Playboy Interview: The I.R.A.

Belfast: When we think of the embattled Catholic ghettos, the images that come to mind are of gritty streets strewn with burned-out cars, walls scribbled with graffiti that proclaim I.R.A. Forever and Brits Go Home. Now and then, we see pictures of some wretched street kid hurling rocks and homemade grenades at the armored cars of British soldiers. We also see pictures of young British soldiers on patrol, looking by turns terrified and ominous.

Then there are perhaps the most tragic visions: the innocent victims, the random casualties of the war. Children on their way home from school, or mailmen, or housewives, or passers-by unfortunate enough to have met a stray bullet or walked past a parked car at the wrong time. And, always, the funeral rites: the armed and hooded Irish Republican Army men ritually burying their dead; the uniformed British soldiers shipping off another coffin to England.

The Irish, with weary cynicism, refer to the 800 years of conflict with England simply as "the troubles." England, for reasons as obscure as the rules of cricket, has reserved for that small island a special tenacity and savagery. In no other place in the once-glorious British Empire have the inhabitants been subjugated for so long, or so fiercely. Nor, ofcourse, has there been any other place where the populace has been in such continuous rebellion against "the Crown." The American Revolution against England came 600 years after the Irish began their rebellion against the English.

The I.R.A., formed in 1919, is only the latest of a series of paramilitary groups spawned during the centuries of Irish rebellion. It was from the start the clandestine military arm of the Sinn Fein ("shin fane") party, whose agenda then was the same as it is now: to end British occupation and reunify Ireland.

It was not until 1921 that the I.R.A. finally prevailed over the English troops to establish the Irish Free State in the southern portion of the island. And it was not until 1948 that the Irish Republic was completely free of English domination--or at least as free as its proximity to Britain across the Irish Sea would allow.

What England has steadfastly refused to allow is the joining of the six northern counties of Ireland--with British majorities--and the Irish Republic. Historically the most rebellious, those counties were populated by Scottish and English Protestants in the 16th Century. Today, that area is considered by the British government to be an integral part of Great Britain, and a majority of its inhabitants consider themselves British.

The latest phase of this war began in the early Sixties, when the I.R.A. launched a series of border raids against British military installations. Then, in the late Sixties, there was a brief era in which a civil rights movement, fashioned after the nonviolent approach of Martin Luther King, Jr., struggled to take hold. It ended dismally on January 30, 1972, when the British army fired into a crowd of several thousand protesters, killing 13. The events of Bloody Sunday, as it isremembered in Northern Ireland, ended any hopes for peaceful negotiation. By the Seventies, the war was back--and violent.

A series of deadly I.R.A. counteroffensive bombings occurred throughout Ireland and England. One of the most devastating to English morale was the assassination in 1979 of Earl Mountbatten, last viceroy of India and revered British hero, as well as Queen Elizabeth's uncle. He and three others were killed by a bomb planted aboard his yacht by the I.R.A. Then, in December of 1983, during the height of the Christmas-shopping period, the I.R.A. set off a bomb at Harrod's departmentstore in London's Knightsbridge district, killing six. Finally, in 1984, a bomb blast at the Grand Hotel in Brighton nearly succeeded in killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and most of her cabinet. It was Thatcher, of course, who refused to consider the demands of I.R.A. member Bobby Sands and other who went on a hunger strike in Belfat's Long Kesh prison; ten of them, including Sands, starved themselves to death. Recently, the I.R.A. has mounted attacks against British military installations, resulting in the deaths of several British soldiers.

Not surprisingly, there have been reprisals. The Protestant equivalent of the I.R.A.--the Ulster Defense Association--has engaged in car bombings and assassinations of Catholics in their neighborhoods. The list of vitims, while not as long as the I.R.A.'s, is, nonetheless, horrifying Allegedly, the British army and the Ulster police have also struck back, killing a number of suspected I.R.A. members. Last spring, three unarmed I.R.A. "vol-unteers" were killed in Gibraltar by an elite British commands unit on the grounds that a car bomb was being readed by the I.R.A.

To get a fix on this seemingly intractable war, Playboy sentMorgan Strongto Belfast to interview some of the principals of the conflict. Strong, whose interview with Yasir Arafat appeared in Playboy's September 1988 issue, had the proper background to conduct a dangerous and, if need be, secret interview. His report:

"The Aer Lingus flight to Dublin was filled with American-Irish tourists going back to the fabled old sod of their parents or grandparents. They seemed intent only on a good, sentimental time. Irish-eyes-are-smiling tunes were apparently the only choice on the in-flight headsets. There was no talk of politics, no talk of death or vengeance.

"As I approached the border, large yellow signs began about a mile from it, advising drivers that a caution area was coming up and not to stop the car under any circumstances. Heavily armed British soldiers lined the road, restlessly pacing the row of cars stopped at the border.

"As I crossed the border, I entered a large structure, and there were soldiers on each side of the car. A soldier stopped each car, questioned the driver and politely requested identification. There were barriers and ramps everywhere. As I exited, I got the sense of having passed through a decompression chamber.

"Belfast is only sixty or so miles from the border, and along the way, I was stopped at three more check points, this time by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary carrying shotguns and automatic weapons.

"The sign before the city of Belfast has an arrow pointing toward the Falls section, but it is all but obscured by graffiti proclaiming it provo country--the name taken by I.R.A. soldiers. The hotel I stayed at in downtown Belfast was a virtual fortress, ringed by a ten-foot-high steel fence. Cars were stopped and searched before being allowed in the hotel parking lot.

"The next morning, I set off for the Falls to meet Danny Morrison and Gerry Adams. The two subjects of our interview who can be identified, Morrison, thirty-five, and Adams, forty, are leaders of Sinn Fein, the legal political party closely associated with the illegal I.R.A. Both men have been active opponents of British rule since their teens. Both survived repeated attempts at assassination and both served years in Long Kesh prison.

"They also hold public office as elected members of the Ulster Parliament--akin to an American state senator or representative. In addition, Adams now represents his largely Catholic constituency in the British Parliament at Westminster--akin to being a U.S. Senator or Representative--though he refuses to take his seat there. Both are spokesmen for Sinn Fein.

"Morrison is an effusive sort, given to sudden flights of irony as he describes the situation in Belfast. He is only in his thirties, but the years in Belfast and in prison have taken their toll: His hair is completely gray and his face lined.

"Adams, on the other hand, is quietly analytical. His voice rarely rises above the barely audible. Unlike Morrison, he will pause and take a puff from his pipe before responding. He hardly projects the expected haunted air of a man who received four bullet wounds just a short time ago.

"As to my conversations with the I.R.A. provo who appears on the preceding page in ski mask, I cannot report where we met; indeed, I do not know the location. But I can say that if we had been discovered by British troops, I might have been writing this in Long Kesh prison. Under British law, it can be illegal to interview a member of the I.R.A.

"One last note: We tried to get a representative of the British government to participate in this interview, but all requests were declined. The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Tom King, first accepted, then refused, on the grounds that he was too busy."

[Q] Playboy: Both of you hold public offices recognized by the British government: Mr. Morrison, as a leader of Sinn Fein--often referred to as the legal political wing of the illegal I.R.A.--and Mr. Adams, as an elected member of Parliament from Northern Ireland. But you're still subject to arrest, aren't you?

[A] Morrison: Yes. I get arrested regularly on the flimsiest of excuses. Last year, I was stopped at the border, arrested and taken into a British army barracks. They put me in a cell and took my shoes and socks, my tie, watch and all. Then they brought in the British army brass to have a good look and a laugh.

They also tried to kill me and my wife on Christmas Eve 1987. We were walking down the street and a guy pulled a gun and tried to kill us. He missed; he fired three or four times. I took off. I'm a good sprinter and he couldn't hit me.

[Q] Playboy: Mr. Adams, you weren't so lucky. You were shot and nearly killed.

[A] Adams: Let me comment on the association of the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein. There is no organic association. We are both engaged in the same struggle, of course. As for the shooting, I always thought that was a setup.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Adams: The men who did the shooting were members of the Ulster Defense Association [U.D.A., the Protestant counterpart to the I.R.A.]. But I was leaving the Belfast court, where I had been called to answer a very flimsy charge, later dismissed. You're relatively safe in such areas in the Irish community, but to go to downtown Belfast for me is dangerous. My appearance in court had been well advertised by the police. I think it was too much of a coincidence that the people who shot me were just passing by.

[A] Morrison: There's a lot of collaboration between the police and the [Protestant pro-British] loyalist hit teams. For instance, I can't park my car outside my house, because they'll know that I'm at home. So I have to move it about, try to hide it somewhere. I put it up the street or on the next street. Some time ago, the police visited five houses my car had been parked in front of. They'll interrogate the people. "Where did he go, the man who parked the car?" they asked a five-year-old child. The police pass on this information to the loyalists, and they'll look to kill me.

[Q] Playboy: Does either of you know how many I.R.A. provos [soldiers] there are? We've heard as few as two hundred.

[A] Morrison: I don't know how many people are in the I.R.A. But I do know the Brits have been jailing two hundred a year for the past nineteen years and the number of volunteers hasn't gone down.

[Q] Playboy: There's a constant two hundred, you mean?

[A] Morrison: Then you know? Somebody's been telling you lies [laughs].

[Q] Playboy: Have the British been effective?

[A] Morrison:[Heatedly] What right has Britain to be here? What right has she to kill people? None at all! And the reason the I.R.A. exists is because people are frustrated. There is an efficacy about the I.R.A. That is, it's going to bring about a political change. The British government is saying, "We'll never give in to the I.R.A." But the facts are that a number of the reforms that have taken place are the result of reaction to the I.R.A.

It's a trade-off trying to buy off the insurgents, but it hasn't worked, because people are intelligent and they have aspirations to be free of Britain. And the fact is, the British are down in the gutter in Ireland. It's a dirty war, and their brutal methods have been more exposed than ever. They have no solution, except for repression and the use of force, and murder. And we're not prepared to hold with that.

[Q] Playboy: You use the terms republican and loyalist, not Catholic and Protestant, as we generally hear them. Is this a religious conflict?

[A] Morrison: No, it's a political conflict. It's a mistake to consider it a religious conflict. I use political terms rather than Catholic and Protestant because some Catholics may have loyalist aspirations and want to remain a part of England, and some Protestants may have republican ambitions to join the Irish Free State.

It suits the British to say it's a religious squabble. They can claim they're keeping two warring religious communities apart. It also suits the police to claim that when one of their supporters is killed, it's genocide. But we've had police killed who were members of the Catholic faith. The I.R.A. and Sinn Fein are secular organizations.

[A] Adams: There is no truth at all to the struggle's being religious. It's not over whether one worships a god in a certain way. It's a colonial struggle: There is a government from a neighboring power that claims jurisdiction and sovereignty over another. There are some people who in return for their loyalty are given privilege. We have no interest in a Protestant Ireland or a Catholic Ireland, just one Ireland.

[Q] Playboy: Are there any Protestants in Sinn Fein or the I.R.A.?

[A] Morrison: Not many, but there are a few. There are people in this office [Sinn Fein headquarters] who are Protestant. They can't go home again, but they're here.

[Q] Playboy: How does the Catholic Church regard the conflict?

[A] Morrison: The Catholic Church is opposed to Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. The Pope condemned the I.R.A. when he came to Ireland.

[A] Adams: The Catholic bishop of this diocese told the people that it would be a mortal sin if they voted for Sinn Fein.

[Q] Playboy: What effect has that had within the community?

[A] Morrison: None. The people take their politics from home and their religion from Rome.

[Q] Playboy: This war has been fought for eight hundred years. After all this time, why do you think the British haven't just said, "Enough!"?

[A] Morrison: You see, the British, for all their allegedly enlightened views, will never admit to racism or chauvinism or jingoism. They pretend to be the mother of parliaments, they pretend they are really missionaries, and anything they ever did was for the good of mankind. But it was in their own interests that they forcefully colonized half the world. The white man's burden was the excuse they used in Victorian times. But in reality, the Brits are racist, especially toward the Irish.

We want to live in peace; we want to get on with our lives. We want the same joys and comforts as other people. We don't want to be shot by the Brits or go to jail. We want to know that our children won't be harmed. That's the worst fear--that my children are going to get hurt.

[Q] Playboy: Are your homes targets?

[A] Morrison: Everybody's home gets raided. That's taken for granted. There was a British army fort about four hundred yards from here. One night, the loyalists broke into a nearby home to kill a man. The man wasn't there, but his sixteen-year-old son was sitting on the sofa. They just aimed the gun at him, and it misfired; three times it misfired. Then they ran out. He was totally innocent. But the thing is, they felt such confidence that they wouldn't be arrested, they could break into a home only yards away from a British fort. And the British troops are here to protect us!

[Q] Playboy: There are charges that Sinn Fein is Marxist-Leninist. What is the political philosophy of Sinn Fein?

[A] Adams: Sinn Fein is not Marxist. Sinn Fein stands for the right of the Irish people to govern themselves. We want democracy. We believe there needs to be a redistribution of Irish wealth. We believe that the one third of our people who are living in poverty has to be reversed. We believe that a system of socialism in Ireland should be tailored to meet Irish needs. A system of equality, of justice, should be established.

[A] Morrison: Sinn Fein would like the whole of Ireland united in a democratic-socialist republic. Now, having been to the States, I know immediately what people think when they hear "socialist." Even Irish-Americans demand some explanation. I explain it this way: If you'd grown up in the environment that we've grown up in, you would probably be expressing a similar point of view. And if I had grown up in Boston or the Bronx, I would hold to your views. Sinn Fein supports a democratic national government supported by all of the people of Ireland. We will agitate for socialism and try to make our case. If we don't win, we'll live with the outcome.

[Q] Playboy: And what would the well-armed I.R.A. do then?

[A] Morrison: The armed struggle is morally justifiable only while Ireland is partitioned by the British. Once the artificial division is removed, armed resistance is finished.

[Q] Playboy: Since the Republic of Ireland also is Catholic and also fought the British, why isn't it more supportive of you? Instead, there is friction between you.

[A] Morrison: Yes; but that's understandable. Because of the border, there is a difference in the development between the north and the south--between our economies, for instance--which can cause friction.

[A] Adams: The people of Ireland support us, but the economy of the south is in terrible shape. It's in bad shape because it suits a small clique aligned with British economic interests. The Irish import potatoes and cabbage. As an island, we have no maritime fleet!

Sometimes, when you hear the term United Ireland, it conjures up just an amalgamation of the six counties of Ulster and the twenty-six counties of Ireland. But that's not our view of it. There would be a new Ireland, a new society, a new constitution. The only real friction that exists is with people who are now loyalists. But there is no friction between the north and the south, there's no debate there.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you being unrealistic about unification? There are dramatic political and social differences between you. For instance, in Ireland, divorce and abortion are forbidden. It's a puritanical society. Since you and your supporters have lived under British rule--which at least in these regards is more liberal--how could you expect the two peoples to unify?

[A] Adams: Well, the ethos in Ireland is actually more liberal, though the laws are more puritanical. But the ethos in the north is much more puritanical, though the laws are more liberal.

[Q] Playboy: What do you mean?

[A] Adams: Northern Ireland is affected by partition in a much more visible way. Just walk out into the street there and you can see all the military, the troops on patrol. But in the south, partition is manifest in other ways. There you have conservative governments, one after the other, and a Catholic hierarchical ethos. All of that would change. What the south needs is a good injection of northern radicalism!

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that precisely what they're trying to avoid? Isn't that why they see you as radicals rather than compatriots?

[A] Adams: Well, look here: On the issue of abortion, most of the Irish people north and south oppose it as a method of birth control. And despite the appalling results of the divorce referendum held in the south, you can see changes beginning. Because divorce is a basic civil right. The values the Irish have are not Irish values; they are Victorian values, imported by the British. Historically--I mean before the invasions--there was the right to divorce. In fact, women had the right to divorce; women were equal. And there was no feudal system, there was common ownership.

[Q] Playboy: Nonetheless, there is no ground swell for unification in Ireland itself.

[A] Morrison: Despite apprehensions, most of the people in the south do support reunification. It's part of the constitution of the Irish Republic, and the major political parties support the idea of Irish reunification--with consent of the majority of the people in the north.

It is true that many people in the south have understandable fears. Sinn Fein is banned from TV in the south. We can't make our case. And they haven't seen a British soldier in sixty years. So they find it difficult to understand why a young person in Belfast would lift a gun to kill a British soldier.

[Playboy's interviewer met separately with a provo of the I.R.A. on two occasions at a clandestine location in Northern Ireland. The provo's identity was never revealed. Some of the biographical data was altered to protect his identity.]

[Q] Playboy: You are a provo, an active soldier of the I.R.A. What made you join the I.R.A. in the first place?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I've been involved in the struggle from a very early age, when I was twelve or thirteen. I won't be so naive as to say I was politically aware at that age, but I did know exactly what I was doing. My involvement in the republican movement was sort of a gut reaction to what was happening around me. To a degree, it was doing what my friends were doing, joining the youth movement of the republicans.

[Q] Playboy: It was a rebellion, then?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: It was a little bit of excitement, adventure. Youthful rebellion, I suppose, is against either the home or the school. Mine was against the state. Once I did get involved, I became more aware. I looked up to the older people in the I.R.A.

[Q] Playboy: Was it hero worship?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Well, they would talk to me about politics I didn't understand fully. But I knew, in my heart, that what I was doing was right. What I saw in the streets--the British army and the police had no right to be here. They said they were here to protect us. But what I saw was that they were not here for us.

I had members of my own family end up in prison. I had an older brother who was constantly harassed by the British army. He received a number of heavy beatings in the barracks. He ended up being sentenced to a term in prison for being in the I.R.A. That made me want to join, made me want to resist British rule.

[Q] Playboy: You knew you weren't joining the boy scouts; but did you know how harsh the I.R.A. life would turn out to be?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: When I found myself in prison, I wasn't too pleased about it. I was just seventeen; it was something I had hoped never to experience. When I was in prison, I was with hundreds of people who were there for the same reason I was. I then began to develop politically.

[Q] Playboy: Still, you were among some hard cases. Could you really develop freely?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I spent, really, most of my adult life in prison. By the time I was released, I was convinced that what I was doing was right. I had no regrets then and I have none now. I don't regret going to prison. In fact, in some ways, I'm glad I was in prison. Prison, from my experience, brings out the best in people. Of course, it also brings out the worst.

[Q] Playboy: How does it make you feel today to be taking someone's life, whether that of a British soldier or of a Protestant who opposes the I.R.A.?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I have now been involved for a number of years with the I.R.A., involved operationally. I've been trained in the use of weapons and explosives--mortars used in Belfast within the past couple of days. I've been in sniper attacks that have taken on British patrols and in operations with the use of booby-trap mines. I've been in operations involving the assassination of police, the U.D.A. and members of the British army in and out of uniform.

I mean, I've had exposure to all the urban operations in which the I.R.A. engages in an urban environment. And I can say, for myself and for others involved in operations that resulted in the death of enemy, we have never felt good about it. We know it's something we have to do. Soldiers have to take life--usually shooting someone three hundred yards away. But here it's close-up. Nobody feels joy in taking life. It's something that we have to live with.

[Q] Playboy: What about the civilians who suffer?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I'm not immune to the suffering we've caused. As members of the republican movement, we're all aware that our actions have led to death on the enemy side. But I've seen death on my side. I've seen the wives and mothers and sons and daughters and brothers of comrades on my side who have given their lives. It's something I have to live with.

[Q] Playboy: Let's get to the I.R.A. itself: There are stories that it's funded by extortion, racketeering, gunrunning and drug sales. What do you say?

[A] I.R.A. Provo:[Heatedly] Let's look at my personal situation. I was arrested not long after I left high school. I haven't worked since; I have no trade or qualifications. I have no income, but----

[Q] Playboy: Can't you collect unemployment from the government?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yes, but to collect, I would have to go at the same time every week to sign for the check. That ties me down to where my movements can be observed. They will know where I'll be on a specific date at a specific time. That, for an active volunteer, is not wise.

[Q] Playboy: Then how do you live without an income?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I rely on my family--my wife, parents, brothers and sisters. They are the people who feed and clothe me. I stay in different houses, rarely the same house two nights in a row. Sympathetic people provide me with a bed. And the I.R.A. gives me help. They're not going to let me starve or go without a decent pair of shoes. If I were a racketeer, I'd have a nice house, a car, nice clothes, instead of being constantly on the run.

[Q] Playboy: You've been on the run for a long time. What does it do to you not to have had any of the material pleasures in life?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I have no desire for those things--the cars and all that. But I'd love to have a house to be with my wife and children, to have a job and earn a wage and provide for my family. There is nothing worse for me than to know that I can't help them. When I do see my children, it breaks my heart. I know I can't be with them for long. Christmas is approaching: I'd love to be with them for Christmas, watch them on Christmas morning when they get up to see what's under the Christmas tree. To be with them on their birthdays. To take my wife out for dinner, to spend some time with her. I can't do those things with my family. It places them under immense pressure. I think they suffer more than I do.

[Q] Playboy: In what sense?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I can get about these areas. I can avoid the police and the British army. There are plenty of people who will let me slip through their house, over their walls. But they know where my family is. I have a record and I'm targeted.

[Q] Playboy: Targeted, literally?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I was stopped recently by an armored car. I was surrounded by five of them. They had rifles and side arms and they slapped me around. Then they said they were going to kill me, that they were going to put one in the back of my head. But that's a fact of life here; that can happen to me any time.

[Q] Playboy: You say you were first arrested as a teenager and wound up spending seven years in prison. What was the charge?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I was found in possession of explosives and arrested under the Emergency Provisions Act. I was caught red-handed, so they weren't interested in establishing guilt. They wanted to find out where I had gotten the explosives and what they were going to be used for.

[Q] Playboy: Were you interrogated at length?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: No. If I had been arrested after placing the explosives, I would have had a rough time. They would have had to establish proof that I had placed them. As it was, there was no question.

[Q] Playboy: Then getting caught red-handed was to your advantage?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yeah. I would have had a more physical sort of interrogation than I actually had. [Smiles] But the interrogation lasted for only three days. Then I was charged and sent to Crumlin Road prison.

[Q] Playboy: What were the prison conditions?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: The cells were originally designed for two. But there were three in each cell; in some cases, four. It was grossly overcrowded. We had no toilets in the cell, just a pot, and we were allowed to empty it twice a day. We got out of the cells once a week for showers.

[Q] Playboy: You were charged and sent to the infamous H block. Were you ever formally tried or sentenced by a court?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I was there for almost a year before I went to court.

[Q] Playboy: Since you were caught red-handed, we assume you didn't mount much of a defense.

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I took no part in the proceedings. I refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the court. I wasn't even represented by a barrister. There was no jury. There was only a judge. I was found guilty and sentenced to six years.

[Q] Playboy: You served the entire sentence. Weren't you eligible for parole?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: No, because I had taken part in the well-known blanket protest.

[Q] Playboy: What was that?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: When I arrived at Long Kesh, my clothes were taken from me and I refused to wear prison uniform. I was put in a cell with another prisoner. We were both naked; all we had were two beds and three blankets each. We wore the blankets.

[Q] Playboy: How did the authorities react?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: They began to clamp down on what privileges we had. They began to harass us.

[Q] Playboy: How?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: When we went down to empty the contents of our pots, for instance, we'd wear towels around our waists, and the warders, the screws, would force prisoners to remove their towels and they'd search them. I mean, we were completely naked. If you resisted, you were slapped about. Then they refused to allow us to empty the contents of the pots.

We refused then to leave our cells altogether, because of the harassment. They started to use more severe punishments. If you refused an order from a warder, you ended up in the punishment block for a minimum of three days and a maximum of thirty. You were put on the number-one (continued on page 144)The I.R.A.(continued from page 63) diet--dry bread, two cups of black tea and a bowl of soup per day. They also had ways of stretching your punishment-block time indefinitely.

As the protests went on, the warders began collecting the contents of the potties once a day in a large barrel. They would then take the barrel full of excrement and urine to the last cell and empty the contents into it. That meant those last prisoners had a cell full of this. They had to live in it.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: We started to empty the contents out the windows into the prison courtyard. So the warders began to clean the yards with high-pressure water hoses. They had protective rubber suits and gloves and they used to throw the excrement back into the cells. And turn the high-pressure hoses into the cells. We then refused to wash. We had been given a washing bowl of water a day. One for the two of us. But it wasn't enough for two. They removed our toothbrushes and tooth paste from us. So we just didn't wash any longer. Didn't brush our teeth, wash or comb our hair. Later, they took away our beds, too, so we slept on the floor--little heat, the broken windows letting in the rain, snow and cold and thousands of flies and maggots.

[Q] Playboy: How long did that go on?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: From 1976 to 1981--until the beginning of the second hunger strike.

[Q] Playboy: The hunger strike in which I.R.A. member Bobby Sands died?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yes. I joined the first hunger strike at the end. We began the second in March of 1981.

[Q] Playboy: And more prisoners died. Were you successful in the second strike?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yes, and there were ten who died. But we won the right not to wear prison clothes. We could wear our own clothes and there were other concessions. But we won that right for all political prisoners, the Unionists [Protestant militants] as well. Although we are miles apart politically, we agree on the rights of political prisoners.

[Q] Playboy: During your long stay in prison, how did your family survive?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: In many ways, I was better off than they were. I knew that no matter how bad the day was, at the end of it, I'd have a meal and a bed. But my family had to provide for me. They were in court when I was there and they were constantly being harassed by the police and the army. My home was raided numerous times while I was in prison because I was in prison.

[Q] Playboy: Why would they raid your home? They knew where you were.

[A] I.R.A. Provo: My family was targeted as one that had to be watched. But I was in prison with many people whose families didn't support what they were doing, but they stood by them and became targets for harassment because of that. It's one of the stupid things the British government does and can't see that it does. By themselves, they exposed the myth that they were the peace keepers. People saw for themselves that all they were interested in was putting people down, asserting their position in this country.

[Q] Playboy: Have there been more recruits into the I.R.A. as a consequence?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: In many ways, there have been. Before I went to prison, when I heard someone else had been sent to prison, it strengthened my resolve. Every time I attend a funeral of one of my comrades who has been killed, it strengthens my resolve; I'm not going to let that person down! Seeing people sacrifice their lives for me and for our comrades and families--I wasn't going to forget that.

[Q] Playboy: You described the I.R.A. and its goals as noble and sacrificing; many people see you as terrorists and criminals.

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Criminals! Criminals are in it for gain! What have I gained? How have we profited? Why would we experience the physical and mental torment we have for self-gain? I could have left the prison protest at any time, said, "I've had enough." I would have been allowed to leave. There were some who reached the breaking point. That's understandable. I was just lucky to survive. The best any of us can hope for is torture and death.

[The conversation with the provo picks up later; the interview now resumes with Morrison and Adams.]

[Q] Playboy: You've talked about this as an Irish struggle. But there is no dramatic demonstration of support in the Republic of Ireland. Why?

[A] Morrison: Why? I think there is a soullessness about the twenty-six counties. They don't have the moral strength to say, "Hey, what you're doing to our brothers and sisters in the north is wrong, and we're going to step into the ring and take you on!" The government in Dublin, for its own pragmatic reasons, tends to ignore the north. They know the British are dug in here. And they know that if they were meaningfully to challenge the British, it would mean a big struggle.

The south is still dominated by the British; don't forget it wasn't until 1948 that they broke free. They are also dominated economically. The British could slap them with restrictions on trade and with other means. So they're not really free from the British. And they can't be free until they are sovereign. And that can't be until there is unification.

[Q] Playboy: Why does it seem impossible to solve this dispute the way other nations have--with elections, with negotiations?

[A] Morrison: The British said for years, "If Sinn Fein has support, test it at the polls." So in 1981, we put up for Parliament Bobby Sands, who was in prison on a hunger strike to protest conditions. He won, with more votes than Thatcher did in her constituency. The prisoners demanded that Thatcher talk to Bobby so their hunger strike could be ended. She simply ignored him. He died on the fifth of May. There was a by-election because of his death. We put up a member of Sinn Fein, Owen Carron, and he won by an even larger margin. Still, the British government refused to talk.

[Q] Playboy: These were elected members of the British Parliament, but there was no contact with them from the government?

[A] Morrison: Yes, and a year later, there were assembly elections for Northern Ireland. I won in Ulster, as did four others. We were invited over to London to discuss peace by the chairperson of the Greater London Council--which has since been abolished by Thatcher--who said he wanted to see the British people and the Irish people get together. Gerry Adams and I were supposed to go. The night before, the police came to our office here, after closing hours, and they threw exclusion orders through the door, barring us from leaving the country.

[Q] Playboy: We know this is serious to you, but the impression is that there's a level of sophomoric behavior and pettiness involved in all of this.

[A] Morrison:[Smiles] Oh, yes! Especially when it starts at the top. There is another political party in the north that made common cause with the Dublin government and went to the British to say that unless certain reforms were made, we--Sinn Fein--would get stronger. Together, they went to the British with a set of proposals for peace. Their first priority was a united Ireland; if they couldn't get that, they wanted a federation; and if not that, joint British-Irish rule in the north.

After ignoring the proposals for months, Thatcher, in a response that came to be known as her Lady Macbeth speech, announced, "United state, that's out! Federation, that's out! Joint sovereignty, that's out!" Her "out, out, out" remarks.

She humiliated the Irish government. And Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald, who had been very confident, was shattered. The aloof Thatcher had thrown them out. She was later convinced that Dublin had to be placated, so a treaty was signed with them in 1985. She promised Dublin there would be reforms in the north and got their cooperation. So Thatcher was able to say the British were in the north with the approval of Ireland.

Everything was supposed to get rosy. But, in fact, nothing has changed; there were no reforms. The troops are still in the north--the other day, the army took over a school in West Belfast and sent all the kids home, because they were carrying out house-to-house searches in the area. The harassment still continues. Unemployment is the same. The shoot-to-kill policy is on the rise. The British have ringed the border with security, those forts you see everywhere. They are building a Berlin Wall around Northern Ireland.

[A] Adams: It's difficult to know what they're up to, but what one can say with certainty is that the British are pursuing the military option. If they persist, you're going to get pillboxes and armored emplacements.

[Q] Playboy: A new level of warfare?

[A] Morrison: Yes; the British are essentially Ulsterizing the conflict--you remember when the U.S. Vietnamized the war, letting the local troops take the casualties while the larger force "withdrew"? Over the years, the British have reduced their troop commitments. The people who get killed now on the front line are mostly police and Ulster volunteers. And since there are fewer dead soldiers sent home, there's not so much of a kick-up in England.

[Q] Playboy: But British soldiers continue to be killed.

[A] Morrison: Yes. The I.R.A. has concentrated its attacks on British forces as opposed to local forces. And they have killed a large number of soldiers in the north, in Britain and on the Continent. The British response has been to introduce new laws abrogating basic citizens' rights. They have taken away a suspect's right of silence--the equivalent of your Fifth Amendment.

[Q] Playboy: How do the new laws work?

[A] Morrison: If you-are interrogated for suspicion of a crime and you refuse to answer, the judge can draw conclusions from that. They have also banned our discussing Sinn Fein on television. The I.R.A. cannot even be mentioned on television. And, of course, it is a criminal offense to interview a member of the I.R.A.

[Q] Playboy: You mean a journalist, an American journalist, can be arrested for interviewing an active member of the I.R.A. and not reporting it to the British?

[A] Morrison: Oh, absolutely!

[Q] Playboy: Stay tuned.

[A] Adams: The silence law is blatant censorship. Obviously, this government is concerned that the British not hear about Ireland, but it's also concerned that all of the broadcasting media reflect the British government's view. When one of us republicans has something to say, even in our own country, we can be shown, but our words cannot be broadcast from our lips.... The expression "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad" applies.

[A] Morrison:[Heatedly] And people ask why we're at war! Why are the Irish fighting? Constant harassment, our homes being raided and destroyed, what we're struggling for being constantly maligned, the best of our young people in jail or in the grave! No jury courts, no civil rights!

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't your struggle in the early years essentially peaceful--in some manner modeled after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, nonviolent approach?

[A] Morrison: It was a peaceful struggle. We were beaten off our own streets in 1968 and 1969. We did not introduce the gun--not the republicans. The first shots fired on this road were fired by the police from armored cars; they shot dead nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, who was in his bedroom, through the wall of his home. The first British soldier shot dead was a Catholic, home on leave, who was defending his family when the police came down to burn them out; the police shot him dead. The first member of the police force shot dead was shot dead by the loyalists, in the Protestant section after the British government advocated a limited number of reforms for the Catholics.

[A] Adams: Twenty years ago, we had a civil rights movement and a civil rights platform. We wanted the right to vote and an end to discrimination and freedom from random searches of homes and person. The British responded to the peaceful struggle by military force, the biggest military force to oppose a civilian population in western Europe since World War Two.

[Q] Playboy: You call it war; the British call it civil disobedience.

[A] Morrison: The British government denies it's war, but they use all the imperatives of war: troops, armored cars, helicopters. They have tailored their legislation to attack us. The silence laws will have an effect on the British citizens as well. Free speech has ended in Britain. Five years from now, the British people will realize that--Jesus Christ!--we've lost all these liberties because of what our government is doing in Ireland. They're a huge nation compared with us.Fifty-live million people. They've been bullying us for centuries, and we've stood up to them.

[Q] Playboy: But the British government is hardly letting up.

[A] Morrison: Hardly. After taking away the right to be heard in Britain, they have now removed the right of spontaneous protest: You now have to give seven days' notice for any political activity--a picket line, a protest march,a rally, a public meeting. All these things keep us on our knees. And now they're proposing identity cards.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Morrison: The cards are supposed to stop you from giving a false name and address. [Laughs] I mean, there are lots of innocent reasons to give a false name--if you were moving about with another woman, for example. You don't have to be planting an I.R.A. bomb to want to use a false name.

[A] Adams: The identity cards are like pass cards in South Africa. There are curious parallels between Ireland and South Africa. It's no surprise that South Africa's former prime minister, Mr. Vorster, cited the British laws in Irelandin defense of the apartheid laws in South Africa.

[Q] Playboy: There may be certain similarities, but do you really mean to equate Britain with South Africa?

[A] Adams: The methods of colonialism and repression there in many, many instances were perfected here by the British. The first use of plantations, which later led to the primary method of colonization by the British, was perfected here. I've said this conflict would be easier to understand if all the republicans were black and the loyalists white.

[Q] Playboy: By plantations, do you mean settlements?

[A] Adams: Yes, literally planting people in a country by force to take possession of land and property. In Ireland, they couldn't subdue the native Irish. So the established garrisons in the country were given the land and property of the dispossessed in return for loyalty. Later, we saw the same methods used throughout the British Empire: partition, economic apartheid and cultural colonialism.

[Q] Playboy: What is cultural colonialism?

[A] Adams: The idea that the native Irish culture should be replaced by the British. The Irish language was outlawed, and in the north, that is still true. People were hanged, tortured, deported for using the Irish language or professing Irish culture. In fact, the first slaves sent to America were Irish.

[Q] Playboy: That's not something we remember from our schoolbooks. How was that?

[A] Adams: The first slaves were servants from Ireland who were actually prisoners. There was originally a very close relationship between Afro-Americans and Irish-Americans. In contrast to some of the things happening today, the blacks and the Irish had the same status as slaves and were constantly involved in rebellion together against slavery.

[Q] Playboy: Clear something else up for us. In the confusion of groups, religions and abbreviations, we note that you refer to your opponents, the loyalists--the Protestants--as a minority. But aren't the Catholics the minority in Ulster?

[A] Morrison: Yes, the loyalists are a majority in Northern Ireland, but only if you begin from the perspective of Northern Ireland, not the entire nation of Ireland. The six counties were arrived at by mathematics. The borders are notbased on language, religion, rivers, valleys or mountains. The fact is, the British concluded that this area--Northern Ireland--was the largest it could hold securely. They did their homework. Catholics were gerrymandered so that the Protestants were always in a majority. Catholics were discriminated against and forced into available, affordable housing.There was high unemployment and little hope. And despite the fact that Catholics had larger families and made up one thirdof the population, they accounted for most of the immigration from Ireland every year. So Catholics cannot get a democratic majorityhere to vote for a united Ireland.

[Q] Playboy: That division was proposed in the early 1900s. Didn't the Irish government in Dublin agree to it?

[A] Morrison: It was 1920. Nobody in Ireland voted for division. The British told the republicans of the day that if they did not accept the division, there would be an immediate and terrible war. And this was, of course, after years of bloody war by the I.R.A. against the British in Ireland, which finally forced the British out.

In this conflict, both the Irish and the British people are being held for ransom. If you look at public opinionfor the past several years, the British people want to be out of Ireland. But their government refuses to act on that sentiment.

[A] Adams: Every British opinion poll on the issue of Ireland says that the British should disengage. I have no doubt that the ordinary person in Britain doesn't want what is happening to happen here. But the issue has to develop international support.

[Q] Playboy: It gets some support in the U.S., where a lot of your compatriots have immigrated.

[A] Morrison: Yes. [Smiles] Ironically, the chickens are coming home to roost, because those people who immigrated now support U.S. organizations such as NOR-AID, which help the cause. They remember why and their families remember why they were forced to leave.

[Q] Playboy: Has U.S. support had any effect?

[A] Morrison: The British protest that Americans should not be allowed to support families in Ireland. The hypocrisy of the British! I know the British and the hypocrites they are. It's hard for people who do not know the situation to realize how violent, repressive and evil the British government can be.

[Q] Playboy: You were imprisoned by the British, weren't you?

[A] Morrison: Yes, for two years.

[Q] Playboy: What were you charged with?

[A] Morrison: Oh, you weren't charged. You were just arrested and taken to Long Kesh.

[Q] Playboy: The authorities must have had something on you. You were never charged and tried?

[A] Morrison: No. The police surrounded a local dance hall. They fired bullets and gas into the hall and then came in and arrested about seventy people. They had an armored car outside the hall. And they said they had an informer inside. We were put under a spotlight, one by one, so the informer could identify us, and they took about fifteen of us to Castleray interrogation center. Then, of the fifteen, they reduced it to three and then two, just me and a friend. He has since been killed in an explosion. So we ended up going to Long Kesh for two years. I was arrested in 1972 and released in 1974.

[Q] Playboy: Could they have held you indefinitely?

[A] Morrison: Yes. They didn't tell you. There was no court; some people were held for four and a half years. There were about two thousand people interned then under the same circumstances.

In one instance, people were taken away and tortured for ten or twelve days. Hoods were placed over their heads and they weren't allowed to sleep for the length of the interrogation. It became a famous case--the case of the hooded men. And they played white noise to them for the twelve days.

[Q] Playboy: What is white noise?

[A] Morrison: A harsh screeching. They were placed up against a wall spread-eagle, and this screeching noise was played, and they were interrogated. Every time they fainted, they were resuscitated and put up against the wall again.

[Q] Playboy: Did anyone die as a result?

[A] Morrison: Not immediately. They didn't die on the spot. But four or five died in later years as a result of nervous disorders.

[Q] Playboy: Mr. Adams, it seems a prerequisite for members of the republican movement to have spent time in prison. You were in jail as well.

[A] Adams: Yes, four and a half years in Long Kesh.

[Q] Playboy: What was the charge?

[A] Adams: My first period in jail, I wasn't charged at all, just interned. But there were a massive number of people in prison--I can't remember what the prison population was, exactly--during the period of internment. So it's probably true that everyone in Sinn Fein was in prison at one time or another.

[Q] Playboy: Was it really possible for the British to imprison virtually anyone without charges or trial?

[A] Adams: Yes, there is probably not a street, or perhaps even a family, in the Catholic areas that has not beenaffected, that didn't have a cousin or a niece, a mother or a father in prison. You've got to remember that it has been twenty years that the state of emergency has been in effect.

[Q] Playboy: Mr. Morrison, you were released in 1974; then what?

[A] Morrison: I was released, but I could be reinterned at any time. About eight weeks after I was released, theycame looking for me again. And I went on the run.

[Q] Playboy: What sort of activities were you engaged in during that period?

[A] Morrison:[Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: OK, you don't have to be specific.

[A] Morrison: I was on the run, it's as simple as that.

[Q] Playboy: You went underground.

[A] Morrison: Yeah. I moved from house to house. But in 1976, I became the editor of The Republican News, ourweekly publication based in the north, published in Belfast. In 1978, they tried to close down the paper. I was arrested and charged with being a member of the I.R.A. It was just an excuse to close clown the paper. In 1979, the charges were dropped.

[Q] Playboy: After the paper was closed down, did you end up in jail again?

[A] Morrison: Not here. Though I've been in jail in America since then [laughs].

[Q] Playboy: Why were you arrested in the United States?

[A] Morrison: I got into Canada under a pretext and tried to sneak over the border to the U.S. I was traveling with a fake passport. But I got caught with a comrade at Peace Bridge at Buffalo and arrested. Two others were arrested at Whirlpool Bridge in Niagara Falls. Still, we figured it was only a misdemeanor and we would just be sent back.

[Q] Playboy: That's not what happened?

[A] Morrison: No, we were charged with a Federal offense and put into prison.

[Q] Playboy: How long were you in jail?

[A] Morrison: Two or three weeks, then they set a trial date. We were then deported, but they held on to our passports. So in order to stand trial, we had to get a visa from the State Department to go back-- to stand trial for not having a visa! [Laughs] Not only that, but when we got back for trial, it was postponed for six weeks. So we were allowed to tour the States for six weeks. We spoke at universities, public meetings, NORAID meetings.

[Q] Playboy: What happened at your trial?

[A] Morrison: Two people who were arrested with me were acquitted--a girl who had driven the car and an Irish bloke. A friend and I were sentenced to a year's imprisonment. But we were placed on parole. And we were going to have to go see a parole officer--

[Q] Playboy: Which meant you had to stay in the United States--

[A] Morrison:[Laughs] Yes! Which we'd been convicted of entering illegally! Well, we went to see the parole officer, and he was going to move to have us put back in jail. So we went to the judge, a very objective person. He had allowed us to take the stand in our defense, and we got good media coverage, because we talked about the hunger strike and the deaths of the hunger strikers, of Bobby Sands, the brutality of the British. The jury was in tears. One of them came upafterward and told me, "Our hearts are with you."

Anyway, the judge said we could leave the States with the proviso that we didn't come back. But I didn't have any money for a ticket. And the judge asked how I was going to get home.

[Q] Playboy: Let's see: The State Department brought you over for trial and so--

[A] Morrison:[Laughs] Yeah, they had to buy the ticket to send us back. Still, I'm restricted from travel, and so is Gerry Adams. It's just another form of censorship, of stopping us from speaking out.

[Q] Playboy: Mr. Adams, why has the State Department denied you a visa to travel to the United States?

[A] Adams: The U.S. has a foreign policy that supports the British. It's as simple as that. Anything that doesn'tsupport the British position they will do their best to subdue. It's in America's interest. Great Britain has become a junior partner to United States imperialism. Great Britain is just another American aircraft carrier, like Honduras.

[Q] Playboy: But, specifically, why has a U.S. visa been refused?

[A] Adams: I cannot speak in the United States because, apparently, it is not "in the interests of American foreign policy" and other grounds even more ludicrous. I am presumably a threat to the United States Government. [Laughs] It's important that people see what's happening here, or at least become conscious that we have had a military occupation here for twenty years. The American media come when there is something dramatic to cover. They don't see what's happening day to day.

[Q] Playboy: Mr. Morrison, you charged that there is an official British-government policy--decided at the top--to hunt down and kill suspected I.R.A. members. Can you back up that statement?

[A] Morrison: In early November 1982, three republicans, I.R.A. volunteers, left a friend's house in the town of Lorden. They were driving on a quiet road outside the town when they were ambushed by the police and shot dead. It later emerged in an investigation of the incident that the police who killed the three had been trained as a British military counterterrorism unit. The three men were unarmed.

An inquest was held, and when the evidence was presented in court, a British investigator said he had learned of evidence withheld by the police. Finally, the British government formally charged the police with murder, but only after immenseinternational pressures.

[Q] Playboy: The government prosecuted the police, then. Doesn't that cast some doubt on your charge that the government condones murder?

[A] Morrison: Well, the police were all acquitted. In a related case, another I.R.A. volunteer was killed. When it came to trial, one of the police admitted that he had lied in his testimony. Then he quoted the Official Secrets Act, which effectively made him immune from prosecution for lying. What's more, it was revealed that he was acting directly on orders from the head of the police, who in turn was probably acting on orders from Thatcher. The whole fucking lot of them were involved!

[Q] Playboy: To say they were "probably acting" on Thatcher's orders is no proof. Is there other evidence that she gave orders that I.R.A. members were to be killed?

[A] Morrison: There is the famous Gibraltar incident, in which three I.R.A. members were shot on the suspicion that they were about to set a car bomb on the rock. The British Special Air Service [S.A.S.] crew was dispatched to take care of them. They got their orders from a cabinet meeting in February 1988.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know that?

[A] Morrison: A British intelligence officer testified at the inquest that Thatcher had been told that "something" was going to happen in Gibraltar. He said that MI-Five had picked it up, knew who was supposedly involved; it was then discussed at an inner-cabinet meeting with only Thatcher's key people. I know that because an intelligence officer revealed it. The S.A.S. were given a brief to execute the men.

[Q] Playboy:Was there an I.R.A. car bomb?

[A] Morrison: No! There was none found in Gibraltar, and the people the S.A.S. killed were unarmed.

[Q] Playboy: You said "none found in Gibraltar." Was there any car bomb at all?

[A] Morrison: Explosives were found three days later in Spain. But that's like killing three people in Belfast ona Thursday and finding explosives in Dublin the following Sunday to justify the killing.

[Q] Playboy: What about another infamous incident--the I.R.A. killing of eleven civilians in 1987 at a ceremony honoring war dead?

[A] Morrison: On that occasion, the I.R.A. knew there would be a lot of children there. They had a thirty-pound bomb ready to go off, controlled by a radio device, to hit just British troops. Before the I.R.A. arrived, the bomb exploded. They didn't want that to happen. This has happened before. There is a constant war of electronic technology between theBritish and the I.R.A. In fact, the soldiers carry transmitters to impede electronic signals from I.R.A. radios that may trigger a bomb. So we believe that the British unintentionally triggered that bomb.

[Q] Playboy: But the bomb was there, set by the I.R.A.

[A] Morrison: The explosion hurt us. Why would we want to do that? It makes no sense morally, militarily. On a personal basis, it was a terrible tragedy. We've experienced tragedy and bereavement ourselves, so we know how the people feel.

[Q] Playboy: Let's be more direct. Is the I.R.A. a terrorist organization?

[A] Morrison: Well, it is seen as a terrorist group in the United States. I mean, The New York Times' policy is to refer to the I.R.A. as guerrillas. The fact is, there is a war going on. People get killed in wars. Everything the I.R.A. does gets put through a moral mill, scrutinized by journalists, by television. And the press handouts from the British embassies throughout the world concentrate on I.R.A. actions that go wrong. But the British exclude their own acts of violence.

[Q] Playboy: And you believe the British are winning the propaganda war?

[A] Morrison: Yes; look at the resources the British have to influence public opinion. We're a small organizationrepresenting the dispossessed and poorest sections of the community. You must describe to your readers our office here--it's hardly plush. In fact, we're all shivering in this room because we have no damn heat in here!

[Q] Playboy: Another charge: Is the money collected, primarily in the U.S., for widows and orphans ever used to buy weapons?

[A] Morrison: No. The money's accounted for. It goes to the widows and orphans and is carefully documented. And the exile community has been generous. We do ask our exiles for help, and what's wrong with that? But I'll go on record for Playboy and say this: We are not asking anybody in the United States to buy weapons for Ireland--or to ship them here. We're asking people to support our struggle morally and financially. Support the struggle until Britain leaves Ireland and the Irish people have a national democracy. That's all we're asking people to do.

[Q] Playboy: But that leaves the question: Who arms the I.R.A.? There have been assertions that Qaddafi of Libyabankrolls both the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein.

[A] Adams: That is just not true. Some time ago, there was an effort made to link various liberation movements--and various terrorist groups--with the republican movement. We have a natural affinity--I mean, I don't have any apologies for the fact that I believe the Palestinian people have a right to a homeland. And we're totally opposed to the U.S. policy in Central America. We support the Nicaraguans; any legitimate national-liberation struggle deserves support. But beyond the philosophical, there is no linkage.

[Q] Playboy: And you, Mr. Morrison?

[A] Morrison: I am not in a position to state knowledgeably where the republicans are getting their weapons from. At the start of the armed struggle here in 1971, they had British rifles. No one said the British were supplying them. Then the I.R.A. had M-1 rifles, American rifles; the Americans didn't supply them. And now they have AK-47s, Russian rifles; the Russians aren't supplying them. There is a large international market and the I.R.A., I guess, shops around, like anyone else.

[Q] Playboy: The troubles in Northern Ireland are a conflict most people find confusing and confounding. Could each of you try to summarize what this struggle is about?

[A] Morrison: We're asking that the Irish people be allowed to have their own future. And to show that the British presence in the north is a malign one. Water separates Ireland and England, history separates us. But history has tragically connected us. And we have been inflicted with massive suffering for centuries by the British. The British governmenthas to recognize the Irish people's right to self-determination. The United States enjoys it, Great Britain enjoys it; whynot Ireland?

[A] Adams: The British are denying us our rights as a nation. It will take time and they will leave only when they are forced to leave. We're their first colony, and their last. It's almost a psychological fixation by the British government. They didn't leave anywhere else easily.

[A] Morrison: And when it is politically costly for the British to remain in Ireland, they'll go. British publicopinion wants them to get out. But the tragic thing is that it won't be triggered until a large number of British soldiersare killed, and that's what's going to happen. The British government has been predicting an I.R.A. offensive for some time. The I.R.A., it is claimed, has a large amount of modern equipment, and if that's true, it hasn't even tapped its full resources. So you run into a bloody period when they're going to die and we're going to die. That can be avoided--if the British aren't too pigheaded and too racist to negotiate.

[The final part of the interview with the provo follows.]

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel when you hear yourself referred to as a terrorist?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Terrorism--ah, well, was the bombing of German civilians during World War Two terrorism? When Margaret Thatcher and others talk about the I.R.A.'s killing men, women and children, do they forget about their own past? It's easy when you're in power to excuse this. In the Falklands, for instance, there are stories now coming out about the capture and torture of Argentinian soldiers by the British--British marines' cutting prisoners' throats! Is that acceptable just because it happened in an international conflict?

[Q] Playboy: No, but isn't that just rationalizing your own terrorism?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: No, it's a central question. If you take a situation such as the bombing of Libya, for example, in which men, women and children were killed, is that an acceptable act of war or is it terrorism? States kill in the most horrific fashion; it just depends on what side of the fence your definition of terrorism is. But we don't have the chance to present our argument because of the media ban against us. And it's not just we who are banned but members of Sinn Fein--a legal political party.

[Q] Playboy: Do you argue that if you were allowed a legal forum, you'd be understood and the war might end?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: The British government can say what it wants, what we are--because our answer will not come across. Terrorism is a convenient cloak.

[Q] Playboy: But couldn't politics be a cloak for you--if your real aim were to settle grudges? Or to seek some personal gain?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: If we're as bad as that, why do we have the support of the community? I and the people I work with could not survive without the help and support of the people of the community! For me to move and operate in these areas, I need people who allow me to come into their homes. And they do that at the risk of their own lives.

Would they do that if they were intimidated? If they thought I was in this for personal gain? They do it because they support what we're doing. I can't drive down the street in a car that's going to be used in an operation; I'll be picked upimmediately. So civilians who will take that risk drive the cars. They'll drive our arms and explosives to a certain point, drop them off. Then we'll take them, move into position and engage an army patrol. Then we'll withdraw, hide our weapons, and people give us places to dump them.

[Q] Playboy: We've heard that you even have your own MASH unit.

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yes. If we're wounded, we can't go to hospital, because we'll be immediately arrested. We can treat minor wounds in a sort of mobile van. If we're badly wounded, it's up to the people "on the ground" to send us to hospital.

[Q] Playboy: Does the I.R.A. ever discipline its members?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: The only time the I.R.A. will take action against its own members is when they transgress the rules, disobey orders or when they inform. It's a terrible step for the I.R.A. to decide to execute one of its own members.The I.R.A. has strict laws and a constitution. I know if I break one of those rules what the consequence is.

[Q] Playboy: What is it?

[A] I.R.A. Provo:[Smiles] Execution. It's not a decision taken lightly. There is a whole process of investigation. The person accused has to have the allegations presented to him and he or she is given an opportunity to respond. You simply cannot accuse someone. You have to prove the charge, you have to provide evidence.

[Q] Playboy: What's an example?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Passing on information to British army intelligence. There is a rigid internal procedure, and the I.R.A. Council, which is the governing body, have the final say. And if they're not satisfied, they will refuse to proceed.

[Q] Playboy: Interesting that you have all these rules and legal procedures, when it's such a brutal, chaotic war. Who is more brutal, the I.R.A. or its Protestant counterpart, the U.D.A.?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: When I was in prison, there were hundreds of U.D.A. members who were serving time for some of the most brutal murders ever committed. The U.D.A. and the Ulster Volunteer Forces were involved in butchering people. Theytried to terrorize, instill fear in the nationalist population. They would kidnap people, take them somewhere, torture them. They would gouge out their eyes, cut their throats, cut off their genitals. Their victims were subject to the most horrific forms of murder. And they freely admitted to having committed them.

[Q] Playboy: But they were arrested by the British, weren't they?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: The only reason they're in prison is that the methods were so terrible, they were an embarrassment. But the leader, Danny Murphy, was released.

[Q] Playboy: Murphy, that's an Irish name.

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yes, he was born a Catholic but married a Protestant and became a member of a loyalist organization.

[Q] Playboy: How could he have been released from prison after committing murder?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: He served time for the attempted murder of two Catholic nurses. He was caught with the weapons used.

[Q] Playboy: Nurses? Why try to kill two presumably innocent women?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Because they were Catholic. He was released, and shortly thereafter, a man by the name of Joseph Donegan was taken from the Falls, in Belfast, and held for four days. He was brutally murdered, his throat was cut, all his teeth had been torn out, his face bashed beyond recognition, cigarette burns all over his body. Danny Murphy carried out that killing.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: We knew. He was then targeted by the I.R.A. and was actually caught in the loyalist stronghold of Shankill. Now, Danny Murphy wasn't brutalized. He was shot dead. There's no nice way to kill a person, to take a life, whether it's done by a bomb or by a bullet or by clubbing someone to death or whatever. But the I.R.A. kept to its standards. There was no brutality. He was shot in the head. It was quick.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever get a chance to ask yourself what you're doing as you go off on an "operation"?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Well, if I stopped and thought during an operation, I might not go on. But first of all, I think of the danger to myself. I take the gun in my hand. There's a very good chance I'll get killed. If I'm killed, I know the consequences for my family: They'll have to live with it the rest of their lives. My children will be without a father. And the reverse is true: If I blow away a British soldier, the same applies to him. But, unfortunately, you can't think ofit in those terms.

[Q] Playboy: How do you think of it?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Afterward, I think, I didn't want to do that--but it had to be done. You know, at times, it does wear you down. At times, you want to stop because it's too much. You have to say to your comrades, "I need to think, to get away from the shooting!" And you go to a friendly house and sit for a week and think.

I believe that if I continued to do what I'm doing and didn't have doubts, I'd have a problem. To stop every nowand then and think, Now, where is this taking me? What have I achieved? But just to go on, no holds barred, saying, "I am right, I am right"--then it's a problem.

[Q] Playboy: Does the danger of the operation itself have an effect on you?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Sometimes, before an operation to engage the Brits, I get butterflies in my stomach. I feel sick, I don't want to eat or drink--all I want to do is get the run going. Do what I'm to do, get back. My nerves are racing, my adrenaline is going.

Once I get back to a safe place, I can sit back. I'll be shaking and have to calm myself. Have a cigarette, a cup of tea and talk with the people I've been with, analyze the operation, talk about it, what happened. None of us are supermen. If it were like the movies, it would be so nice.

[Q] Playboy: There doesn't appear to be any end in sight. The British have simply become more rigid, enacted morelaws to deal with the situation. And you--how long can you keep this up?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: I believe we're going to win. What the British government are doing is playing their last card.In 1981, Mrs. Thatcher said that the hunger strike was the I.R.A. playing its last card. But since 1981, the I.R.A.has gotten stronger and carried out operations that no one ever imagined they could: the Brighton bomb, for example.

[Q] Playboy: That was the bomb that exploded in the hotel in Brighton, nearly killing Thatcher?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: Yes. [Smiles ruefully] We came so close to our objective, which was to remove theBritish war cabinet. There have also been operations the I.R.A. has carried out on the Continent--not against the inhabitants of France or the Netherlands but against British forces stationed there.

The British government is now talking about legislation that will prevent republicans' standing for election. They are trying to introduce legislation that compels the public to take a nonviolent oath. If they don't take the oath, then they can't stand for election. They have already eroded a suspect's right of silence. The British government are now eating away at their own system of justice, at their basic rights.

They may try to introduce legislation that will outlaw Sinn Fein. They may reintroduce internment without trial. That's their last card. They're all acts of desperation. There's a wind of change in the loyalist community, members of the community who have become disenchanted with their own leadership. They now see that they've been led up a path that goes nowhere. The social and economic conditions that were endured by the Catholics for generations, the Protestants are now forced to endure. Unemployment, poor wages, poverty are now endemic to both communities.

[Q] Playboy: You mean the British are abandoning the Protestant community?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: The Protestants are beginning to see that the British government no longer regards them as equals. They are beginning to see that the only interest the British government has here is economic and strategic. That they don't care about the population, only what can be gained for their own interests.

[Q] Playboy: If what you fight for should ever come true--if Ireland is ever reunified--what would you expect to happen?

[A] I.R.A. Provo: We want to bring back the Irish culture. It's been taken from us, the foreign culture has been imposed on us. The culture now is a rat's nest. The native Irish culture had a different set of values, which said that everyone was entitled to a share of the wealth and production of the country. Everyone was entitled to be treated as equal regardless of religion, color, sex, whatever. And we believe in secularism; that church and state are separate.

[Q] Playboy: That wouldn't be greeted with any enthusiasm in the south, where the Catholic Church is powerful.

[A] I.R.A. Provo: The Church has its place, but not in government. Ireland has a right to be governed by its people--not by any other entity or state. We look forward to a society where everyone has a role. It will be up to the people to decide. Once we put the guns away, they're put away for good.

"What right has Britain to be here? What right has she to kill people? None at all!"

"Every time I attend a funeral of one of my comrades, it strenthens my resolve."