Kitson, Kincora and counter-insurgency in Northern Ireland

Part 1

Issue 24 of the Covert Action Information Bulletin (Summer 1985) is chiefly devoted to recent activities of U.S. government agents and agents provocateurs inside radical and labour organisations: the ‘sanctuary movement’, the Native American movement and one industrial dispute, are analysed as case studies. They are preceded by a long essay, “The New State Repression”, by Ken Lawrence, a frequent CAIB contributor and member of CAIB’s Board of Advisors. In his essay, a kind of theoretical framework for the case studies which follow it, Lawrence seeks to document “striking advances (which) have emerged in the functioning of the (U.S.) secret police.” For Lawrence,

“By the end of the sixties it was clear to the establishment that its traditional methods of social control were weakening, and that its repressive apparatus was insufficient as a backup. A new approach was needed, one that started from scratch and challenged some of its own most fundamental beliefs about social order. The person who responded to the needs was …(British) Brigadier Frank Kitson .”

Kitson’s book, Low Intensity Operations (London 1971) is “the basic manual of counter-insurgency method in Western Europe and North America”.

At this point in his essay Lawrence starts to get things wrong. He begins with Part 1 of Kitson’s three-stage sketch of the typical insurgency, The Preparatory Period.

“Kitson says the police and the army have to take advantage of the first stage of popular struggle to deploy themselves, to infiltrate the enemy. That is when people are not on their guard, when the police can get their spies and provocateurs, ‘in place’ so that when open rebellion develops, as he says it must, agents are already there.”

This really isn’t an accurate sketch of Kitson’s Preparatory Period. Kitson writes:

“Looking in retrospect (emphasis added) at any counter-subversion or counter-insurgency, it is easy to see that the first step should have been (emphasis added) to prevent the enemy from gaining an ascendancy over the civil population, and in particular to disrupt his efforts at establishing his political organisation.” (p. 67)

Kitson is thinking here of British operations in Kenya and Malaya in the 1950s in which he played a minor part. But, in retrospect the “Preparatory Period” of each of these campaigns was certainly not what Lawrence describes as “nothing is happening; all is calm”. In practice, as Kitson notes, his suggestions for the P.P. are “difficult to achieve because for a long time the government may be unaware that a significant threats exists.” (p. 67)

The central difficulty for Kitson-type theorisers is distinguishing between the preparatory stages of insurgency and ordinary political activity: they may look the same. Precisely because this is so Kitsonesque ideas are dangerous. Unable to distinguish readily between genuine subversion in embryo and ordinary non-subversive political actions, it is rational for the state to treat all critical political activity as potentially subversive. But it is important to grasp that Kitson doesn’t advocate this: he just doesn’t address the problem, assuming that a “significant threat” can be readily identified early on.

For Kitson, the Army – and the book was written for and about the Army, not the police – “should become involved as soon as a threat is detected”.  Notice that Kitson is talking about “subversion”, defined by him as “all illegal measures short of armed force taken by one section of the people of a country to overthrow those governing the country at the time, or to force them to do things they do not want to do”, and “insurgency”, “the use of armed force by a section of the people against the government”. (pp. 3/4, emphases added) This is hardly Lawrence’s “the police … prepare themselves and start penetrating the opposition” in a period when “nothing is happening, all is calm”. Kitson is much more circumspect than Lawrence’s account suggests.

Lawrence’s loose interpretation of Kitson’s writing extends to his version of Kitson’s biography – “the commander of British counter insurgency forces in the North of Ireland for many years” – actually he was commander of a single battalion in Belfast for just two years, 1970-72; and to the sources of Kitson’s book – “most of his examples…..are drawn from Britain’s war in Ireland and the US war in Indochina” – which just isn’t the case. The examples he uses are from all over the world, particularly from Britain’s post WW2 colonial experience. Northern Ireland hardly gets a mention. How could it? Kitson wrote his book in 1970 when the British Army had been in Northern Ireland for a year, a year Kitson had spent at Oxford University reading the literature on counter insurgency.

Lawrence makes much of Kitson’s advocated use of the “pseudo” or “counter’ gang”, “which he (Kitson) claims to have invented in Kenya”. But in the first place this isn’t true. Kitson is very careful in his memoir Bunch of Five (London 1977) not to claim this:

“There was in fact nothing original about the idea itself, variations of which have been used in countless wars throughout history.” (p. 49) (1)

And in the second place, although Kitson claims that the “counter gang'”was important in the war against the Mau Mau in Kenya, it takes up a tiny section of Low Intensity Operations – half of page 100 as far as I can see, and then in the context of an insurgency (defined above). This is a very long way from Lawrence’s view of “pseudo gangs” as an “excellent example of the way repressive forces attempt to criminalise their political opponents”. (emphasis added)

Lawrence’s fragmented and inaccurate account of Kitson’s complex proposals is offered as the explanatory framework for some recent U.S. developments – basically the work of one Louis Guiffrida. Lawrence quotes one section from a manual written by Guiffrida which, he says, “borrows from Kitson”. This is the first section of that “borrowing”.

“Most students of the revolution would agree that ‘peaceful dissent’ is the first step towards revolution and that this trend signals the opening phase of the ‘new revolution’. These issues be they social, cultural, political or economic, snowball and often appear to the casual observer as being full of truth and at least justified. In short it is fashionable to direct smears, threats and even open hostility towards the policeman. He is, symbolically, at least, everything which is wrong with our society. WHEN THE NECESSARY RESPECT AND REVERENCE ARE DESTROYED, VIOLENCE, AS WE KNOW IT, WILL BE HEROISM”.

“Despite the widespread and continuing application of Kitson’s strategy on both sides of the Atlantic” – for which he offers no evidence – “it has failed to stem the tide of insurgency where it has been applied most diligently and for the longest time, Ireland, and has suffered setbacks elsewhere. ” (Where for example?)

At this point in his essay Lawrence introduces another book by an English Army officer with experience in Northern Ireland: Robin Evelegh’s Peace Keeping in a Democratic Society (C. Hurst and Co., London 1978). This, says Lawrence, is “the most persuasive critique and proposals to modify Kitson’s basic strategy”.

Here things begin to get pretty confusing. Evelegh gets Lawrence’s “Kitson treatment” and his 170 pages are boiled down to three basic proposals: compulsory ID cards, steps to make it easier for informants to be generated, and soldiers being given the right to demand the production of driving licenses and vehicle documents.

These fragmented and really quite inaccurate accounts of Kitson’s and Evelegh’s ideas are used by Lawrence to present the U.S. as pursuing a “two track strategy” employing Evelegh’s and Kitson’s ideas simultaneously. The evidence for these large claims?

“At the same time as apparently benign Evelegh-type policies are being implemented such as requiring every child on welfare to have a Social Security number, the more draconian Kitson methods are also advancing mostly under the banner of counter-terrorism.” Viz. “new super-secret counter-terrorist units in various branches of the military … new policy … of pre-emptive strikes against suspected terrorists…the obliterat(ion) of any distinction between domestic and international terrorism … strange military forces … every time a militant anti-war protest is held… every police force worthy of the name has been thoroughly militarised with SWAT teams, tactical squads, helicopter patrols, infra-red night vision paraphernalia and the like.”

This catalogue’s links with Kitson’s ideas seem to me to be tenuous in the extreme. The U.S. have had “special forces”for decades; having an anti-terrorist group tells us nothing about how many of Kitson’s ideas they have adopted. SWAT teams were developed in the 1960s, weren’t they?

Perhaps I have made my point. Perhaps, also, I have laboured the whole business. But these are important issues and it seems important to me that the details are given. It should be clear to the reader that the kindest interpretation of Lawrence’s use of Kitson and Evelegh is that he is simply playing the old game of picking out a few bits and pieces which support the thesis you fancy at the time. Which is not to say the Lawrence’s thesis is wrong – I really don’t know – just not proven, and hardly made more plausible by his cavalier way with his material.

Quite why Lawrence wants to impose this flimsy Kitson/Evelegh structure on recent U.S. trends is unclear to me. There is little, if anything, in the case studies which follow Lawrence’s piece that can’t be found in abundance in the domestic history of the US. The agent provocateur has been a routine tool of US capital for at least half a century. (Don’t I remember Dashiel Hammet being one for the Pinkertons before becoming a writer?) There are examples of the U.S. state setting up phoney radical organisations – “pseudo gangs” in Lawrence’s sense. Think of Lee Harvey Oswald’s bogus branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. And Athan Theoharis’ recent paper on the FBI’s use of the American Legion membership as domestic informers is testimony to an informer network which I’m sure Kitson and his ilk in Northern Ireland would have given their eye-teeth to have. (2) (Incidentally, Kitson himself wrote in Low Intensity Operations that “the United States is well ahead in thinking on the overall direction of counter insurgency and counter subversive operations.” (p. 52)

Lawrence’s central problem is the apparent lack of any evidence of the specific influence of Kitson’s ideas outside the UK. But then it is not obvious to me that Kitson’s ideas are anything more than they appear to be: a synthesis of a wide range of counter-insurgency experience. Kitson happened to do the synthesis but any bright graduate student could have done the same. (3)

The extent to which Kitson’s book was merely a synthesis of previous experience becomes very clear as soon as you read, say, an account of the Malayan “emergency”. A version of this – as seen from the top of the British administration in Malaya – is contained in the recent Templer:Tiger of Malaya, by John Cloake (London 1985). Reading this after re-reading Kitson and Evelegh, what struck me most forcibly was the extraordinary powers that Templer had as combined High Commissioner (civil administration) and Director of Operations (military administration). Templer was an absolute dictator, and as dictator was able, eventually, to achieve the kind of comprehensive and coordinated intelligence, police, military and propaganda operation which is at the heart of Kitson’s thesis, but which was never really achieved in Northern Ireland.

One of the striking sections of the Templer book is an excerpt from a letter Templer wrote in 1954:

“In the areas to be skimmed of troops I propose to use special squads of jungle fighter … they will really be “killer squads” (though I can promise you I won’t call them that, with a view to the questions you might have to answer in the House). They will be at the disposal of the Special Branch … to use on any good information which comes in. We have always set our face against the use of “killer squads” in infantry battalions or the police generally, since it has a bad effect on the fighting morale of all those who are not in the “killer squads” since they never get a proper crack. This new conception is, however, quite different.” (emphasis added) (p. 260)

Curious that he thought it a new conception. Very similar things had been done in Palestine by the British in the late 1940s. (4) In these Palestine operations an “anti-terrorist” squad was set up under the leadership of one ex SOE and one ex SAS man.

“The squads consisted largely of ex-soldiers rather than experienced police or intelligence personnel”, and their overall commander used them “to exploit existing intelligence to capture or kill insurgents themselves”. (5)

In contemporary Northern Ireland the SAS and E4A, the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Mobile Support Unit have had a similar role. (6)

The Palestine “killer squads” grew out of a unit called the Police Mobile Force and one of their operations which has been documented involved the use of a laundry van as cover. In one of those curious historical parallels, one of the British covert operations in Northern Ireland, the so-called Military Reconnaissance Force (MRF) also used a laundry van as cover until it got “blown” and several MRF personnel got killed. The MRF is the best documented example of a “pseudo gang” we have from Northern Ireland. (7)

In The Kitson Experiment (London/Dublin 1983), the French journalist Roger Faligot makes a reasonable case for the proposition that some of Kitson’s synthesis was tried out in Northern Ireland. But his claim (p. 21) that ‘from 1975 onward (Kitson’s ideas) were totally implemented ” (emphasis added) sits uneasily with post 1975 reports of competing and conflicting counter-insurgency and intelligence operations in Northern Ireland. (8)

Evelegh’s book, in essence, is a series of arguments for specific proposals which would lead to an approximation of Templer’s coordination-through-dictatorship in Malaya. Two of Evelegh’s main proposals – compulsory ID cards and the easier use of informers – are taken directly from Templer’s campaign, and Evelegh makes it quite explicit that his desire for an “overall coordinating authority” is based on Templer’s demonstration of what that could achieve and Evelegh’s experience in Northern Ireland where such coordination did not exist. (9)

Evelegh’s suggestion for such a coordinating authority in a counter-insurgency campaign on the British mainland is a civilian structure based on a reintroduction of the World War 2 “Regional Commissioners” who would be “the executive head of all military, police and civil departments ” (10). This is in contrast to both Kitson’s plans in Low Intensity Operations and the Army Land Manual (See note 3 above) which both foresaw a parallel civil and military structure. Such a two-track structure already exists in civil defence planning for “Home Defence Regions” (civil) and Regional Military Commanders (military). To my knowledge Evelegh’s proposed fusing of the two has not been adopted. (11)

Evelegh’s proposals are, if anything, more draconian than Kitson’s. In a sense, as Lawrence suggests, they are a modification of Kitson’s ideas in the light of experience of Northern Ireland. But, as I have tried to show, Evelegh’s solutions are to be found in earlier British counter-insurgency campaigns.

In retrospect it is not surprising that the British state, whose experience of counter-insurgency was of rural societies, should find life in Northern Ireland a more complex proposition – even without the complication of the “enemy” being white and English-speaking.(12) If the war in Northern Ireland is a “colonial war”, by the standards of other British colonial wars it has not been waged as one. Evelegh’s book is a long wistful look at the powers available in previous real colonial wars not available in Northern Ireland.

Nor is it obvious to me that, even with Evelegh’s proposed new powers, the Provos would be defeated. The British state would still be a long way from having the kinds of powers available in Malaya which included widespread curfews, collective punishments for villages believed to be aiding the insurgents, and the relocation of whole communities.

The area of the British state’s social control assets where colonial methods have been introduced wholesale is policing. As the BBC TV programme “Brass Tacks” on the police assaults on the miners at Orgreave and the students at Manchester University showed, the British police have now adopted the public order/crowd control and dispersal methods, not of Northern Ireland, but of Hong Kong. (13)

Roy Henry, until recently Hong Kong’s Commissioner of Police, described Hong Kong’s use of force by the police in four stages, culminating in the use of firearms.

“You never use automatic fire, of course, and you never deliberately aim to kill. You aim for the knee. And you give a very clear and distinct warning first.” (14)

The MSU are a counter-insurgency group and not a riot police, of course. Even so, they are – nominally at any rate – a police counter-insurgency force, and a British one at that. A very significant step has been taken.

Discovering that the British police began acquiring Hong Kong methods in 1981, the only surprise, surely, is that they had waited so long.

Kitson’s 1970 survey of the counter-insurgency operations around the world is essentially a survey of defeats for state forces or temporary successes followed by political defeat. Northern Ireland is going down as another defeat, and not just because of the British state’s failure to defeat the military aspects of the insurgency there.

In an interesting recent paper, Don Parsons shows how far from just being the victims of same Kitsonesque campaign by the British state, the Protestant/Loyalist and Catholic/Nationalist communities in Northern Ireland’s urban areas have taken control of large areas of community life – what might be called the local welfare state – areas, the control of which both Kitson and Evelegh saw as essential to any successful counter-insurgency operation. Parsons offers this, from one John Oliver, a senior civil servant in Northern Ireland among his evidence:

“A well-meaning but dangerously vague concept of community action is offered as a replacement (to party politics). Potentially more dangerous still is the astonishing new growth of community associations some with dubious connections (ie the paramilitaries – Don Parsons) but nonetheless intent upon imposing their will on housing, roads, development, community hall, libraries and so on to the virtual exclusion of elected politicians and of rational argument, financial considerations, ordered priorities and the other realities of public administration.” (16)

The shootings and bombings of the past 15 years in Northern Ireland may have been less significant than the failure of the British state’s social and economic policies. If what we have seen in the past ten years is, as Faligot claims, a coordinated counter-insurgency campaign – and I don’t believe this – then both military and civil wings of that campaign have been failures. The British state is withdrawing from the north of Ireland.

Robin Ramsay

Part 2

In the present political climate the news of yet another (the fifth) inquiry into the Kincora Boys Home scandal must be assumed to be yet another holding operation by the British state. Even if the British state would now find some of the dirt buried there useful to use against the Loyalist politicians in Northern Ireland, the ramifications are so enormous and so dangerous that the entire episode remains a total “no-go'”area.

Below we reproduce two long articles, one directly related to Kincora and one which throws some light on the milieu in which the scandal took place. These articles are, literally, just the tip of an iceberg of colossal dimensions. When – if – all this comes out it will make Watergate look relatively insignificant.

However, for the moment all we can offer is these two pieces, and it is appropriate that it is the Ramsay half of the Lobster who is trying to write this introduction, because I find the entire Kincora episode extremely difficult to get a grip on and suspect that almost everyone else reading this does, too. This, then, is a beginner’s introduction to Kincora, written by a beginner.

There are three major strands in the early part of the story. There was a boys home in Belfast, called Kincora. Several of the male staff running Kincora were homosexuals and assaulted some of the boys. Complaints were made as far back as 1967 but nothing was done. One of the staff was William McGrath, who is the second strand. McGrath tried to set up his very own Protestant paramilitary group called TARA. Quite what TARA did, and whether it was McGrath’s idea alone, or something cooked up by British intelligence, is not clear to me. TARA does look rather like what I can only call a would-be paramilitary group. The second of the two documents refers to it never getting beyond the planning stages. Whose planning isn’t clear.

The British state’s “security forces” are the third strand. They heard about the events at Kincora (presumably through their contacts with the Loyalist-dominated Royal Ulster Constabulary) and found it of interest (a) because of TARA qua paramilitary group; (b) because in the little world of Orange politics McGrath knew many of the leading figures; and (c) because, homosexuality being an offence in Northern Ireland, Kincora – and its related events – offered potential for blackmail by the security forces.

Intimately involved in this was Colin Wallace, whose biography is given in the first of the two documents. Wallace worked in/with – which isn’t yet clear – the Psyops department of the British Army in Northern Ireland, appears to have become disgusted with some of the things that were going on there, got forced out of his job and eventually convicted of manslaughter. He claims he was framed. As the material below shows the Psyops operations were directed against both Republican and Loyalist groups.

The second of the two pieces below is a reprint from the Irish Times of an internal review of the Kincora episode written by Wallace while still working for the British state. This document alone proves that all the subsequent official denials of a “cover-up'”of the Kincora events are lies.

The first of the pieces is by, and about, Captain Fred Holroyd. Like Wallace he was involved in, and became disgusted by some of the things that he witnessed in Northern Ireland, and has subsequently blown the whistle on them via articles in the New Statesman with Duncan Campbell and on Channel 4 TV. To some extent the Wallace/Holroyd/Kincora stories are now interlinked.

The political significance of all this is impossible to exaggerate. The British public (and many of its politicians) are still almost totally ignorant of the things that have been done in Northern Ireland by the British state. As far as I am aware only Roger Faligot (see above) and Kennedy Lindsay have produced substantial accounts of some of the counter-insurgency operations in Northern Ireland, and these fragments from Wallace and Holroyd serve to show that even Faligot and Lindsay’s accounts are still scratching the surface.

If Holroyd’s account of battles within the British intelligence services hardly supports Faligot’s claim that an integrated Kitsonesque regime was introduced in Northern Ireland, the activities he describes here speak of a campaign savage enough. Holroyd’s reference to cooperation between the British intelligence and security forces and some of the Protestant paramilitary groups shows one operational response of the British state to the problem of being “piggy in the middle” – they joined forces with the side which was, supposedly, ‘loyalist’. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

If, at a micro-level, the “Loyalist” paramilitary forces have on occasion been co-opted by the British state, at a macro level they have mostly been an obstacle in the way of any kind of solution to the “problem”. How the British government will deal with this “problem” now that the deal has been struck with the Republic remains unclear. The recent arms charges against a group of Protestants in Glasgow, and the appointment of ex-SAS men to the top three positions in the British Army in Northern Ireland might suggest that one’s assumption of a serious clamp-down on the Protestant paramilitaries will turn out to be correct.

If there was ever a political poisoned chalice, it is the one currently being proffered the Dublin Government by the British state.

This statement, which is highly detailed, was given to the safekeeping of a Surrey solicitor in 1980 by none other than Colin Wallace, the civil servant employed at Headquarters Northern Ireland until 1978 as “Head of Production Services” in the notorious “black propaganda” unit, Information Policy.

Wallace is now aware that the RUC detectives who came to the Lewes Prison to interview him on his knowledge of the Kincora affair, frequently left him to interview Holroyd before returning to Ulster. These detectives were aware that Wallace knew the background to Holroyd’s case, and could independently support his allegations, but never once asked him to make a statement, nor indeed ever even mentioned Holroyd. Wallace’s independent evidence was never mentioned by the RUC team to Holroyd; in fact the detectives went to great lengths to try and convince Holroyd that they could find no supporting evidence for his allegations. This extraordinary behaviour by Superintendent George Caskey and his subordinates Inspectors Ronnie Mack and Edward Cooke has not been explained, and can only lead to grave suspicions of yet another cover-up of events of a politically embarrassing nature.

In January of this year (ie 1985) Wallace sent a comprehensive dossier to Mrs Thatcher which included the material relating to Holroyd’s allegations. At this time the RUC investigation had been going on for over two years and the Ulster Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision to terminate it with no prosecutions was made on exactly the same date as the Prime Minister’s office acknowledged receipt of the dossier. The decision was made before the DPP could see the contents of the file. This sudden decision, after two years, before the RUC had to accept the evidence independently corroborating Holroyd’ s allegations, appears to support the belief in a Government-inspired cover-up.

Captain Holroyd was an officer in the Royal Corps of Transport, who, after volunteering for “special duties”, was trained at the Joint Services of Intelligence (JSSI) at Ashford in Kent as a Military Intelligence Officer (MIO). After three months at JSSI at Templer Barracks (also the Depot of the Intelligence Corps), he was posted to Ulster for three years. His unit was called the Special Military Intelligence Unit (Northern Ireland) (SMIU, NI). Controlled from an office next door to the Head of Special Branch RUC, at RUC HQ, Belfast, it was commanded in the 70’s by Lt. Col. Brian Dixon and then Lt. Col. John Burgess, both of the Intelligence Corps.

These Commanding Officers, with a small staff, controlled a Military Intelligence Officer (MIO) and his assistant, a Field Intelligence NCO (FINCO) attached to each RUC Division, and a number of Liaison Intelligence NCO’s (LINCO) perhaps fifty operatives overall.

The prime role of the unit members was the passage of information and intelligence between the Army and the RUC at all levels up to Brigade. However, some of the successful operatives were recruited by Mr Craig Smellie of MI6, to operate on cross-border duties. Holroyd was one of this small group.

John Colin Wallace, an Ulsterman from Ballymena, was a civil servant employed at Headquarters Northern Ireland. Initially his first contact with the Security Forces was in the late 1960s when he gave up his job in pharmaceuticals and became a Public Relations Officer (PRO) with the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). When the present troubles started in earnest he worked at HQNI at Lisburn. He was promoted and became, in effect, the key officer at PRO.

In the early 1970s General Frank Kitson’s theories of information control in a counter-insurgency situation became very fashionable and there developed a period of reorganisation in the PRO set up. Hugh Mooney of the Information Research Department (IRD) was posted to Stormont to advise on the setting up of a secret department to be used for psychological operations (PSYOPS). This unit was called Information Policy and was given a legitimate role as a cover for its secret role. Lt. Col. Jeremy Railton was the Commanding Officer (CO) and Colin Wallace was ordered to attend a rigged application interview for the job of “Head of Production Services”. (The interview was necessary to conform with Civil Service regulations.)

Production Services, having comprehensive printing facilities, provided forgeries of various sorts – driving licenses (Holroyd’s Eire driving license in a false name, for example), CIA identity cards, posters, press ID cards, bank statements and so on.

Information Policy (Inf Pol) went into the psyops arena with smear campaigns against political figures and other individuals selected by MI5 (Denis Payne) and MI6 (Douglas Allen) working at Stormont. As so often happens in this kind of unaccountable work, as time went on more and more senior people wanted tasks done, and conflicts of interest caused Wallace – as the man in the middle – problems.

Ultimately he had to face the problem of the MI5 officers wanting to use the “dirty tricks” facilities, not to defeat terrorism in Ulster, but against legitimate politicians in England. He also had to live with the knowledge of the Intelligence link with the Kincora Boys Home, and his unauthorised briefings of the Irish press (albeit encouraged off the record by disgusted Army officers) led him to become regarded as a threat to some members of the Intelligence community.

Fred Holroyd was also having problems with his contemporaries in the Brigade area centred on Lurgan. His written Army charter clearly laid down that his prime loyalty should be to the RUC Special Branch, but 3 Infantry Brigade Commander, Colin Wallis-King, and his Intelligence Staff, saw Holroyd as a “Trojan Horse” who could penetrate RUC Intelligence and pass it on for Army Brigade to exploit. After seeking advice from his CO at SMIU (NI), Holroyd refused to be used in this way, incurring hostility and subsequently non-cooperation from HQ 3 Brigade.

Holroyd also became aware of a series of “dirty tricks” being carried out by HQ 3 Brigade – weapon “planting”, arms cache booby-trapping, blackmail and coercion, kidnapping and the like. After making known his feelings about these activities, Holroyd began to experience a series of odd incidents, remarkably similar to those experienced by Colin Wallace, who had also been making the point that unlawful activities, especially those involving innocent people, were absolutely counter productive to the forces of law and order and would eventually lead to a lack of belief in their credibility.

It would appear that the element of MI5 at Stormont and HQNI, who by 1975 had taken control of intelligence in the province after a bitter struggle with MI6, decided that either Holroyd and Wallace became implicated with the “dirty tricks” exponents, or, alternatively, they would have to be removed, and, if necessary, discredited so that any revelations that they might make, would not be believed. Both men were approached and asked to carry out unlawful tasks. Holroyd was given an unattributable weapon by WO2 Eric Hollis, Intelligence Collator at HQ 3 Brigade and asked to plant it on a victim. In fact he handed it to the RUC Special Branch. Wallace was asked to prepare a paper codenamed Clockwork Orange 2, a feasibility study designed to be used to discredit British politicians in England. (Clockwork Orange 1 was a study of methods of discrediting Ulster public figures, used most effectively by the Security Forces.)

Wallace’s prevarications led to what can be considered stage 2 of MI5’s policy: both Wallace and Holroyd were informed quite separately that their “covers” had been blown and that they were in grave danger of assassination. It was suggested to them both that it was in everyone’s interests if they left the Province and returned to England. Holroyd was able to prove to the staff of HQ 3 Brigade, who were the executor’s of MI5’s plan in this case, that this proposition was nonsense. Wallace, who also realized that no new events pointed to his being assassinated, also made objections to being posted.

More extreme measures were called for and now MI5 decided that whatever was necessary to be done, would be, in order to remove the perceived threat of these outspoken critics of MI5’s policies.

Confidential

to: – (—)November 8th 1974.
“TARA” – Reports Regarding Criminal Offences Associated with the Homosexual Community in Belfast.
Reference A: Attached RUC background paper on “TARA”
Reference B: Attached RUC report on the death of Brian McDermott.
Reference C: Your request for a press investigation into the matters referred to above.

1. Reference A adds nothing of real significance to what we already know of the background to “TARA”. Furthermore, it contains a number of inaccuracies and there are various items of important information missing from it. It is difficult to say whether these flaws are the result of poor Intelligence or whether they are disinformation provided for our consumption.
2. If we are to interest the press in this matter with a view to exposing what has been taking place and thereby stopping further assaults in these hostels, then I would strongly advise that we make use of our own background information and exclude the rather contentious and, indeed, politically suspect material contained in the above. As you know I did try to develop press interest in this matter last year but without any success. I also feel that it is difficult to justify our interest in what is purely a police and political matter because, in my opinion, TARA is no longer of any security interest.
3. In theory TARA was basically a credible concept from a loyalist paramilitary point of view, but it never progressed beyond the planning stage. Such a body could, no doubt, have made good use of the Orange Order’s normal selection and “vetting” ‘ system for screening potential recruits, and it would have had ready-made facilities for clandestine training by making use of the Orange halls throughout the province. The idea failed for a number of reasons, mainly because of William McGrath’s rather strange political views which are more akin to Irish Nationalism than Unionism, and the fact that other organisations which appeared to be more in keeping with the needs of the loyalist community at that time, sprang up during the period.
4. Reference A deals with McGrath’s background in considerable detail but it is inaccurate in a number of respects. The Kincora hostel in Newtonards Road where he works was opened in 1959 under the control and administration of Belfast Corporation welfare department. He does not, as the paper claims, “run the hostel” – he is employed as a “housefather”. The warden of Kincora is Joseph Mains and the deputy warden is Raymond Semple. Mains was appointed in 1959 and Semple in 1964. Both men are known homosexuals. Indeed various allegations of homosexual assault on the inmates were investigated by senior —— —– in 1967 but no action was taken against anyone. (See notes of a report by Mr —- at flag ‘N”)
5. It is untrue to say that allegations of assaults on the inmates of Kincora ‘”began shortly after his appointment”. As I have pointed out in para 4 above, allegations were made as early as 1967 and there is also evidence that assaults may have taken place as early as 1959, soon after Mains was appointed.
6. Reference A claims that McGrath “is a known homosexual” but it avoids any mention of his links with other key figures in the local homosexual community, other than to insinuate that a number of well known political personalities with whom he came into contact were also homosexuals. For example, in para 6 of reference A, it is claimed that McGrath left his previous employment “……….” whereas our information would tend to indicate that ………. is well known in unionist party circles (see also……….) and was for some time…………. (see flag “M”) ………. and McGrath ………. and ………. has been actively engaged in trying to have McGrath removed from Kincora ‘s own version of events (see flag “0”) is, of course, very enlightening, but I would suggest that it should be treated with caution until it can be substantiated because of the antagonism between them. It would also appear that many of the RUC source reports on this matter after 1971 originated from ……….
7. McGrath was himself the subject of an internal investigation by the Belfast Corporation welfare department in 1972-73, following allegations of more homosexual assaults on the inmates of Kincora. One of our own sources confirmed in 1972 that a number of complaints had been received about his behaviour and that although the complaints had been passed to ………. and to the RUC, no action had been taken against him. This would appear to be confirmed, to some extent, by Mr……. (see flag “R”) in 1973.There were of course similar allegations relating to other hostels during this period (see Bawnmore, Westwinds, Burnside etc) and this conflicts with reference A’s assertion that the allegations were confined to Kincora.
8. It should be remembered that the 1967 Sexual Offences Act does NOT apply to Northern Ireland and homosexual intercourse between adults or with minors is a criminal offence. The apparent lack of interest, therefore, by the welfare authorities and the RUC is quite remarkable. Furthermore the claim made by Mrs ….. (see flag “Q”) that key individuals in the …… were themselves homosexuals and thus ………. but also covered up the offences that took place and protected the offenders, requires very serious examination. In particular, I view her allegations about Joss Cardwell with great concern because it illustrates the political difficulties we are likely to face if we become involved.
9. Reference B which deals with the circumstances surrounding the murder of Brian McDermott last year puts forward the theory that the killing had both sexual and witchcraft overtones. The only link that can be identified between the murder and the homosexual community is via John McKeague (see flag “S”). McKeague’s own statements raise more questions than they answer. Certainly his boast that he will not be prosecuted because “he knows too much about some people” merits serious investigation, but I suspect that he will not be prepared to talk until he is released. It is also rather remarkable that no charges have been preferred against him ……Our own investigations of instances of alleged witchcraft or other satanic rites in the province would tend to dismiss the RUC’s theory that Brian McDermott’s murder could be part of these activities. In the past “black magic” practices etc have been mainly confined to groups operating from republican areas, with the possible exception of three cases in C. Antrim. I think, however, that from a press point of view we would be very foolish to give any credence to such claims without the most convincing evidence. The forensic reports on the McDermott murder (see flag ‘T’) would tend to indicate that someone tried to dispose of the body by cutting it into pieces and burning them. The insinuation made in the document regarding the boy’s disappearance, and the proximity of ………. is dangerous nonsense.
10. Reference A claims that a number of key personalities in the political arena “are aware of the Kincora situation and, in particular of McGrath’s background.” It does not explain the extent of their awareness nor of each individual’s involvement with McGrath. In summary it would appear that the document is claiming that:
    1. … … of the Grand Orange Lodge are aware of the situation because of the discussions and correspondence relating to McGrath within the Orange Order. It is further alleged that …….. and ………. have blocked any action against McGrath.
    2. ……….. is aware of the situation but has failed to take any action because of the possible blackmail pressure owing to his connection with McGrath,……. and John McKeague. On the face of it the statements made by ………. and ………. (see flag “F”) would tend to support only part of such a claim. There are also a number of inconsistencies: McGrath would appear to be strongly anti-communist and anti-UVF and this conflicts with the document’s views on links with Tommy Herron, Ernie ‘Duke’ Elliot, ‘The Ulster Citizens Army” etc.
    3. Various public and political figures who hold positions of power and who are also homosexuals protect each other from prosecution. The claim of a prostitution ring involving juveniles is not really substantiated other than by ……….’s own personal account. It would be interesting to check, however, the number of charges brought against people involved in homosexual activities in greater Belfast area in the last 5 years. I also think the RUC report on drug abuse in this connection merits close examination because this is a natural area of fund raising of terrorists. There is, of course, the obvious problem of security with the possible blackmailing of civil servants, politicians etc.

Conclusions and recommendations

I am very far from happy with the quality of the information on this matter, and I am even more unhappy because of the, as yet unexplained, failure of the RUC or the NIO to take on this task.

I find it very difficult to accept that the RUC consistently failed to take action on such serious allegations unless that (sic) had specifically received some form of policy direction. Such direction could only have come from a very high political or police level. If that is the case then we should be even more wary about getting involved.

On the other hand, if the allegations are true then we should do everything possible to ensure that the situation is not allowed to continue. The youngsters in these hostels almost certainly come from problem families, and it is clear that no one will fight their fight unless we do. Those responsible for the murder of Brian McDermott must be brought to trial before another child is killed, and if it can be proved that there is a connection with this homosexual group, then the RUC must be forced to take action irrespective of who is involved.

I would therefore recommend that:

1. We make one final attempt to get the RUC to investigate the matter or at least discuss the matter with RUCLO.
2. We obtain very clear and unambiguous authority from London to proceed with a press disclosure.
3. We approach a responsible journalist whom we are confident will make a thorough investigation of the matter and not simply write a sensational type story purely on the information he is given.
4. We continue to look for additional information on this matter to ensure that we are not just being used as part of some political disinformation scheme.

J.C.Wallace (Senior Information Officer)

Notes

1. In Internal Security Defence Review No 1 (March 1983) p.  45, the anonymous authors quote from an account of the wars against the American Indian, suggesting that the use of “pseudo gangs” goes back at least as far as the 1870s.
2. The FBI and the American Legion Contact Program, Athan Theoharis in Political Science Quarterly, Summer 1985
3. It is worth noting that Kitson’s book appeared after the revised Army Manual: Land Operations Vol 2 (counter revolutionary operations) appeared in 1969. I haven’t seen this and have no way of knowing how much, if any, input into it Kitson made. The manual is briefly discussed in State Research October/November 1978 pp. 20-21. The outline given there suggests that it is similar, in broad terms, to the Kitson/Evelegh view of the world.
4. See “Special Operations in Counter-Insurgency: the Farren Case, Palestine 1947” – David Charters in Journal of Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) June 1979
   There is, quite clearly, a study to be written of the continuities through the experience of SOE to the post-war counter-insurgency operations. To give just one example, some of the people imported into the Malayan operation came from Palestine and were (apparently) resented as “the Palestine mob”. Charters shows one example of SOE methods being (wrongly, in his view) used in a counter-insurgency situation.
5. Charters – see note 4
6. On E4A, most recently and accessibly, see Chris Ryder, Sunday Times 11 August 1985.
7. On “Four Square” see Faligot’s The Kitson Experiment pp. 30/31. The MRF is openly acknowledged as an army “counter gang” both by William Seymour in his British Special Forces (London, 1985) p. 308, and by Tony Geraghty in his Who Dares Wins (London, 1980) pp. 193/4.
8. This is extremely complicated. There is little doubt that between 1969 and 1974 something akin to chaos reigned in the British counter-insurgency efforts in Northern Ireland. All accounts agree on this, and also that from around 1975 the chaos was reduced. How this was done, and how effective it was in practice is difficult to determine in any detail. Faligot describes lots of bits and pieces, many of which look like aspects of a Kitsonesque coordinated counter-insurgency campaign. But, to give just one recent example (and there are others in Fred Holroyd’s piece here), the Belfast Sunday News 21 July 1985 reports the existence of SAS-trained “ghost squads” of armed civilians, squads whose existence had not been notified to the RUC.
   The essential difficulty for any integrated counter-insurgency campaign in Northern Ireland has always been that Northern Ireland is part of the British state and so all the civil arms of that state are present and, as far as I am aware, unwilling to surrender their powers over to the Army. Solving this particular problem is one of the main threads of Evelegh’s book.
9. See Evelegh, especially around p. 110
10. “Regional Commissioners” are a part of current government Emergency Powers proposals on the stocks in case of an international crisis (ie the threat of war). These “Regional Commissioners” would be junior Cabinet Ministers. (See Duncan Campbell in New Statesman 6 September 1985). It isn’t clear to me if this represents any kind of adoption of Evelegh’s proposals. But then it isn’t clear to me exactly what the relationship is between these ‘Emergency Powers’ and possible mainland insurgency. If anyone has information on this I would like to hear from them.
11. The lack of clarity mentioned in note 10 above extends to my understanding of the relationship between the Civil Defence structure and possible reactions to insurgency in the UK. This whole area is – looks like – a complicated muddle. If someone could clarify it they would be doing us all a big favour.
12. “The Army’s counter-insurgency doctrine … was not designed for domestic use, that is, for a semi peace-keeping role between two warring communities within the UK.” David Charters, “Intelligence and Psychological Warfare-Operations in Northern Ireland” in RUSI journal, September 1977 p. 25.
    Nor, of course, was it designed to combat people capable of highly sophisticated technical operations. On the Provos use of intercepts of British signals see “Sigint Used by Anti-state Forces” by Frank Doherty in War and Order ed. Celina Bledowska (London, 1983)
13. The essence of the programme is in The Listener, 31 October 1985
14. In Listener (above)
15. Chris Ryder in Sunday Times see note 6 above.
16. Don Parsons, “Politics Beyond the Point of Production: class struggle and regional underdevelopment in Northern Ireland” in Review of Radical Political Economy (New York) Summer 1985