When they entered the Oval Office the room was in half-darkness, curtains drawn, most of the light coming from a table lamp on the massive desk and a standard lamp in one corner. It was a room entirely familiar to Keogh, with its array of service flags, a room he had visited many times to speak to more than one President. This time it was Bill Clinton behind the desk, but it was the other occupant of the room, at ease in a wing-back chair that surprised Keogh. John Major.
‘Ah, there you are, Patrick, I appreciate you coming at such short notice,’ Clinton said. ‘I believe you two know each other?’
‘Mr Prime Minister.’ Keogh held out his hand as John Major stood up. ‘A real pleasure.’
‘Senator,’ John Major said.
‘Please be seated, Patrick, and we’ll get to it,’ Clinton told him. ‘By the way, there’s coffee over there if you’d like?’
‘I think I would, I’ll help myself.’ Keogh finally returned to the desk area and took a spare chair. ‘Yours to command, Mr President.’
‘I’d like to believe that’s true, and in a way it makes what I’m going to ask you especially difficult.’
Patrick Keogh paused, the cup to his mouth, and then he smiled, that slightly lopsided grin that had always been a personal trademark, and his face was suddenly suffused with immense charm.
‘Can’t wait, Mr President. I can tell this is going to be real special.’
‘It is, Patrick. In fact it’s probably more important than anything you’ve been involved in in your entire political life.’
‘And what would it be concerned with?’
‘Ireland and the peace process.’
Keogh paused, his face serious, and then he quite deliberately emptied his cup and put it on the small table beside him.
‘Please go on, Mr President.’
‘We know how hard you’ve worked behind the scenes with other committed Irish-Americans towards achieving peace in Ireland,’ John Major said. ‘And the visits to Ireland of former Congressman Bruce Morrison and his friends have proved a real help in the necessary consultations.’
‘It’s nice of you to say so, Prime Minister,’ Keogh said. ‘But it’s no burden. The killing has gone on too long. This thing in Ireland must come to an end. Now, what is it you want me to do?’
‘We’d like you to go to Ireland for us,’ the President said.
‘Good God!’ Keogh’s head went back and he laughed. ‘Me go to Ireland? But why?’
‘Because, to use that old Irish phrase, you’re one of their own. You’re as Irish as the Kennedy family. Hell, I’ve read about what happened when President Kennedy went there in nineteen sixty-three and visited the old Kennedy farm.’ Clinton looked at a paper in front of him. ‘Dunganstown. You were with him.’
Patrick Keogh nodded. ‘His great-grandfather left there back in the nineteenth century at the same time mine did to become a cooper in Boston.’ He smiled at John Major. ‘No offence, Prime Minister, but the English didn’t leave large numbers of Irish much option in those days except to get out.’
‘True,’ John Major said. ‘In self-defence I’d point out that many came to England and prospered. It’s estimated, at least eight million of the English population are Irish or of Irish descent.’
‘That’s right,’ Keogh said. ‘But the American tradition is especially strong. You know, that year I went to Berlin with Jack Kennedy and he made a famous speech. He challenged the Communist system. He said “Ich bin ein Berliner”. At that moment in time he was the most famous man in the world.’
‘Absolutely,’ John Major said, ‘and deservedly so.’
‘Then he went to Ireland, to Dublin, and stayed at our Embassy in Phoenix Park. Then Wexford and on to Dunganstown and Mary Kennedy Ryan’s cottage. First cousins, second cousins, every kind of cousin.’ Patrick Keogh laughed. ‘They all turned up. When he visited New Ross the town shut down and then he spoke to the Irish Parliament.’ Keogh shook his head. ‘When he left at Shannon Airport thousands turned out to see him go. Women were crying.’
‘I know,’ Clinton said. ‘By the way, the Irish Prime Minister sends his regrets. He’d hoped to be with us but the peace movement has gathered such momentum in Ireland, he just couldn’t leave.’
‘I understand,’ Keogh said. ‘So what is it you want me to do?’
Clinton turned to John Major. ‘Prime Minister?’
‘As the President has said, we’d like you to go to Ireland. Let me explain. The peace process has moved very fast. Gerry Adams for Sinn Fein and John Hume have between them started a genuine groundswell towards peace in the communities.’
‘Do you believe this to be true of the Protestant Loyalists as well?’ Keogh asked.
‘Yes, in the generality. The hardliners on both sides will still be a difficulty and if the IRA do stand down, a further problem will be in persuading the other side that it’s genuine, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ John Major smiled. ‘I call it the Paisley bridge.’
Keogh grinned. ‘Now that is one hell of a bridge to cross.’
President Clinton said, ‘But first and foremost we need a ceasefire from the IRA. Adams and Sinn Fein have tried hard and so have Bruce Morrison and his friends, but it’s a question of persuading the hardliners to agree. It can’t be partial, it must be total. All or nothing.’
‘The thing is,’ Major said, ‘there’s the prospect of a secret meeting in Ireland soon, all sections of the IRA getting together, even splinter groups like INLA. Now, if you could attend that meeting, throw your weight behind Adams, John Hume and the peace movement, the effect might be incalculable.’
‘Your name means a lot over there,’ the President said. ‘It might just tip the balance.’
Keogh shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure. Why should they listen to Patrick Keogh? I’ve not been exactly everybody’s cup of coffee for some time now.’
‘It’s worth a try, Patrick, don’t put yourself down.’ Clinton got up and paced around. ‘Politics is so often just a game. No one knows that better than the three of us, but now and then – not very often perhaps – but now and then, something comes along that’s worth everything. I think that after twenty-five years of war in Ireland we might just have a chance this time of doing something about it and I sure as hell would hate to see that chance go.’
There was silence for a moment. Keogh sat there, frowning, and then he sighed. ‘I’d find it difficult to argue with that. So how am I going to get in on this meeting?’
‘Nothing official,’ Clinton said. ‘Look around this office. You don’t see my National Security Adviser, no CIA presence, no one from the FBI or Justice and State. The Prime Minister and I believe that this should be under wrappers until it’s actually happened.’
‘And how in the hell do we do that?’
‘I’ve given the matter some thought,’ Clinton said. ‘And then the other day I saw something rather interesting in the Washington Post. There was a report that mentioned a stained-glass window of your great-great-uncle who was a Catholic bishop and which was recently installed at Drumgoole Abbey. It’s a convent run by the Little Sisters of Pity, I understand.’
‘That’s correct, Mr President.’
‘This stained-glass window is in a small chapel, the Keogh Chapel. I understand you helped create a foundation to assist in the development of the school the Little Sisters run there?’
‘I