The man who connected Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams: Politics Weekly America podcast

This is The Guardian.

Next Monday marks 25 years since the signing of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement.

And today's historic agreement marks a new beginning for all of us in Northern Ireland, on the Island of Ireland and in these islands.

Under the agreement, representatives from unionist and nationalist political parties established a devolved government for Northern Ireland. One that would work on the principle that power had to be shared between the two communities. It took years of negotiations, multiple failed ceasefires and huge concessions. It also required outside help, the involvement of London and Dublin. But also a third party, a mediator of sorts, one that could promise.

Serious political and economic muscle. After a 30-year winter of sectarian violence, Northern Ireland today has the promise of a springtime of peace.

That third party was the United States, specifically. President Bill Clinton, now celebrated as one of the key players behind the agreement. But Clinton didn't do it alone for a long time. His administration balked at the prospect of getting involved. It took years of background efforts, secret meetings, discreet lobbying and high-risk shadow diplomacy by people whose names are hardly known. This week, I speak to one of those people who tells me the extraordinary story of how he built a secret channel between Bill Clinton and the Irish Republican movement.

Well, Ireland was a very different place then, Jonathan. It was very, very priest-ridden, uninteresting, dull, nothing like today, where there's a whole vibrancy.

To it a youth culture back then. Neil O'Dowd is an Irish-American journalist who first moved to the U.S. in the 1970s on a student visa. He overstayed that visa and for a few years lived as an undocumented immigrant. It was at that time he launched his own Irish American newspaper, The Irishman, and he would go on to produce new outlets, Irish Central.

Irish America and the Irish Voice. Well, the first thing you have to know is that. Irish American history begins with a famine and becomes a radical history very quickly. And Irish Americans take that radical history with them in their heart. So there was a very rich, unexplored history of the role of the Irish in America in the Irish Revolution, basically. So I became very immersed in that and still am to this day. I just delivered a major lecture over St.

That's fascinating, I didn't know about that. It means that the Irish story and the American story are intertwined with each other.

Absolutely. It's the relationship of somebody who aspires to be an American and Americans who aspire to be Irish. Between the two identities forges this Irish American identity, which is much more complex than people would think.

You feel that no more keenly than you do in politics, in American politics, it's now something which is easily parodied. The way American politicians, especially if they're running for president, especially if they're running for office in Boston or in Massachusetts, areas of New York will claim Irish lineage and Irish heritage. Ronald Reagan did it, obviously, with backing, and Joe Biden does it.

My grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, who was a great football player, American football and a newspaper man back at the turn of the 20th century. Used to always say when. Later, when he was much older and I'd walk out of his home, he'd say, Joey, remember, the best drop of blood in you is Irish.

But if you talk politics and you talk Ireland in the United States. People will always think of the Kennedy family, and Ted Kennedy is a crucial figure in the story. You're going to tell that we're going to talk about, and you had direct connection with him and contact with him. But just walk us through how a then very young would-be newspaper man in the United States, I think you must have just been in your 30s, I would guess, only recently had been living illegally. How did you get to, even in the orbit of then Senator Edward Ted Kennedy?

Well, it's quite a funny story. But my newspaper circulated heavily in the Irish district of the Sunset in San Francisco, which is a very large number of Irish, young Irish population and Irish-American population. And it happened that Philip Burton was a very powerful congressman for the area, and I became interested in the local political arena. For instance, Nancy Pelosi was just coming up at the time.

So it goes back a long way. You, though, developed a conviction, and it's going to culminate in when this new man appears on the horizon. Bill Clinton But even before then, you developed this conviction. That, in a way, the dog that hadn't barked, if you like. In the Northern Ireland conflict, the role that had not been played was particularly the United States. You felt that if America got involved, things could change?

President Well, if we look at the history of Irish America, there are two items that are constantly at the top of the agenda one is Northern Ireland and one is immigration. And I spent most of my working life working on both those issues. But I knew that there was an Irish American tiger out there waiting to be unleashed.

Way I could to country I left behind. So your sense was that there was an opportunity here? There was the possibility, potential for movement in Northern Ireland, and potentially that could be unlocked if Washington got involved. And it's right at the beginning of the 90s, even before he was much talked about that. You spotted, and other Irish Americans spotted the then very young governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, who was launching what at the time seemed a really improbable bid to be president.

Might help in Northern Ireland. Well, really. In the context of the Irish American community. The major bloc of voters would be very much in favour of a candidate who favoured action in Ireland. But it would be hard to discover a candidate because of the alliance between the United States and Britain, which has gone over 200 years. Obviously, the American government were very reluctant to get involved in anything to do with Northern Ireland, and my thinking was that there was no votes in that position.

You mentioned his experience in Oxford, He was a Rhodes scholar, famously in Oxford in the late 60s, right? As you know, bloody Sunday was happening as the troubles were just kicking off. And, as I understand it. He saw a parallel between the civil rights struggle that was going on from Catholics in Northern Ireland with African-Americans in the south. In his home region of the United States, and he thought that one had similarities echoes with the other.

Civil rights in Northern Ireland? Yeah, I think that's a very fair assessment. Jonathan. He was clearly very up to date on Northern Ireland, which really surprised me because he was not from an Irish-leaning state in terms of identifying Arkansas. But he was clearly very interested. As you say, in the context of civil rights, in the context that. The songs that the civil rights movement sang in Northern Ireland were the songs of Martin Luther King and the poetry of Martin Luther King. Which had overcome. And all those venerable hymns that became so important to Black people, and indeed to people in Northern Ireland who were being viciously discriminated against.

And it was then, I think it was the New York primary, where he needed votes of Irish-Americans. And you had that meeting, he said. I think the words to you were that, you know, Northern Ireland is on my radar, I'm aware of it. He goes on to win the Democratic nomination.

Well, when Clinton took office, he had made a number of promises, and like all good politicians, he broke every one of them initially. But what had happened in the meantime was I had thought about, what was it? That could be done in Northern Ireland if Bill Clinton became a major player? One of the most interesting trips I made, Jonathan, was to Northern Ireland and met Gerry Adams and met leaders of Sinn Féin, and I found them very open.

So you went in there with this proposal that, in effect, you were saying, Look, we will offer you a chance to come in from the cold, to have an international outlet. At last, recognition from the United States. And in return, we need a signal from you that you're serious. And that would be perhaps in the form of even just a seven-day-long ceasefire for the period. You're there. But just to go one step back, I can't resist this, just because the actual tradecraft of this is so amazing. Before you get to meet Adams and McGuinness, the senior leadership of the Republican movement, you have to meet an intermediary.

ENCOUNTER Yeah, well, the guy I was meeting was really an extraordinary guy, I subsequently identified him and we've been talking for years now. Ted Howell, and he was the head of Foreign affairs, essentially Sinn Féin's foreign minister.

Irish Times because that was the pre-arranged signal, right to look for a man reading the Irish Times with a pint of Guinness at 11.30 in the morning. But, as I said to him, the only other.

Two people in the room were a priest and a nun, so it was definitely going to be him.

I mean, incredibly high stakes, and that week when you went there, I mean, unlocked so much because both sides were sort of proving themselves to each other. The sheer calibre of your delegation proved to Sinn Féin, to the IRA, that you were serious, and the fact that they were able to organise and hold a ceasefire proved they were serious. I suppose that the focal point and people only knew about this from the sort of front of the story, not what was going on behind the scenes. Was the visa that was granted to Gerry Adams, president, then of Sinn Féin.

Gerry Adams And what did you have to do to get it? Basically, the visa was the ultimate prize because it ended the isolation. Not only was Gerry Adams not allowed into America, he wasn't allowed into London. But we were going up against. The British, who were very confident that the visa would not be granted, were absolutely certain it would not be granted.

If a visa was granted until tonight, the Sinn Féin president was banned from the United States. But on Tuesday, he and all other political leaders in the north have been invited to.

Address a conference in New York. The visa battle was very, very tiring. It was the toughest time of my life. Trying to bring together the language that the two could speak together, even though they were both totally committed to the notion. It would have been very easy to get tripped up in the language and to make a mistake. Adams, in particular, was spectacular in terms of how he managed to convince Clinton that this was a real thing, that this would really happen, and that there was a huge risk that Clinton was taking.

Did come, and thereafter, there was a whole lot of traffic between Washington and the Republican movement. Conversations that led then to August 1994 and the announcement from the IRA of a.

Complete cessation of their fight. The 300-word statement says that recognizing the potential of the current situation and in order to enhance the democratic peace process. They have decided that as of midnight tonight, there will be a complete cessation of military operations. And that all.

IRA units have been instructed accordingly. You know where were you and where were you at that?

Moment and tell us how you reacted. I was in the gym of my hotel in Dublin. Because Sinn Féin had asked us to come over to be part of the celebration, really, of the announcement of the ceasefire. And I remember at noon in Ireland, they have a prayer called the Angelus.

Four years. Yes, there are obstacles, there's violence, there's more bombings, there are deaths, failed attempts at ceasefires that come and go and are broken.

Agreement. I remember 4.45am that morning, the phone ringing and a voice telling me that it's.

Done. There was joy and congratulations, and also relief that a critical and difficult set of negotiations were. At an end. There were farewells for the main participants and others less directly.

Involved. The tide had swept out and a whole new tide was sweeping in, and it was called Peace, Reconciliation, Hope, Argument, politics like it should be. Obviously it's not there yet, but my God. There are probably an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people walking around Northern Ireland who probably would have been dead by now if the violence had continued.

And many people who deserve credit. But we're focusing on the role of the United States. Your belief is that it was that visa for Gerry Adams, that, in a way set in train the IRA ceasefire, which in turn led to the Good Friday agreement. So that was crucial, and we've heard about your role in securing that visa. Other players would have been obviously the man chairing those talks, the former Democratic Senator George Mitchell.

Well, he was very, very crucial because every party in Northern Ireland he was their listening post. And they came in and they insisted on their opinions be observed and their initiatives be.

Allowed. We had 10 political parties, two governments, and the chairman, there were many.

Many issues. I don't know how George Mitchell did it, but I do know at the end he did something.

Very, very clever. When I got the last word from the last party, David Trimble, the leader of the Unionist Party, then the largest unionist party, telephoned me to say they were ready to go. They had been locked in an extremely difficult party caucus all day, they were the last ones to come.

On board, I called for an immediate vote. The minute he got trimble across the line, he called a press conference for 15 minutes later. Because he knew the way things were shaking out and what could happen in even an hour, that he had to get it across the line at that moment. That, to me, is a much overlooked but wonderful deed that he did to actually bring the Good Friday agreement to life. Because we don't know what would have happened if another hour or two.

Had passed, yeah, and there you were in the United States when you got that call in the middle of the night. Did you have any role in what then happened afterwards? After the Good Friday agreement was signed and it had to go to a referendum? Obviously of the people north and south. Did you stay involved or did you watch from afar? Slightly like that proud uncle who has played a role?

Yeah, I basically watched from afar. It was wonderful to see democracy come to Ireland. It's not total democracy, there's a Democratic deficit obviously there now, but it's uncomfortable. It's bumpy, it's a sleigh ride, but it's peace.

That's a very good way of putting it, looking back on it now, 25 years later. The Good Friday Agreement, besides the huge meaning it has for the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland in particular. As you've explained. It was hailed as one of Bill Clinton's finest achievements, perhaps his biggest achievement in his time in office. I know that you perhaps have some contact with him and I think you spoke to him fairly recently. How do you think he regards it, and what place does it have in his view of his own presidency?

It has a huge place. He's heading over to Northern Ireland for four days and he is full of the joys of spring. And the idea that 25 years has passed and the agreement has stood. He's not shy about calling it one of his greatest achievements indeed. Maureen Dowd, who, you know well, wrote that. The best two days in the political life of Bill Clinton were the two days he spent in Northern Ireland when everybody gathered. I'll never forget the crowd.

Ireland did really, really well in the end, just to step, zoom out a little bit and the wider relationship which we've talked about. Do Irish Americans still care about Ireland and Northern Ireland in the way that you intuited? As it turned out, rightly, they did 30 years ago. And they did enough to propel their president to play a crucial role in bringing and brokering peace to.

The North, the landscape has changed, obviously, but if you look at, for instance, Hillary Clinton's run for president. Irish American groups raised three million for her, which is a large sum of money and obviously not as much as some other communities. But we have people who contribute. It's not knocking on the door like the old gangs used to do. And, you know, chicken in every pot. Now it's more like, how can we help you in terms of your social media or whatever?

Rolling back the years in this conversation. On April, the 10th, it will be 25 years since. We all saw those pictures of exhausted, drained, bleary eyed, mostly men shaking hands on that morning in Belfast. How, if in any way, will you be marking it? Do you think, and how do you think you'll be feeling?

You know, there's so many things in life to work out and so many things that don't. And the Irish peace process was a tremendous honour to work on. I knew people who died from the violence, I knew people who were scarred by the violence, I knew people who left Ireland because of the violence.

Neil O'DOWd Thanks so much for talking to me on Politics Weekly America.

Thank you, John.

And that is all from me for this week. My colleague Joni Grieve will be with you next week, but for now, it's goodbye. The producer is Danielle Stevens, the executive producer, Maz Ebtehaj. I'm Jonathan Friedland.

This is The Guardian.