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4. the Role of the Government in the Provision of Evidence to the Inquiry

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4. the Role of the Government in the Provision of Evidence to the Inquiry 4. THE ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT IN THE PROVISION OF EVIDENCE TO THE INQUIRY 4.1 Introduction and Summary of Submissions 4.1.1 The vast bulk of the documentary evidence received by the Inquiry has been provided by the Government. Apart from being the custodian of official documents, the Government is under a legal obligation by virtue of Article 2 of the European Convention to do everything in its power to ensure that the Inquiry into deaths and injuries caused by its servants and agents is both independent and effective. It is readily acknowledged that the Government has declared its willingness to cooperate fully with the Inquiry and to disclose all relevant material. It has supplied the Tribunal with a very substantial and wide-ranging body of information and documentation. The material provided includes documents that purport to be contemporaneous as well as documents that have been recently created. 4.1.2 However, the Tribunal has to evaluate this information and, as part of this process, it is obliged to determine whether it has indeed been given all the relevant available material and whether the material that has been provided is reliable. It also has to be satisfied that it is genuine. 4.1.3 In this context, we submit that: the Government (including in particular the MOD) and its agencies (including in particular the Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service and the RUC / PSNI) should be regarded as having a potential interest in protecting their former servants and agents, including in particular soldiers, civil servants, politicians and others involved either directly or indirectly in the events leading up to Bloody Sunday, the events on the day itself and relevant events thereafter. For this reason alone, the Government and its agencies cannot be relied upon to make full disclosure of all the documentation and information in their possession. Indeed, it is our submission that the Government ought to have been represented as an interested party at the Inquiry, rather than merely an observer and provider of information and documentation. If the Government had been a party, the Security Service for example, may have felt under a greater obligation to take care to disclose everything in its possession. 4.1.4 Whether or not the Tribunal accepts this contention, the Tribunal will be unable to discharge its task without fully appreciating the nature and role of those Army and Government agencies which were and still are engaged in what may euphemistically be described as shaping perceptions of the truth in a manner favourable to the Government and Army. It is in our respectful submission necessary, therefore, to examine the role of the HQNI’s Information Policy unit in order to determine the extent, if any, to which it was engaged in psychological operations (psyops) in relation to Bloody Sunday. 4.1.5 Secondly, whether or not State agencies were engaged in formal psyops, it has to be determined whether relevant documentation which was damaging to the Army case, including photographs and cine film, was destroyed or otherwise suppressed at the material time or in the intervening period before the Inquiry was set up.. 4.1.6 Thirdly, the Tribunal must decide whether State agencies have disclosed all of the relevant material still in their possession. This in turn requires an examination of the reasons for delayed disclosure in order to determine whether the failure to disclose such material at an earlier stage reflects a lack of genuine willingness on the part of the agencies concerned to co-operate with the Inquiry. 4.1.7 In our submission, (i) vital documents (including photographs) relevant to Bloody Sunday that were or ought to have been in the possession of the Government or State agencies have been deliberately destroyed and / or suppressed; (ii) some material has been edited; (iii) some material, including in particular Intelligence material, has been supplied by the Government in a manner designed to mislead the Tribunal; (iv) some material that is or should still be available has been withheld and, therefore, (v) the Tribunal has not been provided with all the relevant official documentation and information concerning Bloody Sunday. 4.1.8 We propose to arrange our submissions under the following headings: (i) Information Policy Unit and Psyops (ii) Missing Army Photographs and cine film (iii) MOD (iv) Intelligence Agencies (v) RUC / PSNI 4.2 Information Policy Unit and Psyops Nature Of Psyops In The 1970’s 4.2.1 Psychological Operations (Psyops) in the early 1970’s in Northern Ireland took a variety of forms, some perfectly harmless “hearts and minds” work but some of it sinister, as it was described by Tony Staughton, Head of Public Relations at HQNI (KW2.5). Sinister psyops involved deception, dirty tricks, disinformation, black propaganda, falsifying documents, forging documents and spreading false rumours. This activity was all designed to invent or distort facts in such a way as to cast the Army in a good light and the “enemy” in a bad light. (per Colin Wallace, Day 237/162/20 to Day 237/162/24) 4.2.2 The enemy in this context included not just the IRA but others, such as NICRA, who were perceived by the Army as threatening the state: see the evidence of Colin Wallace (Day 237/163/10 to Day 237/163/14). 4.2.3 Colin Wallace has given examples of the kind of psyops conducted by the Army and the Intelligence Services at the material time. On Day 237/163/15 to Day 237/167/24, he confirmed the accuracy of the accounts published in Curtis, “The Propraganda War in Ireland” (OS1.614 to OS1.617), Lashmar and Oliver “Britain’s Secret War” (OS1.601 to OS1.605) and Dillon, “The Dirty War” (OS1.627). The Psyops referred to in these accounts included an example of the Army falsifying official statistics in order to influence Government policy and the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office distorting facts so as to influence public opinion. Information Policy disinformation sometimes re-emerged in Intelligence Summaries graded as A1 (Day 237/174/21 to Day 237/175/1). At Appendix 5 of his second statement (KW2. 218), he exhibited a document that purported to be a confession of a former IRA member but which was in fact forged by Mr Wallace and contained much “fiction” (KW2.145 and Day 237/175/12 to Day 237/175/13) In brief, psychological Operations were characterised by dishonesty, deceit and falsehood. (Day 237/178/5 to Day 237/178/7) 4.2.4 Psyops required cooperation and co-ordination with the Intelligence Services and those involved in Psyops worked closely with MI6 and MI5 (Day 237/178/8 to Day 237/178/23). As the term “dirty tricks” implies, Psyops and Intelligence units were capable not only of being unscrupulous but also of engaging in activity which would normally be regarded by official agencies as completely unconscionable, as exemplified in the Kincora affair (summarised in Dillon, “The Dirty War” at OS1.629) so that allegations of misconduct which in other circumstances might be considered outlandish cannot be rejected without close examination. 4.2.5. The upshot of this is that all information and documentation emanating from or influenced by Psyops personnel is inherently unreliable and potentially misleading (Day 237/180/25 to Day 237/181/15). The problem is that just about all official Army and Government information and documentation could be influenced by Psyops personnel. It is simply impossible to tell. Mr Wallace was not aware of any documents or information in respect of Bloody Sunday having been falsified by Psyops personnel (Day 237/189/10 to Day 237/189/20). However, as Hugh Mooney suggested (KM.631), it appears that Mr Wallace was involved only in “low level” psyops and that he may have been “outside the loop” when it came to “high level” activities. Therefore the mere fact that he was unaware of psyops being conducted in relation to Bloody Sunday does not mean that they were not (Day 238/18/5 to Day 238/18/10). 4.2.6 Nor can the Government necessarily be relied upon to admit when such information and documentation has been influenced by psyops personnel. Mr Wallace’s own involvement in Psyops was authorised by senior officials, including in particular Mr Broderick (OS1.624), but this was denied at the highest level by the Government until 1990 when it was finally admitted in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Defence (see Hansard OS1.551 to OS1.552 and OS1.571) (Day 237/182/17 to Day 237/183/7). Psyops personnel in Northern Ireland in 1972 4.2.7. Colin Wallace was the only witness to admit active involvement in psyops during the period in question but, ironically, he was the only one who was not either a member of Psyops staff or on the Psyops Committee. Indeed, he was unaware that there was a Psyops Committee (Day 238/8/22 to Day 238/15/11). 4..2.8 Col. Tugwell claimed not to have been involved in Psyops or disinformation but he was the Head of the Department described by Colin Wallace as the Psyops Unit and he is recorded in the documentation as responsible for the co- ordination of psyops. 4.2.9. INQ 1873 said in his statement (C1873.1 paragraphs 3 to 4) that he was not involved in psyops and that it was wrong in principle to practise psyops against one’s own people. Yet we now know that he was the former Head of Psyops at the Joint Warfare Establishment at Old Sarum and he was a member of the Psyops staff in N.
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