Down at Paddy McClure's betting shop in Belfast on election morning, the odds were 50 to 1 against the defeat of Northern Ireland's Prime Minister Captain Terence O'Neill. Even though the infighting within his Unionist Party had been severe and Catholic-Protestant hatreds were as vitriolic as ever, the odds makers—and a host of other experts as well—were certain that the electorate would come out firmly in favor of O'Neill and his policies of reconciliation. They were wrong. Most of O'Neill's hand-picked candidates had been trounced, and at week's end, the betting around...
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