The story of the Ulster Citizens’ Army (UCA for the rest of this essay) is a tiny fragment in the intricate history of Protestant politics in Northern Ireland in the mid 1970s – so tiny that none of the general accounts I have looked at even mention it. But the UCA lingers on: it is currently being used to smear Colin Wallace.
What was the UCA? On this there is no agreement. Some journalists who were in Northern Ireland at the time remain convinced that it was nothing more than a British Army/intelligence operation, a ‘funny’. Some suspect it to have been a psy ops job, possibly even run by Wallace himself. Although this view is intelligible given what we now know of psychological operations during this period, I believe it to be mistaken for two main reasons.
In the first place the available evidence in the shape of press accounts from the time indicates that whatever journalists may have thought of it, other Protestant groups at the time believed the UCA to be a real group. At one stage the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) issued a public threat against the UCA. (Times 6 October 1973). It was only later, after the smear against Wallace had been initiated, that the notion that the UCA was a British ‘funny’ was put about by some of the other Protestant groups.
Secondly, the British authorities themselves treated the UCA as a real organisation. I have seen two 1974 documents, one a straightforward briefing paper, and the other an Information Policy paper, which discuss the UCA as a real if somewhat mysterious group. (According to Wallace the Information Policy paper was written by Jeremy Railton, sometime head of Inf Pol, the secret psychological operations unit for which Wallace worked.)
It could be argued, of course, that were the UCA a psychological operation the British state forces would do precisely this. But the Inf Pol paper is an account of the UCA and the uses made of it by Inf Pol. That is, while the public manifestations of the UCA – leaflets, statements, and threats – were genuine, Inf Pol was stirring the pot with unattributable briefings to the media trying to exploit themes suggested by the UCA’s own propaganda.
It is also possible to argue that this Inf Pol briefing on the UCA is itself also a phoney. But then it is possible, in principle, to argue that almost anything is a phoney. Such scepticism is easy but ultimately futile. My inclination is to accept the Inf Pol briefing as true (a) because its account of the UCA makes sense both of the initial reaction of other Protestant groups that it was real and the later reaction of journalists that it was a ‘funny’ – both were correct; and (b) because of one sentence in the document: “As far as is known this project was cleared through H. Mooney, the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Information Adviser.” Mooney was the IRD (Information Research Department) officer involved in the creation of the Information Policy Unit and his name is to be found very rarely indeed. I just do not believe that a phoney briefing document on the UCA would so casually (and senselessly) reveal the identity and role of Hugh Mooney. (1)
The evidence is that, at least in its early stages, the UCA was a genuine group of some kind. But notice, a genuine group in a strictly limited sense, that it’s public statements were not the work of the British state. The point here is that the UCA seems to have done nothing beyond issuing some statements and leaflets. No personnel ever identified themselves, no activities were publicly undertaken (no assassinations, bombings or beatings were every claimed for example); there were no marches, rallies or newspapers.
The journalists who were and are sceptical about its existence have good cause: the UCA looked like a ghost group, and the experts at ghost groups were the British state. However the evidence is that the UCA began life as a Protestant ghost group which was quickly exploited by the experts at Information Policy. If so, whose ghost group was it in the first place?
The origins of the UCA appear to lie in the schisms that afflicted the Ulster Defence Association in 1972. Both of the Army briefings say this without being certain. One of them names the three men believed to have been behind the UCA: Ernie ‘Duke’ Elliot, Dave Fogel and Tommy Herron. Early press reports named these three as the instigators of the UCA (Belfast Telegraph 5th October 1973, for example), and suggested that the UCA was a left-wing faction in the UDA. Certainly the UCA’s early rhetoric had left tinges – an October 1972 statement from it said it was composed of “the more socialist-oriented and class-conscious members of the UDA”. (Belfast Telegraph 18 September 1973). But how seriously this should be taken is impossible to evaluate. Tommy Herron as socialist leader sits uneasily with the widespread reports of Tommy Herron leader of East Belfast’s UDA extortionists.
Elliot and Herron were both assassinated by persons unknown. The British state and other Protestants have both been accused of the murders. Dave Fogel fled to England, gave a number of press conferences about the in-fighting inside the UDA, dropped a few hints about the left orientation of Herron and Elliot, and disappeared. (See, for example, Sunday Times 28 January 1973)
At various times the UCA were said to have been in discussions with the Peoples’ Democracy group, the Official IRA, the British and Irish Communist Group and the Communist Party. The truth of these reports is impossible to evaluate.
This is an extremely complicated episode in an extremely confusing period. The best published account of the period I know is in Political Murder in Northern Ireland (Martin Dillon and Dennis Lehane, Penguin 1973), especially chapter 12. My best estimate is that the UCA was indeed a leftish organisation at the beginning, but quickly deteriorated into becoming a vehicle with which one UDA faction attacked another. It is also worth pointing out that from its inception in 1972 through to mid 1974 the UCA seems to have been largely ignored by the other Protestant groups. If it was a nuisance it was a minor one.
In mid 1974 this changed: the UCA began issuing leaflets accusing named members of the UDA and UVF of being responsible for assassinations. The UCA suddenly became the object of increased interest, interest heightened by its anonymity. For several months the UDA leadership did nothing but then on 15th November 1974 it issued a statement accusing the British Army of being behind the UCA and announcing that it knew the identity of the UCA’s “leader”. The attempt to smear Colin Wallace began here. (see Irish Times 16 November 1974) (2)
In the first place Keith Hamilton denied the meeting had taken place – as did Ron Horn.(Daily Telegraph 7 December 1974; Guardian 6 December) Hamilton had served for a year as a very junior press officer for the Army in Northern Ireland, but by the time of the alleged meeting with Ron Horn had left the province and was working for a newspaper in Southampton. But according to the Guardian (6 December 1974) he had returned briefly to Northern Ireland in August, and this, according to the Guardian report, was when he was said to have tipped off the UDA. Either way it looks very odd. If Hamilton’s denial is believed (and he denies it today), who did tip off the UDA (if anyone actually did)? And if Hamilton’s denial is not believed, and he did tip the UDA off in August, why did the UDA apparently do nothing until mid November, allowing the UCA to issue its most damaging leaflets of all during those months?
Looking at the press clippings on this episode today, what seems to have happened is this. Andy Tyrie rings McKittrick of the Irish Times, one of the best-informed journalists then working in Northern Ireland. McKittrick goes to see the alleged head of the UCA, Ron Horn. He meets Horn and his wife who deny all knowledge of the affair. (Horn was a peripatetic music teacher at this time and in his fifties.) McKittrick then takes the tip from the UDA about Ron Horn to Colin Wallace at the Army’s press office. Wallace says it all sounds very fishy. McKittrick then publishes an account of this, without naming Ron Horn, on 16th November.
Nothing much happens then but on December 4 Robert Fisk in The Times reports the basics of the story, including (again) the UDA claim to know who is behind the UCA. On December 5th a story similar to that of Fisk’s appears in the Daily Telegraph written by Christopher Bramwell and Gerard Kemp. They report the basics of the piece – the tip-off, the ID on Horn, Horn’s denial (but not Horn’s name) – then add some new pieces. First they report the (unnamed) Horn commenting on a previous visitor asking the same questions (presumably the visit of McKittrick). This visitor, says Horn, asked him about a pub called the Pig and Chicken where he (Horn) is said to have been seen (and where Keith Hamilton is supposed to have had his meeting with the head of the UCA). Horn, a teetotaller, denies ever setting foot inside the Pig and Chicken. Curiously, however, messers Bramwell and Kemp proceed to the pub where “one of the bar staff gave an extremely accurate description of the man we had just left.” Either Horn is lying or a pretty sophisticated disinformation operation is being run here.
The next day, December 6, Derek Brown chips in in The Guardian. His opening paragraph goes thus:
“The search for the author of an “Ulster Citizens’ Army” leaflet linking Loyalist militants with sectarian murders has disclosed a curious link with British military intelligence. Leaders of the Ulster Defence Association, some of whom are named in the latest Citizen Army statement, say the author is a middle-aged Englishman living in Antrim Town. It emerged yesterday that he was married about six months ago to a local woman, formerly a friend of a senior civilian employee in the Army Intelligence department at Lisburn. This man is closely concerned with collecting information on obscure organisations like the Citizen Army.”
This Guardian piece is followed the next day by a piece by the Bramwell half of the Kemp/Bramwell team in the Daily Telegraph . This rehashes the same information but adds that:
“the couple (the Horns) said that the intelligence man was upset by their marriage.”
So, enter Colin Wallace – identified if not named – and enter, in my opinion, the point of this entire charade. For these references to the (unnamed) Wallace’s “unhappiness” at the Horn’s marriage form the basis of the smear which resurfaced during his trial for manslaughter in 1981 and which is doing the rounds again today. The smear varies a good deal, as I show below, but essentially is this: Ron Horn stole Wallace’s girl, so Wallace leaked the information that Horn was UCA to the UDA. In a fit of jealous pique Wallace tried to get Ron Horn assassinated.
What are we to believe? Wallace denies the story in its entirety. The Horns deny that Ron Horn had anything to do with the UCA and no-one now seems to believe this, if anyone actually did at the time. (David McKittrick told me that the UDA knew, at the time, that Ron Horn had nothing to do with the UCA.) Keith Hamilton denies being the individual who tipped off the UDA and denies knowing or meeting Ron Horn. Wallace denies being upset by the Horn’s marriage, something confirmed by a former colleague and friend who recently told another researcher that, on the contrary, Wallace had been rather relieved that the woman had married Ron Horn as he had been neglecting her for some time: as all reports agree, for Wallace his job was all-consuming.
In the midst of this muddle a number of things stick out. Someone suggested to the UDA that they should allege that Ron Horn was the leader of the UCA; and someone very close to Wallace told the press about his prior relationship with the then Mrs Ron Horn. This second piece of information was the key because without the link, via his wife, to Wallace, Ron Horn qua leader of the UCA made no sense. But with the link to Wallace and the British Army press office – already the subject of considerable rumour-mongering – Horn made an initially plausible candidate. He was ex British Army and he did have a connection to Wallace, albeit a tenuous one. But put like this, of course, the whole scenario looks more like an attempt to drag Wallace personally or the psy ops unit (or both) into the limelight than an attempt to identify the head of the mysterious UCA. This impression is strengthened when you add (a) that Andy Tyrie originally told David McKittrick that Keith Hamilton (or his impersonator) had phoned the UDA from the Army press office, and (b) that McKittrick received a letter, apparently from the UCA, telling him to lay off the story – a letter posted in Lisburn, site of British Army HQ. As Wallace comments in one his notes on this episode, it looks as though someone was laying a paper chase leading back to the Army.
To this puzzle I return below. At this point, however, it might be worth showing the way the smear was developed in the press.
Version 1
Sources: Guardian 6 December, Daily Telegraph 7 December 1974.
Hamilton tips off Tyrie. (By inference) Wallace, unhappy at the Horn’s marriage, has fed the information to Hamilton.
Version 2
Source: Kenneth Clarke, Daily Telegraph 21 March 1981 (the day Wallace was convicted of manslaughter).
UCA an invention of Wallace’s. (By inference) Wallace tips off the UDA about Horn. (There is no mention of Keith Hamilton in this version.) This version is part of a thorough “Wallace-as-Walter Mitty” piece, the overall tone of the smears which have been running since Wallace was convicted. Clarke turned up at our press conference in the House of Commons in April 1986 to launch Lobster 11 and bad-mouthed Wallace then.
Version 3
Source: Keith Miles, Daily Mail, March 21 1981
Wallace “had been courting a local girl who had rejected him for a 51-year-old ex-soldier, a band leader and schools inspector. Wallace “whispered” that the man was the leader of a new (sic) paramilitary group and posed as a journalist to inform the hard-line Ulster Defence Association that the man had implicated them in 13 murders of Catholics.”
This piece also runs the “Walter Mitty” line, actually talking of Walter Mitty, as does Clarke (above). Miles, please note, is now married to the new editor of the News of the World which in July ran a grotesquely inaccurate editorial blaming Wallace for the Ken Livingstone speech (printed in this issue). The real source for Livingstone was Fred Holroyd and a TV programme by RTE. Wallace has never spoken to Livingstone about these matters.
Version 4
Source: Jim Campbell, Sunday World (Belfast) March 22 1981.
In this one Wallace “tried to have an Antrim man assassinated because he was having an affair with the man’s wife”…”Senior UDA men revealed that Wallace had tipped them off that the man he wanted murdered was a communist agent trying to infiltrate Loyalist paramilitaries … Wallace has pretended to be a press man when ‘tipping them off that the Antrim teacher was the leader of the so-called Ulster Citizens’ Army – an allegedly communist-inspired Protestant group that was a figment of his imagination.”
The virtue of this version is that it does explicitly what the others (numbers 2 and 3) only hint at; namely, linking the manslaughter case and the Ron Horn story:
“During the trial which ended on Friday, it was revealed that Wallace was having an affair with the victim’s wife. The UDA claim that when he tried to set up the Antrim school teacher in the early seventies he was having an affair with his wife as well.”
The striking thing about the current generation of Ron Horn/Wallace/UCA stories is who is telling them. One source is a former colleague of Wallace, now working for the World Wildlife Fund, and, in my opinion, a British spook. Another is James Miller, the former UDA intelligence officer who emerged earlier this year in the Sunday Times (22 and 29 March 1987) to reveal that he had been an MI5 agent inside the UDA. When he first contacted the Sunday Times it was the Ron Horn/UCA story he was most keen they should print. A third is Andy Tyrie of the UDA. And a fourth is another UDA man, James Mcmichael, who came across from Northern Ireland earlier this year to tell the Ron Horn saga to Merlyn Rees, former Labour Home Secretary and Northern Irish Secretary.
While it isn’t difficult to see why a British spook would want to discredit Wallace, the role of these UDA men is more difficult to understand. Officially, the UDA are locked into a power struggle with the British state over its policies towards the province. Wallace’s allegations generally are extremely damaging to the British state, especially those sections of it which have been involved in Northern Ireland. On the face of it you might assume that the UDA would welcome Wallace: my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Apparently not. The best hypothesis – and it is only that – I can offer to explain the UDA’s enthusiasm for running the UCA smear is that the UCA remains a severe embarrassment to the UDA. There have been a number of well-informed suggestions that the assassins of Tommy Herron and Ernie Elliot were, in fact, other Protestants, other factions in the then feuding UDA. If this is true, then the UDA leadership in 1974 had a considerable vested interest in attributing the UCA to the British Army. If the UCA was a psy ops job, the argument might run, Herron and Elliot were not part of it and, with a kind of logic, the UDA had no reason to assassinate them: or, perhaps, were right to assassinate them. And having committed themselves to this position in 1974 with the Ron Horn-Wallace nonsense, the UDA today is stuck with the story – a story which will only seem plausible if they can discredit Wallace. Thus, in 1987 as in 1974, the political interests of the UDA leadership and the political interests of the British state (or a section of it) coincide. But this is no more than speculation. The UDA’s motives in running this transparent rubbish are mysterious to me.
As with the manslaughter charge, Wallace really doesn’t have a case to answer. There was no evidence that he killed Jonathan Lewis; and there is none that he had anything to do with the Ron Horn story. In the Lewis case it is obvious to me that Wallace was the victim of what Fred Holroyd calls “an opportunity frame-up”. With the Ron Horn story something much more deliberate took place. For the explanation of the event which makes the most sense is that the entire charade was mounted to discredit either Wallace personally or the psy ops unit (Information Policy) for which he was working.
For reasons unknown Andy Tyrie was persuaded to take part in a hoax ‘tip’ about Ron Horn. The ‘tip’ was revealed to have come from the Army press office; either, in version 1, from Keith Hamilton; or, in version 2, from Wallace himself. The journalists put onto the story by the UDA were then told about Wallace’s prior relationship with Mrs Horn and duly recycle this information leaving the readers of the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph to draw the obvious conclusion. Without ever actually naming Wallace as the guilty party, the smear was established. Whoever organised this operation went to some trouble to do so, down to having someone who looked like Ron Horn hang around in the Pig and Chicken for the bar staff to identify when asked. The conspirators also had access to pretty personal information about Wallace’s life – his relationship with the woman who became Mrs Horn.
The outstanding candidate for the role of organiser of the Ron Horn smear is MI5. All this took place just after Wallace had (a) refused to proceed further with the MI5-directed operation Clockwork Orange 2, and (b) had written his memorandum of 8th November expressing his concern about the lack of action by the RUC and Northern Ireland Office over the continuing assaults on the inmates of the Kincora Boys Home. (The text of that memorandum was printed in Lobster 10). By these two acts Wallace had, unwittingly I presume, become a problem for the new MI5-controlled regime in Northern Ireland – as Fred Holroyd did some months later.
In the absence of other information at the moment my conclusion would be that MI5 organised this little caper in an attempt to discredit Wallace and get him removed from Northern Ireland. Although it failed, another scheme was run a few weeks later and the objective accomplished. Meanwhile, the UCA smear had been established and was available for future use such as feeding to sympathetic right-wing papers (Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph) during Wallace’s manslaughter trial.
Ever since Wallace came out of prison we have been waiting for the UCA story to surface in print. As I write this, it hasn’t so far, merely being used as part of the whispering campaign. I have gone to considerable and, perhaps, tedious lengths to explain the UCA saga in the hope that by laying it out as I understand it other journalists who come across the UCA story will think a little before accepting the British state’s version of events. At the minimum I hope I have done enough to make journalists wonder why the UDA are so keen to discredit Wallace. (They might also be curious enough to ring Andy Tyrie and ask him which version of the story he would have us believe now: a tip-off from Keith Hamilton or from Colin Wallace?)
The British state has got a major problem on its hands with Wallace. Having taken the decision in the mid 1970s to deny that the psy ops unit existed and that Wallace actually was working in it, the British state cannot now prosecute Wallace for breach of the Official Secrets Act. Officially the line has to be that Wallace is making it all up – the “Walter Mitty” line so assiduously peddled by messers Miles and Clarke at the time of Wallace’s trial in 1981. Discrediting Wallace, and thus his allegations, is all the British state can do. So far they have managed to frame him for a killing he didn’t do and have run a massive disinformation exercise against him. With each new step in the state’s suppression of the Peter Wright allegations, Wallace’s importance increases.
Notes
- Mooney’s first little action was to issue an unattributable brief saying that Loyalist organisations were looking for Reds under their beds. This was 30 September 1973. Mooney was trying to use the UCA’s left rhetoric and create splits. But how appropriate that the resident IRD man should find the perfect pretext to hang IRD’s anti-communist obsessions on.
- These leaflets came at the end of a period of charge and counter-charge, threat and counter-threat between UCA and UDA/UVF. In a sense the UDA’s naming the leader of UCA was simply the latest step in this (minor) war of words. It might also be noted that whether the UCA leaflets naming UDA/UVF assassinations were genuine or not does not appear to have an answer. The Information Policy account of its uses of the UCA does not go as far as this period, ending at May 1974.