A high-powered group of 15 newspaper editors from throughout the US has spent the week in Ireland being briefed on the North. They met Northern Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, John Hume, Gerry Adams and John Taylor in the North and had breakfast in Iveagh House yesterday with the new Minister for Foreign Affairs David Andrews and his officials. Later they had lunch with the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and dinner, hosted by Jean dy Smith at the US embassy in the Phoenix Park, where there was a panel discussion on "The Press And The Process: Help Or Hindrance" with the author and journalist Tim Pat Coogan in the chair.
When the group leader Matt Storin, editor of the Boston Globe, introduced Sandra Rowe, editor of The Oregonian, to Adams in the Felons' Club in Belfast he used the name by which she is known, Sandy Rowe. Adams took two steps back.