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Adams, a soft-voiced six-footer with spectacles and a brown beard, denies that he is the "mastermind" behind the new I.R.A. He claims that the British want to "personalize" their enemy and settled on him for the purpose. "No one man could have done everything they say I did," he says. Yet he is clearly a top strategist in the Republican movement. Speaking officially as vice president of the Provisional Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Provos, Adams met TIME Correspondent Erik Amfitheatrof in Ulster last week in the first interview he has granted to any U.S. publication.
On the Mountbatten murder: The I.R.A. gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furor created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the I.R.A. did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the I.R.A. achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.
On the I.R.A.'s support: Clearly there is considerable support for the movement. The proof of this is that after a whole decade of war, the I.R.A. appears to be able to expand and escalate at will. It is obviously a small force fighting against tremendous odds and couldn't even exist unless there was popular support for it.
On the charge that the I.R.A. will eventually attack the Irish Republic: The main aim of this phase of the struggle is to remove the British [from Ulster] and to create conditions where the Irish people, in a united Ireland, can establish social democracy with complete control over their own destiny. The movement wants to see the creation of a decentralized socialist state. Obviously, even the term united Ireland means that the government that has been set up in the Republic must come down. The working-class majority from Ulster—Protestants and Catholics—don't simply want to be absorbed into a decadent state. The Republic has got severe economic problems: high unemployment and all the ills of an unjust society whose wealth is controlled by a very small group.
Obviously, that government has to come down, and they know it. Their interpretation is that the I.R.A. is trying to destroy them.
On whether the movement is Marxist: This is propaganda. The Republican movement has always been socialist in the Irish tradition of radical thinkers. It has never been a Marxist movement, and it is not one now. We are not enamored of what happens in the East bloc countries, and at the same time we don't think democracy exists in the West. We would have a lot more in common with the Third World.
On links with other guerrillas: There have never been close ties between the Republican movement and the P.L.O., the Basques or any other revolutionary groups. Obviously, there are parallels, and we would express solidarity with their struggles for national liberation.