Word: heaths
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...dramatic turn in the endless, blood-drenched conflict between Britain and Ireland, Protestant and Catholic. It was also the boldest step of British Prime Minister Edward Heath's career. In a daring attempt to end the terror in Northern Ireland, he last week imposed direct rule by London on that troubled province. Hoping to break "the vicious circle of violence and yet more violence," Heath suspended for at least a year the Protestant-dominated government at Stormont, which has ruled Ulster since 1921. For Catholics, it was the most significant victory yet won for political equality. But in ending...
...Heath's immediate aim was to pacify Ulster's 500,000 Catholics and thus dry up their support of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. At week's end, though, the urgent question was whether Heath's proposals-or any others that would satisfy Ulster's Catholics -might provoke a long-feared uprising by Northern Ireland's 1,000,000 Protestants...
...were no longer governed by the Protestant Unionist Party at the Parliament in Stormont. "Catholics have lost the feel of jackboot Unionism," exulted Gerry Fitt, leader of the Social and Democratic Labor Party. If that mood continued and if the Protestants could be restrained, there was a chance that Heath, with a little bit of luck, might win his gamble...
Against that backdrop in Ulster, Heath prepared in London to unveil his long-awaited new policy for Northern Ireland. Some proposals had already been announced: "an active, permanent and guaranteed place" for Ulster's Catholics in the government of Northern Ireland, massive economic aid to ease unemployment, and a gradual phasing down of the internment of I.R.A. suspects without trial, which had, more than anything else, infuriated the Catholic community. What had not been known was that Heath had also decided to place the police-up till now responsible to Stormont-as well as the army directly under Westminster...
Flying in from Belfast, Northern Ireland's tough, pragmatic Prime Minister Brian Faulkner first learned the contents of Heath's package. He accepted in principle an easing of internment, and Heath's plan for periodic plebiscites on Ulster's political future (the results are entirely predictable, since the Protestants have a 2-to-1 majority). But Faulkner balked at a London takeover of Ulster's security, and for nine hours argued that it would make Stormont "a mere sham and face-saving charade." Faulkner flew back to Belfast and then, with Cabinet backing, returned...