The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Second Lobster piece from 1984.

Kincoragate: More Bodies
Steve Dorril
Sir George Terry's report on Kincora has at last been made public. But if Terry had
hoped to quash further speculation he failed.(l) In a second debate in the Northern
Ireland Assembly on Kincora there was widespread criticism of the report, particularly
of Terry "stepping outside his brief" in suggesting that the matter need no more
investigation. The Assembly called on James Prior, N.I. Secretary of State, to
"announce the setting up of a judicial inquiry." (Irish News 10th November 1983) This
he did on January l8th.
Released quietly on a Saturday morning in a clear attempt to minimise publicity,
Terry's conclusions - for only the conclusions were published - centred on the
allegations of the homosexual vice-ring at the boys home involving British
Intelligence. Terry described the allegations as fictional and, even though the
journalists who had uncovered the scandal had received information from an RUC
'deep throat', laid most of the blame for their circulation on journalists.(2)
Terry probably aimed the report at the mainland where Kincora has received little
attention. By undermining the credibility of the journalists he hoped to keep the lid on
Kincora's darker side - the involvement of British Intelligence and the piling up of
bodies connected to the boys home. His bottom line was that the battle against
terrorism was the first priority, which left little time for the authorities to adequately
investigate the allegations - an excuse as feeble as that other establishment cop-out, ' in
the interests of National Security'.
George Terry actually had little to do with the investigation which was carried out by
two of his former subordinates: Chief Supt. Gordon Harrison and Chief Insp. Dick
Henley. An original report on the affair by these two was apparently scrapped, no
doubt because the material they uncovered strayed inevitably into the British
Intelligence connection. Henley, Special Branch, has since been promoted to
Superintendent.
The investigation could never claim to be 'independent'. Terry's links to British
Intelligence through his Chairmanship of Polygraph Security Services, which imports
the lie-detector, are worth investigation. Harrison was Special Branch liaison officer
between the Sussex Police and MI5, and the officer who interrogated Captain Colin
Wallace in Brighton after Wallace killed his lover's husband. Small world.(3)
* * *
Still unreleased is the 'Whiteside Inquiry'. In December 1981 R.U.C. Chief Sir John
Hermon set up an internal investigation to discover what happened to missing files and
why the Kincora buggers weren't prosecuted earlier. In charge was Assistant Chief
Constable John Whiteside. Another 'independent' choice, Whiteside was a former head
of Special Branch and the R.U.C. man most closely linked with British Intelligence
during the seventies. He was a former R.U.C. member of the Security Liaison
Committee set up by Sir Maurice Oldfield.
* * *
Gradually the pieces are coming together, though it will turn out to be a very large
jigsaw. Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) set up a Northern Irish section in
the Conway Hotel at Dunmurray. Headed by Frank Howard Smith with Philip
Woodhead as his desk man in London, MI6 handled their Kincora agents through a
number of 'cut-outs' - the normal way of distancing SIS officers from events which
might go wrong. The man who orchestrated the various activities of the Kincora Ring
has been identified as a Lt. Colonel in the British Army, (4) attached to the E
Department (Special Branch) of the R.U.C. whose staff code was F5. The links
between F5 and Kincora were known by E3 (the Superintendent in charge of the
intelligence section of the R.U.C. at Knock H.Q.) and his deputy in charge of
intelligence on Loyalists, a Chief Inspector whose code was E3(B). The Terry Report
uncovered, though did not report, links between the homosexual vice-ring and senior
MI5 member P.T.E. 'Peter' England, now dead. Kincora resident John Baird visited
England at a house on the Old Hollywood Road in Belfast. The house was a Britintelligence
base used as a pickup point for Provisional IRA leaders during the peace
talks in 1976 which led to the setting up of Republican 'Incident Centres' paid for by
the British. England was then C(Int)NI - the Chief of British Intelligence in Northern
Ireland, a key figure in the Security Service (MI5).
Another senior intelligence man involved in the vice-ring directed, but took no part in
the 'truce' talks at British Intelligence HQ in Craigavan, Co. Down. He moved to a
crucial position in Britain's defence structure. R.U. C. men have made statements
about his homosexual associations. The Provisionals dealt with him indirectly through
MI6 officer James Allan.(5) In a bizarre twist the Provos became convinced from
contacts abroad that he was a KGB agent.(6)
Who Is/Was Who
Brian McDermott - aged 11, was found in the River Lagan, Sept. 1973,
not far from the Kincora home. His body had been mutilated.
Stephen Waring, a teenager who had been sexually abused at Kincora,
ran away from another home to which he had been sent and made his
way to Liverpool. He was picked up by police and put on the Ulster
Monarch Ferry that night so that the R.U.C. could pick him up at the
other end. He never arrived. Passengers saw a boy fall into the water. An
R.U.C. inquiry into details given by Liverpool police reported that "it
was not established, and no evidence was produced or tendered, that
directly (emphasis added) connected his death with misconduct at
Kincora".
Pastor Billy Mullan, a close friend of Ian Paisley, William McGrath and
Joss Cardwell, was found dead with a legally held gun beside him during
the probe into Kincora.
Robert Bradford MP, a former member of Tara and close associate of
McGrath, was shot dead in the middle of the R.U.C. investigation.
R.U.C. men privately claim that he was set-up for the killing in the same
way that British Intelligence tried to set up the assassination of Ian
Paisley in 1974.
Roy Garland, young Unionist leader, friend of Paisley, protege of
McGrath and founder member of Tara is still alive.
John McKeague at the beginning of the seventies was the most
important paramilitary figure in N. I. He had overthrown Terence O'Neil
by a series of 'agent provocateur' bombings and street disturbances which
backed Paisley's political agitation with devastating effect. He became
leader of the Red Hand Commando Loyalist paramilitary group set up
with the help of British Intelligence as a pseudo-gang. It was directed
from 'Six' local HQ in the Culloden Hotel at Craigavad, beside MI6
administrative HQ in Laneside House on Station Road.
Michael Wright a young UDA man associated with McKeague, was
killed in a mystery booby-trap explosion. UDA issued statement saying
he was murdered by the Security Forces 'dirty tricks' department.
John Hiddlestone is still alive. He recently returned from South Africa
and is now apparently living in fear, having been branded a British agent
by the UDA. He is a former activist in a number of right-wing Protestant
paramilitary groups, including Ulster Vanguard and the United Ulster
Unionist Party. In the mid 1970s he edited the National Front's Northern
Ireland journal 'British Ulsterman', printed by John McKeague who he
knew well. It has been suggested that Hiddlestone was reporting to
British Intelligence on contacts between Loyalist groups, the NF and
South African right-wingers besides his 'pseudo-gang' activity. (see
Searchlight No 99, September 1983) Independent sources in South
Africa and London suggest that another man, a former member of
McGrath's Ireland's Heritage Orange Lodge, and a UVF supporter, is
among the most influential in building links between South Africa and
Ulster. (Sunday News 24/7/83).
Edgar Graham, Unionist politician although not directly connected to
Kincora, he seems to have suffered the fate of Bradford and McKeague
when he became an embarrassment to British Intelligence. Graham was
working in secret on the infamous 'romper room' killings in which 22
Catholics were assassinated over a short period in East Belfast in 1972.
Evidence emerged that linked the killings to senior British officials who
were directed from London by Sir Maurice Oldfield, then Head of MI6.
Graham also discovered that vital official papers connected to the case,
including the transcript of all court hearings, were missing.
A soldier in the Royal Irish Rangers (RIR) and ex-SAS man, Albert
Baker, confessed to the killings, admitting that he had helped to set up a
pseudo-gang to terrorise Catholics. He had also infiltrated the UDA in
1972 to 1973. None of the others in the gang were ever charged with
murder, but Baker was jailed after pleading guilty. He was secretly
visited in his cell by Lord Windlesham, then Minister of State at
Stormont. He was later taken by plane to Ireland. Today he is not to be
found in any British prison. His family, quickly relocated in England,
admitted he had been working for Military Intelligence.
It is suggested that information was supplied by British Intelligence to
Republican gunmen enabling them to kill Graham. At the time of his
death he was investigating the role Military Intelligence played in
framing three UDA men who were charged with the 'romper room'
killings but later discharged. (Sunday News 18/12/83)
Michael Bettaney the former intelligence officer now on remand at
Brixton prison may have connections to Kincora. A high flier, Bettaney
found himself in 'F' Department, the section which deals with Irish
affairs. He arrived in Northern Ireland at the height of the Kincora vicering.
Bettaney is homosexual and while at Oxford was involved in Nazi
politics, forming a right-wing student alliance at the University. He was
charged with passing on British Intelligence assessments of a KGB
network operating in Britain, and of disclosing details of the expulsion of
three Soviet diplomats from Britain in Apri1 1983. Soon after the court
appearance (Bettaney was on loan to the MOD) a government spokesman
stated that no one had been expelled from the country. True, but a few
days earlier Mr Guennadi Saline (codename 'Silver') First Secretary and
Press Attache to the Soviet Embassy in Dublin, was expelled from Eire,
as were Victor Lipassov and his wife Evotokia. Mrs Lipassov is believed
to be a KGB agent and to have used the lack of passport regulations
between Ireland and Britain to travel to areas restricted to diplomats. She
made at least three visits to Britain using scheduled flights. (Times 12th
September 1983). The man handling the case is old Irish hand Det. Supt.
John Wescott of Scotland Yard's Special Branch. He has made frequent
visits to the Phoenix Park in Northern Ireland where all the intelligence
stuff goes on. Bettaney's lawyer is Larry Grant, on the MI5 blacklist of
lawyers, a former chairman of NCCL whose previous clients include
Philip Agee and Kenneth Lemon.
Notes
1. See Lobster 1 for article on Kincoragate. This follow-up piece is based on
articles which have appeared in the excellent Irish magazine The Phoenix - 44
Baggot St, Dublin 2; subs £12 per 26 issues - specifically issues 7th January,
16th September, 11th November and 9th December 1983.
2. Referring to the Kincora article in Lobster 1, it has been pointed out that
Robert Fisk's landlady, whose husband was in the RUC, was probably a plant.
It would be an easy way to keep an eye on a journalist who received leaked
papers and information.
3. More on Wallace. His wife, Eileen, was personal secretary to the Duke of
Norfolk, the same Duke accused by Charles Haughey of being a British spy
chief. In September 1983 the RUC leaked to the Belfast Newsletter the
information that a file on British Army psy ops (black propaganda) was
missing when the Terry investigators went to look for it. They were told that it
had been sent to the MOD in London and that it could not be seen because of
the Official Secrets Act. No doubt it revealed the activities of Wallace.
4. Could this be Lt. Col. Sidney Hawker, a member of the 'Ulsterisation'
Committee?
5. Allan became head of the Overseas Information Department (the I.R.D. as was)
in 1979. He directed the propaganda campaign against Arthur MacGraig's film
on Ireland, 'The Patriot Game'. In January 1981 he was made High
Commissioner to Mauritius.
6. Nominations? The descriptions fit Sir Frank Cooper, ex Permanent UnderSecretary
at the Ministry of Defence. Sir Frank has recently retired and been
appointed a Director of Westland, one of the MOD's biggest suppliers. KGB?!
7. The Alliance Party's Mr John Cushnahan said in the Northern Ireland
Assembly (Irish News 10th Nov 1983) that he believed a number of Assembly
members had been actively involved in Tara. He gave a short history of Tara,
including alleged gun-running and the organisation's receiving various types of
weapons and plastic explosives.
The Sunday News (22nd May 1983) gave details of a paper given to trainee spies at the
Joint Services Intelligence Centre at Ashford Kent. It reads "Tara is a Loyalist
organisation which is shrouded in mystery, but is basically a small 'hate-taig' group of
homosexuals. They are all evangelists and one of its aims is the proscription of the
Catholic Church. It has aspirations to become a paramilitary organisation". The paper
is dated April 1977, but was still being used to train intelligence officers in 1980,
although homosexuality was illegal at that time in Northern Ireland.