Why Bill must party with Gerry

St Patrick's Day means one thing above all in the White House - votes. Rupert Cornwell explains

First, a forgivable question at this most uncomfortable time in relations between Washington and London: is Bill Clinton of Irish extraction? The evidence is mixed. Genealogists can trace his family tree only as far as South Carolina in the early 19th century. But he possesses many qualities of the identikit Irishman: a political animal to his fingertips, a mite feckless but irredeemably charming.

And then again, the late Virginia Clinton Kelly's maiden name was Cassidy, as Irish as they come. Enough, in short, for British officials as they sourly survey the guest list for today's St Patrick's Day reception at the White House, to recall the old jibe that virulent Irish nationalism is passed on through the mother.

Even in normal times this is a big party. Not only does it assemble the cream of Irish America. Tradition insists that a visiting dignitary from Dublin, as often as not the prime minister himself, also attends. Last year Albert Reynolds brought gifts of shamrock and Waterford crystal, and listened as Mr Clinton, green handkerchief in pocket, indeed proclaimed himself "actually part Irish". This time it will be John Bruton, Mr Reynolds's Fine Gael successor. But the occasion will in no sense be "normal", thanks to the presence of Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein.

The sequence of events which has led a man whom London still regards as a terrorist, who until barely a year ago was not even allowed into the US, to shake hands with the US President himself could not have been better designed to infuriate the British Government - further proof of the incurably irresolute and slippery diplomatic ways of Mr Clinton and his advisers. Just as when Mr Adams received his first visa in 1994 over Britain's strenuous objections, London again thought it had won assurances that Mr Adams would not be invited to the White House or to Speaker Newt Gingrich's St Patrick's lunch yesterday, nor be permitted to raise funds in the US.

But just as 13 months earlier, Mr Clinton decided otherwise, armed with "concessions" from Sinn Fein. Last year it was a verbal formula for renouncing violence, this time a readiness to discuss decommissioning arms, but both regarded by the British as fig leaves for surrender to the nationalist lobby. Adding insult to injury, Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Northern Ireland Secretary, had been in Washington just 24 hours earlier to plead the opposite case.

In fact, if there is a foreign policy area where Mr Clinton has shown constancy, it is Ireland. Early in his campaign for the White House he promised that if elected he would appoint a special envoy to Ulster. That plan at least the British managed to foil. But the President did not let the issue drop. Irish policy was plotted predominantly within the White House - a fact which the British fatally failed to recognise. In vain did the Major government line up the State Department, the CIA and the FBI as it sought to set the terms of Washington's role in the peace process. When the White House insists, it invariably gets its way.

But why has Mr Clinton chosen to involve himself so much more than any of his recent predecessors, and why the pro-republican tilt? Perhaps his interest stems from his student days at Oxford, just when the Troubles were beginning in 1969. A sentimental man, he none the less sees Britain through very unsentimental eyes, as one among several middling European powers with no special claim on American affections. Famously, too, he does not hit it off with John Major. And in America, Ireland means votes.

The idea of appointing a special envoy to the North was an obvious gambit for key Democratic primaries such as New York, Illinois and Massachusetts, where the Irish vote is large. An Irish connection, moreover, cements Mr Clinton's association with the Kennedys, that most magical of American political names, carried by a President on whom Bill Clinton has consciously modelled himself. Hence his natural alignment with Teddy Kennedy, a long- standing leader of the Irish-American lobby, whose former foreign policy aide Nancy Soderberg is now at the White House shaping Irish policy from a senior post in the National Security Council. Another sibling, Jean Kennedy Smith, is the US ambassador in Dublin.

And this is to reckon without Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, long an activist in Irish matters and now chairman of the Democratic party, de facto head of Mr Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and one of the President's closest political confidants. The fate of Mr Adams's fundraising mission was largely settled in the space of a few hours on 7 March. Over lunch that day in a Washington hotel, Sir Patrick sounded confident to reporters that Mr Adams would not be allowed to raise funds. An hour or two later, Senator Dodd made the case for Mr Adams during a round of golf with the President. The next day, Mr Clinton ordered the visa be granted.

And if the Irish vote was important to Candidate Clinton in 1992, it may be no less important in his battle for re-election now - not so much to stifle any challenge for the Democratic nomination, but to appeal to the middle-of-the-road white voters, many of them "Reagan Democrats" who voted Republican in the 1980s before returning to Mr Clinton four years ago.

As a news story in the US, the Gerry Adams affair is nothing special, usually confined to the inside pages. Unlike their British counterparts, American papers do not groan under massive analyses of the demise of the special relationship - indeed, Mr Clinton's Irish policy is generally approved. And that approval could be worth its political weight in gold. The 40 million Americans claiming Irish ancestry are anything but a monolithic electoral block, and half of them may be of Protestant origin. But on Northern Ireland they support him overwhelmingly. Of what other white ethnic group, of what other issue, can that be said?

Mr Clinton is, however, taking a huge gamble on Adams the Peacemaker. The Americans may maintain that the first visa they granted Mr Adams enabled him to discover first-hand that the mainstream Irish lobby, a crucial source of money and moral support, was weary of the conflict - and provided him with the clout to deliver that home truth to his colleagues. This time, they argue, he is being rewarded for a ceasefire now seven months old, but is being told that Washington expects swift progress on IRA arms decommissioning. It may even be claimed that Mr Clinton is actually helping Mr Major, by providing a target for Loyalist fire that would otherwise be aimed straight at the Prime Minister.

But everything could go wrong. The red-carpet treatment could enrage Unionist hardliners to the extent that they pull the plug on the entire peace process; or worst of all, the IRA could pull the plug on Bill Clinton by resuming the armed struggle, a disaster that would send Anglo-American relations into the ice age and probably destroy his presidency. Which is of course why Sinn Fein and the IRA would presumably think very hard before bringing down the best friend they will ever have in the White House. And tonight in the White House, it's going to be very friendly indeed.