The Irish Republican Army's mission has always been to expel the British from Northern Ireland. Seven decades of death and destruction testify to its zeal. What, then, are we to make of the IRA's acquiescence in the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 2000? The IRA and its Republican allies wanted British withdrawal and reunification with Ireland. They got, instead, yet another iteration of British control, a "power-sharing" provincial government of Catholics and Protestants.

How and why did this fabled and fearsome outfit swallow it? As it turns out, it was force-fed by a small cadre of sophisticated and politicized IRA leaders, chief among them Gerry Adams. For nearly 15 years Adams conducted private negotiations with the British, during which the outlines of the 2000 agreement took shape. When the talks went public in the early 1990s he manipulated, deceived and bullied recalcitrant comrades into accepting the result. Those who couldn't accept it split away and continue to fight. Most went along.

It's a story of cunning and guile told in a remarkable book by veteran Irish journalist Ed Moloney. In A Secret History Of The IRA, Moloney has set out to show that for Adams's efforts he should have shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with Irish nationalist John Hume and unionist leader David Trimble. What with Adams's violent past, this argument is unpersuasive.

A Secret History Of The IRA sounds as if it is being told from Adams's perspective, and Moloney's reliance on unnamed IRA and Sinn Fein sources gives it a certain slant. But the book is not worshipful. He recognizes IRA atrocities as atrocities, and he forces Adams to share the blame for the activities of this cruel, cruel gang.

The book opens with a riveting account of one of the turning points of the war between Britain and the IRA in 1987. Even as Adams was beginning his secret talks with the British, his IRA was plotting a bloody "spectacular" of coordinated shootings and bombings.

The IRA was no match for British intelligence, however. The weaponry for the offensive was donated by Libya's Moammar Gaddafi, who had 150 tons of armaments loaded onto a ship called the Eksund. As the Eksund steamed toward Europe, its IRA crew couldn't help but notice spotter aircraft on its tail. The mission had been betrayed by an informer, reports Moloney. Authorities seized the Eksund off the coast of Brittany after the sabotage of IRA plans to scuttle the ship and cargo.

The IRA leadership understood how deeply the operation had been penetrated. Armaments sufficient to sustain 20 years of warfare - by IRA estimates - disappeared. The fantasy that the IRA could expel the British by force stood exposed for what it was. Most important, says Moloney, the IRA emerged demoralized, ripening it for the events that were to follow.

By then, Adams was already in touch with high-level British and Irish officials through a Roman Catholic priest, Father Alex Reid. So in touch was he that the outlines of what was to become the Good Friday Agreement were already taking shape, says Moloney, who quotes secret written exchanges to prove his point.

When the process went public in the early 1990s, Adams led the IRA to believe that the talks and a subsequent "cessation of hostilities" were a mere tactic in a long war, rather than a large step towards the end of that war. This was the traditional explanation for any peaceful gesture by the IRA, which explains why others distrusted it. The rank and file, with faith in Adams's faith and an exaggerated view of his genius, assumed that he was lying to the world rather than to them.

When disaffection set in among some comrades Adams deployed the skills of an old-time Baltimore ward boss, packing IRA meetings, outsmarting or intimidating opponents, burying them in paper and concealing information. "The IRA rank and file was not consulted or briefed about events," Moloney says, quoting an unnamed IRA man, "and preparation for military operations went ahead right up to a few days" before the announcement of the 1994 ceasefire.

Adams did a good deed with this peace process. We owe him that. But his hands have blood on them. We do not owe him a peace prize.

The Washington Post