Gerry Adams appears to have a problem. At the end of his review of the Belfast Agreement, Seamus Mallon says Senator George Mitchell told the SDLP his expectation was that devolution would occur on November 29th and that decommissioning would begin at the end of January. Doesn't this call Mr Adams's version of events into serious question?

"No." Did he share that expectation? "No." Does he at least accept this was Senator Mitchell's expectation? The Sinn Fein leader laughingly says he sounds like a unionist. "No," again.

Mr Adams hopes "this isn't going to be one of those decommissioning interviews we could have had at any time in the last four years." He then insists that the "jump together" agreed last November was to see David Trimble into the Executive "and the IRA into the de Chastelain commission."

And, he says: "I sought and was given a firm commitment by Senator Mitchell that if it came to it he would make it absolutely clear that there were no assurances, no guarantees from Sinn Fein."

Mr Adams accepts the Ulster Unionist leader made clear his position would become untenable unless decommissioning was under way within a time-specific period. But he insists he had no reason to think this realisable, nor did Mr Trimble. Might it not have been more honourable then to have told him to hold back, because the thing wasn't going to work?

"Well, first of all, he's a consenting adult. We didn't say it wasn't going to work because there's always a need in terms of negotiation to do your best to make progress."

Mr Adams says he believes Mr Trimble could have carried the Ulster Unionist Council without the deadline, but chose instead to "move forward tactically", armed with Peter Mandelson's "side letter" about suspension in the case of default on decommissioning: "They went forward with that parachute. So we jumped, and caused huge problems ever since in terms of the republican constituency. David Trimble did a bungee jump."

Rehearsing the hurt, anger and frustration of republicans, Mr Adams asserts that the Belfast Agreement contains "no default clause" and that there was "no basis whatsoever for suspending".

But isn't there, in real terms? And mightn't this be part of his difficulty as a republican? For wasn't the act and fact of suspension rooted in the legislation establishing a devolved Assembly at all times subject to the authority of the British Crown?

Mr Adams doesn't flinch: "Oh yes, and, in terms of the realpolitik, we have accepted entirely, it's obvious, partition is still here, that the British jurisdiction is still here. That isn't the issue. The issue is that the British signed an agreement in which they devolved power into this part of the island, and also into an all-Ireland interlocking structure."

The Sinn Fein leader denies having misjudged the British position, or being surprised by the suspension: "My misjudgment was trying to deal with this issue of weapons on unionist terms. That was my huge misjudgment." While it was right to try, he gives an important indication of his approach to the renewed negotiation both governments hope is imminent.

Dismissing "the feeding frenzy" which had Mr Mallon and others criticise Sinn Fein "when they thought the party's back is to the wall", he makes plain there will be no further reliance on "this misused word, understanding".

In words which might actually be welcomed by many unionists, he explains: "Let's have it out there in black and white, with certainty and great clarity, if there's going to be a deal. And let David Trimble shake hands on a deal."

Mr Adams is not saying he won't deal from here on in with the arms issue: "We see this as a process of change which has to be irreversible and we see all these as issues which have to be resolved."

Picking-up on that `i' word: is Mr Adams's personal commitment to totally peaceful and democratic means irreversible? "Yes." And does he personally believe that the IRA's "war" is over?

"I don't think we can any of us say - which is why I don't say it - with any certainty. And if we were moved, or tricked into saying it, or made the mistake in saying that the war was over, what would happen is someone would go out to try to prove that it wasn't. So I think we're into a whole sidetrack issue."

MOREOVER, "it isn't the IRA's war . . ." The West Belfast MP takes me on a tour of the prevailing landscape: ministerial concerns about hostilities between loyalists, and the possible knock-on effect in terms of more attacks on Catholics, the ongoing efforts of dissident republicans, the RUC warning in recent weeks that 17 Belfast-based Sinn Fein councillors are being "actively" targeted. "Isn't that the reason why we shouldn't go into a summer unanchored?"

Going back to his earlier answer: do unionists have the assurance that Sinn Fein will not at any point in the future uphold the right of any group to take up arms to advance the goal of unity?

Mr Adams replies: "Sinn Fein's position is we want to see an end to British involvement in our affairs, we want to see a new Ireland, and we are totally wedded to peaceful and democratic means. The hard reality is that if the war recommences . . . you will see the beginning of the end of the present Sinn Fein leadership's reign."

Whoever came after would have to deal with these issues, says Mr Adams: "We have tried over a very long time to create conditions in which there is no more war, forever. . . "

So success for Gerry Adams's leadership is to end the war?

"It is my view that we will get a united Ireland. We won't get it just naturally, we'll get it if struggle continues . . . The only way in which those who are against change can win is if we give up."

Those words - "if struggle continues" - seem in many ways to take us to the core. Within the unionist community, including those who have supported the agreement, there is great uncertainty about the nature of this process.

Is this a peace process, about reconciliation with the unionists, accepting the existing constitutional parameters until such time as there is consent to change them? Or is Sinn Fein's real game - struggle continuing by other means - to destabilise Northern Ireland and show it to be irreformable?

"No, that isn't the case, the second scenario isn't the case." It would take too long to explore it in the course of this interview, he says. "But in one discussion, Ken Maginnis made this appalling statement - and I say that advisedly, because Ken is sometimes presented as a counter-insurgency expert. He said the Sinn Fein plan was to take all we could, to get the ministers, and then, up the road a bit, the IRA goes back to war."

THE basis of the IRA being at war, says Mr Adams, was that there was some popular support for what it was doing, because of the degree of alienation of ordinary nationalists and republicans from the state.

"Now people who have an ownership in the future, and given the modifications of the state - because the state in terms of its relationship with the other part of the island was now interdependent and interlocked into structures . . . Too weak for a republican, but still we went along with that. Again, I think the decision by Sinn Fein to go into the Assembly was undervalued - we had no notion of going into the Assembly."

What Ken Maginnis's scenario left out, says Mr Adams, is "that most republicans don't like war, and that most of those who were actively involved . . . did so as a last resort" because they felt there was no moral or political alternative.

"Picture that eight or nine weeks when we had unionists, nationalists and republicans working in tandem, and where there was broad acceptance that they all did a good job. How on earth could the IRA - even if it wanted to, and in my view it wouldn't want to - how on earth could it go back to war in a situation when the people had an ownership in the institutions of the state, and were able to have a man from the Bog and someone from Andytown, with all the others, in places of government?"

Looking beyond the North, to what is widely believed the intended end-result of Sinn Fein's electoral strategy, a place in government in the South. Does Mr Adams accept the Taoiseach's view that democratic mandate can be the only basis for participation and that "it is not compatible beyond a short transitional period to have that democratic mandate with armed backing"?

The Sinn Fein president says that its electoral strategy is misrepresented and misinterpreted by the press and his party relies on its electoral mandate alone. "If he's referring to us," Mr Adams declares, "we don't have armed backing."