THE Northern Ireland Office Minister, Mr Michael Ancram, appears to have found a receptive audience among senior White House officials for the British case which he is here to explain.
The case being that an electoral process was always on the cards for Northern Ireland, that Dublin knew it well, and that it is a necessary device to bring unionists into inter party negotiations with mandate to talk to Sinn Fein.
The British ambassador to the United States, Sir John Fell, gave a dinner for Mr Ancram at the British embassy on Monday evening, at which US officials gave little indication that they were "blind sided" by British actions last weeks some reports suggested.
They were all talking about elections as if they were going to happen," said one source about the exchanges among US and British officials concerning the British response to the Mitchell report on decommissioning.
If this is the case, then Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, may find senior administration officials trying to nudge him towards agreeing to some form of electoral process when he arrives in Washington for talks at the White House tomorrow.
This could cause problems for Sinn Fein, especially if it concludes that the Americans, by trying to push the situation forward, are in fact leaning towards a British controlled agenda. Mr Adams has rejected proposals for elections.
As has happened before, he may find his main assets in Washington are not White House officials but friends in Congress such as Senator Edward Kennedy and Senator Chris Dodd, who have in the past persuaded President Clinton away from a course adopted by his officials.
However, Mr Ancram's arrival in the United States so quickly after the British government's rejection of the Mitchell report, with its recommendation to drop Washington 3, and the subsequent bitter war of words between London and Dublin over the election initiative, appears, for now, to have given the British the diplomatic initiative in Washington.
With fortuitous timing, the British Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser, Mr Rod Lyne, came to town on Friday to introduce his successor Mr John Holmes, and was able to lobby Mr Lake on the British position over dinner on Friday evening. Mr Ancram arrived on Monday afternoon.
The administration will hear nationalist objections to elections when Mr Adams, arrives at the White House for talks with the President's national security adviser, Mr Anthony Lake, and other officials tomorrow morning.
The Dublin version of events will be conveyed by the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, when he arrives for talks on February 7th and 8th. The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, will be in town on February 12th and 13th along with Mr Ken Maginnis MP and Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, party secretary.
The unionists will almost certainly find the White House encouraging them to negotiate with other parties after the elections and to drop the decommissioning precondition.
Among guests at the British embassy dinner were Mr Lake and Ms Mary Ann Peters of the National Security Council.
The British US discussions, at the dinner and in the White House yesterday, apparently involved speculation about the size of an elected body, the merits of the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and the optimum size of delegations to inter party talks.
The Americans seem convinced that the talks will get under way in due course, despite the current crisis, and are taking the view that Mr Major will not back down on the election idea. But then dogged optimism has been American strategy all along.