I wanted to share with you one of the examples I covered in the documentary on how Colin Wallace and Information Policy engaged with the press in more detail than I was able to in the documentary. One of the final campaigns Colin Wallace was involved in before his disciplinary hearing, was an article published in The Sunday Telegraph titled How IRA Gets Guns And Cash written by Christopher Dobson. The article alleged that prominent Irish Americans and NORAID (The Northern Irish Aid Committee) were directly supporting terrorism.
When Colin Wallace was transferred to Britain from Northern Ireland he took with him papers related to ongoing projects. After his disciplinary hearing he hid these papers and later used them in his attempts to prove his innocence. The government initially claimed Colin Wallace was a junior civil servant with a Walter Mitty complex. The government also claimed that Colin Wallace’s documents were forgeries. However, an independent forensic expert dated one set of paper and ink to the time Colin Wallace claims they originated from. A Ministry of Defence document surfaced around 1990 referring to Colin Wallace as a Senior Information Officer in the Ministry of Defence.
I have attached a number of supporting documents in this article, you will notice that Colin Wallace has redacted information from the documents. Colin’s personal redaction of documents has led some individuals to critique his motives. My understanding is that he does this in order to protect names of intelligence officials and informants and to comply with his responsibilities in relation to the Official Secrets Act. Colin Wallace is still bound to this act in relation to his knowledge of loyalist activities. This is in contrast to campaigns targeting Republicans, Colin Wallace was told prior to his disciplinary hearing that he could share information related to campaigns against Republicans but not those campaigns focused on loyalists.
The first attachment below is the research Colin Wallace collated. This included profiles of alleged high-profile republican sympathisers, their personal life, contact details, history, and rumours related to involvement in terrorism. The US origin of weapons found in Belfast, including their serial numbers were described and an outline of the Irish Northern Aid Committee and its fundraising activities etc.
Below are scans of two telegrams between JIS (MI5/MI6) HQNI and SIS (MI6) in London discussing various aspects of the proposed article.
And below is the resulting “Special Investigation” attributed to Christopher Dobson.
In How IRA Gets Guns And Cash Christopher Dobson writes “I have spent the past two months investigating the way in which the IRA gets its money and the way that money is used to sustain its bombers and snipers.” The article appears to be based on the information Colin Wallace and Information Policy compiled, yet there is neither mention of Colin Wallace nor Information Policy. The article is well written and it leaves the reader with the impression that people who supported Republicans in Northern Ireland at the time were conducting an orchestrated campaign against the British in support of the IRA.
The article takes the example of Joe Cahill, who had been a Dublin based trustee of The Irish Northern Aid Committee (NORAID), an organisation in the US that collected money to support Republicans in the North of Ireland. Joe Cahill had been convicted of weapons smuggling, however whether this charge was related to money raised by NORAID was not explained in the article. Even if Cahill had diverted money from NORAID, it would not automatically follow that is was sanctioned by NORAID and all the people involved in that organisation. Nor would it be proof that all wealthy Republican backers supported terrorism. The article stated “Provo terrorists decide how the (NORAID) money is actually spent,” yet provided no evidence for this. NORAID claimed it was supporting republican families who had fallen on hard times as a result of the conflict. One would presume that if the money raised by NORAID was used to buy weapons Information Policy would be able to provide some kind of evidence for this rather than leaving it to the imagination of the reader.
How IRA Gets Guns And Cash also mentioned a number of unnamed individuals who it claimed had been convicted of arms charges in the US, individuals that it claimed were connected to NORAID. The article gave no further details, and later went on to claim that “`Active service units` still operate out of the Bronx, snipers and bombers who fly to Ireland to do a job and then return to the safety of America.” This of course is a similar theme to an earlier campaign where Information Policy claimed Eastern European snipers were being dropped off by Soviet submarines.
How IRA Gets Guns And Cash went through a number of prominent US backers of republicanism, including politicians, businessmen and lawyers, drawing on rumours that they too were involved in supporting terrorism to various degrees. It claimed William “Billy” Fuller, a wealthy Irish-American businessman, was a prominent provisional IRA backer. Information Policy included in its research outline for the article “Fuller was suspected of being a member of the Provisional Army Council and was probably one of the PIRA’s bankers.” It is interesting that William Fuller’s obituary in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/sep/09/popandrock.musicindustry) makes no mention of any of this and describes Fuller as an Irish gentleman “Fuller lived an extraordinary life and will be remembered as an Irish gentleman.”
The two telegrams I attached above note that The Sunday Telegraph had requested additional photographs of Fuller. The two telegrams reveal a rather cosy relationship between the press and various intelligence bodies in the UK.
The aim of How IRA Gets Guns And Cash seems to have been to undermine US support for the republican movement rather than terrorism. The “investigative” piece concludes with “Every dollar bill contributed to agencies such as NORAID contributes to the killing of Irish people” and asks “can nothing be done to counter-act the hysterical propaganda that pervades the Irish communities in America?”
The Man Who Knew Too Much documentary explains how Information Policy operated under the assumption that “any organization critical of British policy was an IRA front,” that included such organisations as mainstream Irish broadcaster RTE.
It is interesting to note that journalist Christopher Dobson, the author of How IRA Gets Guns And Cash, may not have been aware of the involvement of Information Policy, MI5 and MI6. The story may have been handed to him by the editor of The Sunday Telegraph.
Information Policy was aware of the interests and biases of publications as well as individual journalists, including the personality and ambitions of the journalist and used this to their advantage.
I included two screenshots of telegrams between MI5/MI6 Joint section and Information Policy. I wanted to take a closer look at those two telegrams. In the 1st telegram the editor of The Sunday Telegraph is quoted as requesting further details about the business interests of William Fuller, in effect asking Colin Wallace, an intelligence agent to do additional research on behalf of the Sunday Telegraph! In the 2nd Telegram the publication is quoted as requesting additional photographs for the story. Information Policy, the army psychological warfare outfit had a photographic unit that collected material for intelligence purposes. It would use this material in press briefings. In the same telegram JIS HQNI asks SIS for further information to include in the article. The telegrams give the impression of an agency wide collaboration for which Christopher Dobson and The Sunday Telegraph provide the veneer of an “independent investigation.”
What is interesting about this PsyOps campaign is that it shows how from essentially one piece of real information, the conviction of Joe Cahill for arms smuggling, suspicion can be exerted on a whole range of individuals and institutions, giving the impression of a well-funded and organised adversary, despite no evidence having been presented of where Joe Cahill raised the money for the smuggled arms.
This is what Colin Wallace calls a theme in The Man Who Knew Too Much documentary. In this case that supporters of republicanism were the same as terrorists.
This example shows how information that is considered intelligence material, meant to be used for internal intelligence purposes, and which we are told is so secret that it cannot be shared even in court, appears to be used in a routine manner to smear individuals and organisations as part of disinformation campaigns.
What is remarkable about this example is the in-depth involvement of a wide range of intelligence interests in the publication of this article. Making use of not only the message PsyOps wanted, but also a large part of the research from PsyOps. Additionally, the newspaper editor requested additional material and information, outsourcing the article to intelligence without the slightest scruples about what the implications for reporting and journalism that might have.
The End