US: Northern Ireland was "one of the great passions of my presidency", writes former US president Bill Clinton in a memoir rich in anecdote and travel notes, but short on insight into the major decisions of his presidency, writes Conor O'Clery in New York
The theme of Ireland is woven into the 957 pages of My Life, published today in the US where the main focus has been on his treatment of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Mr Clinton believes he made a difference in Northern Ireland and that his two day visit to Belfast and Derry in 1995 in particular "shifted the psychological balance". Until then the advocates of peace had to make their case to sceptics, he writes, but afterwards "the burden had shifted to the opponents of peace to explain themselves".
During his Irish visit the Rev Ian Paisley "wouldn't shake hands with the Catholic leaders" and lectured him on "the error of his ways," recalls Mr Clinton, who decided after the hectoring that the Catholic leaders "had got the better end of the deal". Nevertheless, he admits, it was because of Mr Paisley's potential for painting him as an outsider telling the Northern Irish what they should do that he decided not to go to Northern Ireland to lobby personally for the Good Friday agreement referendum in 1998. Mr Clinton found that David Trimble "could be dour and pessimistic" but beneath a stern Scots-Irish front was "a brave idealist" willing to take risks for peace.
Gerry Adams, he writes, seemed hardened by his years "on the edge of destruction", in contrast with the rumpled, professorial and gentle John Hume.
But behind the glasses of both men were eyes that revealed "intelligence, conviction and the uniquely Irish mixture of sadness and humour born of hopes often dashed but never abandoned".
The former president writes that his interest in Northern Ireland dated back to the start of the "Troubles" in 1968 when he was at Oxford, and was reignited in 1992 when he met a group of Irish Americans in New York, including civil rights advocate Paul O'Dwyer, the publisher of The Irish Voice Niall O'Dowd and Republican politician Peter King.
They persuaded him to push for a breakthrough in the conflict, and he agreed, though he knew it would "infuriate the British and strain our most important transatlantic alliance". This led to the "visa wars" with the British over admitting Gerry Adams to the US, countless meetings between Irish leaders and Clinton in the White House, and eventually the Good Friday agreement. Disappointingly for historians, these meetings are mostly just listed in the book, with few accounts of what transpired. His role after appointing George Mitchell as envoy "was basically to keep reassuring and pushing all the parties", Clinton writes, but at times it was more than that.
He describes how on April 10th 1998 as the Good Friday negotiations reached a climax he stayed up most of the night talking to Mr Mitchell, Mr Tony Blair, Mr Trimble, Mr Hume and Mr Adams, twice, before retiring at 2.30 a.m. Mr Mitchell then roused him at five with a request to call Gerry Adams and seal the deal.
But, tantalisingly, he reveals nothing about what was said in those conversations or what was so important about speaking with Mr Adams.
He does report however that after the Omagh bombing Bertie Ahern told him that the IRA had warned the "Real IRA" that if they did anything like that again "the British police would be the least of their worries". The "Real IRA" had about 200 members and supporters, Clinton states, enough to cause trouble but not to wreck the peace process.
In the US, much of the focus of interest has been on the Monica Lewinsky affair. Mr Clinton describes how he woke up his wife Hillary who looked as if he had "punched her in the gut" as he confessed. It was harder to tell Chelsea who had to learn that her father had "done something terribly wrong" and had not told the truth to her mother.