JOHN Bruton faces the biggest challenge of his political career in coming weeks in the negotiations to salvage the peace process. He must know that the attainment of permanent peace is the biggest single political achievement in Ireland, North and South, since partition. It is bigger than any party or government.

It is not, to use a phrase coined by the Taoiseach himself, the property of politicians. Yet it is the issue on which John Bruton will be judged for the rest of his life.

He is now required not merely to repeat the historic achievement of Albert Reynolds in getting the IRA to declare a complete cessation of all military operations but to negotiate a political package with the British government which will bring all parties, including Sinn Fein and the unionists, to the same table within weeks, to work out a comprehensive settlement of the Northern Ireland problem.

There are many in Leinster House, in the Government and Opposition parties, openly questioning whether this can be done at all. But, last week's bombing was a "one off strike", if Gerry Adams can speak authoritatively, once again, about IRA arms, is John Bruton the man to do the job?

This question is being raised seriously now, not just in Fianna Fail, the SDLP and Sinn Fein, and not for the first time since Mr Bruton took over the stewardship of the peace process from his predecessor, Albert Reynolds. A scrutiny of that stewardship does not hold out a promising answer to that question.

There have been several serious errors of judgment since Mr Bruton became custodian of the peace process 14 months ago. As against that, it should be said, as he said himself in the Dail last Tuesday after the Canary Wharf bombing "I do not believe that any comparison can be drawn between political mistakes, and a response to those mistakes that took human life".

The first, and most irreparable, mistake was made by Mr Bruton last March when he implicitly accepted the Washington 3 test, the pre condition imposed by the British government for Sinn Fein's entry into all party talks.

Sir Patrick Mayhew set out the three tests governing Sinn Fein's admittance to all party talks in a statement in Washington on March 7th 1995. They were a willingness in principle to disarm progressively a common practical understanding of the modalities for decommissioning and the actual decommissioning of some arms as a tangible confidence building measure to signal the start of a process.

This "three pronged" approach was seen by the Taoiseach the following day, March 8th, in the Dail as "a serious statement" of its position by the British government. It deserved, he said, an equally serious response.

On the eve of his departure to the US on March 13th for St Patrick's Day ceremonies in the White House, Mr Bruton said he would be telling President Clinton that they had to see some movement on the arms question so that talks could begin between British ministers and Sinn Fein.

He made statement after statement implicitly supporting Sir Patrick's position on decommissioning, in the US and at home, for the remainder of the month.

EITHER inadvertently or worse, knowingly Mr Bruton underwrote the British demand for Washington 3, a decommissioning gesture prior to talks. He helped place it at the top of the Anglo Irish agenda. It has dominated the agenda at heads of government ministerial and official level ever since.

Accepting that it could not be delivered three months later, Mr Bruton, on the advice of Anglo Irish officials, tried to extricate himself from Washington 3. He sold the idea of the twin track initiative separate preparatory talks and decommissioning tracks to Mr Major at the EU summit in Cannes in June. Officials worked out proposals for the initiative throughout the summer.

Mr Bruton was exposed again when he took the unprecedented step of postponing, at 6 p.m. the night before, the planned Anglo Irish summit with Mr Major for

September 6th.

The joint communique for the summit, launching the twin track strategy of political talks and an international decommissioning body, had been agreed on Friday but, by the following Monday, the understandings with Sinn Fein and Mr Major under pinning it had fallen apart.

The twin track initiative, to surmount the Washington 3 hurdle, was eventually launched by Mr Bruton and Mr Major at the most hastily convened summit at 10.30 p.m. in Downing Street on November 28th, the night of the British budget. The two leaders had to agree to disagree publicly on Washington 3 so that the summit could be held on the eve of President Clinton's visit.

Mr Bruton did not seem to comprehend the British government's position on Washington 3 the arms gesture at that meeting. Both he, and Government sources, openly professed that Senator George Mitchell's independent assessment would surmount it. Mr Major was assumed to be morally bound to accept the Mitchell recommendations, although it was described in the communique as an advisory body.

The most catastrophic turn in Anglo Irish relations and the inter governmental partnership on which the peace process was based came on January 16th, the day the Mitchell report was published.

The humiliating breach of faith between Mr Major and Mr Bruton, following their controversial 35 minute telephone conversation to co ordinate their responses the previous night, was followed by Mr Major's unilateral announcement that an elective process was now to be the alternative precondition to decommissioning for Sinn Fein's entry into all party talks.

Mr Bruton failed to foresee the outcome. He was trapped into the alternative precondition of an election. He didn't cope well with the aftermath on the one occasion when demonstrable statesmanship, akin to de Valera's response to Churchill after the last war, might have restored bipartisanship. The Anglo Irish positions were irreconcilable at that point.

The peace process has been handicapped throughout the last 14 months by recurring reports about the difficulty of getting a precise formulation of Government policy from the Taoiseach.

There is the seminal story from a high level US delegation who met Mr Bruton during the year to get a steer on the Government's position during one of the crises.

"We left the room," confessed one source, "believing that we had been talking to 10 men with 10 different arguments. We were confused about the Government's stand." Perceptions of inconsistency may reveal the reality of his policy on occasions.

There are clear lessons to be learned from past misjudgments if John Bruton is to reconstruct the peace process. Although he has better public speaking skills than Albert Reynolds or Bertie Ahern, Mr Bruton must talk and act with razor sharp precision now if he is to negotiate a successful package to restore the peace in the coming weeks.

He cannot be saying, as he did on Sunday last, that "an election now would pour petrol on the flames" and then, on Tuesday, tell the Dail that he had asked Mr Major to consider "whether, and how, an elective process... might lead directly and speedily, without equivocation, to all party negotiations".

He must also take a different personal attitude to Mr Major. He would be wise and he knows it to adopt Reagan's attitude toe Gorbachev after their first meeting "Trust but verify".

He would be wise also to alter his position towards the unionists who have, so far, shown no appreciation of the most well disposed Taoiseach they could meet.

As former Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, learned during the negotiation of the Anglo Irish Agreement, the current intergovernmental framework obliges the Irish Government to deal with the nationalists on this island. The unionists, at this stage, are John Major's problem.

Too willing to please, too earnest and sincere, he should be advised, above all else, that he is embarking on the most serious and complex negotiations ever undertaken by an Irish government.

Everything must be tied down. There is little use in having a temporary little ceasefire called now if Sinn Fein will baulk at the Mitchell report, and the parallel decommissioning therein, another few months down the road.