Introduction: The Irish Times apologetically sought guidance on what to report from London.
In an earlier article in this series – which looks at British intelligence propaganda operations and The Irish Times – I outlined how Maj. Thomas McDowell, the Belfast-born Unionist, ex-British Army, ex-MI5, owner of the paper, had approached 10 Downing Street in London after the Northern Ireland Troubles exploded in 1969. He did so to apologize for the coverage of the North in his paper, described his editor as a ‘white nigger’ and sought ‘guidance’ about future reporting.
This article will show that British diplomats expected Maj. McDowell to ask them for ‘ammunition’ to discredit Douglas Gageby, the editor of The Irish Times.
One of the men McDowell met in London was John Peck, a black propaganda expert. He was a founding member of the Information Research Department (IRD) which aided MI6 in a series of coups around the globe. They included a failed bid to topple the government of Syria, Operation Struggle, and the failed attempt to murder President Nasser of Egypt. Peck was in charge of the IRD during the successful ouster of Prime Minister Mohammad of Iran in the 1950s. Mossadeqh was replaced by the Shah of Iran who let Savak, his secret police, murder and torture his opponents. The plot against Nasser involved Sarin gas.
The IRD pumped out smears, forged documents and engaged in all sorts of dirty tricks. Peck began his career of deceit – as he admitted himself in his memoirs – forging the signature of Churchill on cheques. He did this while working as an assistant to Churchill who was too busy to sign them himself.
Peck would have been in a position to have caused all sorts of trouble for the editor of The Irish Times had McDowell called upon his dark arts. McDowell, however, was not interested in ‘ammunition’ against Gageby (who was an entirely honourable man – Peck would have had to resort to his speciality, lying in any effort to undermine Gageby.)
Peck was appointed as ambassador to Ireland in April 1970. He would pull a lot of the strings behind the scenes during the build-up to what became known as the Arms Crisis, the controversy which split Fianna Fail.
Further details about Peck’s career as a dirty tricks expert are outlined in Part 2 of this story.
The article will examine how the relationship with McDowell and the British Establishment was cultivated by Peck and VIPs from the Foreign Office. Subsequently, others were targeted for recruitment by the British Secret Service, MI6. MI6 (sometimes referred to as SIS), is attached to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), formerly the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The IRD was also attached to the Foreign Office.
One of the favoured tactics deployed to seduce targets – especially those at The Irish Times – was what Andrew Gilchrist, the British ambassador, described as the provision of ‘comfortable lunches’. The process will also be described in Part 2 of this article.
Since leopards cannot change their spots, Part 1 will deal with Britain’s interference in Irish affairs over the last few years.
Part 1
Playing the same old tune.
1. Neutrality.
The FCDO has a medium to long term ambition to dislodge Ireland from its neutral perch on the world stage. Charles Haughey was alert to Britain’s desire for Ireland to join NATO. He teased an end to Irish neutrality in 1969, while Minister for Finance, and again in 1980, as Taoiseach, in his dealings with the UK, in return for movement on Irish unity.
The neutrality debate differs from normal political discourse because it involves foreign nation states who wish to bring about a significant change to a fundamental policy within this jurisdiction.
Richard Deacon, a friend of Sir Maurice Oldfield, Chief of MI6, 1973-1978, wrote about a clique in the Foreign Office which saw Irish membership of NATO as the long-term solution to Irish reunification. Deacon’s book was written after numerous discussions with Oldfield. Deacon wrote:
‘One section of opinion inside the British Foreign Office had for a long time taken the view that covert influences should be used to pave the way for some form of reunification of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. There was at the same time an unofficial exchange of views with some Americans for an undercover joint Anglo-American operation to reach some sort of reunification agreement while at the same time manipulating Ireland into the Western Alliance, as a member of NATO. At no time were any of these ideas put forward as policy, but a great deal was done to propagate them discreetly among those likely to be won over to what some saw as a neat solution of several problems in one package. Naturally, not much progress was made with the hard-line neutralist Fianna Fail party, but Lieutenant-General Sean MacEoin, former Irish Chief of Staff, had publicly asserted in November 1978 that “Ireland would have little option but to become a participant in a European defence union … Soldiers are soldiers and I would find it difficult to believe that our military people would not gladly relish participation in a cause in which they believe and which they consider must be honoured.’
David Goodall, the British diplomat who helped negotiate the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, denied that there was such a plan – at least one of which he was aware. Unfortunately, Goodall was not a reliable source. He was responsible for the coordination of Intelligence at Cabinet level in the early 1980s. This was at a time when British intelligence was conducting shoot-to-kill operations in Ireland. These were exposed by the media. Whitehall lied to cover up the programme. No one fell for the ruse and the Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester Police, John Stalker, was appointed to investigate the deaths and furnish a report. Stalker had to be removed when he got too close to the truth, i.e., that the shootings were sanctioned by MI5, and refused to back off. Goodall was at the centre of all this intrigue and deceit.
In his book, Goodall described how, in the early 1980s, he attended:
‘ .. the annual conference of the British-Irish Association at Balliol College, Oxford, which gave me my first experience of Irish political and academic opinion en masse. In one of the working groups into which the conference divided itself there was a discussion of neutrality. The atmosphere was informal and the discussions were taking place ‘under Chatham House Rules’, which means that views expressed are personal and unattributable. I rather frivolously suggested that Irish neutrality, ostentatiously pursued from a position safely within the NATO area but without the obligation of NATO membership, was a way of getting the Republic’s national security on the cheap. What I had intended as a tease was related by some of the Unionists present to Enoch Powell [MP], who later attacked me by name in a public speech to illustrate his thesis that there was a long-standing conspiracy between the Foreign Office and the US State Department to push Northern Ireland into a united Irish Republic in exchange for the Republic joining NATO. At the time I was innocent enough to be unaware that there was such a thesis; and I have never before or since, come across the slightest shred of evidence to support it.’ (‘The Making of the Anglo Irish Agreement of 1985, A Memoir by David Goodall’, page 8)
The days when the likes of Goodall played coy are long past. Britain and militaristic forces in Europe are now quite open about their desire for an end to Irish neutrality. The pressure has become particularly intense in recent years; so much so, that President Higgins has voiced his concerns. His intervention took the government by surprise.
In 2023 he launched a scathing attack about the then forthcoming Consultative Forum on International Security Policy chaired by Prof. Louise Richardson. He described her as someone ‘with a very large DBE – Dame of the British Empire’, and was disparaging about the lack of balance on the panels of the forum which included ‘the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it’ as well as ‘the formerly neutral countries who are now joining NATO’.
Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit TD, said the forum was a heavily biased one which was dominated by people with pro-NATO or pro-EU militarisation views.
He said Richardson had legitimate views but she was on record as a supporter of US foreign policy.
He described the forum as a ‘stitch up’ and said the debate should be a balanced one.
‘The forum is absolutely dominated by people who’ve worked in the military, have associations with NATO or have a record of arguing for Ireland to move away from neutrality or towards NATO or into the project of EU militarisation.’
He added that the Government had been moving closer to the NATO military alliance by stealth.
He argued the forum did not have balanced representation.
‘I am the President of the Anti War Movement,’ he said, and ‘we were not informed about the forum by the Government. Why aren’t the people who have a known record of campaigning against militarism, campaigning for neutrality, why are they not equally represented on the panels?’
These interventions were enough to sink the credibility of the forum which failed to move the dial on Ireland’s neutrality
While Whitehall cannot have much hope that the Republic of Ireland will join NATO in the short or medium term, a closer tie with a satellite military alignment is a more feasible prospect. The various military attachés at the Dublin embassy, and their colleagues, have been busy trying to influence the Irish army, navy and air force, at top brass level, and government officials, to push for this. The effort is relentless. It takes place at forums, seminars, parties at the embassy and, of course, at ‘comfortable lunches’ at expensive restaurants.
Reporters are being lobbied too but do not write about this in their newspapers.
A reasonable conclusion to draw is that reporters consider the diplomats, academics and researchers, who try to influence them – even those who overstep the mark – as legitimate confidential sources. A standout exception to this, involving a former deputy editor of The Irish Times, is discussed at section 16 below.
It is safe to assume that the British embassy is keeping its fingers crossed that anti-neutrality candidates will take seats in Election 2024.
2. The ‘Putin’s puppets’ smear campaign.
Claire Daly, who lost her seat in the European elections in May 2024, is an opponent of EU militarism.
Daly has protested that she and Mick Wallace MEP were misrepresented by the ‘establishment media’ for their anti-militarist stance. After 2022, this included the position she took on the war in Ukraine.
She asserts that the Ukrainian establishment ‘became puppets of another power’ by voting to end their country’s neutrality and that Ukrainians are dying ‘for a war which is of no benefit to them. .. They eliminated their neutrality and that was one of the reasons why we’re in the situation that we’re in now because they became puppets of another power who’s using them and their people and their blood is being shed in their country for a war that’s of no benefit to them.’
She has stressed that while she did not favour sanctions on Russia, that did not mean she was on the ‘Putin payroll’. Instead, she has explained, it was because she believes sanctions will not save a single Ukrainian life.
Her speeches have been widely reported in Russia and China. Her high profile in the Chinese media – something over which she has no control – was brought to the attention of Irish reporters, presumably by lobbyists opposed to her views. The implication being that if the Chinese media was interested in her views, she was worthy of disparagement.
She believes there are many within the Irish establishment who wanted to use the war in Ukraine to end Irish neutrality and were shocked the public did not support them.
The Centre for Countering Disinformation, a unit within the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) of Ukraine, put her on a list of 72 public figures whom they alleged were promoting ‘narratives consonant with Russian propaganda’.
The NSDC is headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. It works closely with MI6.
Daly reacted by condemning the list as a ‘blacklist issued by a Ukrainian Government propaganda department’. The development, she added, was ‘sinister’ and undemocratic.
‘Russia is responsible for starting the war’ she expanded ‘but the role of the international community should be to help end it with diplomatic efforts seeking to secure a ceasefire and a negotiated peace. This has been rejected by the US and NATO who have instead decided to use Ukraine to conduct a war with Russia, and it is ordinary citizens in Ukraine, Russia and Europe who are now suffering.‘
‘This is not ‘Russian propaganda, it is my opinion, shared by many internationally.‘
The NSDC list was, she insisted, ‘not a credible document’, adding: ‘It is an outrageous attempt to censor international opinion from a government that has already outlawed opposition parties, independent media, and purged of many of its officials.’ It ‘contains a diverse group of people who have next to nothing in common politically, except that all are critical of NATO and Western policy on Ukraine. That’s what democracy is: having the right to express an opinion and have a different view. That Ukraine is attempting to shut that down and narrow the range of ideas expressed in our societies is a mirror image of the behaviour we rightly criticise Russia for. The purpose of this list and the consequences of being put on it are not specified but it certainly belies any notion of Ukraine’s government being committed democrats.’
The NSDC list placed her life in danger – and continues so to do.
Another on that list was a former Democrat Congresswoman called Tulsi Gabbard. She has just been appointed by Donald Trump as his Director of National Intelligence. She will now oversee all US intelligence agencies including the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA), which focuses on intelligence gathering.
On another occasion Daly said:
‘Some of our positions [i.e. those of her and Mick Wallace] have been spun mischievously by some political opponents but also deliberately, I think, by sections of the establishment media.
‘We’ve been accused of being Putin puppets and all this but nobody has ever been able to produce a single word anywhere that shows me supporting Putin. He’s a right-wing neoliberal nationalist and I have nothing to do with them now or ever.‘
The NSDC works extremely closely with MI6. The relationship is so close that in 2023 Richard Moore, the Chief of MI6 (whose grandfather was a member of the War of Independence era IRA), urged Russians appalled by the horrors of the war in Ukraine to switch sides and spy for the UK to help end the bloodshed. Speaking from the residence of the British ambassador in Prague, in July 2023, he claimed Putin was ‘under pressure’ and had to cut a deal with the boss of the Wagner mercenary company to ‘save his own skin’. (A month later, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary leader, died in a plane crash north of Moscow.)
‘There are many Russians today who are silently appalled by the sight of their armed forces pulverising Ukrainian cities, expelling innocent families from their homes and kidnapping thousands of children’, Moore said. ‘They are watching in horror as their soldiers ravage a kindred country. They know in their hearts that Putin’s case for attacking a fellow Slavic nation is fraudulent.’
While serving as an MEP, Clare Daly argued that the ‘good work’ she and Wallace were doing, was not being covered by the Irish media and said a ‘disconnect’ existed between people in Europe and the European institutions, which was ‘magnified in Ireland’.
How much the ‘Putin’s puppet’ smear, Daly’s high profile in China and Russia, and the failure to report her other work, contributed to the loss of her European seat in May 2024, is an imponderable.
Mick Wallace also lost his seat. Both he and Daly are presently campaigning for places in the Dail.
They are the last people the British embassy would like to see reach a mandate.
3. ‘Cobalt’ and ‘Hansen’
There is another politician the British Embassy and MI6 would like to see knocked out of Irish politics. He is the man who has become known to the public as ‘Cobalt’. He is presently pursuing a political agenda which has displeased London deeply. He cannot – and should not – be named.
Cobalt is the victim of what appears to be a British intelligence black propaganda operation. The article from The Phoenix magazine (reproduced below in the grey boxes) raises serious questions about this controversy:
THE SUNDAY TIMES may have unintentionally opened a can of worms with recent articles claiming that the Russian secret service was running an agent dubbed ‘Cobalt’ in the Oireachtas. The real scandal more likely relates to a British secret service asset operating inside Garda intelligence, who was responsible for the leak of the fishy allegation to the newspaper in the first place.
The ST reported that Garda intelligence allegedly came to “believe the Russians might have obtained Kompromat (compromising information) on [Cobalt], possibly during his travels abroad.”
When an intelligence service sets out to entrap a male target through sexual blackmail, it is not always necessary to lure him into bed with a ‘swallow’, a female sexual partner in the pay of a spy agency. Such operations often fail for various reasons, ie because the target is faithful to his partner.
Instead, dirty trick operators can resort to a tactic that produces the same result: the incapacitation of a target. In this scenario, drops of Rohypnol or a similar substance are injected into the victim’s glass and he is then carried to a hotel bedroom where all sorts of photographs can be staged while he is unconscious.
[The Phoenix magazine] and others have reason to believe that Cobalt was the entirely innocent victim of such a drugging.
The Cobalt affair apparently began in 2019. Why has it only emerged now, after five years? Is it because the target of the leak recently launched an initiative that displeased UK security services?
A number of disturbing points have been raised in a forensic examination of the Cobalt affair in a blog by Michael C. Murphy, the CEO of security and intelligence firm SIT ARMS, who was formerly Lt-Col Murphy and is the retired director of J2, the Defence Forces intelligence arm. His article is entitled, “Never Mind Cobalt Who is Hansen?”
‘Hansen’ is the name Murphy attributes to the source of the Cobalt story. Murphy’s immediate reaction upon reading the ST article was that “there was a serious leak of state TOP SECRET intelligence to the media”.
Murphy proceeds to quote the section of the ST article where Hansen alleged that “Cobalt’s finances were initially examined to try to establish whether he was receiving money, but their inquiries produced nothing suspicious”.
Murphy asks: “Did the then Minister for Justice, Mr Flanagan, approve the Gardai investigating the finances of a member of the Oireachtas? Did the Minister sign a warrant to do so? If not, by what authority was the search conducted and at what rank?”
The ST also reported that, according “to flight dates seen by the Sunday Times, Cobalt has travelled to countries, including outside the European Union, where Russian services operate without fear”.
Murphy asks: “How did the [57] obtain flight records? Were they given to [the newspaper] by the Gardai? Was there a breach of GDPR?”
And what of the ST’s assertion that there is no “evidence of payment into [Cobalt’s] known bank accounts. So, it was suspected that he might have been personally compromised or his internet history intercepted during travels abroad where Russian intelligence operate.”
Murphy wants to know: “How did the Gardai know there was no payment into Cobalt’s bank accounts? By what authority did they investigate a member of parliament?… Who signed the Warrant to search his bank account?”
Cobalt was placed under surveillance, with at least one of his conversations being “recorded”. This raises more questions in Murphy’s trained intelligence mind about the existence of a warrant for the monitoring of Cobalt: “If there is no warrant [for the surveillance] by what authority was the surveillance conducted?”
Murphy derides the ST’s assertion that this “is the first known infiltration of the Oireachtas by a hostile intelligence service”. He says this “displays naivety. There is no such thing as a friendly foreign intelligence service… it would be very naïve to think that the Oireachtas is not heavily infiltrated by a number of intelligence services.”
Murphy has a chilling take on the ST’s assertion that “experts believe there may be others yet to be discovered”. He feels that this “statement is a threat to any politician who does not agree with government policy and wishes to speak out regarding neutrality, Ukraine, NATO, EU militarisation, etc. What politician wants to be accused of being a Russian agent? Speak out and be called a Putin Puppet. This is a totalitarian state method to quieten opposition. Is this the real reason for this article at this time?”
Only two things are certain at this point: first, there was a leak by at least one Irish/British intelligence official to a newspaper in breach of the Official Secrets Act. Second, the Government is not making any noise about finding out who was the source of the leak.
An even uglier picture is slowly swimming into focus in the background. The Cobalt yarn dates back to 2019. In recent times Cobalt was involved in a perfectly legitimate political campaign, which can only have infuriated certain interests in London. The leak of the Cobalt story in 2024 might have been designed to damage that initiative and tarnish its author.
The worst-case scenario is that an ally of the British secret service, MI6, in Garda intelligence is responsible for the leak and that Cobalt, a victim of a drugging operation while on a foreign trip, has been very badly treated indeed by all and sundry. (The Phoenix 1 November 2024.)
A second article appeared in The Phoenix which compared the case being made by ‘Hansen’ with a speech presented by the Director-General of MI5 two days after the publication of the original ‘Cobalt’ story in the Sunday Times. It is reproduced below:
After a flurry of interest, the Irish public lost interest in the ‘Cobalt’ story. While it was still in the headlines, a few members of the Oireachtas denied they were Cobalt, but Cobalt’s name did not emerge. It has, however, filtered through various gossip networks. Cobalt’s domestic political rivals are nudging, winking and raising eyebrows.
The mainstream media is unlikely to reveal his identity. The security officials responsible for the leaking the story may have to resort to the use of social media platforms to place his name into the public domain.
4. MI6, Sinn Féin and the 2024 General Election.
Britain’s intelligence community spent decades recruiting agents inside the Republican movement. There are multiple examples of IRA members who were ‘turned’ by MI5 and MI6 and became informers. Less is known about the infiltration of Sinn Féin. One successful operation was the recruitment of Denis Donaldson, a key Sinn Féin official who was very close to Gerry Adams.
Willie Carlin was another MI5 agent who penetrated Sinn Féin. He grew up in the Creggan estate of Derry and later joined the Royal Irish Hussars, but did so before the Troubles began. He was sent back to Derry in 1974 by MI5 with orders to infiltrate Sinn Féin, not the IRA.
Martin McGuinness appointed Carlin as a political advisor. Carlin is credited with having sharpened McGuinness’ public image. He got him to cast his Aran jumpers aside for suits, ties and polished shoes. More significantly, he became privy to important political developments within Sinn Féin. Once a week he visited his handler, Michael Bettaney of MI5, at a property on the outskirts Limavady, where he brought MI5 up to date about Sinn Féin and McGuinness. He operated as a spy for eleven years. Margaret Thatcher read his reports avidly. He died in 2023.
It is safe to assume that MI5 and MI6 still have an intense interest in manipulating Sinn Féin and that MI6 media assets operating in the Republic do not wish them well in Election 2024.
Sinn Féin has suffered an extraordinary collapse in support in recent times. A Red C poll taken in October 2023 gave them a 32% share of the vote. This dropped to 11.8% the following May, in the 2024 local elections.
A drop of over 20% in seven months.
There are many views about the collapse. Most observers blame the position the party took on the issue of asylum seeking.
A lot of the anti-immigrant anger was chanelled towards Sinn Féin via a battery of anonymous social media accounts. References to the party as ‘Sharia Féin’, ‘traitors’ and ‘scum’ became commonplace.
Yet, Sinn Féin was not in office. Its policies on asylum differed little from Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens, who held the reins of power. Most of the opposition parties, including Labour, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit, sing from the same sheet as Sinn Féin on asylum and immigration. So, why did it alone take such flak?
The position Sinn Féin held on asylum was consistent. There was no change in policy between October 2023 and the local elections. So, just what was it that suddenly caused immigration to inflict the lion’s share of the 20+ drop?
Was it the troll onslaught?
Did the trolls who went into action after October have a more sophisticated understanding of the psychological trigger points likely to whip up anger against Sinn Féin?
Who is running the troll accounts?
Are they coordinated?
Why did they focus on Sinn Féin and not the Government?
Britain’s intelligence services insist that their rivals engage in precisely this sort of activity. In 2020 the Intelligence and Security Committee (ICI) of the UK parliament issued a report about Russian interference with British democracy. It stated Putin’s digital spies had manipulated the Brexit vote, in part, via anti-EU social media accounts. The hosts on them had posed as British citizens to whip up anti-EU sentiment. They did so by weaponising immigration, an effortless task as Nigel Farage and his associates had been making hay from it for years.
The notion that the Russians, Chinese or North Koreans have any sort of a reason to sabotage Sinn Féin is laughable. Could it be that the anti-Sinn Féin trolls are British operatives?
Will a whistle blower emerge from the shadows in decades to come to reveal that some of the anti-Sinn Féin trolls were indeed British agents?
Since the 11.8% disaster in May 2024, Sinn Féin has experienced a tidal wave of negative publicity. It has been engulfed by sex scandals which include paedophilia and child pornography. They could not have come at a worse time for the party – the months running up to Election 2024.
There is no evidence that sinister forces operating in the shadows knew about the scandals in advance, and chose to provoke their release in recent months, as it became obvious an election was about to be called. On its best day, even MI6 is not that good.
Sinn Féin’s critics and MI6 assets are, however, undoubtedly fanning the flames of these scandals now that they have erupted.
There is a noteworthy, and particularly ugly, precedent for the exploitation of sexual misbehaviour – especially paedophilia – perpetrated by Irish politicians. And it is one which involved MI6. In 1973 MI6 had plans to release details about the sexual and financial misbehaviour of Unionists who opposed the Sunningdale Power Sharing Agreement. This was part of Operation Clockwork Orange which involved the collection of ‘kompromat’ about Unionist politicians. The most egregious component of Clockwork Orange was the exploitation of an Anglo-Irish paedophile network that swirled around Bawnmore, Williamson House, Portora Royal College and Kincora Boys’ Home. The lid came off the operation in the 1980s and has resulted in a staggering number of consequential scandals.
See Operation Clockwork Orange Vol 1 of Covert History Ireland’s ebook.
The damage occasioned by the sex scandals, and the anger over asylum seeking, are fresh developments. What is not new is a long held antipathy towards the party in the media because of its links to the Provisional IRA, and, in some quarters, its left-wing economic policies. Emphatically, MI6 is not responsible for the hostility generated by the link to the IRA. It came about because of atrocities such as Bloody Friday, the Birmingham bombings, extra judicial executions, torture, bank robberies and others acts of violence. MI5, MI6, and the IRD, however, exacerbated the hostility at every given opportunity during the Troubles.
5. ‘LOVEINT‘
MI6 certainly has the ability to collect ‘kompromat’ about Irish politicians.
The National Security Agency (NSA) of the US government monitors electronic communications. One of its former employees, Edward Snowdon, became a whistle-blower. He now lives in Russia. He has disclosed in great detail how the US engages in all sorts of internet surveillance activity, often in partnership with Britain’s GCHQ, which is responsible for UK signals intelligence. GCHQ, like MI6, reports to the Foreign Office. The two organisations work hand in glove.
Snowdon leaked documents which revealed that NSA agents tracked the online sexual activity of people they term ‘radicalizers’, in order to discredit them. They call this activity ‘LOVEINT’.
The word ‘LOVENET’ is a play on ‘HUMINT’, the latter being the collection of ‘human intelligence’.
6. Social media platforms – the ideal weapon for the dissemination of smears.
British and American government officials complain incessantly about the influence of social media accounts run by North Korea, China and Russian, via the internet. They are believed to sow discord and influence target audiences, sometimes in a defamatory fashion.
The cost of social media platform smearing is minimal. The risk of a defamation is non-existent as the activity is carried out remotely and anonymously.
MI6 obviously has the capacity to play the same game.
It will be interesting to see if an anonymous account is used to reveal Cobalt’s identity before the 2024 electoral cycle – which includes the Dail and Seanad elections – comes to an end.
It is inconceivable that a Dail committee will ever be set up to follow the example of the UK’s Intelligence and Security Committee inquiry, i.e., to ascertain if hostile foreign actors played a part in whipping up anti-immigrant anger and, more significantly, directed it at Féin.
Part 2: Historical precedents for media manipulation in Ireland
6. Maj. McDowell made the first move.
While the focus of this, the second part of this article, falls on The Irish Times, there is no doubt that other media outlets have been targeted by the FCO, embassy and MI6, as well, over the decades. Unfortunately for the paper, a number of records exist which expose the roots of the operation Britain undertook to suborn it. Hence, the searchlight is shone on the paper here.
Interested readers should also read John Martin’s, ‘The Irish Times Past and Present‘.
Maj. McDowell was a high value target by any standard in the intelligence game. The fact he was keen to help London, made him even more attractive to them. No less a figure than Prime Minister Harold Wilson responded to his blandishments to No 10 Downing Street.
The British Establishment has had 55 years since these early steps were taken during which to get its claws into the Irish media. These trace roots show how important that task became after the eruption of the Troubles.
There has been little or no pushback against these activities in Ireland over the ensuing decades.
On 16 September 1969, Peter Gregson of the Political Office at 10 Downing Street, sent a ‘SECRET’ letter to Kelvin White of the Foreign Office in which he explained that:
‘As I told you on the telephone earlier this afternoon, Major McDowell, the Managing Director of the Irish Times in Dublin, contacted a member of the Political Office here to say that he was at the Naval and Military Club and felt that he could be of some use with regard to the situation in Northern Ireland. In the event it was not possible to contact Major McDowell before he left London.
‘I have discussed this with the Prime Minister, and he thinks that it would be desirable for our Embassy in Dublin to make contact with Major McDowell when he gets back. He thinks that Major McDowell’s offer of assistance may relate more to intelligence than to journalistic activity.
‘I am sending copies of this letter to Cubbon (Home Office) and Lloyd Jones (Cabinet Office.)‘
7. ‘.. certain conversations I had in London a fortnight ago.
Maj. McDowell returned to Dublin before Number 10 managed to contact him. Britain’s ambassador to Dublin, Andrew Gilchrist, was instructed to contact him. Gilchrist was a man with many connections to the British intelligence community – see MI6’s Assets at the Irish Times (and other dirty secrets of the newspaper). By David Burke
Gilchrist wrote to Kelvin White of the Western Department of the FCO in the letter already described in the ‘MI6 assets’ article on this site. A short summary here will suffice. Gilchrist took McDowell to lunch in Dublin and reported to the FCO that McDowell:
now felt that a certain degree of guidance, in respect of which lines were helpful and which were unhelpful, might be acceptable to himself and one or two of his friends on the Board; this was what [Maj. McDowell] had had in mind in telephoning number 10.”
It looks like Gilchrist and others in London had already targeted The Irish Times as a possible outlet for British propaganda. This might explain Gilchrist’s comment:
‘Oddly enough I had had McDowell in mind in certain conversations I had in London a fortnight ago. His present approach requires rather careful handling and I shall discuss it in London next week. I am writing this letter merely in case you wish to brief No. 10 and assure them that we will do what we can to exploit this opening. I am destroying the correspondence.’
The letter was marked in block capital letters: “SECRET & PERSONAL”.
8. The provision of ‘comfortable lunches‘.
Ambassador Gilchrist wrote to Kelvin White again on 16 October 1969. He suggested that:
‘I think it might be useful if this gentleman could be given a comfortable lunch by someone or other on one of his fairly frequent visits to London. As host, I would suggest John Peck, with yourself as third man or a longstop. It might be quite worthwhile. He expects to be over early in December. Shall I give him Peck’s name? Or yours?‘
As a PS. Gilchrist wrote: “You might be able to think up a fourth.’
9. The smearmeisters from the Department of Black Propaganda move in.
John Peck was the former head of the Information Research Department (IRD), the black propaganda machine of the Foreign Office. Its activities became notorious after the Watergate scandal. Various inquiries exposed its existence and links to black propaganda operations run in conjunction with the CIA. (The Declassified website contains a large number of stories about the activities of the IRD.)
Peck was in charge of the plot to topple PM Mohammad Mossadeqh of Iran. He played one of the IRD’s favourite tunes during the operation: that a communist bogeyman – this time in the shape of Mossadeqh – was trying to hand the country over to the Soviets. These smears along with the bribery of officials and the use of rent-a-mobs, eventually toppled Mossadeqh. After the dust settled, the Shah of Iran was placed firmly in control of the country, something that ushered in decades of torture and repression and ultimately sparked a revolution that placed the clerics in charge of the country.
Mossadeqh was a democratically elected secularist who had favoured advancing women’s rights. His crime had been to nationalise his country’s oil reserves, something that had infuriated Churchill and the Tories.
During the coup, the BBC’s Persian service was used to pour gallons of vitriol over Mossadeqh. The sheer volume of the sludge pumped through the BBC drove the Iranian staff at its Persian station to go out on strike. On the anniversary of the coup on 18 August, 2011, the BBC finally owned up to its role in the affair. Moreover, a document emerged which showed that the Foreign Office had thanked the then British ambassador to Tehran for the ideas he had supplied to it about those who might be targeted for vilification. Those pinpointed had been attacked by the BBC during the operation.
Anthony Cavendish of MI6 was proud of what MI6 and the IRD achieved. He wrote in his memoirs that:
‘It is true to say that although [MI6] planned the coup for two years, the unpopularity of Mossadeqh’s regime combined with the threat that if he went he would be replaced by the Tudeh party, a revolutionary communist party second in age only to the Soviet party, suddenly brought the people on to the streets demanding that Mossadeqh go. But it was the encouragement and persuasion that [MI6] contrived to arrange for this demonstration, and the help they immediately gave to the Shah’s supporters, that returned the Shah – in temporary exile from the capital – in triumph, and ensured Mossadeqh was brought to trial.’ (Cavendish page 140.)
While Mossadeqh went on trial, some of his closest supporters were murdered by the new regime.
Peck had exploited the BBC to encourage Soviet officials to defect to the West while he was running the IRD.
The sordid behaviour of the IRD led to its closure in 1978 by the Labour government led by James Callaghan. The minister responsible was David Owen, Britain’s Foreign Secretary.
One of those appalled by the decision to close it down was Brian Crozier who had been involved in many CIA and IRD operations. Insofar as Ireland was concerned, Crozier’s greatest success was in luring Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael to become a member of one of his front organisations, the Institute for the Study of Conflict. Fitzgerald contributed a chapter to a book published by Crozier about Northern Ireland. The book exculpated the Parachute Regiment for Bloody Sunday, smeared John Hume and Charles Haughey.
Peck, the supreme IRD black propagandist, not only went on to meet McDowell but was appointed as British ambassador to replace Gilchrist. Peck was subsequently involved in the machinations that culminated in the Arms crisis.
Peck wrote a memoir of his time in Dublin. It runs to 240 pages. No mention is made anywhere in it of McDowell. McDowell and Peck had had many meetings, some of which took place at gentlemen’s clubs on Stephen’s Greene. Peck was a member of the Stephen’s Greene club. It can be safely assumed that whatever machinations Peck and McDowell enjoyed, none of it was suitable for publication in his book.
There is nothing about the IRD’s relationship with the BBC in the volume eithet.
10. Inculcating ‘greater moderation’ on behalf of London at The Irish Times.
In a an internal Foreign Office memorandum, dated 15 October 1969, the following development is recorded:
‘The Ambassador (Gilchrist) has been in touch with Major McDowell in Dublin. It transpires that the latter was seeking a degree of guidance, in the hope that he will be able to inculcate greater moderation in his own paper. Apparently he has trouble with his editor and this, not intelligence activity was the root of the matter. We shall do what we can to exploit this opportunity.‘
11. Impressing McDowell by starting at a ‘senior level‘.
In an internal memorandum Kelvin White wrote:
‘I will happily take this on myself, but there are obvious advantages in starting, at least, at the senior level. If lunching Major McDowell seemed likely to become a regular duty, we can reconsider.
12. What to do if the lunches become ‘regular affairs’.
In an internal Western European Department memorandum, dated 23 October, and marked ‘RESTRICTED, Kelvin White wrote to Gilchrist as follows:
‘Thank you for your letter of 15 October, about Major McDowell of the Irish Times. I’ve spoken to John Peck, who is of course happy to help. I think the best course would be to pass on my name (and the Department’s) which would be administratively convenient in serving as a point of contact and to mention John Peck and others would also be interested to meet Major McDowell. The exact composition of the party we would settle at the time, but we agree this should be kept as an informal gathering, limited to two or three on our side. We may of course ring the change if the lunches become regular affairs.
13. McDowell apologises for his editors “Editor’s excessive zeal”.
White treated McDowell to a comfortable lunch on his own on 7 November 1969. In fairness to McDowell, it appears he paid for it. It presumably took place in London as that was where White was based. White recorded how:
‘We had a lengthy talk over lunch, ranging over many Irish matters, and the newspaper world especially, but if I had to sum up very briefly what McDowell really had to say I think it would be that he wants to help and is willing to be used as a link. (This does not exclude the point of guidance you recorded in your letter of 2 October, but it does go rather further).‘
‘McDowell himself said he had hitherto, for obvious newspaper reasons, tried to keep free of those constraints that follow if a newspaperman forms an honourable alliance with the official world, but the present situation was so serious and so different he thought he ought to offer his services.‘
One of the services McDowell proposed was to introduce the FCO to other influential newspaper figures. One of these was the editor of The Belfast Telegraph.
‘McDowell did not seek ammunition for use against his Editor [Douglas Gageby], but he did, as you forecast, mention rather apologetically that Editor’s excessive zeal. “He [i.e. McDowell] also told me that he knew Sneddon, of the Belfast Telegraph, who is a contact of Oliver Wright’s, and who was once briefly lent to the Irish Times by Lord Thompson to advise on the paper’s finances.‘
Oliver Wright was a senior FCO figure who was representing the British government in its relations with the Stormont government at Stormont.
There is a particularly sinister undertone to this letter. What if McDowell had stooped as low as to ask Kelvin White for ‘ammunition’ against his editor? The meeting seems to have taken place in the expectation that it would be sought. Hence, it is fair to conclude that MI6 would have been deployed to search for dirt. (They would not have found any. Gageby was a private man with no vices.)
The IRD might then have stepped in to invent ‘sibs’ or false rumours about him as they did with many British and Irish figures.
White suggested:
‘At the moment I think it would be useful, so far as we in the Department are concerned, to keep in touch with McDowell, to keep him briefed in general terms, and to encourage him to forward the moderates’ cause in his paper. This is very much what you had in mind. Beyond that I cannot see a go-between role for him, but that would be more a matter for you to suggest if you found doors closed to you.‘
Gageby was deposed as editor, but not until 1974, only to be brought back to it a few years later to save it from collapse.
14. The possibility of seminars.
In a ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ Western European Department, memorandum dated 22 December, 1969, Kelvin White described how he had ‘lunched with Major McDowell of the “Irish Times” on Friday, 12 December’ and that John Peck had joined him.
3. [McDowell] had no detailed idea of what might be done, and over lunch I did not contribute much more either. I suppose a seminar of non-officials on relations between North and South is one thought, but that seems to be an obvious and possibly risky rave. On the other hand it should be possible to get a better audience e.g. some M.P.s and officials, and perhaps even some Ministers if the seminar or seminars avoided that contentious subject, where differences were bound to be re-stated, and instead took themes where inevitably North and South would find it made sense to co-operate.
‘4. At first sight it seems that McDowell might be well-placed to get things moving if both sides prove as a reluctant to issue an invitation or too scared of their extremist fringes to accept an invitation from the other government.
‘5. We would be interested in any documents that you, or Oliver Wright did a copy of this letter goes, have to make.‘
15. Comfortable lunches with government officials.
Kelvin Whites’ desire to gain access to Irish ministers and officials became a preoccupation of the Dublin embassy.
Frank Dunlop, the former press secretary to taoisigh Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Albert Reynolds, has described how he was once invited to lunch by a British diplomat, much to the chagrin of Charles Haughey. Haughey’s chief civil service adviser, Padraigh O hAnrachain, forbade Dunlop from attending any further lunches. Dunlop later enjoyed telling the story of how O hAnnrachain himself dined with the British ambassador. Dunlop spotted the ambassador’s chauffeur pull up outside government buildings through his office window one day whereupon O hAnrachain jumped in. In fairness to O hAnrachain, and as Dunlop acknowledges, he obviously had the permission of Haughey for the lunch.
O hAnrachain once told me that he believed MI6 was plotting against Haughey and that he was always interested in absorbing as much information about them as he could. O hAnrachain was far too wily to have given anything away to Her Majesty’s envoys.
British diplomats still dine for His Majesty (as indeed do many other embassies but hardly with the same intensity, ambition and success as Britain’s). They don’t always breach diplomatic niceties. Most of their activity is part and parcel of the legitimate whirly burly of diplomacy, exactly the type of thing Irish diplomats get up to in London, Washington and Brussels.
There is, however, one known instance where the line was overstepped.
16. Comfortable lunches at Bloom’s Hotel.
Dennis Kennedy was Deputy Editor of The Irish Times, 1982 and 1985.
McDowell probably recommended to MI6 that they approach Kennedy.
The ‘MI6 assets’ story describes what happen but it is repeated here for the convenience of the reader.
McDowell – or whoever recommended the recruitment pitch – chose the wrong man. Kennedy was an honourable journalist.
Kennedy has described what happened. The recruitment pitch was launched, ‘One day in the late 1970s’ when he ‘received a phone call in the office from a well-spoken Englishman, asking me if he could meet me for lunch, as he was coming to Dublin in connection with a research project on Northern Ireland. .. He named a research institute in the English Midlands as the base for the programme, and hinted that the proposed lunch might be the first of several.‘
The man from MI6 met Kennedy a few times. The encounters included a trip to Bloom’s Hotel restaurant. After a short while, the MI6 man said to Kennedy: ‘Dennis, I am sure you realise by now what this is all about’. Kennedy describes how he ‘almost choked on’ his ‘smoked eel’ as he ‘cast desperately around for solid ground’.
The ‘academic’ then revealed that he worked for the Foreign Office and that the ‘research project was just a front, and they used the institute as a useful contact point. They would like me to work for them. They needed first-hand information on individuals, what they were thinking, what they were doing. I sat in a daze..’
Afterwards, Kennedy ‘began to wonder if my experience was unique; how many of my colleagues had similarly been approached, and how had they reacted? I never found out, but I could not help noticing how some of them spoke highly of the food in the restaurant at Bloom’s Hotel.‘
Afterwards, Kennedy ‘began to wonder if my experience was unique; how many of my colleagues had similarly been approached, and how had they reacted? I never found out, but I could not help noticing how some of them spoke highly of the food in the restaurant at Bloom’s Hotel.‘
The astonishing aspect of this affair was the brazen manner in which MI6 approached the journalist. This might have been because MI6 had found it easy to recruit assets in the paper on prior occasions.
See also: MI6’s Assets at the Irish Times (and other dirty secrets of the newspaper). By David Burke
David Burke is the author of four books published by Mercier Press.
