Strains between Northern Ireland's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, over the reform of policing in Northern Ireland surfaced as they emerged from their meeting with President Clinton.
It was the first time since the Executive has been working that the two men have had a joint meeting with the US President in their roles as First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Both emphasised that the 45-minute meeting had gone well and they were hopeful Mr Clinton would visit Ireland before he leaves office next January.
Mr Clinton posed for pictures with the two leaders at the entrance to the west wing as he said goodbye. The latest bombings in Northern Ireland were discussed briefly at the meeting as was the violence between loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast.
At their joint press conference immediately afterwards, Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon appeared ill at ease when the question of their differences over police reform were raised. Once or twice, Mr Trimble cut in quickly before Mr Mallon had finished his answers.
Mr Mallon said President Clinton "understands" that the objectives of the Patten Commission recommendations on RUC reform cannot be met if they are "thwarted within the legislation itself".
He said the best people to judge whether Catholics and nationalists could join the new police service were "the leaders of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Hierarchy, leaders of the SDLP, Sinn Fein and leaders of the community within nationalism", not the Northern Secretary, Mr Mandelson.
Mr Trimble cut in to say: "The question of sufficient confidence in the police service is also a question of whether they [Catholics and nationalists] have sufficient confidence in the new political dispensation."
Mr Trimble went on: "But at the end of the day it is a question of leadership, a question of whether the leaders of the Catholic nationalist community are going to endorse the agreement and the new dispensation and the new institutional arrangements which are flowing from it, one of which is the question of policing."
Mr Mallon then intervened to say: "As the only leader of any persuasion in Northern Ireland who publicly supported Patten without any equivocation on the day it was published, I can assure everybody that the leaders of the nationalist community have the courage to ensure they identify with policing, provided the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister and the legislation do not prevent us from doing so."
Much of the meeting with President Clinton was taken up with a discussion of the programme of government of the Executive. President Clinton said later in a statement that: "The ongoing violence reminds us of the need for all parties to carry out their obligations under the accord and for those with political aims to pursue them through exclusively peaceful means."