The Dirty War Also by Martin Dillon and Published by Routledge The Shankill Butchers: The Real Story of Cold-Blooded Mass Murder God and the Gun: The Church and Irish Terrorism The Dirty War COVERT STRATEGIES AND TACTICS USED IN POLITICAL CONFLICTS MARTIN DILLON ~ ~~o~1!;n~~~up NEW YORK Published in the United States of America in 1999 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 First hardcover edition published in Great Britain by Hutchinson 1990. First paperback edition published by Arrow Books Limited 1991 ế Copyright © 1990 by Martin Dillon The right of Martin Dillon to be identified as the author of this work has been assented by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Text Design by Tara Klurman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or uti­ lized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dillon, Martin, 1949— The dirty war / Martin Dillon. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-415-92281-X (alk. paper) 1. Northern Ireland—History—Military. 2. Military intelligence—Northern Ireland—History—20th century. 3. Political violence—Northern Ireland— History—20th century. 4. Terrorism—Northern Ireland—History—20th cen­ tury. I. Title. DA990.U46D53 1999 941ễ70824—dc21 98-49268 CIP ISBN 13: 978-0-415-92281-4 (pbk) I dedicate this book to my parents, Maureen and Gerard, for their constant love and support while I write about difficult times in a difficult society Caring CaringTolerant Caring Caring Caring Caring CaringCaring Caring Caring SupportiveSupportive Caring CaringCaring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring TolerantCaring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring CaringCaring CaringCaring Caring Caring Caring SupportiveSupportive Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Caring Contents Map of Northern Ireland vi Acknowledgements viii Foreword x Map of Belfast xvii Author’s Preface xviii Chronology of Major Events in Northern Ireland: 1969-1989 xxiii Prologue xxxvii 1 The Hidden Agenda: Civil Rights, the Dublin Government and the IRA 1 2 Gangs, Counter-Gangs and Secret Burials 23 3 The Sting: British Intelligence and the IRA 53 4 Playing It Dirty: British Agents in Ireland 85 5 The Pitchfork Killings 113 6 Robert Nairac: Hero or Villain? 147 7 Dirty Tricks and Conspiracies: Holroyd and Wallace 171 8 Killers in the Ranks: Loyalist Terror Groups and the Security Forces 191 9 Honeytraps 211 10 Secret Liaisons: The Security Forces and the UDA 227 11 Airey Neave and the INLA: The Unseen Hand? 255 12 Agents, Informers and Double Agents 283 13 A Dead Man’s Revenge: IRA Informers and Arms Discoveries 333 14 Treachery and Special Branch Spies 351 15 The Technology of Surveillance 363 16 Money, Qadhafi, Guns 381 17 Killing for Profit: Criminal Alliances and Terrorism 403 Conclusion: The Dirty War Goes On 417 Postscript 437 Appendix: The Green Book 447 Index 462 Acknowledgements It is not possible to name everyone who assisted me. Many work within the security forces and to name them would place their lives in jeopardy or compromise them professionally. The majority of them spoke to me out of a genuine interest in what I was writing and to clar­ ify previous reports of episodes in which they or their colleagues were involved. In all instances I sought them out for interview and estab­ lished my own terms of reference for our conversations. Politicians on both sides of the political divide in Northern Ireland provided me with off-the-record briefings and I respect their wish to remain anonymous. I thank David Ross of the BBC in Northern Ireland for assisting me in researching the material for this work, providing creative journalis­ tic perspectives and spending many hours making sense of legal reports of terrorist trials. Linden Stafford was invaluable as an adviser and editor on this book. She possessed a genuine interest in the work and constantly encouraged me to broaden the material to explain a wider conflict which is the backdrop to the dirty war. She deserves special praise for her unceasing effort and her consummate profes­ sionalism. The writer, Frank Delaney, provided the impetus which set me on the road to write a trilogy of books on Ireland and Richard Cohen, my editor at Hutchinson, and Anthony Cheetham believed in the project and gave this book their full support. I am indebted to my wife, Kath, and our children, Crawford and Nadia, for living with the pressures created by writing this trilogy in a violent society, and to Kathy in particular for her imaginative appraisal of the work in its many and varied stages. In the world of print journalism and broad­ casting I was given assistance by many people. Foremost among them was Chris Moore, a television reporter with the BBC in Northern Ireland. As a fellow writer and journalist with a genuine affection for Northern Ireland and a deep knowledge of the conflict he supplied me with interesting angles on several stories and some exciting documen­ Acknowledgements IX tation in relation to very sensitive matters. Others who deserve special mention are Martin O’Hagan, a reporter with the Sunday World news­ paper, who provided me with some research material and was abduct­ ed and interrogated by the IRA while this book was in progress. The northern editor of Sunday World, Jim Campbell, made it possible for me to reach an acute understanding of several complex issues. Others who were willing to discuss matters with me included David McKittrick of the Independent, John Ware of the BBC Panorama’ pro­ gramme and Chris Ryder of the Daily Telegraph. Duncan Campbell was kind enough to provide me with copies of material which he pub­ lished and Pacemaker Press in Belfast proved once again that they have one of the best photographic library services in these islands. The typing of this manuscript and the tasks associated with having much of this material in advance of publication rested with a trusted friend, Jean Jordan, now retired from the BBC Newsroom in Belfast but a true professional who helped with a difficult task. Adele Gilding in the BBC Library was kind in finding a range of reference books and ensur­ ing that I kept possession for long periods. Finally, in writing the first two books in this trilogy there are those who by their very proximity to my life and their views on all matters connected with Northern Ireland are, were and remain an invaluable source of creative thought. They include Gerard and Maureen Dillon, Brian and Kate Garrett, Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ian and Cecilia Kennedy, Professor Paul Bew, Brian and Anne Turley, Dr Tony Stewart whose book, The Narrow Ground, should be a classic addition to the personal library of any stu­ dent of Irish history, Colin Lewis, John Bach, Stephen Dillon, Moore Sinnerton, Don Anderson, Brian and Ursula McLoughlin, Susan Delaney Collier, David Malone, the writer Gordon Thomas and Jennifer Brown. I owe heartfelt thanks to Crispin Avon for ensuring that parts of the manuscript found their way to my publisher and to David Sykes for listening to and contributing to lengthy conversations between Linden and myself. Finally, I am grateful for the advice and assistance of the former politician and writer Paddy Devlin who proved to be an excel­ lent commentator on matters political, and to Lord Fitt who has sup­ ported all my creative projects from the moment I moved from scrib­ bling to journalism and writing political and historical works. Foreword Conor Cruise O’Brien As a writer, Martin Dillon possesses a quality which was com­ mended by Albert Camus: ‘the reserve that befits a good witness’. He has no axe to grind; he follows the evidence as far as it takes him and he acknowledges that, in a number of cases, the evidence does not per­ mit of more than an open verdict. In his conclusion, he writes: ‘My role, I felt, was to prise open some of the issues, to unravel some of the stories which have become distorted by the propaganda of either side and to tease out the complexity of the backdrop to the war.... Finally, in reiterating that the dirty war often generates more questions than it answers, I hope the reader will understand that in some instances where no answer was available I included the question in the belief that the question of itself was important and that perhaps its existence may encourage someone, somewhere to provide an answer.’ Those who know Martin Dillon—including those wary denizens of Northern Ireland who are the subjects of his enquiries—know well that he will never distort what anyone says to him in order to build up some kind of case to support a theory or assumption. This well-established reputation has greatly assisted him in the pursuit of his enquiries. Most of his subjects, ‘the dirty warriors’, are not in the least trustwor­ thy themselves. They are either terrorists—whether of the Catholic or Protestant variety—or they are policemen or soldiers, who have either broken the law themselves—usually by murdering suspects or releas­ ing information likely to get them murdered—or, more usually, have connived at such activities, or condoned them. These are by no means people who cannot tell a lie; they lie habitually, as part of the condi­ tions of their survival within the struggle of terrorist and counter-ter­ rorist.