Ten-Thirty-Three

by Nicholas Davies

  Throughout the mid-1980s concern was growing among officers of the Joint Irish Section – in reality MI5 operating in Northern Ireland – that the Loyalist paramilitaries were building up their forces, recruiting volunteers, training members and trying to purchase substantial shipments of arms and explosives from right-wing organisations in Europe and South Africa. They had no proof of this, but reports from MI6 officers working overseas suggested the Loyalists were becoming more active and more high-profile. At the same time, MI5 officers in Belfast were made aware that Protestant Loyalists were involved in streamlining their organisation into a fighting force capable of tackling and defeating the IRA if it ever became necessary. The recruitment and training of members and the attempt to acquire arms, ammunition and explosives from overseas made the JIS anxious to infiltrate the UDA and find out exactly how serious the threat had become.

  And that was the reason that every couple of weeks the two FRU handlers would meet the lacklustre Nelson who always appeared down at heel, dressed in flash but out-of-date clothes, his famous winkle-pickers and a car-coat that had seen better days. At every meeting he would ask for money. Usually the handlers gave him twenty pounds, enough to buy some food for the family and maybe a beer or two for himself. They had heard that he liked a drink, usually whisky chasers after pints of lager. And he had a reputation for getting rip-roaring drunk, at which point he would become melancholy and miserable.

  The operational information Nelson supplied at that time was pathetic, low-grade and useless. But the handlers persisted because they knew the little titbits he did give were all accurate. He obviously did have inside knowledge of the UDA, and he obviously knew details of the personalities and the command structure which were very useful to the FRU in building up their knowledge of the principal Loyalist outfit. He also provided detailed information on the training of UDA gunmen, their weapons, firearms and bomb-making facilities as well as the number of recruits coming forward. Importantly. Nelson knew about the organisation’s financing and, on occasion, where the money was coming from. He gave his handlers the names of those UDA people putting together dossiers on Provisional IRA gunmen and bomb-makers as well as Sinn Fein politicians. The Force Research Unit found much of that extremely useful and decided Nelson could potentially be a great recruit. He was given the source number ‘1033’ – Ten-Thirty-Three. It would become the most infamous number ever given to a Military Intelligence agent.

  Chapter Three

  The Force Research Unit

  Ever since the modern-day troubles erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, the security services, including the RUC, had only been reacting, sometimes using desperate measures, to the torrent of extraordinary events that was to lead to a virtual civil war on the streets of Belfast. They had found it all but impossible to form policies which would allow them to take the initiative from the hardline Republicans who seized every opportunity to press forward with their cause, the establishment of a united Ireland.

  NICRA (the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association), an innocent middle-class pressure group, supported by both Catholics and a number of Protestants, followed the lead of American civil-rights leaders demanding equality for the black minority during the 1960s. NICRA demanded social justice for the downtrodden Catholic minority of Northern Ireland, better housing, equal job opportunities, fair voting in local elections, an end to gerrymandering and the establishment of government machinery to handle people’s complaints. At that time there were no calls for a united Ireland – in fact, no fundamental Republican issues were even raised. Given the conditions and the circumstances in which Northern Ireland’s Catholics lived, the agenda was hardly radical.

  In August 1968, the first civil-rights march was organised, and two and a half thousand people turned out on a rainy Saturday afternoon to walk from Coalisland to Dungannon. Protestors from both sides of the sectarian divide took part but they were met at their destination by jeering, cat-calling supporters of the Revd Ian Paisley’s Protestant Volunteers. Two months later another NICRA march took place in Derry, this time demanding one person/one vote, in which two thousand people took part. Within minutes of the NICRA organisers ending the peaceful demonstration and the marchers walking away singing the famous song ‘We Shall Overcome’, RUC police trapped the demonstrators in a narrow street and attacked them with batons and their fists, ferociously beating the hapless marchers. Rioting broke out that night in the Catholic area of Bogside, heralding thirty years of strife, the death of three thousand people, mass destruction and a burning hatred between the two communities. That thoughtless decision by the RUC began a series of fateful, loose-thinking judgements which would have the most profound repercussions throughout the three decades of troubles that followed. Politicians in Westminster and Belfast were also guilty of some crass errors of judgement which helped to prolong the agony and the suffering of both communities.

  It also appeared that the powers of law and order on both sides of the Irish Sea, including Home Office ministers and their advisers, MI5, the Special Branch, the RUC and the many security services brought in to counteract the Provisional IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), failed for most of the time to infiltrate the Republican terrorist groups or track down the gunmen and bombers. Planners in London and Belfast often seemed to be at their wits’ end deciding how to tackle the problems confronting them.

  Good, reliable intelligence appeared to be lacking for the great majority of those thirty years but, although this was recognised, the steps taken to correct the situation only infrequently achieved the necessary results. Too often, it seemed, policies came into force which had not been properly thought through and, as a result, actions undertaken by the RUC and the security forces sometimes resulted in overzealous enthusiasm, transgression of orders and even revenge, with some officers taking the role of Nemesis.

  Throughout most of the 1970s the security forces were starved of intelligence material. When the troubles erupted the RUC’s entire complement of Special Branch officers (then called Crime Special) amounted to just twenty people. And their experience in keeping a watching brief on the IRA had been directed solely at the old, Official IRA, with no knowledge whatsoever of the new young breed of hardline Republicans who became the Provisional IRA. Indeed, during the period of internment without trial in 1971, many of those arrested on advice from the Special Branch had to be released because it had been decades since they had been involved in any Republican activity, if ever.

  As a result of that débâcle a team of MI5 agents was dispatched to the Province in 1972 with the express purpose of reorganising the Special Branch operation of the RUC and setting up a workable, intelligence-gathering network, including the use of agents who could infiltrate the Republican organisation and provide really useful, high-grade intelligence on which senior army and RUC officers could reliably plan operations.

  The MI5 team discovered that Special Branch had not a single address of any of the known high-ranking Republicans, Sinn Fein leaders or IRA officers. In many cases they had no names or identities either. Electoral registers were worthless, particularly in urban areas, as thousands of people, mainly Catholics, were moving house to avoid persecution. And the situation was not improving: RUC patrols had all but ceased in Catholic areas and the British Army, with no local knowledge whatsoever, was given the impossible task of providing information of possible IRA suspects during their street patrols. As a result, the intelligence dripping slowly into RUC and army headquarters was negligible and the information that did come in was usually false or useless. So, the army was ordered to adopt a new, likeable image in a bid to win the hearts and minds of those Catholics who were not hardline Republicans or members of Sinn Fein or the Provisionals and who wanted an end to the violence. A policy of ‘tea and sympathy’ was encouraged whereby squaddies would be told to stop and chat with the locals during their patrols in an effort to gain their confidence and, maybe, some useful information. When anyone did pass on info
rmation, a follow-up patrol would contain an intelligence officer who would try to elicit more details and gain the person’s confidence. These people would be recorded as ‘casual contacts’ and their information would be cross-referenced so that a general picture of Republican activity could painstakingly be put together.

  But this process was both slow and uncertain and the rapid escalation of killings and bombings by the IRA called for more drastic measures. As a result the army was empowered to ‘screen’ suspects, picking people at random off the streets and arresting and detaining them for up to four hours during which time they were allowed to cross-question them about any subject they wished.

  At the same time MI5 suggested – and the Home Office agreed – that the army should take a more proactive role in intelligence-gathering; an entirely new unit, the Mobile Reaction Force (MRF), was set up, tasked with following up intelligence leads by the covert surveillance of suspects.

  Within twelve months MRF boasted a squad of 120 men, mostly volunteers who were then trained by the SAS. Unfortunately, the SAS personnel were more used to jungle, desert or arctic warfare than the wet, crowded streets of Belfast. They had, however, been trained to kill and this was also passed on to the MRF volunteers. Within a matter of months, though, it became increasingly obvious that the MRF squad, which was controlled by HQ Northern Ireland, was targeting innocent Catholics, and the decision was taken to disband the unit before questions could be asked as to why the squad appeared to have a licence to kill. Their surveillance work was taken over by J-Troop, in reality the SAS, and Close Observation Platoons (COPs), as well as a new unit, E4A, the crack covert surveillance squad set up inside the RUC.

  Once again, RUC personnel were encouraged, during their ‘screening’ of pliable Catholics, to try and persuade them to act as informants in an effort to keep a close watch on IRA gunmen and bombers. But, because of the historical antagonism towards the RUC, Catholics were more prepared to chat to army personnel rather than RUC officers. The screening technique had revealed that many young, cash-strapped Catholics from deprived backgrounds, who were on the fringes of Republican organisations, were prepared to assist the security forces, especially if it meant earning some much-needed pocket money. So, volunteers from the British Army were recruited to act as handlers and sent on short courses called Unit Intelligence and Acquisition Training. So successful was the targeting of these young Catholics that within a few years a number of them had been promoted to positions of importance inside the IRA and the INLA, providing 80 per cent of operational intelligence on a daily basis.

  By the 1980s it was decided that the handling of these reliable and valuable young agents should be taken out of the hands of officers who were usually from infantry regiments working under the direction of HQNI, and set up in a completely new unit which was to be called the Force Research Unit. The FRU personnel, all volunteers, were withdrawn from mainstream barracks and housed separately in their own secure offices and compounds, or quartered in safe-houses. The FRU was also set up with its own administration section, motor transport depot and clerks. And the personnel were given good salary increases as well as generous expense accounts. Overnight, the FRU became an élite organisation.

  Recruitment had always been a major problem for Army Intelligence. The major problem which they faced from the outset was in persuading bright, sensible strangers from both communities to work for the British Army. In the previous ten years of the troubles anyone who was prepared to work undercover for either side of the sectarian divide had already been recruited.

  It had been easier for the mainly Protestant Special Branch to recruit informants because they were generally kith and kin. But it had been significantly more difficult for the Branch to recruit Catholics as they were much more likely to be supporters of the Republican gunmen, bombers and hardline activists. Many had been led to believe the terrorists were fighting on their behalf to gain better housing, schools, jobs and opportunities for the Catholic minority, who had been given a rough deal by the Protestant majority for decades. Indeed, many Catholics did view the Provisional IRA as their defenders, the only people with the courage and the capability of protecting them from their Protestant masters and the power of the British Army.

  Even before the FRU was set up, it was admitted that the new force would stand or fall on the quality of the informants they were able to recruit from the Catholic community. Although many Catholics might have been sickened by the violence of the Provisionals, they could not bring themselves to cross the divide and help the RUC, an organisation most of the community looked upon with deep suspicion. Perhaps, the security services thought, there was an avenue open to them. Maybe those wavering Catholics might be prepared to provide the army with information. It was recalled that when the army first arrived in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s the soldiers were cheered and welcomed by the Catholic minority, who hailed them as protectors against the hated ‘B Specials’ and the Protestant RUC.

  Following in the footsteps of both the Special Branch and MI5, Army Intelligence quickly discovered that recruiting reliable touts from within the Catholic community was all but impossible – not only did they not wish to betray their leaders or their ‘gallant’ activists but they did not wish to risk torture and almost certain death if ever their relationship with Army Intelligence became known to the Provisional IRA. Any man or woman joining Oglaigh na hEireann (Gaelic for the Irish Republican Army) had to promise to promote the aims of the organisation and obey all orders and regulations issued by the army and its officers. And every recruit had to agree to three pledges:

  1. No volunteer should succumb to approaches or overtures, blackmail or bribery attempts, made by the enemy and should report such approaches as soon as possible.

  2. Volunteers who engage in loose talk shall be dismissed.

  3. Volunteers found guilty of treason face the death penalty.

  However, though these were the pledges every Provo recruit would make, the reality was far more all-encompassing. Any Catholic found working undercover for the Special Branch, Military Intelligence or any intelligence service was likely to face questioning, knee-capping, torture or even death if it was believed vital information had been handed over.

  Despite the fear that knowing all this must have generated, there was one great bait to encourage people to work undercover or even just supply low-grade information – money. Jobs were hard to come by in Northern Ireland, and the unemployment rate in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s was often in excess of 20 per cent. Every Catholic was aware that most job opportunities were usually offered to Protestants first. Catholic families, entire streets and housing estates of them in Belfast, had to survive on the dole and any other government hand-outs to which they were entitled. Work was always at a premium for any household and it is not surprising that the offer of good money for a little information proved irresistible for a number of men and women.

  As well as the rather hit-and-miss technique of stopping people at check-points and inviting them for a cup of tea or a pint of beer, FRU handlers were urged to try and persuade members or former members of the Provisional IRA, the INLA or the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation (IPLO) to work with them. Such people, understandably, would be of tremendous use to Army Intelligence – if they could be persuaded, or bribed, to do so. It was believed that a number of former Provos had left the organisation under a cloud or after major disagreements with senior IRA officers. These were the kind of people Army Intelligence were keen to recruit. And these disenchanted people were often short of money, some in fact desperate to find ways of supporting their families. Tracking them down, of course, was another matter. It was also difficult to find the right time and place to make the all-important first approach; if that went wrong, it could easily end up with the FRU handler looking down the barrel of a gun. All such approaches were fraught with danger, even though powerful, armed back-up teams were provided to ensure the safety of the officer making contact.

 
; The Force Research Unit was partly made up of soldiers and Royal Marines who had been hand-picked from their regiments. All were checked out before being asked whether they would be interested in joining such an outfit which would entail working exclusively in Northern Ireland, operating undercover and dealing with high-grade intelligence, sometimes having to work for extensive periods without a break – and all with the ever-present risk that if they were ever tracked down and captured by the IRA they would, without a doubt, face torture and almost certainly be executed.

  There were compensations, however. Anyone who joined the FRU would be considered the ‘pick of the bunch’, and, as a result, given instant promotion with a higher salary, generous allowances, greater freedom within the confines of the job, good housing and extended leave.

  Training to become a handler (but not a member of the back-room staff) was rigorous and demanding. Volunteers would first undergo a series of tough interviews and, if they were then invited to join the training scheme, would be sent to the mainland for an intensive seven-week course mapped out by the SAS. (Many of the instructors, in fact, were drafted in from the SAS headquarters in Hereford.) Those six weeks were no holiday camp. Those in command of the new Force Research Unit needed a team of men with the same diligence and determination, the same strength and stamina as the young soldiers for whom being ‘badged’ in the SAS was the high point of their military career. Training included firearms instruction and frequent visits to the small-arms firing-range to practise shooting pistols, revolvers and automatic weapons. They were also trained on the SAS’s sophisticated firing-range, a model town constructed like a Belfast street with pop-up cut-outs of men and women. Some of these represented innocent members of the public while others were paramilitary gunmen. An officer had to be able to locate the ‘person’ and make an instant assessment about whether to shoot or not.