in 1976 for trying to bribe information from the Southern Irish Special Branch.
But Southern police officers have been very cooperative. A senior member of the force apparently passed on Irish police files on Provisionals to British Army intelligence.
Most of these activities officially santioned by the British government. But the intelligence agencies have often implemented their own political 'line'.
*specific and calculated plan... by ot ruthless and discriminate violence to foment Irish inter-sectarian hatred chaos.
What MI5 didn't tell Wilson, though they knew this to be the case, was that this IRA strategy was envisaged as a contingency are plan to be put into operation only in the event of a wholesale Loyalist attack on the Catholic ghettoes.
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The ghettos are and the 'enemy' will be defeated.
But when that is applied to Republican-minded community in the North of Ireland the theory falls apart. It is not that the Provisionals" much-publicised 'cell structure' is an effective guard against inmain point is that the British Army is so detested in the Catholic ghettoes that however many letters in and out of those opened, however many spy posts are erected on the edges of those ghettos, however many raids are mounted, or false ammumnon plantea, me aeler' mination of the inhabitants of those ghettos to resist remains.
James Bond may be able to defeat the individual gangster, or his counter part in some othet intelligenice service, but he cannot defeat a whole community.
In one way the relevance of spy machine Ireland lies in Britain itself. As an MIS operative told the Irish 'Be clear on one point The intelligence answerable Secretaries of State. It is accountable to nobody — not the Prime Minister, not Parliament, not the And in this context an article last Agust in the Daily Mail, written by its defence correspondent, stated 'But the truth is that the Army has had to go into the Big Brother business in Ulster' and, concluded the article, the British Army officer 'does not forget his skills when he leaves Ulster.
'The result has been to produce a special breed of Army officer... he is politically conscious is quite prepared t criticise his political directives.' Not only criticise them, but act against them as well. And not only in the North of Ireland, but in Voices for Withdrawal 'A forum on Northern Ireland June, Hall, Red Lion Sq, London WC Hain, Bernadette Devlin-McAliskay, John Delegates £2, Observers £1. Details from the organisers: Com • Withdrawal from Ireland National Ubera Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London