NORTHERN IRELAND: Acceptable Violence?

In the midst of a quiet evening at his country home near the Northern Ireland town of Strabane, Senator John Barnhill, 65, a prosperous Protestant businessman, answered a knock at the door. He was shot dead by three members of the Irish Republican Army, who had crossed over the unguarded border from Eire a few hundred yards away. The gunmen then ordered Barnhill's wife out, placed a bomb near the body and blew up the house. Thus began another normal week in Ulster.

Surprisingly, responsibility for Barnhill's assassination was accepted by the Marxist but moderate "Official" wing of the...