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During his first election campaign the then Governor Bill Clinton promised the Irish- American caucus something that they had sought for a long time, that as President, he would send a special US envoy to Northern Ireland to help to broker a peace deal. .
During the Troubles the leaders of the United States were reluctant to send a US envoy to Northern Ireland to get involved with the situation in Northern Ireland. They viewed the situation as one that was an internal matter for the United Kingdom and it's government. While on the campaign trail Clinton also suggested to Congressman Bruce Morrison both verbally and in writing that he would favour the appointment of a special envoy to Northern Ireland.
Shortly after President Clinton was sworn into office, a representative Joseph P Kennedy, together with sixteen co-sponsors, sponsored a Congressional Resolution calling for the appointment of a special envoy to Northern Ireland. Although this Resolution initially failed, the issue of a special envoy to Northern Ireland was discussed when President Clinton met the Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds for the first time on St Patrick's Day 1993. .
(Resolution 49, 103rd congress http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c103:H.CON.RES.49:).
Clinton deferred appointing a special envoy, apparently due to the fact that not all parties had agreed to a ceasefire . In 1994, when the P.I.R.A. declared a ceasefire, the President of Sinn Fein Gerry Adams called on the United States to play a "nudging" role in the transition of peace in Northern Ireland, similar to what it had done in Bosnia and the Middle East around that time. According to a journalist, James F Clarity in the New York Times, newspaper, Joseph P Kennedy was the man who was considered as the right man for to broker a peace deal in Northern Ireland. However Clinton had other ideas and in 1995 appointed a former US Senator George J Mitchell to the post.
