Last Year’s Hero, Adams Is Near-Pariah on U.S. Visit

When Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams came to town for St. Patrick’s Day a year ago, he was the toast of Washington officialdom, feted by the White House, hailed by the speaker of the House, embraced by leading Irish American senators.

Adams returned to Washington on Thursday, a few days short of St. Patrick’s Day, and found himself treated far differently this time, not exactly like a pariah but somewhat like a garrulous, misfit uncle. Neither the White House nor Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) nor Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) would see him.

Instead, Adams met a handful of representatives and a single senator who think that lines must still be kept open to Sinn Fein, the party that serves as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, the armed Roman Catholic group that wants to revoke British rule over Northern Ireland and bring the province into the Republic of Ireland.

The big problem for Adams is the IRA’s abrogation last month of a cease-fire that had lasted 17 months and nourished excited hopes for peace in Northern Ireland. Since the end of the cease-fire, the IRA has been responsible for a wave of four bombing incidents in London.

If Adams felt shunned on his return to Washington, he did not show it. With Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, at his side, Adams said that he blamed British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton equally for the breakdown in the peace process. The Sinn Fein leader said that Major delayed the process by posing unjust conditions and Bruton had erred by failing to change Major’s mind.

Adams, prevented for years from entering this country, was making his fourth trip to the United States under a sharp reversal of policy initiated by President Clinton. The president has become a major player in the Northern Ireland crisis by receiving a steady stream of British, Irish and Northern Ireland politicians.

Adams alluded to this when he told reporters: “I don’t think there’s in Britain or Ireland a dynamic to do it [achieve peace] on our own. . . . People here have a role to play.”

Some members of Congress had hoped that Adams’ return to Washington would be prefaced by an announcement from the IRA that it was ordering a new cease-fire. But no such announcement came, encouraging prominent Irish Americans such as Kennedy and Moynihan to refuse a call by Adams. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) was the only senator to see Adams.

The adamant stance of Moynihan has annoyed Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who led Adams into the meeting with the congressmen. “Moynihan has been our biggest impediment,” he told The Hill, a newspaper published on Capitol Hill. “He is a roadblock to everything.”

Adams met with several congressmen who belong to two House organizations interested in the Northern Ireland problem--the Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs and the Friends of Ireland. Among those who questioned Adams in the closed-door session were Gilman and King, co-chairman of the ad hoc committee, and Rep. James T. Walsh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Friends of Ireland. But, in all, no more than eight members showed up for the 40-minute session.

Adams was competing in Washington with Bruton and several leaders of the largely Protestant parties in Northern Ireland who want their homeland to remain part of Britain. They will be feted by President Clinton at a St. Patrick’s Day party in the White House today.

Meanwhile, British and Irish government ministers, meeting in Dublin, pronounced the all-party Northern Ireland peace talks on target for June 10. But they added that Sinn Fein will not be allowed to take part unless the IRA restores the cease-fire.

Under an agreement worked out after the flare-up of IRA bombings, the talks will follow elections in Northern Ireland that will test the strength of the various parties. It was the British insistence on such elections that evidently led the IRA to renounce its cease-fire last month.

Some analysts believe that such elections would embarrass Sinn Fein, since it is a minority party even among the Catholics of Northern Ireland. The elections are sure to assert the strength of the Protestant parties favoring continued union with Britain.

But Sinn Fein and many Irish Americans believe that the British insistence on elections was no more than a tactic to delay all-party peace talks.