Friday, February 29, 2008
The Secret War that Brought the Secret to Peace
George Brock reviews Ed Moloney’s new book Paisley, Steve Bruce’s new book Paisley along with the second edition of Ed Moloney’s Secret History of the IRA while also looking at Kenneth Bloomfield’s A Tragedy of Errors, and concludes the real thanks for peace go to the spooks and spies that made it possible. It’s a fascinating read.
By 1987, when Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were already in secret, deniable communication with London, the securocrats were well enough informed to nudge matters along. Adams’s interest in turning the Provos into a political force was longstanding: he first mentioned it in 1979. But his withdrawal from the pretence that killing could push Britain out of Northern Ireland had to be very gradual. A grim kind of balance between armed force and elections had been achieved with the “ballot box and Armalite” strategy. As Provisional Sinn Féin started to experiment politically in the late 1980s, the IRA also started to rearm. But Adams knew that the Armalite half of the equation was not working: the hit rate might occasionally rise but the failure rate was rising faster. The British knew that Adams knew. For besides Scappaticci, for twenty years they were running one of Adams’s inner circle, Denis Donaldson. Those two were only the stars among a network of spies that must have gone wider.
Adams was meeting internal opposition on both political and paramilitary fronts. One of the most intriguing puzzles to be solved by his biographers is this: when and to what extent was Adams aware that the havoc being wreaked by spies in the IRA was helping his cause? At any rate the British government was in a position to post a devastating warning to his opponents. Nowhere was the opposition inside the IRA likely to be tougher than in Tyrone. In 1987, at Loughgall in East Tyrone, the SAS ambushed and killed an eight-man IRA unit attempting to demolish a police station, killing more “volunteers” in a single incident than at any time since 1921. Up to the year 2000, the IRA in Tyrone had lost fifty-three people; but twenty-eight of those died between 1987 and 1992.
In other words, after Loughgall, they were being killed five times faster. This acceleration could be a coincidence, but that hardly seems possible. Despite appalling headline atrocities, the numbers revealed that the Provisionals were nearly finished everywhere they operated. In the summer of 1988, they killed soldiers at twice their average rate. In 1989, they killed twenty-four; the total halved in each of the next two years.
This sequence of events is important for an understanding of the long last act of the drama. Many accounts of the “peace process” suggest that Adams turned the IRA towards elections; many leave his exact motives for this switch mysterious. Somehow the hard man softened.
Read more: Who really brought peace to Belfast?
Correction, the Paisley book being reviewed is Steve Bruce’s, not Ed Moloney’s - thanks, John (below, #6).
Rusty Nail @ 01:33 PM
Here’s an interesting question in the context of the relative power of military versus political thinking in the 1987-89 period. All the intelligence analyses suggest that the Libyan arms shipments amounted to several thousand AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition. A relatively low fraction of those was captured over the years, and it is generally assumed that the greater part of the shipments remained in centrally controlled dumps far to the south of the border. The appetite of the average border unit or brigade command for arms was absolutely insatiable - historically there has always been pressure from the bottom on HQ for more and better weapons. How was the PIRA leadership able to hold the line against such pressure? And indeed why? It is true that managing demand for weapons was a powerful instrument of discipline, so it is possible that the army leadership felt that it needed to hold tight to the weapons or power would slide downwards. But it seems much more likely that the primary motivation was political - the conviction that there would be no military outcome and that more weapons would mean more deaths, more captures, probably more indiscipline and no political gain. There must have been pretty solid support from this strategy even at brigade level fairly early, otherwise a heave against a leadership holding back on weaponry would have been more or less inevitable. There are other questions. If penetration was as deep and wide as suggested, how come more weapons were not captured? Unless of course the British had pretty solid assurances that the big dumps would not be opened. And is there any possibility that the East Tyrone Brigade did not accept the tight attitude to weapons distribution? Was that why they were targeted - because they were planning a heave?
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 04:41 PM“Peter Taylor’s “The Provos” was an early part of my politicicisation”
Yes. An interesting book that. A book about the IRA that barely mentions any of their atrocities.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:02 PMRusty Nail, you say working to a ‘British agenda’.
It would be wise to press that it wasn’t so much British as more multi-sovereign in its approach as what we have today is an acceptable and agreed peace. In terms of co-ordination a good show of this approach was delivered in 1985 via AIA so come 1988 onwards, much of the IRA decline as per the article, must have been part of a wider push to reconfigure politics to the tune of the two governments.
Yes the Brits wanted to neutralise the IRA but that alone would only ever play a small part in a much wider political picture of inter-governmental negotiations that would in the end lead to success.
Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. Indeed.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:04 PMBy 1987, when Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were already in secret, deniable communication with London, the securocrats were well enough informed to nudge matters along.
But were all the securocrats trying to nudge matters in the same direction:
MI5 Director-General Stella Rimington was a hardliner who briefed Prime Minister John Major that McGuinness and Adams were IRA members and could not be trusted. Privately, senior MI6 officers accused their MI5 counterparts of being ‘a bunch of idiots’ whose efforts had sabotaged the process (MI6, Inside Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, by Stephen Dorril, p741)
It doesn’t sound like Rimington felt she had Adams under the thumb, does it?
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:44 PMI think some people are misunderstanding the importance of the informers in the PIRA. The most important role they played was not to give up IRA operations, as bad as that was. What they achieved was to give absolute confidence to the British Cabinet when it came to negotiating with the Provisionals.
Thus once the Adams leadership decided the war must end, [however they reached that decision] the British were able to make their subsequent judgement and decision on stone hard information. When the Adams negotiators lied the British side new it, when they told the truth the British new it. when they were bluffing the British new it, etc etc.
Any one who has ever engaged in negotiations, whether as a trade unionist or businessperson will know the massive advantage this would give the British.
For the Provos the war was going bad in the late 1980s, seasoned volunteers where being killed and captured men where going back into prison, often for the second time around, always a bad sign. Yes the Provos could have continued the war indefinitely and there would always be young Irish people willing to sacrifice their lives for the struggle. [one only has to look and the RIRA to understand this]
But what all thinking Republicans understood was that bar some unforeseen circumstance, they could not win and gain from the British a declaration to withdraw. After 20 plus years of war it became obvious that the British state was prepared to hunker down and fight the Provos indefinitely, and as important the Unionist community was prepared to suffer what ever the Provos did rather than concede.
The overwhelming majority of British informers were not agents of influence who were in positions to influence Provo strategy, although undoubtedly some were,[DD] they were informers, they provided information, which in war and politics is gold dust.
Of course we will all express horror and shock when a senior member of SF is eventually revealed as a tout,as they undoubtedly will be, for those in leadership positions are just as liable to tout as rank and file people, but they and all the other touts put together are not the reason the war came to a close.
Without going into fine detail there were flaws from the beginning in the long war strategy and the reason it failed was because it had run its cause without achieving its aims. I remember watching Adams carry yet another volunteers coffin back in the late 80s and thinking how many coffins is one man expected to carry.
That the provos fought for four decades tells one just how solid the overwhelming majority of PIRA volunteers were, for they showed more stamina and steadfastness than all previous generation of Irish republicans put together, and that is saying something.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 06:27 PMI liked the comment above that spying is not a one way process.
In 1971 105 soviet diplomats were expelled. At that time there were individuals, in England, suspect listed as “IRA gaining information of use to the Soviet”
One such in Suffolk appeared to be gaining information about Cobra Mist, RAF Wattisham and Marham, RN Submarines, Polish members of RAF seconded to listening post interpreter duties, USAF Bentwaters and Lakenheath and any activity at the HQ of the Sue Ryder charity (at the time charity founders Airey Neave and Sue Ryder were “Releasing” 1200 men from German postwar internment). He also socialized widely including in the Clement Freud social scene at Walberswick.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 07:31 PMforgot to include Defence cuts affecting Army helicopter capability 1968 (when first mentioned) and 1970 (when defence cuts occurred).
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 07:36 PMThe defence cuts involved a demob unit commanded by a Captain John Cornwell. Later captured by IRA and returned unharmed to British Army as more use to IRA left in situ !
If I were to write a book of faction it would include a story of someone, who had cause to dislike an officer, planting his own disinformation on the suspect IRA asset in Suffolk and then laughing his socks off when an officer is seized and humiliated by being returned to service as more use to the IRA left in British Army.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 07:44 PMI don’t remember ever reading any “true” book on spy rings without the case of double agents arising.
Were there no IRA double agents? Why did some “outed” people get murdered and others didn’t?
Similarly, there had to be numerous people on the British side who had Irish republican sympathies. Did none of them pass on information?
Then, of course, there were the purveyors of disinformation (ding ding) who tried to sow suspicion.
Murky business. Take any or all of it with a pinch of salt.Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 07:54 PMMick
>>Of course we will all express horror and shock when a senior member of SF is eventually revealed as a tout,as they undoubtedly will be, for those in leadership positions are just as liable to tout as rank and file people<<
Intriguing analysis all in. Regarding the above I am not so sure that I buy into this senior tout scenario. I know that there are many ‘experts’ on-line who claim to be in the know. What is it that gives you this feeling over the senior tout?
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 08:27 PMWe now know that secret talks went on between the British Government and senior IRA figures for quite a long while.
By the very nature of these things, information exchange has to occur for matters to progress.
When, if ever, does such information exchange become “touting”?
The people involved, Adams and McGuiness, took considerable risks with their own side that they could have the finger of suspicion pointed (ding ding).
It has been, and since it is impossible to prove a negative proposition, there will always be some doubt in some people’s minds.Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 08:48 PMWhen the Adams negotiators lied the British side new it, when they told the truth the British new it. when they were bluffing the British new it, etc.
If that is so why were there such sharply differing interpretations within the British intelligence agencies.
I can’t help wondering who benefits from this picture of the British state as an omniscient, omnipotent monolith.
Surely any realistic consideration of republican options has to include an analysis of the nuances and the debates on the other side.
There is plenty of evidence of quite profound differences throughout the Troubles, and indeed remarkably similar divisions about the war on terror today.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 08:52 PMJoey,
No disinformation mate and like Father Faul said in his final passing moment ....He is a TOUT
Like Eamon McCann said on American radio when asked about why Martin re-introduced an already exposed British agent back into the IRA and to be the sole custodian of a major cache of IRA munitions.
I accept we all knew Franko was a tout and why McGuinness asked him to return against the wishes of Derry Brigade commanders will always remain a puzzle!
Unquote
Then again Martin and Freddy did make a good team LOL
And to nail the most prolonged killing machine ( Freddy) gives me immense pleasure futher, to have Sir John Stevens agree with me six months after I wrote in the Irish News about quote institutionalised collusion unquote also brings great personal satisfaction.
The book Stakeknife just added icing to the cake..
Sit back and wait for the great Smithwick Tribunal LOL
Ding Ding a Ling
Marty
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 09:18 PMnot at the conference martin ;)
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 09:47 PMIngram, the only direct quotes I’m aware of by Monsignor Faul on his deathbed concerned a last plea for anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of the bodies of the Disappeared to take responsibility and share that information. That was certainly in character and in keeping with his final years.
To attribute dying last words to an individual without attributing a source seems less than gallant— disrespectful to the life and death of the deceased.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 09:57 PMWe may get an insight when Mickey McKevitt releases his book. Does anyone know if the legal issues on the book have been sorted out yet??
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 10:05 PMWoohoo. Black ops are back on. Seems SF didn’t even get a deal on that from St Andrew’s
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 10:16 PMTo attribute dying last words to an individual without attributing a source seems less than gallant— disrespectful to the life and death of the deceased.
It’s a well-known propaganda technique:
In Elizabethan England, to weaken the opponents of Protestant religious reform, one of the queen’s councillors authored a “report” from an English Catholic to the Spanish Court that intentionally exaggerated English military strength and English Catholic antipathy to the pope. The ostensible author, an English Catholic who had not been executed, was not in a position to deny its authenticity.
The above quote is from the discussion of forgery as a black propaganda technique on page 155 of Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: US Covert Action and Counterintelligence by Iran-Contra veteran Roy Godson.
As it happens, Roy’s younger brother Dean Godson is the only source I know for the claim that Fr Faul suggested McGuinness was an agent, a claim that I have analysed at length here.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 10:19 PMDoh! Obviously, the above should read:
The ostensible author, an English Catholic who had been executed, was not in a position to deny its authenticity.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 10:44 PMI can’t help wondering who benefits from this picture of the British state as an omniscient, omnipotent monolith.
Tom G,
I never said the British State was an omniscient, omnipotent monolith, indeed I pointed out that for decades it was nothing of the sort, and of course during the first decade and more there were debates on the British side around what strategy they should pursue, indeed in a Times book review that Rusty Nail posted up earlier on Slugger, a leading northern civil servant says as much.
But once the Provos sued for an ending of the war, the surprising thing is just how few real difference there appears to have been on the UK side. Even Canary wharf etc never took them away for long from the negotiating table.
I believe this is because the touts allowed them to understand the mindset of the Adams leadership. That the British governments aims and Adams aims, i e the ending of the war ran in parallel, is why they conceded the release of prisoners at such an early date in the negotiations.
It is also why I said there was a fatal flaw in the long war strategy, for the longer the war went on, the more powerful side militarily/economically was always going to gain the upper hand. We are not talking about like with like here, so there is no shame in that. The fault line in the long war strategy was to believe, until it was to late that the war could be won militarily.
Never the less only a fool would believe this ancient struggle is over and it is still far to soon to decide who will be the absolute victor, if any.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 10:57 PMTom, thank you for the links, both to Dean Godson’s piece, which I’d never read, and your own analysis. I need to read through both again—and shall, in the near future.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 11:17 PMPrince Eoghan
I am not saying there is a tout in the top rank of SF, just that it would not be surprising if there was one, for anyone could have become a tout if the British state had the means to pull their chain, and I mean anyone. Again the longer the war went on the more likelihood it was that at least one tout would end up in the top leadership.
Anyone who believes, if the circumstance are right such a thing could never happen to them is a fool. human beings have love ones who can be threatened, human weaknesses, hates and dislikes that can be used to entrap. Never forget that the British sent thousands of people like ‘martin ingram’ across to Ireland to spend every waking hour to entice, entrap and corrupt people to betray their own.
As the late Brendan Hughes once said, touts to are victims of the British in Ireland.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 11:19 PMI never said the British State was an omniscient, omnipotent monolith, indeed I pointed out that for decades it was nothing of the sort, and of course during the first decade and more there were debates on the British side around what strategy they should pursue
Fair enough, but perhaps the point is that debate was resolved in favour of the hardliners, at a time when Britain was moving sharply to the right. Indeed, with Ulsterisation, perhaps Britain moved to its own long war strategy first.
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 11:36 PMFair enough, but perhaps the point is that debate was resolved in favour of the hardliners, at a time when Britain was moving sharply to the right. Indeed, with Ulsterisation, perhaps Britain moved to its own long war strategy first.
Tom Griffin
Excellent point
Posted by on Feb 29, 2008 @ 11:52 PMMartin,
Good to see you blogging again!
Have you heard anything regarding a certain senior sf/pira operative from Kerry who might be the next to be outed? Another keen fisherman from what I have been told. Used to boats too! lol
Posted by on Mar 01, 2008 @ 01:18 AM
