An incident in the sea off the northwest coast of the land bordering the western side of the Irish sea brought about a sea change in the manner in which the British operated in Northern Ireland. That was the assassination of one of the great grandson’s of Queen Victoria and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth. He was a man whose name was followed by the letters: KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS. He was known to the world as Lord Mountbatten and in the United Kingdom as a hero of World War II, the last British Viceroy of India, and Admiral of the Fleet.
His murder On August 27, 1979, at age 79 was done by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). One of its members planted a bomb aboard his unguarded yacht which was moored in the harbor at Mullaghmore, County Sligo. Killed alongside him were two of his grandsons, 14-year-old Nicholas and 15-year-old Paul. Another passenger on the boat died the next day. Also killed on the 27th were “eighteen British Army soldiers, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment at Warrenpoint, County Down, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush.”
These incidents, especially that of Lord Mountbatten, sent shock waves throughout the British Empire. Attacks on the royalty were a 19th century and early 20th century tactic of the anarchists, one of the last one having led to World War I. The British decided it was time to up its war against the IRA. in January 1980 prime minister Margaret Thatcher had persuaded the former head of MI6 (similar to the CIA), Maurice Oldfield, one of Britain’s top Cold War spies, to come out of retirement and coordinate security measures in the province.
According to Wikipedia, “From 1959, he spent four years as the SIS representative in Washington DC. This was a key post, important for the maintenance of good relations between the SIS and the Central Intelligence Agency.” He would have been in DC in 1961 when J. Edgar Hoover developed the Top Echelon Criminal Intelligence Program (TEI) which recruited top-level gangsters to provide it with information.
Among those enrolled in that program was Steve Flemmi’s brother, Jimmy Flemmi, known to have been involved in the Teddy Deegan murder. As the aforecited report noted: “Hoover himself was informed of Jimmy Flemmi’s status as an informant and the fact that he had likely committed seven murders .. . . [and] that he is going to continue to commit murder. . . .” It did not bother the FBI to use this type of person and to protect him in exchange for getting information.
Oldfield is believed to have interacted with the second in command of M15 (similar to the FBI) in Northern Ireland Patrick Walker. It is likely he suggested that a similar type program be established to fight the IRA. Within a month before Oldfield’s death, Walker issued a report setting up in Northern Ireland the equivalent of the FBI’s TEI program.
It would pretty much have the same result as the FBI’s program. The Guardian article noted: “After the implementation of the Walker report, a number of terrorists became known to CID officers as “protected species”. One such man was Gary Haggarty, who was jailed for six-and-a-half years last January after admitting to 505 crimes including five murders, five conspiracies to murder, arson, kidnap and dozens of assaults over a 16-year period. Haggarty had been a special branch informer inside the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.” That pales in comparison to the FBI’s TEI Stephen Flemmi who admits to have murdered up to fifty people and was in its program for about twenty-five years.
Then there was the murder of Pat Finucane an Irish Civil Rights lawyer. The man who killed him was an agent in the pay of the British army. The detective in charge of the investigation Alan Simpson was told by one of his bosses, “Alan, if I were you I would not get too deeply involved in this one.” Another investigator being chased off a terrorist shooting investigation concluded: “If this were an isolated instance I might accept it as partly understandable but the same thread of special branch paramountcy runs through all the incidents.”
Like in Britain where the M15 was “prioritising intelligence-gathering over fighting crime” so did that happen in the United States. In Britain the results of it protecting of people committing terrorism against Catholics by the special forces are slowly becoming known because of subsequent inquiries into the activities of the M15, some of which have only been partially disclosed today.
In America there has been no investigation into the FBI’s TEI program. The little that has come to light shows it recruited murderers with the knowledge they would continue to murder people. i suggest the time if right for Congress to do a great service to America by conducting a discrete investigation into this program in a bipartisan manner. It has been stopped in Britain; it is about time it stops in America.
The self-same demonic elitist hubristic mind-set was and is behind the Abuse of Power exemplified by British Imperialism, American Imperialism, Saudi Imperialism and Federal Abuse of Power. Federal Prosecutorial Abuse is the focus of my booklet “Three Billboards outside Boston Mass: Prosecute the Persecutors who Abuse Federal Prosecutorial Power.” available July 28, Amazon et alia
As I mail out copies starting today, I’ll enclose words to this effect in a cover note:
Dear Editor, Here is the booklet “Three Billboards . . .”: Consider this: Revere rode to spread the alarm; Minutemen mustered, muskets fired; Paine penned pamphlets; the Founders scripted a Framework for government which Lincoln at Gettysburg pondered whether it’d endure or perish, this government not of elitist hubristic power drunk Feds, concentrated and centralized in D.C. and regional hubs, but the envisioned Framer’s constitutional government of, for and by the people.
“Three Bridges” crisply constructed less legalistically, more literarily, artistically, is intended for a wide audience, and its subtext challenging asks whether imperialistic power abusing Feds have already by accretion seized power subverting the Framer’s intent. Some federal public servants think they rule.
challengingly asks
What makes Mountbatten’s death more poignant than the the drone-killing of some unknown family in Yemen? Have you ever researched Mountbatten’s role in the bloody slaughters that occurred during the sub-continent’s partition? Mountbatten was an arch-colonialist. He didn’t flinch about killing, when, it came to keeping the wogs in line. That attitude went for the Irish, too. The late Lord is no one to be idolized.
The investigation of the FBI and CIA that must be done is it’s lawless plot to fix the outcome of the presidential election in 2016. Putting spies or moles in the Trump campaign. Using fabricated dirty tricks opp. research to obtain FISA warrants thus conducting illegal searches of U S citizens. Essentially using the full apparatus of the National Security State to throw an election. An unprecedented political crime in American history was committed. 150 years ago President Garfield said political vermin have infested the government and keep it in a state of lousiness. Nothing has changed. DC is crawling with 2nd rate people.
And we know what happened to President Garfield and on this date too (2 July 1881). So far they only wish the same for Trump.
Joe Pistone said John Connolly was primarily responsible for taking down the entire New England Mafia.
If you don’t use men who committed murders, you’d never use a made member of the Mafia as an informant.
If your concern is not to use anyone connected with murders, then remember every heroin, fentanyl, opiate, crack cocaine dealer is likely responsible for someone’s death . . .and if we don’t use murderers, what about attempted murderers, conspirators, aiders and abettors, what about men who commit any acts of violence.
We can’t limit informers to boy scouts and men with clean records, . .we’d catch no one.
You can only go so far with electronic surveillance . . .TEIs have been a very effective way to take down the Mafia and other major organized crime figures . . .
And of course we know after the fact that some TEIs continued to murder . . .in Bulger and Flemmi’s case, we didn’t know that until the late 1990s, almost ten years after FBI agent John Connolly had retired . . .remember the first 1995 indictments of Bulger and Flemmi had no murder counts . . .
False, so very very False. Every TEI was told and swore he could continue as a TEI but “no violence, no murders.” This fact was testified to repeatedly at John Connolly’s trial, even the admittedly corrupt, attempted murder himself, FBI Agent and Connolly’s Supervisor John Morris.
How many times will you repeat this Falsehood in the face of direct testimony to its opposite . . .TEIs who were known to commit murders were arrested, prosecuted and removed from the program . . .TEIs who were suspected of murders were investigated . . .no evidence I’ve ever seen proves the FBI gave TEIs a green light to commit murders . . .by their very in-house policies and practices agents were required to inform every TEI they handled, as a condition of being a TEI, “no violence, no murders.”
Mountbatten’s grandsons were Nicholas and Timothy Knatchbull. Timothy survived. Paul Maxwell was a 15-year old kid from the area who helped with the boat. He was friends with the other two boys. No relation to any of the ‘royals.’
The Northern Ireland and British police are seemingly members of the Orange Order and the Masons and that is the connection.
Years later, Queen Elizabeth II publicly met and perhaps forgave Martin McGuinness, architect of the bombing killing her uncle.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/9366701/Tim-Knatchbull-the-IRA-killed-my-grandfather-but-Im-glad-the-Queen-met-their-man.html
A sound analysis. What a “discrete investigation” would result in, however is unclear. The goal should not be a ceremonial cleansing of the temple highlighted with a few sacrificial lambs. They would likely be recently deceased personnel with nothing to lose. Discrete morphs into whitewash too easily.
The investigating committee should be made up of young, hungry up and comers, not wise old gray heads content to ride into the sunset festooned with plaudits from the establishment. The nation needs a let-it-all-hang-out airing of dirty laundry. Let reputations and pensions of senior bureaucrats fall where they may. Let indiscretion be the better part of the housecleaning.
Great article, thanks. I agree it should be investigated, but I have come to the conclusion that the best thing would be to disband the FBI.