February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Adams, on a visit to the U.S. aimed at raising money and shoring up support for his party in uneasy times, spoke of feeling helpless and angry in the face of loyalist attacks on the Catholic enclave in East Belfast.
His frustration was sympathetically absorbed on a sun-dappled fall day by a crowd of Irish Americans invited to the occasion, a reception in the grounds of Drumthwacket, the official residence of New Jersey’s governors.
Adams was flanked at the lectern, and in a press conference that preceded his speech, by the mansion’s current tenant, Gov. Jim McGreevey.
If Adams was feeling a little in need of executive comfort in the post-Clinton era, McGreevey was clearly inclined to fill the former president’s shoes.
Adams, McGreevey said at the outset of the press conference, has been a voice for justice and advocacy on behalf of the Catholic community in the north of Ireland “and indeed all sensible persons seeking a lasting peace.”
The Sinn F