"The Troubles" Spill Over

Mrs. Nora Murray, 51, a career civil service worker in the British embassy in Washington, was opening the weekend's accumulation of mail early last Monday morning when she came across a manila envelope addressed to a former military attache. The letter bore a United Kingdom postmark, indicating that it had been sent through the British army postal service. Other than that the letter was slightly heavier and thicker than most letters, she noticed nothing unusual about it. When Mrs. Murray opened the envelope, a spring-loaded bomb blew off her left hand, sprayed pellets into her face and arms, and blasted out two windows from the chancery's sixth floor office.

Mrs. Murray was the third Briton injured in a rash of letter bombs and incendiary devices that have plagued Britain for the past two weeks. Police believe that the bombs, which have been discovered at department stores, embassies, Parliament and Prime Minister Edward Heath's official residence at No. 10 Downing Street, are part of a new terrorist campaign by sympathizers of the Irish Republican Army. The I.R.A., which often boasts of its assassinations and other successful acts of violence, has made no official comment on the bombing, although individual spokesmen so far deny any responsibility.

So far, more than half of the devices (31 by week's end) have been detected and defused, largely as a result of stringent national security measures drawn up after last spring's bombing of the Old Bailey. Scotland Yard has advised people to smell envelopes for almond and marzipan odors characteristic of explosives, check for grease marks caused by sweating explosives, and look for unusual or irregular handwriting on packages. Stories on how to handle suspect mail have appeared in almost every British newspaper, and commuters disembarking at tube stops, train stations and bus stops have been deluged with warnings not to open suspicious packages. Most Britons took the campaign of terror in their stride.

The letter-bomb campaign was hardly the most auspicious omen for a visit by Prime Minister Heath to Belfast last week--his first since Ulster's provincial elections in June. Heath had billed his two-day visit--its ostensible purpose was to attend a memorial service for former Prime Minister of Ulster Lord Brookeborough--as a "stocktaking" trip, to find out why Ulster has not made more progress in figuring out a way to govern itself. In reality, it was probably closer to tail-kicking. The Prime Minister has carefully avoided making any threats that the British might withdraw their military forces from Ulster. Nonetheless, several planned leaks in the press have indicated that that could be a possibility. Conferring separately with spokesmen for all major parties represented in the new Provincial Assembly, the Prime Minister repeatedly made the point: Why, more than two months after the election, have they failed to agree on the formation of a twelve-man executive body for the troubled province?

Tired Litany. Since June, in fact, the Assembly has had only one full session. That was turned into a farce when the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the militantly Protestant Democratic Unionist Party, and his aides seized the speaker's chair after the closing and harangued the near empty chamber. Politicians from the various parties have not even held informal meetings since then, as if they were still rival candidates in a campaign rather than representatives chosen to form a coalition government.

If Heath hoped for a sign of compromise, he got only a tired litany in which Catholics and Protestants blamed each other for Ulster's failures. The Protestants' feisty William Craig refused to show up for a meeting with Heath because other leaders in his Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party had not been invited. When former Ulster Prime Minister Brian Faulkner appeared with four instead of the invited three representatives from his Unionist group, everyone else demanded an extra man as well. Then, after the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labor Party) overstayed its time with Heath, Paisley made it a point to do the same. About the only constructive advice for Heath came from the small, moderate Alliance Party, which told him that he might help move things along by outlawing Protestant extremist groups, as the government has done with the I.R.A.

Frankly disappointed by the talks, Heath abandoned the standard nicety of a closing statement and instead delivered a public plea. "If political activity ... is essential for the eventual defeat of violence," he declared, "then every day's delay in setting up and working the new institutions can only mean more lives lost, more maimed and wounded." Then, in a blunt warning, he added: "Having taken the necessary steps to enable a resumption of the political life of Northern Ireland, the people of Britain will not understand any reluctance to take full advantage of it." Mother England's patience, in short, is clearly running out.

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