richter reported from Washington and Tuohy from London.