Powell offered no supporting evidence for his theory, which outraged many of his fellow Conservatives. Dame Jill Knight, right-wing MP for Edgbaston, said: ‘There was a time when Mr Powell’s logic was respected. That day has long passed, and I must say that his latest outburst confirms the view a thousand per cent.’8 The Sunday Telegraph took the unusual step of printing a brief opinion on its front page: ‘The premise of Mr Powell’s argument is that the Americans are desperate to secure defence facilities in Ireland, but there is absolutely no evidence for this – and absolutely no strategic reason why it should be so. Ireland could at most make a minimal contribution to NATO’s security,’ it read. ‘From this premise, Mr Powell goes on to spin his tale of twenty years’ murder and treachery by sections of the British government. It would make an interesting plot for a thriller; it is not what we expect from a Privy Councillor. Mr Powell thinks he has identified the enemies of Ulster: in fact, he is playing into their hands.’ It was not until the following year that Powell pointed, in his usual Delphic manner, to CIA involvement in Central America and Iran, for which evidence only came to light much later.
The conviction that the security forces had a hand in Neave’s assassination goes wider than Enoch Powell. The Irish writer and investigative reporter Kevin Cahill also believes that elements of the secret state were involved. He claims that Neave was on the brink of a massive overhaul of the security services, possibly involving a merger of MI5 and MI6 and arising from alleged corruption within the secret state. He links Neave’s murder to that of Sir Richard Sykes and an attempt on the life of Christopher Tugendhat, former Tory MP and Commissioner, in December 1980. Neave would have been head of the new combined security services, Cahill believes, with Sykes and Tugendhat as his deputies, the former with responsibility for foreign operations and Tugendhat in charge of domestic activities.
Cahill’s extraordinary story begins in March 1979, at the annual St Patrick’s Day party at the Irish embassy in London, less than a fortnight before Neave died. Cahill was then working for Singer & Friedlander, the merchant bank. About eight in the evening, I came out into the downstairs foyer to get a taxi. None was available and I found myself in the company of an Englishman I recognised as Airey Neave. He was, as the Irish say, half-cut, but well in control of himself.’ Cahill introduced himself as ex-army and an admirer of Neave’s escape books. ‘He said something to the effect of army, hmmm. And then, quite out of the blue and almost to himself, said words to the effect, “There are going to be changes here, big changes, soon. There is going to be cleaning of the stables, a cleaning of the Augean stables. There has been serious corruption.” He then offered that the war was “all wrong. We have to change all that. No use playing games. We have to win. We have to make changes, big changes. We will win when the [corruption] is sorted out. Count on that.”’9
Cahill found Neave’s remarks ‘quite incongruous’ considering that his Shadow Cabinet responsibility lay in Northern Ireland. ‘His preoccupations seemed to be internally oriented, towards the UK, with his Irish appointment almost a sideline.’ Cahill assumed that the word ‘corruption’ referred to Soviet penetration of the security services – this was the period of Anthony Blunt and suspicions about Roger Hollis, the head of MI5. As it turned out the rogue elements in MI5 were right-wing dissidents, plotting the downfall of Harold Wilson and the Labour left.
Cahill, an engaging man with a Neavesque eye for a plot, moved into journalism and began investigating American interference in the UK computer industry. In late 1983 or early 1984, Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, who also has an MI6 background, took up the issue. He also appointed Cahill his research assistant which gave him access to the House of Commons.
In this way, Cahill became friendly with Commons security staff, some of whom were ex-marines (like Ashdown). Slowly and elliptically, he began to ask about Neave. ‘Of about six “chats” over the next few years, not one of the staff ever doubted that the bomb was planted while the car was in the House. Those who were technically interested usually stated the obvious, that the chances of the car making it to the House with the bomb on board were “slim to zero” but the more frequent line was that “everyone knew” what happened but no one could speak in detail as it was too dangerous. This was because not one of the six believed that the IRA did it. The average opinion was that it was an inside job.’ Cahill also met Enoch Powell, who merely reiterated what he had told others: that he thought his source was reliable, that he had checked his source and that the facts were true. ‘An MI6/CIA group had got rid of Neave because he posed a threat to them. This looked like a reasonable corroboration of all the informal material I had picked up,’ Cahill concluded.
His overall view is that the scale of the operation, involving three ‘hits’ in three capitals had to be conducted by a large-scale organisation – which INLA was not – capable of collecting detailed intelligence on the movements of three very senior people in government, without being detected. Neave, he judged, was ‘the conspirator’s conspirator’ but also ‘a deeply unpleasant and flawed man, and arrogant’. Cahill concludes: ‘He made a serious error by any standards, in that he threatened senior figures in the intelligence establishment, going so far as to threaten prosecution in the courts of certain individuals.’ Ergo, Neave was murdered by the security services, probably by elements of MI6 working with the CIA.
Leaving aside the Hollywood dimension, this theory is difficult to swallow. In the first place, why would Neave, a lifelong covert operator well known for his secretive manner, suddenly decide to unburden himself to a complete stranger in the foyer of the Irish embassy after a St Patrick’s Day party? Even if halfway drunk, as Neave sometimes was? People often drink too much at such parties and there tends to be loose talk, political bantering, among the high-level guests. But the idea of Neave disclosing his innermost intentions during a casual meeting is unlikely to say the least. Cahill’s story does, however, illustrate the level of acceptance that Powell’s ideas have gained. By his account, the ‘inside job’ theory is taken seriously by security professionals in Westminster. It would, of course, neatly explain why there has never been a single arrest, or a published report on the affair.
The MI6 – CIA conspiracy theory also gets support from another source, superficially less likely but much closer to the heart of the secret state. Gerald James, former head of the ordnance firm Astra Holdings, was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the government over his role in the arms to Iraq affair. He had also been involved with Neave in the covert operations to prepare for ‘civil breakdown’ in the 1970s. James insists that Neave set himself the task of sorting out the intelligence services. Things could have been different for Astra if he had, but Neave made the mistake of saying these things publicly and was killed by a bomb. The crime was blamed on Irish terrorists, ‘but bomb experts have since said that it couldn’t have been an IRA bomb because it had a mercury fuse, tripped on the angle of the car, a type that was available only to the CIA at the time’.10
James told the author: ‘Neave seemed to excite quite a lot of fear among certain sections, because one of the things he wanted to do was clean up the intelligence and security services. That’s why a lot of people think he died. The man he was going to make head of MI6 [Sykes] got machine-gunned on his front doorstep.’ There was also an attempt on the life of Christopher Tugendhat, Neave’s putative head of MI5. ‘Neave perceived it [the security service] as a problem. He felt they were abusing their position and the people in them were using it for their personal gain. They wanted to control things. It is a wonderful cover for corruption, national security.’ MI6 was ‘very inter-related’ with the CIA, dissident elements of which were able to continue in business as a private organisation with money in secret bank accounts. The involvement of both organisations in Neave’s murder was therefore ‘highly likely’, insists James. And because he was perceived as a dangerous person, they got rid of him.11
Another explanation has come from a sel
f-confessed INLA member and police informer, Raymond Gilmour. Born and raised on the notorious Creggan estate in Londonderry, he joined INLA in 1978 and later switched to the Provisionals, but he maintains that throughout the decade of his terrorist activity, he worked as an undercover agent for the RUC Special Branch. In his book Dead Ground, published in 1998 after he had changed his identity to live incognito ‘somewhere in Europe’, Gilmour says that a unit was sent over to London to kill Neave after the successful trial run with the mercury-tilt bomb that mortally wounded Robert McAnally. The two men, allegedly Chris Bishop and Vincent O’Reilly, sailed for London on a coal boat from Londonderry. ‘Chris Bishop’ cannot be his real name, because Gilmour maintains that he has changed the names of all those connected with his narrative who are still alive (with the exception of Martin McGuinness). ‘Bishop’ has never been convicted of any terrorist offence. ‘O’Reilly’ must also be a false name, because while his whereabouts are not known he is not listed as dead. The two men were said to have reconnoitred Neave’s movements for a number of days before fixing the bomb to the underside of his car with magnets. Two days after the killing, ‘O’Reilly’ and ‘Bishop’ returned to Londonderry. Nothing was said officially but the clear understanding among members of INLA in the city was that the pair had planted the bomb. ‘When the police released a photofit picture of one of the suspects, it was an absolute ringer for O’Reilly,’ writes Gilmour.12 Republican sources in Londonderry and Belfast flatly contradict Gilmour’s theory. In 1999, speculation surfaced that the bombers had been aided by left-wing sympathisers. Jack Holland alleged that information helping the two-man team to penetrate the House of Commons disguised as workmen came from ‘leftist Labour Party activists’ who told INLA that security around legitimate workmen engaged in renovations was slack. It is true that for much of the time, particularly during recess periods, Westminster resembles a giant building site. Holland claims the bomb was smuggled in in a workman’s lunch box. But these ‘left-wing activists’ have never been identified and no other expert has suggested inside information from such a quarter. It is clear from the author’s briefing with INLA sources, however, that the organisation did have an informer in London passing back security information about Neave and other high-ranking public figures.
On the available evidence, particularly the information given by INLA sources to the author, it seems clear that the assassins were virtually unknown adherents of the republican cause who melted back into civilian life after carrying out this operation. The masked INLA source insisted: ‘They [the security forces] never came close at any point. These people were not around for them to get because their anonymity was such that they had safety in their professions and the lives that they were living. They were never up-front people; never arrested for INLA/IRSP activities. They had never come to the attention of the security services.’ Rounding up the usual suspects would not have netted the unit, he added, because they had never been picked up, and their names were never on any list of volunteers potentially capable of such an action. ‘They came out of professional lives they were in and went back, and no consequent change of activity or time lapse would suggest anything.’13 They would erect such a smokescreen, it might be argued. But more than two decades of enquiry have failed to disprove this explanation.
In the years since the assassination, evidence has been pieced together to suggest that the British government, through the SAS and its proxy killers in the UDA, exacted a bloody revenge on the leadership of the IRSP and INLA. INLA’s glorification in the murder of Neave was short-lived and its exultation in its success hid a parlous state of affairs in the IRSP. Miriam Daly had resigned six months earlier, weeks before the assassination. Mrs Daly, a lecturer at Queen’s University, was an intelligent and well-respected republican. Her husband Jim was also active in the movement and shared her misgivings about the IRSP’s lack of political direction and subordination to INLA. Her place was taken by Mick Plunkett, but he too disappeared in May, costing the party £5,000 in bail money. The party failed to contest local elections in the Republic, and the European elections in June 1979. Finally, after a particularly gruesome gun and grenade attack on women prison officers outside Armagh gaol, in which a forty-year-old mother of six died, and the killing of an RUC constable outside the city’s courthouse, on 2 July INLA was declared an illegal organisation throughout the United Kingdom. The party was virtually broke and could not even provide for its prisoners in the Maze, numbering about ninety at that time. The INLA Army Council was also deeply divided. John O’Doherty lost a vote of confidence but refused to accept the verdict, with the result that the Belfast fighters more or less went their own way under Ronnie Bunting.
The whole organisation was clearly vulnerable to outside attack, and with the investigation into Neave’s killing going nowhere it came from a predictable quarter. In the view of Father Raymond Murray, historian of the SAS in Ireland, it took the form of Operation Ranc. This was a series of actions by British intelligence – an exercise in retribution – against the INLA following its admitted assassination of Neave. The campaign, over several months, used both official and unofficial personnel to carry out secret death sentences. ‘Operation Ranc is believed to have cost the lives of Ronnie Bunting, a very senior INLA officer and his non-INLA colleague Noel Lyttle, Miriam Daly (former IRSP) and John Turnly,’ wrote Father Murray. ‘It was terminated prematurely following strong but private protests from the Irish government … Working through the SAS and picking up their old allies, the UDA once more, “Ranc” engineered three assassination operations. Since it lacked hard evidence for the Airey Neave killing, soft targets were chosen.’14
The Irish magazine Hibernia identified a special Cabinet sub-committee originally set up to deal with emergencies such as the 1974 miners’ strike as the body responsible for Operation Ranc. It claimed that this committee gave carte blanche, including unlimited financial resources and promises of commendations, to members of the Anti-Terrorist Squad and the security forces who produced convictions for Neave’s assassination. MI5, MI6, the shadowy security and intelligence group attached to the Territorial Army made up of SAS members, all made enquiries: ‘as the months went by with little or no results, other more ominous noises began to emanate from the same agencies. If there were no convictions, the messages ran, then there would be satisfaction of another sort: even if it meant killing non-military members of the IRSP such as Miriam Daly.’15 The involvement of a Cabinet sub-committee set up to deal with civil contingencies does not ring wholly true, and another theory put forward by one of Hibernia’s rivals, Magill, may be nearer the truth. This report in June 1979 claimed that an intelligence sub-committee was set up to hunt Neave’s killers. It was headed by Angus Maude, the Paymaster-General with a strong right-wing track record. He liaised with Francis Brooks Richards, the Cabinet’s Co-ordinator of Security and Intelligence. Magill reported that Maude, valued by Margaret Thatcher for his years of political experience, ‘his sound views and his acid wit’, had promised unlimited financial resources to capture Neave’s murderers.
The first to die in this crusade of retribution was John Turnly, a forty-four-year-old former British army officer who came from a Unionist background. He was nonetheless a confirmed nationalist, a founding member of the Irish Independence Party and a councillor in Larne. He was not a member of the IRSP or INLA, but was closely associated with them on the National H-Blocks Committee. On the evening of 4 June 1980, he was gunned down while driving with his family to a public meeting in Carnlough. The gunmen rammed his car and shot him nine times with a submachine gun and a pistol. Four local men, members of the UDA, were charged with murder, including two brothers, Eric and Robert McConnell. The brothers received life sentences. During the trial RUC detectives admitted that notes from interviews with nineteen-year-old Eric McConnell had been destroyed on the instruction of a senior officer on the grounds that they contained ‘sensitive information’. Robert McConnell told police he had been asked to keep Turn
ly’s house under surveillance to find out if he was visited by INLA men. On the basis of his observations, the UDA decided that Turnly was a leading man in the INLA and McConnell’s cell was given orders to shoot him.
But the most telling disclosures came at the end of the trial. In a statement from the dock after his conviction, Robert McConnell said he had been working for the SAS and named a sergeant and a corporal who had supplied him with army issue weapons. Moreover, they had discussed republicanism and its leaders, including Turnly, Mrs Daly and Bernadette McAliskey. In his statement, Robert McConnell said: ‘They said they had information that over a two-year period the republicans had a plan to escalate tension in the province by civil disorder, large-scale importation of arms and explosives and by certain actions which would arouse the sympathy of the republican people with the objective of starting a political war. We realise now that this involved the hunger strikes.’ The senior of the two SAS officers, Sergeant Tom Aiken, who had just returned from a tour of duty in Hong Kong, regarded Turnly as important because of his experience with imports and exports, and his links with Laos and Cambodia. McConnell said that Sergeant Aiken contacted him a number of times by telephone and arranged for him to pick up various items – weapons, uniforms and information on how to obtain intelligence-gathering equipment – on lonely roads at the dead of night. ‘I am making this statement so that the court and the public will be aware that information on Turnly and others [author’s italics] was fed through me by British intelligence …’16 Robert McConnell was speaking after being given a life sentence for murder, and could not therefore expect any leniency to flow from his disclosures. It is more likely that the UDA man felt let down by his SAS minders, who deemed him expendable in the long war of attrition against militant republicanism.
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