Archive: British held talks with republicans in 1970s to 'disrupt them'
Cosgrave Liam Taoiseach Former
British officials secretly admitted the reason they held secret talks with “desperate” republicans in the 1970s was to damage and undermine them.
According to British cabinet papers released today and seen by the , they also said another reason they met Sinn Féin was to gather intelligence on them.
Details of the British policy of so-called “disruption” against both loyalists and republicans alike were only made known to a very small number of people. One of them was the then Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave.
Another was John Hunt, the then all-powerful British Cabinet Secretary who helped inspire the Sir Humphrey Appleby character in the hit 1980s TV series Yes, Minister.
The policy was mentioned in a briefing document sent from Northern Ireland to London in advance of the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson’s meeting with Mr Cosgrave on March 5, 1976 in Downing Street.
The document was classified Top Secret and Personal UK Eyes A (Alpha), meaning nobody outside the UK was allowed to see it.
The then Permanent Secretary at the Northern Ireland Office, Sir Frank Cooper, sent it on March 2, 1976.
Ironically, the former wartime Spitfire pilot had played a key role in the talks with Sinn Féin that had led to the IRA’s 1975 ceasefire.
“The Irish government almost certainly have a shrewd idea that there has been at least one meeting this year,” the document states in a section entitled Talks with provisional Sinn Féin.
“The Secretary of State has had to deny nonsense printed in the newspapers in the last couple of weeks about contacts with provisional Sinn Féin,” it continued. “We have never confirmed or denied rumours of actual meetings.
“There have only been two meetings between middle-ranking officials and provisional Sinn Féin, out of their request, in the past six months.”
The briefing memo states the first of these was “a considerable time ago” and that the other one was “fairly recently”.
However, it states: “It would not be in our interest to give more precise details than this.”
Of the two meetings, it states: “On neither occasion did the Provisionals say anything of substance, except to repeat their same old demands of a British declaration of intent to withdraw which, of course, we shall not give. Officials are not in any way engaged in negotiations or deals.
“We get the impression the central control of the Provisionals is under great strain and that they are getting desperate to know where to go next.” The memo then asks: “Why have we met them?”
In a list of reasons why, it states: “First to disrupt them by adding to the strains within the movement caused by the effect of contacts with us.
“Secondly, to monitor what is going on amongst extremists on both sides of the community. We meet loyalist paramilitaries in the same way and with the same aims and constraints.”
And then it asks “why does provisional Sinn Fein want to meet us?”
In reply, the memo states: “Because they are anxious to gain status, not least at the expense of SDLP. We are well aware of the dangers.”
And the briefing document ends with the following sentence: “There are no current plans for further meetings with the Provisionals. But if we think it could help the process of disruption we would contemplate one.”
A leading civil servant told John Major’s Private Secretary that if the British Prime Minister's successor didn’t meet John Bruton during a planned trip to Britain in May 1997, he’d call the trip off.
Paddy Teahon, the then secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach, is said to have told John Holmes that a decision not to meet would be a humiliating “snub” to the then Taoiseach ahead of Ireland's forthcoming general election.
At the time, Mr Bruton was under attack by Fianna Fáil for dithering over the Northern Ireland peace process and for being too pro-Unionist at a delicate time in negotiations.
The British, according to documents in a secret Downing Street file released today, said they saw little point in the two leaders meeting.
However, they secretly believed the visit by Mr Bruton would be “electorally advantageous” to him.
Details of the proposed visit were mentioned in an April 29, 1997 letter from Downing Street Private Secretary John Holmes to Dominick Chilcott, a future British ambassador to Dublin.
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"There is no doubt of Irish keenness for this meeting to take place during the Taoiseach's planned visit to Britain,” John Holmes stated.
“If we were to say that a call on the Prime Minister was not possible, Bruton would not come to Britain at all. I have made clear the proposal is not ideal from our point of view, being so early.
“This would be particularly difficult for a new Prime Minister, who would not have had time to work through Northern Ireland policy in any detail.”
He said a new Prime Minister would “be anxious not to seem to give any of the main Northern Ireland players a head start over the others”.
He added: “I am sure that neither the existing nor a new prime minister would wish to decline to see the Taoiseach.”
Accepting that the meeting was going to have to go ahead, he said: “It would be desirable to present such a meeting as a courtesy call, for example over a cup of tea, rather than any kind of substantive summit.
“This impression would be reinforced if the Taoiseach were accompanied only by a minimal team and if press expectations were kept down as far as possible.”
He also said that he had “incidentally hoped the likelihood of early elections in the Irish Republic might cause the Taoiseach's visit to Britain to be cancelled”.
And he noted: “It is clear this was a vain hope. June 6 looks the most likely date for the Irish election, which means that it would not be officially announced until after the Taoiseach's visit.
“In any case it is also clear that being seen to work closely with the British Prime Minister is regarded as electorally advantageous in Dublin, and more important than the possible loss of a couple of days of local campaigning.”
Bertie Ahern is said to have told the British in April 1997 that most parties in the Northern Ireland peace process wanted to see the back of John Bruton's then coalition government.
Mr Ahern is also said to have privately told Britain’s Ambassador Veronica Sutherland that the unionists at the time had no confidence in the then Taoiseach.
Talking “openly” to Ms Sutherland over an “extremely agreeable” lunch on April 24, 1997, he also appears to have shared with her his “doubts” about Fianna Fáil’s chances in the General Election that was looming at the time.
In her own comments about the lunch, she concluded: “This was an extremely agreeable occasion. I was surprised how open Ahern was.
“I was left with the impression of a man who could rise to the challenge of Taoiseach, albeit in an entirely different way from Mr Bruton."
She said Bertie Ahern's style "would be much more that of the man of the people".
“According to some opinion polls, he is more popular than Bruton precisely because of this.”
Ms Sutherland said Mr Ahern said the “personal chemistry” between Mr Bruton and the unionist leaders was “bad”.
In her memo to senior diplomats back in London about the lunch, she said: "In his view . . . the Unionists had no confidence in the recent talks process, partly because they had no faith in the Irish government.
"This might seem strange, given John Bruton's sympathies with the Unionist position.
“But he thought the personal chemistry between Bruton and Unionist leaders was bad and that their suspicions of the Tánaiste (Dick Spring) boundless.”
She recalled in her memo that they had a "wide-ranging discussion" during which he claimed a deal on Northern Ireland was “possible”.
However, the ambassador noted, Mr Ahern was “a realist”.
She said the “continued violence and stalemate in talks remained a worrying possibility”.
"Finally, Ahern claimed that Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist parties would all prefer Fianna Fáil to form the next Irish government,” she said.
When she asked Mr Ahern what his priorities would be if he were elected Taoiseach, she said he said “of course the North would take up a lot of time”.
But she said he said this would be the case “even if the Irish electorate showed little interest in it, according to the pollsters”.