Government officials anticipated a “period of turbulence” following the election of Bill Clinton as US president in 1992 because of views he had expressed about Northern Ireland.
In the letter to an Irish-American group, written just weeks before he won the presidential vote, Mr Clinton had called on the UK Government to “establish more effective safeguards against the wanton use of lethal force”.
The letter was circulated among officials at the Northern Ireland Office who suggested the UK Ambassador to the US should seek an early meeting with Mr Clinton so his views were not left to “calcify, unchallenged”.
