Sinn Fein Leader Granted U.S. Visa, Thanks To Ira Truce

Basing her decision on an ongoing cease-fire, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright granted a visa Thursday to Gerry Adams, leader of the Sinn Fein political party in Ireland.

There will be no restrictions on fund raising while he is in the United States, the State Department spokesman, James P. Rubin, said.

Adams, 48, a reputed Irish Republican Army commander in the bloody 1970s, has said he hoped the IRA truce would give him a chance to achieve peace with pro-British Protestants.

Britain and Ireland, meanwhile, have decided to permit Sinn Fein back into all-party peace talks on Northern Ireland’s future. Still, many Protestant representatives are vowing to shun Sinn Fein when the talks resume Sept. 15. Adams has responded with new efforts to court British enemies and American friends.

Since President Clinton lifted a fund-raising ban in 1995, Sinn Fein has raised more than $2 million, much of it for its Washington office and international work from its Dublin headquarters.

Rubin said Adams applied for a visa Tuesday in Dublin and that Albright approved it Thursday. “He has been granted visa waivers in the past, based on a cease-fire,” Rubin said, “and so there is a cease-fire in place, and she granted that waiver this morning.”