Playboy's 20Q: Gerry Adams

We first talked to Sinn Féin's president Gerry Adams a decade ago. Northern Ireland was then a battle zone in a war that had waged for nearly 1000 years to decide who would rule all of Ireland. The British who had once dominated had seen their control reduced to the province of Ulster. And for the past 30 years the tenacious Irish Republican Army has tried desperately to drive them out of this last bastion of the empire.

Gerry Adams emerged as leader of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, in the late Seventies. He was described by the British as a murderous thug, and a front man for terrorists. He was arrested and convicted of terrorist activities without benefit of trial, and served four and a half years in the notorious Long Kesh prison. He was shot and nearly killed by pro-British supporters on the steps of the Belfast Court House. Adams was so feared and despised by the British that the government had banned his voice from British television and radio, insisting that it be dubbed over during all newscasts.

Playboy, too, ran afoul of British censorship and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in our first interview with Adams. All copies of Playboy exported to the British Isles were seized and held until three pages of the interview with Adams, Sinn Féin press secretary Danny Morrison and an active-duty IRA Provo were torn out. After a protracted court fight, Playboy, under strenuous protest, allowed the offending pages to be removed. Our correspondent Morgan Strong, who conducted the interview (and this one as well), was subject to arrest for violating antiterrorist laws, should he ever return to Britain.

But times have changed. Adams, once denied entry to the U.S., has been a guest of President Clinton at the White House. He has been elected to the British Parliament but refuses to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and he has met with his former enemies to begin the painful process of peace talks. He was rumored to have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But Adams' archenemy, the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, got it instead. All in all, things are looking up for Northern Ireland, Adams and the hoped-for peace.

But only days after the interview was conducted in Belfast, one of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the conflict took place in the town of Omagh, west of Belfast. Twenty-eight people were killed and more than 200 were injured in a car-bomb attack in the village marketplace. We arranged another interview with Adams to discuss the aftermath.

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[Q] Playboy: The "troubles," as they are referred to in Ireland, have gone on for nearly a thousand years. Are you any closer to peace?

[A] Adams: It is my conviction that we are going to get peace from the talks. I stay very conscious of the fact that we are going to have reversals and ups and downs, but we will get there. I think all the difficulties are part of the terrain we have to cover. But we haven't got a peace settlement yet.

2

[Q] Playboy: The process is agonizingly slow. David Trimble, your opposite in the peace talks and the leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionists, refused to speak with you. Then there was the terrible tragedy of Omagh. Why does it require more slaughter, in a place infamous for slaughter of innocents, to get you together?

[A] Adams: Trimble wouldn't speak to me, even to say hello. Until Omagh. The smart thing would have been to get behind the peace process, to consolidate the pro-peace vote within his party earlier. I mean, President Clinton said on St. Patrick's Day that it is not a concession to be civil to your enemy.

We should have been talking a long time ago. It should not have taken another incident. You really have to put that question to Trimble. But I think the reason he finally agreed to talk with me had to do with the number of civilians killed. And also because it happened at a time when there was a clear alternative to move forward—an alternative that the majority of people in Ireland support.

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[Q] Playboy: Have Trimble and the pro-British Unionists become any more flexible because of this?

[A] Adams: I think everything is relative. The answer to your question is no. He remains dogged in his refusal to fulfill his commitments under the Good Friday agreement. It is positive that we are meeting and listening to each other, and that we are being exposed to each other's views. Though the discussions have so far not resolved the matters troubling the peace process, the discussions themselves are valuable. But we have not made progress on a number of critical issues.

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[Q] Playboy: Why is Trimble choosing to obstruct the peace process?

[A] Adams: The Unionists are dictating the pace, and they want the pace to be very slow. When we got to close quarters with the British establishment, the people who have been running this place, I said that it was going to be a grudge match. And that's what it is every single day—a continuous battle, because they are against change. They can obstruct and delay all the things they fear: political and cultural rights for the Irish here. They see it as a fight to the death, a fight to remain the privileged class. We have to be determined in our just and reasonable demands.

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[Q] Playboy: World opinion seems to support the peace process and some form of equity for (continued on page 120)Gerry Adams(continued from page 111) the Irish Catholic portion of the population. Why would Trimble and the Unionists resist? After all, he has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. You would think he'd try to make it appear that he deserves it.

[A] Adams: They resist because they believe in what they're doing and because they are fighting for their way of life and their dominance over the province and its people. And because, and this is a big danger, if they delay it long enough people may think the tragedy is over in Ireland. The awful things that are happening around the world—terrible loss of life in Honduras and Nicaragua, the war in Kosovo—make the struggle here seem small. I am trying, in traveling to other parts of the world, to remind people that the struggle here is by no means over.

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[Q] Playboy: We understand you spoke to Yasir Arafat during his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Maryland.

[A] Adams: Yes, I spoke with him at the Wye Plantation when I was visiting the prime minister of Canada. We discussed the struggle for justice for our separate people in our two countries. And we talked about the need for democracy and justice. I have been invited by Chairman Arafat to visit Palestine, and I'm going. We haven't decided when, but it will be soon.

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[Q] Playboy: You were rumored to have been a candidate for the Nobel prize. Are you disappointed that Trimble got it and you didn't?

[A] Adams: No. I never considered that I would get it. Never thought about it, to tell you the truth. I'm pleased that they recognized Ireland, that it was worthy to award the prize to the peace process in Ireland. Besides congratulating both winners, especially John Hume, I really haven't wasted much time thinking about it. I know there was a sense of disappointment and anger among the members of my community that I didn't get the Nobel, so I almost became disappointed on their account. I haven't dwelt much on it.

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[Q] Playboy: In all of this, is there any sense of relief? Any common ground sense of cultural Irishness? Do you ever lighten it up when you talk?

[A] Adams: Well, even in the grimmest moments there can be some humor. We do on occasion find common ground to laugh a bit. Humor is the Irish way of coping with the injustices of the world, and the Unionists are beginning to recognize this. [Laughs] Unionism has a new crisis of identity. Irish music and literature, which they so far have rejected, is our common legacy, the legacy of all the people on this island. It's no accident that when Riverdance played here in the King's Hall in Belfast, it played to packed houses—both Unionists and Irish. And there are some Unionists on the voyage of discovery, some who are happy in their Irishness, who have become a little more confident in being Irish.

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[Q] Playboy: It seems Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Clinton got the peace process started. Why was it necessary for these two men, when it is in the interests of those in Ulster, to come to some accommodation with each other?

[A] Adams: I think two things happened. Blair inherited a potential peace process that John Major had made a mess of. He responded positively. And President Clinton understood the protocol of Irish Americans. Of course, Ireland is not as strategically important to the U.S. as Britain is, so we don't hear Clinton talking about denials of human rights here, or the victims of state terrorism, who number more than 400. But Clinton has nonetheless encouraged the process. The first call he had with Blair after Blair's election was about Ireland. It's obvious Clinton is emotionally and intellectually committed to trying to bring peace along with Blair. Clinton's visit to Ireland coaxed the British and Irish governments to put something together. Blair and Clinton deserve credit.

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[Q] Playboy: What has Blair done?

[A] Adams: David Trimble refused to negotiate with me, so Blair did it for him. Maybe if Trimble had negotiated himself we would not have moved as far as we have.

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[Q] Playboy: But the process, as you point out, has not moved far. Trimble seems to have backed off. Is that wise? Can the whole thing collapse and there be a return to violence?

[A] Adams: I think the Unionists tactically have delayed the peace process. So it's almost a case of who blinks first. That is part of the problem. Trimble voted for the agreement and then stepped back, but if and when we begin to talk seriously, and it's likely we will, the real progress will begin.

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[Q] Playboy: There is a certain provincialism here, particularly among the Orangemen, as they are called. They continue to celebrate victories in ancient battles. Doesn't that curious insulation make it even more difficult to negotiate? Do they know about the world outside Ulster?

[A] Adams: It is curious. I can't say I have knowledge of this personally, but I was told by members of the U.S. Congress that when Trimble first went to lobby in the U.S., he was very arrogant. He was more or less dismissive of senators and congressmen. He treated them like underlings. Somebody pointed out to him that you don't lobby somebody for something by trying to push them around. So on his second and third visits he was gentler and more thoughtful.

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[Q] Playboy: Can he change?

[A] Adams: You know, he was a leader of the Vanguard movement. The Vanguard was a bigoted, anti-Catholic organization that had no other purpose or reason for its existence. For David Trimble to have gone from that background to where he is now is remarkable. Intellectually he has come around, but emotionally he's still into vanguardism. So every so often he will take a step back. I think we have to understand the difficulties that he faces, and we have a responsibility to understand that we will be faced with people like this. Trimble has to treat us the way he wants to be treated.

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[Q] Playboy: The marches the Orangemen hold to commemorate the glorious victories of a few centuries ago must be particularly difficult to tolerate.

[A] Adams: It's tribal. I was curfewed along with the residents of my neighborhood this time last year when the Orangemen marched through. Right past my front door. Three policemen surrounded my front door and assaulted me. They pushed me back with their huge plastic shields. One of the policemen pointed a gun directly at my head over his plastic shield. Over the policeman's (concluded on page 162)Gerry Adams(continued from page 120) shoulder I could see the Orangemen marching. It was 8:30 on a Saturday morning. I felt sad for them. I felt sad for the futility and silliness.

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[Q] Playboy: Three children were burned to death as a result of these marches. And it was another of your antagonists, Ian Paisley of the Orange order, who may have incited the men who did it. Do you blame him?

[A] Adams: I sat with Paisley in the Forum during the peace negotiations. It was the first time that I had actually watched him or that I was part of a debate with him. My overall sense of him was sadness, that a faction of our people could be so twisted by a racist agenda. Ian Paisley is a demagogue and uses the language of demagoguery to demonize people. He talks about the pope, who he says is the Antichrist. He whips people up. He engages in this type of exhibitionism and demagoguery. And at the end of the spectrum of hate is someone who kills three wee boys.

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[Q] Playboy: Do you blame Paisley for the deaths?

[A] Adams: I don't want to apportion blame or responsibility. I think that all factions of our people have suffered enough; no one has had a monopoly. But over the past 20 years there have been specific incidents of violence, and you have to cite him as the cause. Ian Paisley is symptomatic of the type of state and of the type of political conditions which exist in this part of Ireland. Granted, he's an extreme manifestation of it, but, remember, a lot of people support Paisley. He received his doctorate in divinity from the States—from Bob Jones University in South Carolina.

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[Q] Playboy: Bob Jones made no secret of his racism. Is it a racist dispute or a political dispute?

[A] Adams: The difference is one of political allegiance. I mean, you can't tell a Protestant from a Catholic. Unionism is a political ideology, it upholds the union with England as far as it upholds the privileged way of life for those loyal to Britain here. And without British support, it would not exist.

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[Q] Playboy: You seem to be forgiving them. Is that a fair assessment?

[A] Adams: An interesting thing is that the Irish flag stands for peace and equality and independence between the Orange [Unionists] and the Green [Irish]. The white stripe in the middle represents unity between them. I think we have a long way to go. And I won't be satisfied until we have peace, freedom and Irish unity.

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[Q] Playboy: You have become an international celebrity in the process. A recent article in The New York Times, by Maureen Dowd, describes your sudden celebrity. You are now, she says, radical chic: wearing Armani suits, with women hanging all over you. Is it true, as she says, that Bianca Jagger is one of your groupies?

[A] Adams: [Laughs] No! Absolutely not. I don't own an Armani suit. And I met Bianca Jagger once when she was here traveling with Senator Robert Torricelli. I haven't talked to Maureen yet, so it wouldn't be fair to be critical, but none of that is true.

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[Q] Playboy: Irish humor is celebrated for its instructive insights. Do you have a joke that can lead to peace?

[A] Adams: There is a joke I tell often that in some way sums it up. There is a little old Irish lady standing on a corner in one of the projects in Belfast. There is a group of British soldiers standing in the street looking at maps. The street signs have all been torn down by the Irish to make it difficult to find the way. A British officer walks over to the old woman and says, "Madam, can you tell me where this road goes?" And she says, "I've lived here all my life, and I've never seen it go anywhere." And the officer says, "Madam, you are a stupid Irishman." And the old lady says, "Maybe so, but I'm not the one who is lost here." It is something of a metaphor for the British in Ireland. They got lost here. They couldn't find their way out. Now maybe they can and just go home.

When Riverdance played King's Hall in Belfast, it played to packed houses—both Unionists and Irish.

Ian Paisley is a demagogue and uses the language of demagoguery to demonize people.