[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4359-S4363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AN AUSPICIOUS ST. PATRICK'S DAY
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, last week, friends of Ireland celebrated
St. Patrick's Day in an atmosphere of hope. The guns have been silent
in Northern Ireland for 6 months and it appears that the people of that
conflict-torn land may at long last be on the irreversible road to
peace.
Today, the British Government's Minister of State at the Northern
Ireland Office, Michael Ancram, met with Loyalist paramilitary
representatives, and Sinn Fein representatives and the British
Government appear close to an agreement on an agenda for Ministerial
talks to begin soon.
Most important, the people of Northern Ireland themselves are hopeful
that this peace will last. The vast majority believe it is time to get
on with talks. Irish citizens from Dublin and other parts of Ireland
are traveling to Belfast in greater numbers because the fear of
violence is disappearing. The people of Northern Ireland are going out
in the evenings without fear of terrorist attacks. Peace is pervasive,
and each day makes it harder for violence to return.
The United States has played a significant role in achieving this
emerging peace, and great credit for it goes to President Clinton. He
has taken risks for peace in Northern Ireland. He has embraced all
those in Ireland who are willing to do the same. His foresight and
judgment have been vindicated. Irish Americans congratulate him--but
most of all, we thank him, and so do the people of Ireland, Protestant
and Catholic alike.
The President and Mrs. Clinton hosted a reception on St. Patrick's
Day at the White House which was an historic occasion itself. John
Hume, John Alderdice, Gerry Adams and Gary McMichael--four men
representing vastly different political views in Northern Ireland--were
all in attendance. The evening was brought to a close when John Hume
and Gerry Adams sang the poignant song, ``The Town I loved So Well.''
The final verses of the song, which is about John Hume's home town of
Derry in Northern Ireland speaks to everyone who cares about this
issue:
Now the music's gone but they carry on,
For their spirit's been bruised, never broken.
They will not forget, but their hearts are set
On tomorrow and peace once again.
For what's done is done, and what's won is won;
And what's lost is lost and gone forever.
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day
In the town I love so well.
[[Page S4360]] Mr. President, only time will tell whether the bright,
brand new day is finally here. But several recent articles verify the
new optimistic mood and praise President Clinton for the role he has
played. I ask unanimous consent that excellent articles by James F.
Clarity in the New York Times, David Nyhan in the Boston Globe, Mary
McGrory in the Washington Post, and Patrick J. Sloyan in Newsday, as
well as the lyrics to ``The Town I Loved So Well,'' and an ad thanking
President Clinton which appeared in the New York Times on St. Patrick's
Day, may be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Mar. 22, 1995]
The I.R.A.'s Political Strongman
gerry adams seems able to sustain truce and advance aims
(By James F. Clarity)
Dublin, March 21.--As a result of his delicate and much-
publicized visit last week to New York, Washington and the
White House, Gerry Adams appears to have strengthened himself
considerably as the political leader of the Irish Republican
Army, the man most Irish people think has great influence in
sustaining the I.R.A. cease-fire now in its seventh month.
And Mr. Adams, back in Dublin, also seems to have achieved
significant success on a number of tactical goals of Sinn
Fein, the I.R.A.'s political arm.
At home, in the military council of the I.R.A., Mr. Adams,
the president of Sinn Fein, has shown once again that his
political efforts are bringing the Republican movement
benefits and concessions it could not even dream of if the
I.R.A. re-started the guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland.
In addition to gaining the right to raise funds for
political purposes in America, Mr. Adams was invited to meet
and chat with the President of the United States, to talk and
have his picture taken with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to
attend a White House party in a tuxedo, all proud signs that
he and his movement have come a long way from the days when
he led the I.R.A.'s Belfast Brigade and was interned by the
British for his trouble. On television screens all over the
world he achieved the major Republican goal of getting
international attention for his argument that the British
should relinquish power in their Northern Ireland province.
Perhaps the most significant result of all this, according
to Irish officials and independent experts, is that Mr.
Adams' influence with the I.R.A. has probably never been
stronger, and that he seems to be easily strong enough in
army councils to sustain the cease-fire, at least for several
months. Tim Pat Coogan, a historian whose writings on the
I.R.A. are standard reference material, said Mr. Adams and
his No. 2 in Sinn Fein, Martin McGuinness, who also has a
guerrilla background, now have effective control of the
military organization.
Mr. Adams' diplomatic victories, the experts say, have made
it more difficult for any I.R.A. commanders who may still be
restless with the peace effort to gain support among their
fighters for a resumption of attacks on military and civilian
targets in the North. While the I.R.A. reportedly keeps going
through the training motions of selecting putative targets,
the Roman Catholics in the North, particularly in Belfast,
press for continuing the talks, for trying to negotiate the
early release of I.R.A. prisoners and for the reform of the
overwhelmingly Protestant Royal Ulster constabulary, the
police force.
Mr. Coogan, who has many friends in Sinn Fein, and other
experts said that Northern Catholics and Protestants want
negotiations that could bring their imprisoned fathers,
husbands and sons home rather than military operations that
risk more death and imprisonment. And, among politicians, the
need to keep talking also reflects the rarely spoken fear
that a particularly heinous violation of the cease-fire, one
that killed several civilians or British police or soldiers,
could still collapse the peace effort.
Mr. Coogan and Irish officials said that Mr. Adams was
compelled to make a worth-the-price concession to the British
in order to gain Mr. Clinton's approval of his visit: his
agreement to discuss I.R.A. disarmament with British
ministers. Asked this week if he was still ready to discuss
I.R.A. disarmament at such talks, Mr. Adams said,
``Absolutely,'' but he declined to say how soon that might
happen. Previously, Mr. Adams had insisted that disarmament
could only be discussed at all-party talks, including
Northern Ireland's Protestant leaders, as part of a final
peace settlement.
Two weeks before he left for America, Mr. Adams said,
``Republicans are fairly patient,'' and would not expect to
be included in all-party political tasks on disarmament, for
three or four months.
Politically, outside the I.R.A., Mr. Adams has also won
concessions. Until he and John Hume, the influential leader
of the Catholic-dominated Social Democratic Labor Party,
began a secret peace initiative two years ago, Sinn Fein was
banned from the United States as a front for a terrorist
organization.
Now Mr. Hume, once a political enemy whose candidate
defeated Mr. Adams in the 1992 British Parlimentary election,
has personally introduced Mr. Adams to Mr. Clinton in
Washington. And Mr. Adams can visit America, raise money,
and, most important, he was achieved an old Sinn Fein
objective: pulling the White House directly and openly into-a
mediator's role between the I.R.A. and the British. American
pressure on London delights Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. because
it influences, and sometimes vexes, the British Government.
Mr. Adam's agreement, under White House pressure, to
discuss disarmament with British ministers was followed in a
matter of days by a British concession on the issue Mr. Adams
calls ``demilitarization'': the promised withdrawal of 400
British troops from the North.
And Mr. Adams has held on to the political support of the
Irish Government of Prime Minister John Bruton, support that
seemed weakened when Mr. Bruton replaced Albert Reynolds
three months ago. Mr. Reynolds had urged Britain and the
United States to trust the I.R.A.'s stated good intentions,
to keep the cease-fire going even though they refused to
renounce forever the option of returning to violence.
Mr. Reynolds welcomed Mr. Adams to Dublin to discuss peace
at an open Government forum. Mr. Bruton had long been accused
of being more sympathetic to the Protestants in the North who
want to remain part of Britain than to the I.R.A. goal of a
united Ireland free of British control.
Mr. Bruton has continued to nudge Mr. Adams on disarmament
and on a categorial renunciation of violence, and he has
emphasized that the Protestant unionist majority in the North
has a right to reject a united Ireland in a referendum.
But Mr. Bruton has also given Mr. Adams a symbolic hand-
shake and talked with him privately, and he urged the White
House to let him visit last week. Some experts, invoking the
Nixon-and-China principle, see Mr. Bruton as the Irish leader
who has the best chance of gaining trust among Protestant
unionists and persuading them to talk to Sinn Fein,
eventually.
And Prime Minister Bruton, with the approval of all sides,
seems willing to continue to play the role of referee in the
sparring match between Sinn Fein and Britain, making sure
that the predictable but sometimes sharp jabs are not struck
too low and, with most of the audience hoping anxiously for a
draw, that neither side tries for a knockout.
____
[From the Boston Globe, Mar. 22, 1955]
Irish Eyes Smile on Clinton's Peacemaking
(By David Nyhan)
But when I returned, Oh how my eyes did burn
To see how a town could be brought to its knees
By the armored cars and the bombed-out bars
And the gas that hangs on every breeze. . .
``The Town That I Love So Well''
President Clinton put it as plainly as it can be put Friday
night: ``Those who take risks for peace are always welcome
under this roof.''
The largely Hibernian crowd in the East Room for the White
House St. Patrick's Day bash erupted. While some of the
Ulster Orangemen may fulminate and Britain's John Major keeps
Clinton's phone call on hold and the British papers go
berserk, Clinton's daring little Irish play is working, and
the crowd gave the boyish president his due.
The president was straight-faced, but you knew he had to be
winking inside, when he said: ``The Irish knew then (in
Thomas Jefferson's day) how to back a winner (the fledgling
United States).'' But no one missed the irony: Major's Tory
party had bet big on a George Bush victory, and Clinton's
overture to the Irish Republican Army and its political
mouthpiece, Gerry Adams, was a longshot that paid off
handsomely.
It was John Hume who prevailed upon Ted Kennedy and his
sister, Jean Smith, the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of
Ireland: Convince Clinton to lift the visa restriction on
Adams, the Sinn Fein spokesman, and allow him into the United
States to raise money and visibility--and to hell with the
British. Because Ted Kennedy is arguably Clinton's biggest
bulwark on the left, Hume's initiative prevailed, Adams
arrived here a year ago, and the pace was set for the cease-
fire that now obtains.
Any president, who can, with some dextrous diplomatic
jujitsu, end a 25-year-old, guerrilla war deserves some
credit. And this crowd gave it to him. Irish Prime Minister
John Bruton, a veteran back-bencher who suddenly emerged to
lead the government, lavished gratitude upon Clinton ``for
the role you have played personally, Mr. President.''
Four times as many Dubliners now travel north to Ulster
every day to shop and spend
and renew kinship ties, he said. ``There's a whole weight
lifted off our shoulders,'' said Bruton. ``We're a happy
land now.''
And it was the United States and ``the stand for decency
the United States has taken on so many occasions'' that made
the difference, Ireland's leader testified. ``The courage of
the US has been the key factor in preserving the peace (in
Europe) over 50 years. Thank you again for the tremendous
good you have done for our country.''
Ireland may be grateful; Britain is hopping mad, if last
weeks' London newspapers were any indication. To Britons,
Adams' is the bearded visage of terrorism, the voice
defending heinous bombers who killed kids, civilians,
contractors, cab drivers, who blew up Harrods and Airey Neave
and tried to kill Thatcher and did kill Mountbatten. Would
[[Page S4361]] America like it if Britain's ruler invited
the Lockerbie bombers to 10 Downing St. for tea? Not hardly.
But Clinton's gamble paid off. And he was toasted for it by
a crowd that included plenty from around here. There were
three O'Neills, enough Dunfeys to fill a bus and pairs of the
following: Bulgers (the Senate president and son Bill),
Flynns (Ambassador to the Vatican Ray and son Eddie), Kings
(administration personnel czar Jim and son Patrick) and at
least two Jesuits (BC President J. Donald Monan and former US
Rep. Robert F. Drinan).
But the real pair of the evening came late, when many had
left, and after Mark Gearan, the top Bay Stater on Clinton's
staff, prevailed upon Bill Bulger Sr. to give us a tune. He
responded with, ``I come from the County Kerry; I'm a typical
Irish-man.'' But then, Bulger said yesterday, ``I saw John
Hume give me the sign he had a song. So I called him up, and
he did ``The Town I Love So Well.'' That tune is the
traditional lament for Derry, Hume's battle-scarred hometown
in the North.
Bulger: ``So then I gave Gerry Adams the sign to come up,
and they did it as a duet.'' The sight and sound of Hume and
Adams singing under Bulger's benign tutelage in the East
Room, with the cease-fire holding, is all due to Clinton.
Bulger, back in Boston, said: ``This is a real success.
It's incredible. Everyone had said `no' to Adams. It was a
real bold thing to do. The president broke that stalemate.''
____
[From the Washington Post, Mar. 21, 1995]
(By Mary McGrory)
Irish Eyes Have Reason To Smile
Bill Clinton had a grand moment in the East Room at his
second St. Patrick's Day party. The Prime Minister of
Ireland, John Bruton, said to him, ``We're a happy land now,
thanks to the stand and courage that you and your colleagues
have shown, Mr. President.'' He further told his host that he
had been right and Dublin had been wrong about taking a
chance on Sinn Fein. It was the kind of ungrudging,
overflowing approval and vindication Clinton seldom hears. It
was the stuff of ethnic campaign commercials.
But he missed a moment of triumph, a tableau of Irish unity
and harmony that sent the audience into roaring raptures and
left them with a memory for the generations.
The Clintons had left. The guests lingered. The Clintons,
who forgot that the Irish rarely ``go gentle into that good
night'' from a good party, sent down instructions for music
to say good night to. Communications director Mark Gearan
went to the piano, Billy Bolger, the little Caesar of the
Massachusetts Senate and an eager tenor, was easily recruited
and ``When Irish Eyes Are Smiling'' was heard once again.
Suddenly Bolger stopped. ``I think we should hear from John
Hume,'' he said.
Hume, the valiant leader of the Catholic party in Northern
Ireland, came up and began to sing his theme song, ``The Town
that I Love So Well.'' He was into the second or third verse
when a dark, bearded figure joined him on the stage. It was
Gerry Adams, and with arms around each other, they finished
the song. The audience went wild. As soon as they recognized
Adams, they began cheering, and as the pair continued, they
stood up applauding. Adams's smile, for once, was not mocking
or supercilious. `History,'' they told each other, a
settlement in song in the Clinton White House.
``Those who take risks for peace are always welcome under
this roof,'' Clinton had said in his welcome to the prime
minister. No one took a greater chance than Hume, the bright,
careworn favorite of Irish-American politicians, who sought
out the spokesman and Sinn Fein, the political arm of the
terrorist IRA, was discovered, harassed, threatened to the
point when he spent weeks in a hospital with a bleeding ulcer
and a bad case of despair. Hume convinced our ambassador Jean
Kennedy Smith and her brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, that
Adams was the key. Kennedy prevailed upon the president, and
a year ago February, while the British raged, Clinton gave
Adams a visa for a 48-hour U.S. stay.
Adams maddens many because he insists on talking about Sinn
Fein as if it were a stamp club. When arms and bombs and
kneecappings and hideous murders of parents before the eyes
of their children come up, he looks pained and recoils. What
would he know about all that? But last August, he came
through. A cease-fire came into effect, the Catholics and
Protestants of Ulster began to breathe. The shadow of the
gunman disappeared from the streets of Belfast. Plans for
Anglo-Irish talks were resumed.
It's still a long way to Tipperary, but another milestone
was passed when Clinton again leaned into the wind from
London, and not only let Adams come to Washington and the
White House, but let him raise money for Sinn Fein. Britain
saw it as a cheap bid for the votes of America's 40 million
Irish. Outrage led the British press. Adams raised $80,000 at
one New York lunch, and the British boiled over with warnings
that the money would go to buy arms to replace those that are
supposed to be ``decommissioned.'' Not a farthing, Adams
promised. John Major refused to take Clinton's calls.
But everyone at the White House gala was happy and hopeful,
particularly the Bostonians, who outnumbered all others. Ray
Flynn, Boston's erstwhile mayor and now Clinton's envoy to
the Vatican, was telling people the good news that while on a
confidential political mission to Pennsylvania, he had found
out that Reagan Democrats had put aside their differences on
gays in the military and such, and are coming home.
A number of nervous Irishmen seemed to have checked their
misgivings at the door. They were delighted to be able to
give their views in the splendors of the Executive Mansion.
Gary McMichael of the Ulster Democratic Party had a good chat
with Sen. Kennedy. Outside a handful of members of the
Families Against Intimidation and Terror picketed and
leafletted passersby. They were protesting the 46 beatings
that have been administered by both sides, Unionists and IRA,
since the cease-fire. Iron bars and clubs with nails are
used. The protesters had hoped to be invited in, they were
not but were assuaged by a visit to the Security Council the
following morning.
On Sunday, Major resumed speaking to the president and
expressed the hope of putting it all behind. Adams landed in
Dublin and said, with his usual surprise that anyone would
ask, that no one had pressured him on decommissioning arms.
____
[From Newsday, Feb. 27, 1995]
Sinn Fein Balks at Disarming
(By Patrick J. Sloyan)
Dublin.--A plump dove, white on a purple backdrop, flew
over the conference, streaming the Irish tricolor wrapped
around the slogan: ``Create Peace: Unite Ireland.''
``Does anyone want to speak?'' Gerry Adams, president of
Sinn Fein, asked delegates to its annual conference. ``We
welcome your criticism.''
As the meeting of the Irish Republican Army's political
wing droned to a close yesterday, Adams seemed miffed over
news accounts of grumbling delegates. Some were dismayed by
the tepid tone of freedom fighters turned peacemongers.
Owen Bennett stalked to the Mansion House microphone. ``No
one can promise some future generation will not resort to
arms to win self-determination,'' Bennett said. He was from
south Armagh, a hotbed of IRA warfare for the past quarter of
a century. A roar filled the hall.
Until the IRA ceasefire last August, many of the delegates
lived by nationalist-intellectual Patrick Pearse's slogan:
``Life springs from death. And from the graves of patriot men
and women spring living nations.'' It was on a banner set
discreetly to one side in the conference hall and was
decorated not with doves but crossed rifles, a revolver and a
pike.
Only a few blocks away is the Dublin post office seized on
Easter 1916 by Pearse and comrades determined to end
England's rule of Ireland. Now, 79 years later, Adams and the
heirs to that uprising were closer than ever to that goal.
But handling doves, as Adams is learning, is far trickier
than wielding a pike. The next step toward a permanent peace
in Northern Ireland and the beginning of an eventual union
between Irish north and south could be a difficult one for
the IRA.
Before starting negotiations on the Belfast framework
announced last week, British Prime Minister John Major wants
the Sinn Fein to give up thousands of IRA rifles, rocket
launchers, pistols and grenades and tons of hidden
explosives.
``There has to be substantial progress made on the
decommissioning of arms,'' Sir Patrick Mayhew said
yesterday. He is the British government's Secretary of
Northern Ireland and has refused to talk with Sinn Fein.
Instead, his staff conducted preliminary talks on Mayor's
behalf with Sinn Fein emissaries.
``We have told the British that Sinn Fein does not have any
weapons,'' said Martin McGuinness, who represented the
organization in talks with Mayhew's staff. Most delegates at
Mission House will wink at that one. McGuinness is reputed to
be military commander of the IRA, succeeding Adams in
directing attacks in Northern Ireland.
But McGuinness drew applause with a reminder that it was
Sinn Fein's unilateral initiative that produced the cease
fire that has sparked the peace process.
``We told them, just in case the reality had escaped them,
that the British government and the British army had not
defeated the IRA; that the IRA had not surrendered and that
the British government could not even remotely expect Sinn
Fein to deliver that surrender for them,'' McGuinness said to
cheers.
Adams has a counterproposal: decommission British and
Unionist guns as well as IRA weapons. And demilitarize the
province by eliminating 13,500 Royal Ulster Constabulary
police at 161 stations and removing 19,000 British troops at
135 forts.
London is inching toward Sinn Fein demands. Border
checkpoints have become largely unmanned traffic snarls.
British army patrols have decreased dramatically, and
soldiers have vanished from some areas. Some British
government officials say troops could be withdrawn as
security needs subside.
Dublin government officials see a precedent for Sinn Fein
disarmament. When the 26 counties of the south won
independence in 1937, the IRA turned over many of their
weapons to help equip a new Irish army. ``But it would be
difficult now,'' said an aide to Deputy Irish Prime Minister
Dick Spring. ``Gerry Adams has to deal with the `hard men'
[extremists] in the Sinn Fein.''
[[Page S4362]]
One possible compromise would be the release of an
estimated 600 IRA prisoners in Ulster and British prisons
coinciding with a Dublin decommisssioning of IRA weapons.
In the meantime, Adams and Major's demand for IRA weapons
is merely a dodge to stall the start of all-party talks,
including Sinn Fein and Unionist paramilitary leaders as well
as government officials from Dublin, Belfast, and London.
In response to Mayhew's statement yesterday demanding
progress on disarmament, Adams said: ``He wants to make up
his mind. It is a precondition of talks or it's not a
precondition.''
The Sinn Fein leader was daring Major to obstruct an Irish
peace process that has revived his slipping political
fortunes in Britain. A Gallup Poll financed by the London
Telegraph showed 92 percent of Britain voters supported the
Belfast framework and 68 percent believed Ulster Unionists
were wrong not to participate in the talks.
Another poll, commissioned by British television among
Northern Ireland's Unionist voters, approved the plan. Ulster
Marketing found 81 percent of the more moderate Unionist
party members favored the framework, which also was supported
by 61 percent on the more conservative Democratic Unionist
Party.
``The British government position [on IRA disarmament] is
untenable,'' said Sinn Fein's McGuinness. ``It has to
change.''
____
The Town I Loved So Well
(Words and Music by Phil Coulter)
In my memory, I will always see
The town that I have loved so well,
Where our school played ball by the gas yard wall
And we laughed through the smoke and the smell.
Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane,
Past the jail and down behind the fountain--
There were happy days in so many, many ways
In the town I loved so well.
In the early morning the shirt factory horn
Called women from Creggan, the Moor and the Bog;
While the men on the dole played a mother's role,
Fed the children, and then walked the dog;
And when times got tough, there was just about enough;
And they saw it through without complaining:
For deep inside was a burning pride
In the town I loved so well.
There was music there in the Derry air
Like a language that we all could understand;
I remember the day that I earned my first pay
When I played in a small pick-up band.
There I spent my youth, and to tell you the truth,
I was sad to leave it all behind me:
For I'd learned about life, and I'd found a wife
In the town I loved so well.
But when I've returned how my eyes have burned
To see how a town could be brought to its knees;
By the armoured cars and the bombed-out bars,
And the gas that hangs on to every breeze:
Now the army's installed by that old gas yard wall
And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher;
With their tanks and their guns, Oh my God what have they
done
To the town I loved so well.
Now the music's gone but they carry on
For their spirit's been bruised, never broken;
They will not forget, but their hearts are set
On tomorrow and peace once again.
For what's done is done, and what's won is won;
And what's lost is lost and gone forever:
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day
In the town I love so well.
____
[From the New York Times, March 17, 1995]
Irish Eyes Are Smiling
president clinton--thank you very much
(National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Inc.)
For the first time in a generation, 44 million Irish
Americans can celebrate peace in Ireland.
This ``emergent vision of peace,'' as the poet Seamus
Heaney has called it, allows us to celebrate St. Patrick's
Day with a pride in our heart and warmth in our soul.
Many brave men and women, Protestant and Catholic, Irish
and British, helped bring about this peace process.
So did their respective governments.
Countless Americans of all traditions and from every walk
of life, worked so hard to make this miracle happens.
Moreover, the important role played by the men and women of
the United States Congress, from both parties can never be
forgotten.
Above all, Mr. President, we celebrate your role in making
this peace possible.
Since your first day in office, you have shown a rare
commitment to bringing peace to that ancestral land of your
mother's roots.
Your involvement in encouraging all the political parties
in Northern Ireland to come together was crucial.
Your vision in granting U.S. visas to leaders of the
Republican and Loyalist communities, who now wish to take the
gun forever out of Irish politics, was vital.
Your overall encouragement of the British and Irish
governments as they signed their historic Joint Framework
Document was inspiring.
By your actions, you have made clear how much the United
States wants to help create the conditions for peace, justice
and reconciliation in Ireland.
By your words, you have made clear your personal commitment
to the framework for an agreed Ireland that can allow all of
its people to live in peace.
By your support, you have inspired your fellow Irish
Americans who will now redouble their efforts to ensure that
the peace continues.
Another great Irish American, President Kennedy, stated
that peace must be ``dynamic, not static, changing to meet
the challenges confronting it, for peace is a process, a way
of solving problems.''
With your help, Mr. President, we can keep that peace and
that process moving forward.
We salute you for your concern and for your caring.
And we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
William J. Flynn, Chairman.
Dr. George D. Schwab, President.
We, the undersigned, wish to add our voice to that of the
National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
Tom Barton, President, Marz Inc.
Charles J. Boyle, Executive Director, Ireland Chamber of
Commerce in the USA, Inc.
Hon. Hugh L. Carey, former governor, State of New York,
Executive Vice President, W.R. Grace & Co.
Stanley Q. Casey, Richardson, Mahon & Casey.
William J. Chambers, Chairman, Eirlink International.
Ed Cleary, AFL-CIO.
Elliot H. Cole, Esq., Partner, Patton Boggs, LLP.
John J. Connorton, Jr., Partner, Hawkins, Delafield & Wood.
Frank D. Cooney, Jr., Treasurer, County Asphalt, Inc.
John T. Cooney, Sr., Vice President, County Asphalt, Inc.
Robert A. Cooney, Associate Dean, Loyola Law School, Los
Angeles, CA.
Gerald Cummins, Chairman, Mancum Graphics, Inc.
Joanne Toor Cummings, Sr. Vice President, NCAFP
John T. Dee, President, Service America Corporation.
Thomas J. Degnan, President, In Progress Environment.
Roy E. Disney, Vice Chairman of the Board, The Walt Disney
Company.
Robert J. Donahue, President, Patrons of the John F.
Kennedy Trust, Inc.
Thomas R. Donohue, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO.
Cornelius (Connie) S. Doolan, Director, Trade Relations
North America, Guinness Import Co.
Eamonn Doran, Restauranteur, New York/Dublin.
John A. Doyle, President, the Doyle Group, Inc.
Raymond G. Duffy, Vice President, Jefferson Smurfit
Corporation.
Hon. Angier Biddle Duke, Chairman, Appeal of Conscience
Foundation.
John R. Dunne, former US Assistant Attorney General for
Civil Rights
Seymour Maxwell Finger.
Hugh P. Finnegan, Partner, Siller, Wilk, & Mencher LLP.
John Fitzpatrick, CEO, North America, Fitzpatrick Family
Group of Hotels.
Peter J. Flanagan, President, Life Insurance Council of New
York.
Adrian Flannelly, President, Adrian Flannelly Irish Radio.
Edward T. Fogarty, President & CEO, Tambrands Inc.
Richard R. Fogarty, CEO & President, Labatt.
Michael J. Gibbons.
William P. Gibbons, Attorney at Law, Cleveland, Ohio.
Claire Grimes, CEO, Irish Echo Newspaper Corporation.
Dr. Os Guinness, The Trinity Forum.
Martin Hamrogue, General Manger, Operation Control, TWA.
Peter Hanrahan, partner, Keegan Hanrahan Architects, PC.
Patricia Harty, Editor-in-Chief, Irish America Magazine.
Margaret M. Heckler, former US Ambassador to Ireland.
John F. Henning, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, California
Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.
Hon. Alan G. Hevesi, Comptroller, City of New York.
Ray Hogan, Hogan Fragrances.
Peter J. Hooper.
Abassador F. Hoveyda, Executive Committee, NCAFP.
Carl F. Hughes, Chairman President & CEO, Fahey Bank.
Tom Ivory, CEO, Baker Street Bread.
Richard R. Joaquim, President, International Conference
Resorts.
Philip M. Keating, Esq., David & Hagner.
Kevin Keegan, partner, Keegan Hanrahan Architects, PC.
Martin P. & Mary Kehoe.
Denis P. Kelleher, CEO, Wall Street Investor Services.
[[Page S4363]] Michael P. Kelley, Vice President, Sales,
Norcom Electronics.
Daniel J. Kelly, Group Managing Partner, Deloitte & Touche.
Patrick J. Keogh, President & CEO, Ireland Chamber of
Commerce in the USA, Inc.
Herbert Kurz, Chairman, Presidential Life Insurance
Company.
Michael J. Larkin, Executive Vice President, The Great
Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., Inc.
Dr. Thomas J. Ledwith, Executive Director, United States
Program, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
Edward S. Lewis, President, SPK/Lewis Inc.
Rev. Dr. Franklin H. Littell, Temple University.
Edmund E. Lynch, National Coordinator, Lawyers Alliance for
Justice in Ireland, Inc.
Jack MacDonough, CEO, Miller Brewing Company.
Shirley Whelan MacRae, President, S.W. Management.
Edward G. Maher, Patrick J. Maher, President, Business
Insurance Agency, Inc.
Annette Mahon, President, Belvedere Public Relations, Inc.
John F. X. Mannion, Chairman & CEO, Unity Mutual Life
Insurance Company.
Edward I. Masterman, Esq., Masterman, Culbert & Tully.
John McCabe, Account Manager, Corporate Express.
Sean McCabe, Account Manager, Corporate Express.
James F. McCann, President, 1-800-Flowers.
William C. McCann, President & CEO, Allied Junction.
Jerome R. McDougal, President & CEO, River Bank America.
Gerald W. McEntee, President, The American Federation of
State, County, & Municipal Employees.
Paschal McGuinness, 1st Vice President, International
Brotherhood of Carpenters & President, Irish-American Labor
Coalition.
Denis McInerney.
Mark P. McInerney, President, L.P. Cook Government
Securities Inc.
Andrew J. McKenna, Chairman, President & CEO, Schwarz Paper
Company.
William A. McKenna, Jr., Chairman & CEO, Ridgewood Savings
Bank.
Hon. Timothy Connor McNamara, Columbia Consulting Group.
Thomas J. Moran, President & CEO, Mutual of America.
Bruce A. Morrison, former Member of Congress, Partner,
Morrison & Swaine.
Sheillagh Mulready, Secretary/Treasurer, Patrons of the
John F. Kennedy Trust, Inc.
James C. Nicholas, Executive Director, Connecticut World
Trade Association, Inc.
Brian Nolan, Executive Vice President, Blarney Wollen
Mills.
James J. O'Connon, President & CEO, The Annamor Group Ltd.
Niall O'Dowd, Publisher, Irish America Magazine.
Michael M. O'Driscoll, President, Cash's of Ireland.
John A. O'Malley, President, Executive Benefits Group. Inc.
Tice O'Sullivan, President, Diversified Management
Services.
Joan Peters, Writer, Historian & Lecturer, Exec. Comm.
Member & Trustee, NCAFP.
Ann Phillips, Member of the Board of Trustees, NCAFP.
William Pickens III, President, Bill Pickens Associates,
Inc.
Edward J. Quinn, President, Worldwide Educational Services,
Inc.
James L. Quinn, Law/CPA Offices of James J. Quinn.
Bryan Reidy, General Manager, Gallagher's Steak House, NYC.
Alan Richards.
Michael J. Roarty, President, Ireland-US Council for
Commerce & Industry.
William J. Rudolf, Vice President, NCAFP.
Dennis G. Ruppel, President, MTD Technologies, Inc.
Dankwart A. Rustow, Distinguished Professor, City
University of New York.
David L. Ryan, Vice President, The Doyle Group.
Kathleen Schmacht, Executive Vice President, E.C. Services,
Inc.
Elizabeth Shannon, Writer, Boston University.
John T. Sharkey, New York City.
Stanley Shmishkiss, Chairman Emeritus, American Cancer
Society Foundation.
John R. Silber, President, Boston University.
Richard Blake St. Francis.
Robert E. Sweeney, President, Robert E. Sweeney Co., L.P.A.
James D. Walker, Managing Director, VAT America.
Kevin J. Walsh, Partner, Kelley Drye & Warren.
Michael J. Walsh, President, Walsh Trading Company.
Stephanie Whiston.
Use of Organization name is solely for identification
purposes.
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