The Intelligence War against the IRA Read online

  From the summer of 1970, the British government decided to allow political and economic reforms to proceed at a pace that suited the Ulster Unionist Party. At the same time, the British Army used ‘colonial techniques’ of population control to try to defeat IRA violence.12 In practice, this policy of appeasing unionist Stormont caused the British state problems in its relations with the nationalist community. A review of the British Army’s campaign, Operation Banner, was produced in 2006. It represented the work of three officers who had gathered the views of retired or serving officers, foot soldiers and thousands of regimental reports from the Troubles. Reflecting on events nearly thirty years later, it recalled:

  the British Cabinet saw … Northern Ireland as being Stormont’s responsibility. However, given its [largely unionist] composition, Stormont was … unlikely to take substantive action [on civil rights issues]. Indeed it would probably have seen that as being contrary to its own interests. Stormont was part of the problem.13

  The Army now believes that allowing Stormont to influence security policy made the armed forces appear pro-unionist.14 Admittedly, this view was only reached in hindsight. Few British archival documents from the time expressed similar concerns, although individual British military personnel did want the government to alter the political structures in Northern Ireland to keep nationalists on side from 1970.

  Between 3 and 5 July 1970, the British Army conducted a major search operation in the Falls area of Belfast. The search was conducted following an arms find in the Lower Falls on 2 July by the Army, and continuing ‘street disturbances’ involving republicans. Whilst houses were searched, crowds surrounded the Army personnel. Army reinforcements arrived, but their presence provoked a riot. Local republicans linked to the Official IRA (OIRA) and the Provisional IRA responded by firing weapons and throwing petrol bombs, nail bombs and grenades. Four civilians died, allegedly shot by the Army.15 The Falls Road Curfew encapsulates the problems with allowing Stormont to influence security policy. The British Army admits that the curfew: ‘did not … discriminate between those perpetrating violence and the remainder of the community … The search … convinced most moderate Catholics that the Army was pro-loyalist … The IRA gained significant support.’16

  Other indiscriminate British Army operations increased tensions. For example, internment without trial was suggested and implemented by Brian Faulkner, the unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, in August 1971. An estimated 342 ‘republican’ suspects were arrested, compared initially to no loyalists.17 Many of those initially arrested had no connection to the IRA.18 During the early 1970s, sociologist Frank Burton learned from his stay in a nationalist community in Belfast how: ‘[t]he gross physical assault of internment … had the effect in the [nationalist] community of tilting the balance of allegiance towards the Provisionals’.19 In intelligence terms, internment did eventually have an impact on IRA activity.20 But in the short term it inflamed nationalists, who turned against the British state. In the 6 months before internment there were 25 deaths; in the following 6 months after internment, there were 185 deaths.21

  Elsewhere, in Derry City the killings of civilians radicalised nationalists before internment. The SDLP withdrew from Stormont on 16 July 1971. They did so in reaction to the British government refusing to hold an official inquiry into the killing of two unarmed men. Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie had been shot by the British Army earlier in the month.22 The creation of no-go areas in the Bogside by 1971 demonstrates how many nationalists felt isolated from the British state. Similar nationalist anger towards the British state was witnessed across Northern Ireland, and led to new IRA recruits.23 The statistics in Lost Lives show that the IRA increased its number of killings from 107 deaths in 1971 to 280 by 1972.24 When Bloody Sunday in January 1972 is added to the catalogue of British Army disasters in this period, it is clear that nationalist and British state relations had reached their lowest level. According to the recent Saville Inquiry, all thirteen people killed on Bloody Sunday were civilians who were ‘not armed or posing any threat of causing death or serious injury’.25 Thereafter, Stormont was completely discredited, as the SDLP withdrew from its corridors and the violence on the streets increased. The British government was left with no choice but to suspend Stormont in March 1972. Ultimate responsibility for Stormont’s failure to reform lay with the British government. It could have prorogued Stormont at any time. But its determination not to provoke a unionist backlash meant that they were reluctant to disturb the Stormont parliament.26

  Foley suggests that security policies adopted by Western governments are influenced by ‘norms’. This term refers to security, intelligence, legal and judicial procedures followed in the past by specific state institutions. The way that the British government approached security in Northern Ireland was influenced by historical norms. This included a sense on the UK mainland that Ireland was ‘a place apart’. Foley explains that:

  [a]lthough Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, there has long been a strand of British thinking that viewed Ireland as a place apart, more like a colony … Traditional English liberties did not apply to Northern Ireland after 1969, as the British authorities contended with the IRA’s campaign of terrorism … A different set of rules held there … which permitted internment without trial, coercive interrogation techniques and repressive operations.27

  British security policy towards nationalists in Northern Ireland to some extent followed the ‘norms’ of indiscriminate British military and intelligence efforts against the old IRA between 1919 and 1921. There are certainly parallels: for example, Irish nationalists were targeted indiscriminately during the Falls Road Curfew in Belfast in 1970 and also during martial law in Cork from December 1920.28 As Northern Ireland was viewed as ‘a place apart’, tougher security measures adopted in other parts of the empire were deployed. The fact that such measures had been used by British commanders and policymakers to help end insurgencies in countries such as Malaya or Kenya no doubt inspired their repetition in Northern Ireland.29

  Northern Ireland’s close proximity to the UK mainland, however, allowed the media greater access to events. The Irish government could also highlight injustices when it wanted to do so.30 The level of scrutiny applied to the more stringent security measures being adopted, alongside the fact that many of these policies inspired rather than resolved violence, eventually saw the British government begin to alter its security approach. As Omand and Foley suggest, the success of security measures depends on drawing the population away from paramilitaries. Foley is right that ‘the repressive methods used in Northern Ireland in the past are widely acknowledged in the UK today as having been counterproductive’; they were eventually phased out. Any short-term benefits from security measures such as internment were overshadowed by the long-term propaganda benefit they provided to the republican movement in terms of recruitment. A sizeable minority of the nationalist community turned towards the IRA following such measures.31

  The British government’s decision to maintain unionist-majority rule until March 1972 led to a deterioration in relations with the Irish government. Jack Lynch, the Fianna Fáil Taoiseach between November 1966 and March 1973, and his close advisors, emphasised that peace was first needed in the North before unification by consent could emerge.32 The Irish government believed that peace could be achieved if the British and unionist governments resolved the political and socio-economic discrimination against nationalists.33 Lynch supported the SDLP’s demands for socio-economic reforms and a place in government for nationalists in Northern Ireland. When substantial political reforms were not forthcoming, and following the Cusack and Beattie killings, the Lynch government supported the SDLP’s rent-and-rates strike and its demand for unionist-majority rule to be abolished.34 Following the introduction of internment against the nationalist community in August 1971, Dr Patrick Hillery, the Irish minister for External Affairs, told Reginald Maudling, the UK Home Secretary, that the British government had to en
d unionist rule and had to stop ‘bashing the Catholics’.35 Relations between the British and Irish governments only improved after unionist-majority rule had ended and the British state had begun exploring political reforms.36

  On Belfast’s and Derry City’s nationalist streets, violence increased. British Army population-control measures were a catalyst for further IRA activities there by 1972.37 Shane Paul O’Doherty, a former Derry City Provisional, recalls a surge in nationalist anger. The animosity followed repressive measures by the British Army, affecting nationalist citizens of the Bogside, Shantallow and the Creggan. One example was a change to Mass times in those parts of the city.38 The indiscriminate nature of the security measures adopted mirrors that of some of the techniques that British forces had used in past colonial campaigns. In Kenya, British forces punished and monitored entire villages for Mau Mau activity.39 In Belfast and Derry City, there appeared to be few attempts being made to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of nationalists before March 1972. Neumann describes how the British could have remedied the negative effect of internment for nationalists by creating a political initiative at the same time. But this was impossible whilst unionist Stormont remained in charge of security policy. Unionists confronted any potential opposition to their authority.40

  The British government wanted to suppress the IRA before introducing any political initiatives.41 During a Cabinet meeting on 9 February 1971, Maudling focused on discussing ways to combat IRA violence. He did say that the British government would ‘not contemplate’ withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Yet there was no discussion of political initiatives.42 Brigadier Frank Kitson led British troops in Belfast during the early 1970s. Kitson also authored the British Army’s guide on Low Intensity Operations in 1971. Even he recognised that the military instrument dominated British policy. In his ‘Future Developments in Belfast’ paper of December 1971, Kitson wrote that whilst there was the ‘immediate mission of destroying the IRA’, the ‘long awaited political initiative’ should begin.43 Kitson’s comments support Bennett’s assessment of British military strategy in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. Whilst ‘some elements within the security forces favoured reform and conciliation … others favoured repression’. The dominant element within the security forces at any given time depended on ‘the strategic context, or which approach seemed politically more viable at a given moment’.44 Before March 1972, the dominant group within the security forces had been those favouring a military defeat of the IRA. Behind this strategy was the aim of distancing Westminster from Northern Irish affairs, and of pacifying unionism. But the indiscriminate security approach increased the violence.

  With IRA activities increasing, the notion of militarily defeating the IRA began to wither away within the British state. As we have seen, Reginald Maudling turned towards promoting ‘an acceptable level of violence’. This term referred to trying to reduce the violence to a level at which it could not significantly disrupt political and socio-economic activities in Northern Ireland.45 This objective became a consistent feature of British political, security and intelligence policy throughout the conflict. Even after Kitson’s paper appeared in December 1971, the British government still had little intention of implementing a political settlement immediately. Although British Prime Minister Edward Heath met regularly with his Irish counterpart Jack Lynch to discuss political changes from that month onwards, the British government continued to support Stormont until shortly after Bloody Sunday in March 1972.46 Only after Bloody Sunday did the government turn towards the SDLP. Westminster had run out of options to keep Stormont in business, since the IRA’s campaign was not being contained.

  Available evidence suggests that the British government suspended Stormont primarily because of the IRA’s escalating campaign. The SDLP had withdrawn from Stormont from July 1971. Yet the British government took no immediate action to create a political solution involving the SDLP. For this reason, the suggestion that Stormont was ended in response to SDLP or Irish government pressure is unconvincing.47 Republicans certainly felt that their campaign led to the end of Stormont rule. Seán MacStiofáin, the IRA Chief of Staff at the time, argues: ‘I have yet to meet a single person who ever thought that Stormont fell for any other reason than the armed struggle of the Republican movement.’48 Colonel Sir Michael Dewar concurs that the IRA’s campaign by July 1972 was ‘effective’.49 English agrees that IRA activities ‘had led to the proroguing in 1972 of the Belfast parliament at Stormont … PIRA had undermined the power at the very heart of the hated unionist state of Northern Ireland.’50

  The interests of the SDLP and the British government had converged by March 1972. Both sides feared that mounting IRA attacks showed that that organisation was succeeding. Reflecting on SDLP actions in 1971, Paddy Devlin, a former Stormont MP and founding SDLP member, commented: ‘Provo violence … [was] actually writing the political agenda.’ This view seems a fair reflection. The SDLP’s withdrawal from Stormont was motivated by what was happening on the streets. However, Devlin is inaccurate to suggest that the SDLP should have explored options besides withdrawing from Stormont.51 Escalating IRA activity was a symptom of the increasing isolation that nationalists felt from the unionist Stormont. The SDLP risked completely discrediting itself if it remained at Stormont.

  By March 1972, both the British government and the SDLP had agreed to work together. It was in this context that the SDLP met British officials at their Laneside office in County Down on 11 April 1972. Positioned on the shores of Belfast Lough, Laneside became the home to the UK representatives for Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. When MI6’s Frank Steele had arrived at Laneside in 1971, he had gathered the opinions of both communities. But Steele now said that the British government ‘wanted to beat the IRA’. He was instructed not to talk to the IRA about political settlements from 1971 until June 1972.52

  At the 11 April 1972 meeting, the SDLP delegation consisted of Gerry Fitt, Austin Currie, Paddy Devlin and Ivan Cooper. They met with UK representatives Howard Smith and Frank Steele. A British report of the meeting described how the: ‘main theme … was that the SDLP was engaged in a struggle with the IRA and that we should help the SDLP’. In the SDLP’s opinion, the British government could assist them by ensuring that ‘the Army … adopt a low profile’ in nationalist areas. Furthermore: ‘[t]he SDLP were confident that if they were supported by actions of this type, the IRA could be finally defeated within the next three weeks’.53 The authors of the report concluded that the SDLP’s assessment was ‘optimistic’. Nevertheless, William Whitelaw, Northern Ireland Secretary of State, believed the SDLP. Whitelaw recalls that his actions during March and April 1972 aimed to assist the SDLP in their ‘struggle for support’ with the IRA.54 His actions included releasing some internees,55 and reducing the Army presence within nationalist areas where the IRA was strong, such as the Bogside.56

  Meanwhile, the British government sought further support against the IRA from the Irish government in April 1972. Edward Heath sent a telegram to Taoiseach Jack Lynch on 24 April 1972. Heath used similar arguments to those the SDLP had presented to Steele a few days before. Heath claimed that ‘the IRA are in some disarray’, and if the Irish government hit the IRA ‘hard’ they could be permanently damaged.57 Heath potentially exaggerated IRA weakness to try to convince Lynch to act. But the SDLP had persuaded the British government that they could restrain the IRA through reduced British Army activity and assistance from the Irish government. The problem was that the SDLP were out of touch with many working-class nationalists in the no-go areas in Belfast and Derry City. These areas were effectively controlled by the IRA. The British government based their assessment of the IRA’s strength on inaccurate reports from the SDLP. It is difficult to assess IRA support in this period, because Sinn Féin did not contest northern elections. Yet increased IRA activity suggests that it had at least a sizeable minority of support in working-class nationalist areas.

  The British government did not have ‘a near-absence of p
olicy’ between March and July 1972. Nor did the British government give ‘the sense that ‘anything was possible.’58 Under Heath’s Conservative government, the prospect of dialogue with the IRA was not proposed until June 1972. For example, on 9 February 1972 at Victoria RUC barracks in Derry City, Frank Morris, the adjutant of the IRA at the time for Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone, met with British intelligence officers.59 He claimed that the SDLP lacked support in nationalist areas and that: ‘[n]o SDLP member will make a move towards the conference table save on terms previously agreed with the Provisionals’. Morris argued that the IRA was strong, but that MacStiofáin wanted negotiations because neither side could defeat each other.60 But British intelligence and security forces still believed that they could defeat the IRA.61

  The Conservative government’s reluctance to talk to the IRA was evident shortly before Whitelaw’s change of heart in June 1972. During a Cabinet meeting on Monday 12 June, Whitelaw remarked: