The Intelligence War against the IRA Read online

  The announcement of a round table conference would further isolate … the Irish Republican Army … the nucleus of the conference would consist of representatives of the recognised political parties in Northern Ireland. This would exclude not only … the IRA, but also … Sinn Fein.62

  The British government’s refusal to talk to the IRA before mid-June 1972 was based partly on a fear of a backlash from the Protestant community,63 the British government’s aim to erode the IRA’s support in order to help the SDLP and their distaste for an organisation that was killing British soldiers.

  The British government changed its mind about talking to the IRA following SDLP advice in June 1972. Once more, British policy focused on exploring SDLP suggestions. The aim was to get nationalists on side for a political settlement with unionists. Following an IRA press conference in Free Derry on 13 June 1972, the British government refused to talk. Leading SDLP members Paddy Devlin and John Hume convinced the British government otherwise. Hume and Devlin claimed that following discussions with Dáithí Ó Conaill, an IRA Army Council member and leading Sinn Féin strategist, and with Seán MacStiofáin, there was a genuine chance of a political settlement involving the IRA.64 The SDLP even persuaded Whitelaw to accept political status for IRA prisoners and to release Gerry Adams, a leading Belfast republican in the early 1970s, for the talks.65 Whitelaw admits that he agreed to talk to the IRA primarily based on SDLP advice.66 The over-reliance on the SDLP for information demonstrates the lack of intelligence the British government had on the IRA leadership’s intentions by June 1972. The dearth of intelligence on republican strategy partly resulted from British intelligence gradually adapting to the conflict. The focus on defeating the IRA and Heath’s priority of using intelligence primarily to challenge internal enemies within the UK,67 also accounts for the lack of emphasis on gaining insight into the IRA leadership’s political objectives before June 1972.

  The SDLP’s and the British government’s decision to talk to the Provisionals showed that reduced security-force operations against nationalists had not eroded the IRA’s armed capacity to any significant extent. The British Army pours scorn on the government’s decision to decrease security operations in nationalist areas after March 1972:

  The Army was directed … to take a low-key approach [after March 1972] … [But this approach] had little effect on weaning the Catholics from supporting the IRA. PIRA regrouped, retrained and reorganised. The level of violence increased dramatically through 1972 … The ‘low profile’ approach had failed, an explosive situation was developing and control was being lost.68

  There were 399 shootings logged in March 1972, compared to 1215 in June. At the same time, arrests decreased. Three hundred and seventy-five arrests were made in March 1972, declining to 229 in April and 199 in May.69 Nevertheless, the success of the low-profile approach in the longer term is open to debate. Bennett argues that, in the long term, the low-profile approach did enable the British Army to lower tensions with nationalists. This approach allowed the IRA to ‘make mistakes of its own’ that might lose the organisation support. It also provided British intelligence with the time to regroup and gather more intelligence.70

  By June 1972, the IRA remained resilient with sizeable support on the streets of nationalist Belfast and Derry. The organisation practically controlled areas behind barricades such as Free Derry. Both factors reduced opportunities for the British forces to arrest individuals and gather intelligence to disrupt the IRA.71 The intelligence community had warned the government about intelligence deficiencies on 14 April 1972.72 But Whitelaw believed that the key to reducing IRA activity was to follow the SDLP’s advice. The low-profile approach was maintained. By agreeing to talk to the IRA, Whitelaw was implicitly admitting that the British state had failed to produce an ‘acceptable level of violence’. Whitelaw recognised that the IRA had at least a considerable minority of support within the nationalist community. He told fellow Cabinet members as much on 16 June 1972, and that: ‘it was inescapable that some understanding would have to be reached with the “Provisional” IRA’.73

  Conclusion

  British government policy towards Northern Ireland from at least July 1970 to March 1972 focused on supporting unionist-majority rule to introduce gradual political and socio-economic reforms. This policy aimed to appease unionists and nationalists. More importantly, it sought to reduce or even end IRA violence. Four primary reasons explain why the British government let unionist-majority rule continue and tried to defeat the IRA. First, the British government did not want to force political reforms on unionists that might lead to a revolt and a civil war. Second, Northern Irish votes had very little impact on Westminster politics. The British government also followed previous practice in Ireland and elsewhere by focusing on defeating paramilitaries before political settlements were created. The purpose of this strategy was to show that violence was not achieving political change.74 The fourth factor was that the Heath government primarily used intelligence to erode the ability of ‘internal enemies’ to disrupt UK affairs and Conservative government policies.75

  The British government’s aim of reconciling the SDLP with the unionist majority-rule government failed. The British government allowed unionists to slow down the pace of reforms and influence security policy against not only the IRA, but also the wider nationalist community. These actions pushed the British Army into conflict with nationalists, especially as the British Army sometimes used indiscriminate population-control techniques. In response, the SDLP pulled out of Stormont. The IRA’s activities also intensified. Escalating violence influenced the British government to prorogue Stormont and assume direct rule. By March 1972, Whitelaw decided to follow the advice of the SDLP to reduce Army activity in nationalist areas. The hope was that this move would see IRA support decline. But IRA activity continued. Both the SDLP and Whitelaw realised that they had to include the IRA in negotiations if peace was to emerge.

  History had warned the British government that failure to deal with unionist intransigence against constitutional nationalist demands in Ireland for political and socio-economic reforms could lead to at least a sizeable minority of nationalists turning towards political violence. In 1913, following Ulster unionist resistance to the third Home Rule Act, many Ulster Protestants backed the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), who threatened to violently resist Home Rule being granted to Ireland. According to English: ‘[i]t was the mobilization for violence by unionists in Ulster that decisively tilted Irish nationalists towards political violence in the post-1912 period’.76 The failure of the British government to suppress UVF militancy no doubt contributed to the re-emergence of militant Irish republicanism post-1912.77 Between August 1969 and March 1972, the British government once again failed to act decisively against intransigent elements within unionism. Unionist pressure prevented the implementation of the political and socio-economic reforms needed to satisfy a substantial majority of nationalists and prevent militant republicanism from re-emerging.

  2

  The Intelligence War: August 1969 to July 1972

  The academic literature lacks an evaluation of the intelligence war against the IRA before 1975.1 Moloney has provided some details. However, his primary focus is on agents and informers within the Belfast IRA.2 Admittedly, some information about intelligence activity in the 1970s has only recently emerged. But now various memoirs are available, including those by former Special Branch officer George Clarke and former Military Reaction Force (MRF) member Simon Cursey, as well as former Belfast IRA volunteers Gerry Bradley and Brendan Hughes, who all operated during the early 1970s. These and other sources can provide insight into the intelligence war’s effect on the IRA before 1975. Despite this new material, recent academic accounts of the Troubles provide little analysis of the topic. Such an omission is surprising, because some authors argue that infiltration of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade was a key factor in forcing the IRA to call a prolonged ceasefire in 1975.3

  This chap
ter analyses a range of intelligence activities against various IRA units before June 1972. I argue that the intelligence war had had a minimal impact on the IRA’s campaign by June 1972 for various reasons. These include poor relations between nationalists and the British state following indiscriminate security-force activities. This chapter also explores other factors that explain why the IRA’s support had increased in certain rural and urban areas by June 1972.

  Losing the Intelligence War? August 1969 to July 1972

  From the beginning of the conflict, British forces wanted to defeat the IRA primarily through ‘intelligence-led’ operations.4 Brigadier Frank Kitson recognised in his Low Intensity Operations book in 1971 that ‘the problem of defeating the [insurgent] consists very largely of finding him … [highlighting] the paramount importance of good information’.5 In his security assessment of Belfast in December 1971, Kitson said:

  future successes [against the IRA] will be increasingly hard to achieve … unless we … make our own organization very much more efficient … we are taking steps to do this in terms of building up and developing the MRF [Military Reaction Force] and … steadily improving the capability of Special Branch.6

  Kitson believed that the best way to reduce IRA activity was to improve intelligence. Human intelligence remained the primary method of gathering ‘good information’ on the IRA. Agents and informers could tell the intelligence services who and where to watch.7 Hewitt argues: ‘[w]hereas a microphone can sit buried in a wall waiting … an informer in the room can simply ask for the details and then relay them to his or her covert employers’.8 Hewitt is inaccurate to suggest that informers ‘can simply ask for the details’ on future plans of organisations such as the IRA. One former republican prisoner explained that the IRA ‘had a culture of a need-to-know basis, so people didn’t ask [in-depth] questions. Therefore if somebody was asking those questions it would appear a bit suspicious.’9 Nonetheless, Hewitt is right that in situations such as that in Northern Ireland, human intelligence was able to focus on more specific targets.10 In theory, human intelligence could allow the security forces to distinguish between the IRA and nationalist civilians, which could assist British forces in winning ‘hearts and minds’.

  Various factors prevented British intelligence from reducing IRA activity to an ‘acceptable level’ by June 1972. Some of the intelligence failures are specific to the different geographical areas where the IRA operated. This chapter therefore explores the successes and failures of the intelligence war in various regions where the IRA was active by June 1972.

  Belfast and Derry City

  In the early 1970s, the heart of the Provisional IRA was in Belfast. Many Belfast republicans were angry with their leaders’ decision not to defend Catholic areas in 1968 and 1969. These republicans joined southern Irish dissenters against the IRA leadership and formed the Provisional IRA in late 1969.11 By early 1972, elements within the British Army were claiming that they were diminishing the armed capabilities of the Belfast IRA. In December 1971, Kitson believed that his units had ‘fined down’ the Belfast IRA through arrests.12 On 21 March 1972, an MoD assessment by the Commander of Land Forces (CLF) commented on the ‘damage done’ to the Belfast IRA.13 There is some evidence to suggest that agents and informers ‘damaged’ the Belfast republican movement. On 14 March 1972, for example, Gerry Adams was arrested at a house in the Clonard district. Adams believes that the soldiers who arrested him ‘were obviously acting on information’, since he did not permanently live at the Clonard address and moved between various houses. The British Army should not have been aware of his location.14 Adams was later released and denied all charges.

  The period between late 1971 and June 1972 also saw the Military Reaction Force (MRF) begin operating in Belfast. The MRF was an undercover unit supporting the British Army and British intelligence. It is now possible to discuss the activities of this unit in greater detail, following the recently released account by Simon Cursey, a former MRF member. A degree of caution is needed with his account, because some of Cursey’s claims cannot be verified by other sources. Nonetheless, other revelations by Cursey can be corroborated with existing evidence.

  The GOC (General Officer Commanding) and Frank Kitson helped create the MRF. Kitson’s experience in counter-insurgency operations elsewhere, and his emphasis on the need to create covert units in his book, explains why he was involved in creating the MRF.15 Cursey recalls that the MRF consisted of ‘approximately 30 men and a few women, specially chosen from Army units in late 1971’.16 His dating of the MRF’s creation appears accurate. Indeed, Kitson’s report of December 1971 refers to ‘developing’ MRF units.17 In Cursey’s opinion, the MRF’s creation was a response to the British Army beginning to lose control in Belfast. The increase in violence after internment supports his view. The MRF, based in a secret part of Palace Barracks in Holywood in County Down was, according to Cursey, split into three sections of eight operators per unit. Their duties included: ‘mobile and static surveillance techniques … long-and-short-range covert photography, hijack techniques, anti-hijack techniques, lifting and snatching operations, house breaking and lock picking, prisoner interrogation’. Summarising the role of his MRF section, Cursey states: ‘[o]ur objective was to gather information, spoil and interfere [with] … IRA plans … and when possible, to track down terrorists … [and] hand them over to the uniformed forces to arrest’.18

  On one occasion, Cursey recalls carrying out covert photography on a church roof on the Crumlin Road in Belfast. ‘We were in effect creating a picture library of who was and wasn’t there … [this] came in handy if [an IRA suspect] was picked up and tried to use the Church last Sunday … alibi.’ On another occasion, Cursey remembers being disguised within the fringes of a garden in Belfast with a colleague. They took photos of everybody who visited that property.19 In Cursey’s view, gathering details on the whereabouts and characteristics of IRA suspects and associates was crucial: ‘[m]any items of data, gathered together, will produce an “Intelligence Picture”. It’s never totally complete, but will … fill in the gaps.’20 Whether such operations led to intelligence successes is unknown. Nevertheless, his activities with the MRF demonstrate that covert surveillance operations using electronic intelligence were occurring at an early stage during the conflict.

  To avoid detection during operations, the IRA often hijacked vehicles. They did so either by force or with the permission of individuals.21 But the intelligence services had ways of discovering whether a vehicle had been stolen. Before the later creation of the ‘Vengeful’ computer system, a manual card-index system stored information on vehicle owners using details held by the Vehicle Licensing Agency of Northern Ireland. If the security or intelligence forces had suspicions about whether a vehicle had been stolen, they could check with the Northern Ireland Vehicle Licensing Agency at Coleraine.22 The Belfast IRA was at a disadvantage. They could not drive across the border into the Irish Republic to evade detection from the RUC, British Army and MRF following attacks. With the main roads in Belfast City being congested during rush hour as well, it was difficult for IRA drivers to escape if under suspicion or when being followed. Cursey’s book suggests that these factors explain why an IRA operative was arrested in a stolen car on one occasion.23

  Cursey recalls a ‘secret sub-unit of the MRF’ whose ‘main responsibilities … were … observation/surveillance and … working with informers’. He adds that this section of the MRF took informers ‘around in covert blacked-out vehicles’ to ‘[point] out known and suspected terrorists’.24 Peter Taylor concurs that this was a common practice during the early 1970s.25 This MRF section was also involved in what became known as the ‘Four-Square Laundry’. The discounted laundry service visited nationalist areas in Belfast. ‘They collected laundry from various houses in the estates to be taken away for cleaning’, Cursey explains, ‘[b]ut first they sent it to forensic testing for explosive residue, gun oil, lead and powder-burn traces’. Cursey continues:

&
nbsp; [a]fter the testing, they’d record and register any positive clothing and have the laundry washed and returned. Later, the uniformed forces would make follow-up spot searches of the whole area including the suspect addresses and would usually find weapons, ammunition or explosives in the houses.

  Alongside the laundry service, this MRF subsection ran an office and a massage parlour in Belfast in order to covertly gather more information on the IRA.26

  Cursey suggests that the laundry operation ‘had been extremely successful for a very long time’.27 Most accounts agree that it was eventually exposed by IRA ‘double agents’ sometime in mid-1972. The IRA eventually ambushed the laundry van in October 1972.28 The IRA said that they had ‘disappeared’ Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, allegedly for informing. The IRA only admitted to their killings in 1999.29 Various sources claim that Seamus Wright ‘turned’ during an interrogation at Palace Barracks in February 1972. Those who accept this conclusion include: Father Raymond Murray, who based his assessment on the statements provided by Seamus Wright’s widow to the Association for Legal Justice in May 1973; journalists Peter Taylor and Ed Moloney; and Brendan Hughes, former Belfast IRA member. Hughes, as head of the Second Battalion D Company of the Belfast Brigade at the time, said that he was perplexed when Seamus Wright repeatedly failed to report for IRA duty. Hughes felt that this was strange, particularly as there were constant operations occurring. It is alleged that Wright had become an informer for the MRF. When interrogated, Wright allegedly told the IRA about the laundry service, other services run by the MRF and the details of others he claimed were involved with the MRF, including Kevin McKee.30 This case will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.