Dammit, Nancy

This is an interesting little piece on the late Albert Reynolds and the 1994 IRA ceasefire. One last minute problem arose when the US refused Joe Cahill a visa. No visa, no Cahill in the States “conveying the news to the IRA’s long-time American supporters “in person””, and no ceasefire:

Reynolds told me he spent most of that night on the phone to Nancy Soderberg who, as US deputy national security adviser, had exerted a powerful influence on the decision to grant Adams a US visa. He told me he eventually became so tired that, when Soderberg kept emphasising Cahill’s serious criminality rating, he burst out: “Dammit, Nancy, I never claimed we were dealing with saints.”

The ‘five minutes to midnight’ setback to the 1994 IRA ceasefire.