Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Lies, Damned Lies and LibelAuthor(s): Colin WallaceSource: Fortnight, No. 357 (Jan., 1997), pp. 9-10Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25559134 .

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BRIEFING

Lies, damned lies h|hh^h|

Wallace ^^^^IH^^P^^^^^^^^I^^^^B A he recent hullabaloo over press

reports alleging links between

Senator George Mitchell's aide

Martha Pope and Sinn Fein's

Gerry Kelly is proof that the an

cient art of disinformation is alive

and well and still living in Ireland.

Significantly, the incident indi

cates that disinformation is not

just the preserve of the Intelli

gence services, it has now been

'privatised' and is being dispensed in huge dollops by political 'spin

doctors'.

In this case, though, it appears to have backfired, with Ms Pope

being awarded substantial dam

ages by both the Sunday World and

the Mail on Sunday, with Gerry

Kelly at present taking legal ad

vice.

It has been said that truth is the

first casualty in war. The ancient

art of strategic disinformation, or

'black propaganda' as media folk

call it, can be traced back at least

five centuries before Christ.

In about 510 BC, the Chinese

writer, Sun Tzu, wrote a book

called Principles of War, in which

he put forward the theory that "all

warfare is based on deception". His principle of capturing one's

enemy and then 'turning' him

against his own people is, of

course, a tactic which has been

used to great effect in every war

and military confrontation since

then?including the past 26 years

of strife in Northern Ireland.

All armies and intelligence serv

ices throughout the world have

'psychological warfare' units.

Some of these units have only a

handful of people, others number

several thousand. During the

1970s, I was a member of the Brit

ish Army's psychological opera

tions team at HQ Northern

Ireland. The MOD was rather coy

about admitting that such activi

ties were going on in the Province

at that time and we operated

un

der the title 'Information Policy'. In 1975, the MOD denied cat

egorically to the Irish Times that

there was any such unit in North

ern Ireland. It was a further 25

years before the Ministry finally admitted to Parliament that my team did exist.

The language of governments

is, of course, riddled with double

talk, or phraseology which con

ceals the truth. In 1990 when

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher finally admitted that I

really had been employed by the

Ministry of Defence to carry out

disinformation operations in

Northern Ireland during the

1970s, a senior MOD official 'en

lightened' MPs by explaining that

Ministers had inadvertently mis

led Parliament about my case as a

result of "a total discontinuity of

collective memory". Not a phrase that rolls off the tongue easily, or

is designed to enhance under

standing of the issue.

In psychological operations,

particularly those run by Intelli

gence services, the forging of

documents, planting of stories in

the press, blackening the names

of public figures, and obscuring the truth about controversial inci

dents are all part and parcel of

day-to-day life.

For example, during the 1974

General Elections, a considerable

amount of my time was devoted to

work on an MI5 project named

'Clockwork Orange'. Although the project's initial concept of

destabilising those involved in sec

tarian killings was a good one, the

operation took on, in my opin

ion, an unacceptable political bias.

Between the two elections that

year, I was involved in the collec

tion of information relating to

political personalities and organi sations involved in those elections.

The information included

forged election leaflets, fake bank

accounts and documents purport

ing to belong to political parties and data about the political, fi

nancial and sexual misconduct of

prominent personalities. When I

refused to continue with that work

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H?^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^Hiii^^^^^29l^HHHHHHI^?|H ?

Gerry Kelly?could be in for a large libel payout

in late 1974,1 was removed from

my post and subjected to a bizarre

vendetta by my former employ ers. That vendetta has lasted for

the past 22 years and shows little

sign of abating. The Calcutt In

quiry in 1990 and the recent Ap

peal Court judgement have shed

some light

on the extent and na

ture of the activities used against

me, but there are still many ques tions to be answered.

One problem with

disinformation activities, however,

is that they often affect more than

their intended target. At Army

HQ in Lisburn it was not uncom

mon for an Intelligence Officer

to visit our team in a state of some

excitement brandishing a copy of

a report about some dramatic

piece of information which he

had been given by a 'reliable

source' and about which he was

going to inform London. It would

often be our painful duty to ex

plain to him that his 'Intelligence

coup' was, unfortunately, noth

ing more than disinformation

which we had planted for other

purposes. The present peace process in

Northern Ireland has been sub

jected to sustained disinformation

attacks from many sides and the

British Government's position has

often been lost in a mist of gobble

degook and political sleight of

hand. As George Orwell wrote:

"the present political crisis is con

nected with the decay of lan

guage". Of course, there are those

who do not want to see a political

settlement in Northern Ireland

and there is little doubt that they will use the media and other out

lets to disseminate disinformation

to keep alive the fires of mistrust.

Despite Whitehall's best at

JANUARY1997 FORTNIGHT 9

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BRiEFING W^M

The seminar papers will be

available from Bryson House

shortly, price ?10.

tempts to make me, in Orwellian

terms, a 'non person', I still be

lieve that there is a role for

disinformation in war or armed

conflict because it can and does

save lives. In the democratic po litical process, however, a deliber

ate policy of disinformation to

mislead an electorate, as that wit

nessed in the rise of Nazi Ger

many, can prevent voters from

exercising informed choice at an

election. That, in turn, can

threaten the security of a country

just as surely as a campaign of

terrorism.

A clever political slogan used

frequently enough and in the

wrong sense and a whole nation

can be disinformed. The Nazi

Party slogan of 'Ein Reich, ein

Volk, ein Fuhrer' (one nation,

one people,

one leader) might have sounded great to many Ger

man fair-minded people during the depression of the 1930s, but

what about the Christians andjews who opposed Nazism and who

were persecuted when the Ger

man nation turned from democ

racy to tyranny? No sane person would deny that

Ireland as a whole deserves and

needs lasting peace. Vigilant ques

tioning of obscure misleading lan

guage, or doubtful facts, is more

vital today than ever before. To

quote an old Ballymena saying: "Half the lies you hear aren' t true."

No shortage Peter McLachlan

JL here is not a shortage of

money in the health service", a

seminar celebrating the nine

teenth birthday of Bryson House

was told on December 6th. In

deed money is currently being wasted. Unfortunately we do not

yet have the research done to know

exactly which treatments and serv

ices are wasteful and should be

cut. A further problem is that there

is no clear vision of the kind of

health and social services which

are appropriate to the needs of

the future and there are a number

of important and difficult choices

to make about effectiveness and

cost. The last few hours of life are

often our most expensive! The speakers included two in

ternational experts, health econo

mist Professor Alan Maynard, who

is advising many countries on the

health choices to be made, and

former Medical Research Coun

cil clinician, Dr David Evered who

outlined the context in which

national policy for service and

training needs to be set. Local

contributions came from the

Chief Medical Officer, Dr Henrietta Campbell, Royal Trust

chief executive, William McKee

and nationally recognised leader

in neuroscience, Professor Ingrid Allen.

Among key issues to emerge

during the seminar were the need

to simplify the structure of the

service in Northern Ireland?with

fewer boards and Trusts?but still

keeping the integration of health

and social services, major changes which must come fast in the way

hospital care is used if patients are

to be properly treated with the

best service available; restructur

ing of job descriptions in the health service to mirror changed needs in disease patterns and treat

ments, new approaches to train

ing: and major improvement in

the way the media handle and the

public understand change and re

search findings in the field of health.

The single most important is

sue to be highlighted was the need

for excellence in health to be

based on excellence in research.

Resources must now be ploughed into both medical and health serv

ices research. There are huge

opportunities in Northern Ireland

to play a major role in this search

for new excellence, especially in

the previously neglected area of

primary care research because we

have a relatively stable discrete

population which can be studied

over a period of time.* ^

Cine revamp Amanda Verlaque

Ji he Northern Ireland Film In

dustry received a long overdue

financial boost earlier this month

when Baroness Denton, speaking at a press reception at the Ormeau

Baths Gallery, announced a ?4

million development package to

cover the next three years. With

?2 million coming from the Lot

tery coffers, ?1 million from the

European Commission's Peace

and Reconciliation Fund and the

remaining amount provided by

organisations such as the Train

ing and Employment Agency and

the Local Education Development Unit (LEDU), it looks as if finally the North's film industry has the

potential to move beyond its fledg

ling status.

Considering the talented body of award-winning writers, actors,

producers and directors to

emerge from Northern Ireland it

is a pity it has taken so

long for the

province's industry to begin the

process whereby it can hopefully

compete in earnest with its rivals.

To date, the Arts Council and the

Film Council have worked mira

cles with ridiculously low budgets to groom indigenous talent into

the movers and shakers of tomor

row, with directors of the calibre

of the award-winning Tim Leone

immediately springing to mind.

And although most of our home

grown talent has fled to the

greener movie making pastures of Los Angeles, (Ken Branagh sent

his good wishes via fax, with a plug

for his latest movie thrown in for

good measure) it is reassuring that

the funding now on offer will pro vide the necessary incentives for

the next wave of young film mak

ers to hone their skills on native

soil.

With an eye on the successful

restructuring of both the Scottish

and the Republic of Ireland's film

industries, major changes are

planned for the province, includ

ing the re-organisation of the

Northern Ireland Film Council, the establishment of a single body to provide a training and support

network for local talent and also a

development strategy to enhance

the marketing and promotion of

Northern Ireland as an ideal loca

tion for national and international

film companies. The knock on effects for the

economy are promising, with

more projects providing employ

ment and profits generated being

poured back into the industry. Even the potential for a

rejuve nated interest in our many and

varied tourist attractions is guar

anteed; just think of what BBC TV's All Creatures Great and Small

did for Yorkshire and Ballykissangel for Avoca. As to making the North

ern Ireland Film Industry a force

to be reckoned with on an inter

national scale, time will tell if the

proposed plans will have the de

sired effect.

10 Fortnight January 1997

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