State Papers: White House did not want photo of Clinton shaking Gerry Adams’ hand during 1995 visit
US president Bill Clinton during his visit to Belfast and Dublin in November 1995. Picture: Neil Munns/PA Wire
The White House wanted to avoid a photo of Bill Clinton shaking Gerry Adams’ hand at a Belfast reception held as part of the US president’s historic visit in 1995.
The annual release of documents from the National Archives in Dublin shows the extensive engagements between Irish and US officials to co-ordinate the Clintons’ visit to the island of Ireland.
It included discussions on whether the Clintons should stay in Northern Ireland as part of the visit, and a genealogy expert researching Mr Clinton’s ancestry, concluding the suggestion his ancestors were from Co Fermanagh was based “on fantasy”, although they may have come from a separate part of Ulster.
The Clintons visited Northern Ireland in 1995 before travelling to Dublin.
A reception was organised in Whitla Hall at Queens University in Belfast for November 30.
A letter from the Irish joint secretary of the Anglo-Irish Secretariat, David Donoghue, sent to Seán Ó hUiginn at the Anglo-Irish Division, said “the Americans” originally wanted to hold the reception and “confine” it to 120 people.
He said the British side “insisted” the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew, should host it, which was agreed, and the guest list was expanded to 300 people.
“The ostensible intention is to enable the president to meet a wider range of people in Northern Ireland,” he wrote on November 28 1995.
Mr Donoghue said the representatives would form “pods” at the reception — “a UUP pod, an Alliance pod etc” — determined on a “pro rata basis in light of respective electoral strengths”.
“In other words, each will form a distinct cluster of people to whom the president will be introduced in turn (on the lines of Buckingham Palace receptions).”
He also said Peter Bell, from the Northern Ireland Office, had indicated “the Americans would prefer to avoid a handshake photograph between the president and Adams”.
He also said while one-on-one meetings had been planned with John Hume in Derry and David Trimble in a car journey after the reception at Queens, there was a “general US reluctance” to meet one-on-one with Adams, Ian Paisley, or John Alderdice.
“The general assumption, however, is that the president will take relevant individuals aside for separate private conversations on the margins of the reception.”
Plans for the Clintons visit to Dublin, from December 1-2 1995, show a US embassy official estimated there was a “50/50” chance the visit would go ahead.
An Irish genealogy expert also said claims Clinton had Cassidy ancestors, who were from Co Fermanagh, were “based largely on fantasy” — but the White House still wanted Cassidy aspects added to the visit.
It had been claimed Mr Clinton had Irish ancestry through his mother, Virginia Cassidy.
Genealogist Sean Murphy, from Bray, Co Wicklow, undertook the task of tracing Bill Clinton’s Irish ancestry after “media dissemination of claims concerning the president’s Irish ancestry which proved to be baseless, yet were left un-contradicted by any authoritative source”.
He told the taoiseach’s office the earliest trace of the president’s maternal ancestors of this line is “probably” Zachariah Cassidy, born in about 1750-60 in South Carolina, and his son Levi.
“The Cassidy ‘clan’ claim the earliest ancestor was a Luke or Lucas Cassidy of Roslea, Co Fermanagh, appears to be based largely on fantasy,” he wrote on October 16.
“The biblical forenames Zachariah and Levi suggest a Protestant, and probably Presbyterian or Dissenter, as opposed to Catholic origin, and it is reasonable to speculate the Cassidys would have been most likely to have emigrated to America from an Ulster county.”
Meanwhile, the newly released papers also show the possibility of Northern Ireland being placed under a United Nations trusteeship with its own UN force was examined by the Irish government during the Troubles.
The arrangement was seen as a possibility for maintaining peace and minimising loss of life, and would have been part of a UN process designed towards helping regions towards self-government.
The plan was examined in a study deemed so secret a government memo warned it must be done without consulting the UN — or even Ireland’s mission to the UN in New York.
The confidential files showed the special study, conducted by Mahon Hayes, was sent by attorney-general Declan Costello to foreign affairs minister Dr Garret FitzGerald for his personal consideration.
In a letter to Dr FitzGerald on January 9, 1976, Mr Costello said he found the study “very helpful”.
Government officials were briefed that such a UN involvement in Northern Ireland would only become a possibility under certain specific circumstances.
These could include an “actual or threatened Loyalist takeover” of Northern Ireland, a British security withdrawal from the region, or where sectarian killings reached such a peak that only UN involvement was thought likely to end the bloodshed.
It was noted a UN trusteeship could only be sanctioned with the permission of the British authorities.
The study suggested such a trusteeship arrangement could be implemented for a limited period of time, such as 10 years, and may be accompanied by a UN force.
However, the study noted such a UN involvement would “raise many problems” including that, at the end of the trusteeship, Northern Ireland could gravitate towards a self-governing or even independent state.
Irish officials were determined the study should remain secret.
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