By Ray O’Hanlon
For several reasons, not least the Swissair tragedy and domestic issues, the story of President Clinton’s second visit to Ireland did not quite play as big with the U.S. press as did his 1995 trip.
Nevertheless, the coverage in U.S. newspapers, while toned down in volume, was generally positive. Not surprisingly, most of it was generated by the president’s visit to the North
Newsday had Clinton basking "gratefully in the warm welcome" the people of Northern Ireland had laid out for him. The president was doing his bit for peace "against a backdrop of carefully choreographed moves toward reconciliation among contending political forces."
The Boston Globe reported that Clinton "was given a hero’s welcome, hailed as an architect of this young and fragile peace, applauded loudly at every stop by crowds that spilled out of auditoriums and surged against ropelines to shake his hand."
The Globe had several journalists working the story. One of the paper’s reports had The White House "especially appreciative" of the fact that Gerry Adams chose to acknowledge just before Clinton’s arrival that violence in Northern Ireland was no longer justified under any circumstances.
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The Boston Herald came out with an editorial headlined "IRA must seize moment." The Herald took the view that the next big step to a permanent peace would follow the IRA’s pledging itself "to scrap its still-formidable arsenal at the earliest possible date." Such a move, the Herald opined, "would put irresistible pressure on Protestant paramilitaries to follow suit."
The New York Times, reporting from Armagh "on a rare sun-washed day," told its readers that Clinton had invested much time and the prestige of his office in brokering the April 10 peace accord.
"For the most part," the Times said in one report, "people who turned out to see Mr. Clinton were grateful for his efforts to foster peace and delighted that he returned to Ulster."
In a companion story, the Times described how people in Northern Ireland were accustomed to their politicians "facing down the public with grim news briefings on the intransigence of their political opponents and then ducking into drab Government buildings where peace talks dragged on for more than two years."
Now, according to the Times, this seemed to be a thing of the past. "Emblematic of the change was the appearance today of Mr. Mallon and the Assembly’s leader, David Trimble, enthusiastically if awkwardly waving at crowds of cheering people who turned out on a brilliantly sunny day in Belfast to greet Mr. Clinton," one story said.
The Baltimore Sun gave space to First Lady Hillary Clinton’s arrival in Belfast a day before her embattled husband. It reported that "Northern Ireland’s verdant landscape seems a world away from the Washington scandal that has threatened her husband’s presidency."
The Sun suggested that while all and sundry back in Washington were engrossed with the Monica Lewinsky affair, the Belfast crowd didn’t much care.
In a subsequent report from Armagh, the Sun set a positive tone in the opening paragraph: "This was President Clinton at his best, standing at twilight before the soaring spires of two cathedrals, speaking of peace on an island long embroiled in violence."
The primacy of peace was on the mind of USA Today, which led one story with the headline "Clinton may find some peace in Northern Ireland." The paper was not referring in this instance to the peace process.
The Washington Post decided that for all the grief wrought by the Omagh tragedy, Clinton’s return to Northern Ireland "was mostly a cause for celebration for a community that sees him as a hero and for a president badly in need of a lift."
The Chicago Sun Times, on the other hand, played down the sense of celebration. Clinton’s tone, the paper said, "was one of warning and challenge, instead of celebration."
The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial coinciding with the visit, concluded that the Omagh bombing had drawn a clear line demarcating mayhem and peace, death and life, the past and the future.
"And Gerry Adams and David Trimble, finally, find themselves, unconditionally on the same side."