- Julian Amery
- Pre-war model Tory social imperialist who evoked enormous affection – even idolatry – in some quarters. Recent chair of the Pinay Circle. Laudatory obituaries in the House Magazine 7 October 1996, the Spectator 7 September 1996 and The Times 4 September 1996.
- Admiral of the Fleet Sir Varyl Begg
- (Obituary, Independent, 15 July 1995). In retirement, one of those former military men who supported General Sir Walter Walker’s Civil Assistance in 1974/5.
- Alan Francovich
- (Obituary Guardian 26 April 1997 and the Independent 28 April). Film-maker, radical; most recently made ‘The Maltese Double-Cross’ about the Lockerbie bombing incident, thereby going up against the combined forces of the US and UK states bent on pinning the deed on Libya. Dying of a heart attack at 56 is not that unusual but in Francovich’s case his death must go into the ‘convenient deaths’ category.
- Arthur Gavshon
- (Obituary, Guardian 31 July 1995). Journalist, author, friend of this journal.
- Ian Greig
- (Obituary Glasgow Herald 4 November 1995). Anti-communist writer and propagandist; active in the Monday Club and Foreign Affairs Research Institute. Although I am still unclear of his precise role, I think he was an IRD stringer.
- Henry Hopkinson
- Lord Colyton (Obituary Guardian 11 January 1995). Diplomat, MP, Minister; chairman of Tanganyika Concessions, and subsequently member of Anglo-Rhodesian Society and Foreign Affairs Research Institute (FARI).
- John Bruce Lockhart
- (Obituary, Independent 13 May 1995). SIS officer.
- Niall MacDermot
- (Obituary by David Leigh in the Guardian, 26 February 1996). War-time MI5 officer, later Labour MP and Minister in the first Wilson government, whose career was halted by MI5 ostensibly because of his wife’s links with Soviet officials, but probably because of his knowledge of the secret services.
- Arthur Martin
- (Obituary, Guardian 2 February 1996). One of MI5’s ‘mole hunters’, ally of Peter Wright
- Christopher Mayhew
- The long obituary in the Daily Telegraph 9 January 1997 swiftly and inaccurately glossed over the work of IRD with which he was associated. Mayhew died apparently believing he had created the department, when the evidence is now clear that he was used to ‘front’ the proposal by elements within the Foreign Office.
- Louis Pauwels
- Obituary, Guardian 4 February 1997). Co-author of The Morning of the Magicians (akaThe Dawn of Magic) originally published in 1961 which might be said to have initiated the current interest in things magical, paranormal, psychic.
- Claire Sterling
- (Obituaries in the Guardian 29 June 1996 and Independent 26 June 1996). Author of two books The Time of the Assassins, (Ali Agca, run by the KGB, shot the Pope), and The Terror Network (KGB running world terrorism), which did much to propound and legitimise the conspiracy theories of the right-wing of the US foreign policy world in the 1980s. She has frequently been alleged to be CIA but no evidence has surfaced yet.
- Kennedy Lindsay
- John Kennedy Lindsay died suddenly on 8 May 1997 at his home near Templepatrick outside Belfast. He was born in 1924 in Canada and returned with his family to South-East Antrim. He obtained a PhD after studying at Trinity College, Dublin, and at universities in London and Edinburgh, and taught and researched history in Canada, USA, the UK, Nigeria and the West Indies.
Upon his return to Ulster he became associated with William Craig’s Vanguard Unionist Party and was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Antrim on 28 June 1973, and then to its successor, the Constitutional Convention on 1 May 1975, remaining an active member until it was dissolved in 1976. During this time he launched a small group known as the Ulster Dominion Group (which subsequently changed its name to the British Ulster Dominion Party in 1977). With the break-up of Vanguard he became a member of the United Ulster Unionist Party and, after unsuccessfully contesting the May 1977 district council elections and another Northern Ireland Assembly election in October 1982, he withdrew from political activity.
Lindsay published a short-lived tabloid newspaper, The Ulsterman, but is best known for the book Ambush at Tullywest, which exposed the nefarious activities of British government agencies in Northern Ireland during what has now become known as ‘the dirty war’. Privately published by him in Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland to circumvent censorship, it was subsequently republished in an expanded edition. Under the new title, The British Intelligence Services in Action, it has become a modern classic, is virtually impossible to now locate, and still compares well with subsequent volumes by Martin Dillon, Paul Foot and Fred Holroyd.
Only weeks after publication, the book’s printers mysteriously burned down in Dundalk and for many years Lindsay was subjected to harassment and surveillance. Possibly for these reasons he had withdrawn from the public forum for some years past and developed a highly successful, hi-tech, academic book distribution business, still in operation at the time of his death.
— Harry Irwin