All language subtitles for The.Man.Who.Knew.Too.Much.2020.WEBRip.x264-ION10

"The role of the press is
to hold power to account."

Mr. Wallace who is presently serving 10
years for manslaughter in an English jail

was known to have links
with British Intelligence.

Wallace claimed he was
an Intelligence Officer.

Wallace alleges he became involved in a black
propaganda campaign by the security services.

There was no evidence to support
the claims of Mr. Colin Wallace.

Until anybody can produce proper evidence
there is no need to have an inquiry.

Colin Wallace had fractured Mr. Lewis’
skull with a karate style blow

after he was accused of having
an affair with Mr. Lewis’ wife.

He hid his friend’s body
in the boot of his car

and later dumped
it in the river Arun.

He says he was the victim of
an MI5 dirty tricks campaign.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Northern Ireland 1969: Violence erupts between
Protestants loyal to the British Crown and Catholics.

Information Policy: An information warfare
department is established inside the

British Army’s Northern Ireland headquarters at
Lisburn, comprising Army psychological warfare and

the Information Research Department (IRD), a
clandestine department in the British Foreign Office.

The IRD as a Foreign Office department
had to justify their position

in Northern Ireland and they
justified it by emphasizing

the international links of the IRA. By saying this is
to do with Ireland, this is to do with the Communists

and oddly this is to do with the Vatican
City as well, playing up the Catholic angle.

The IRD tended to work
through newspapers.

They would draft articles
in London and then

distribute them through friendly
journalists to slip into foreign newspapers.

They worked with
publishing houses,

where they would write
some book about communism

and then it would be distributed or published
through a private commercial company.

Hugh Mooney of the IRD was sent as
an adviser to Information Policy.

Northern Ireland was the most
surveyed country in the world.

Every citizen
probably had a file,

every household was under surveillance.
Down to minute things, like,

extra pint of milk,

just bought a new TV where has
the money come from, like that.

Colin Wallace, a 27-year-old press officer was
asked to assist the psychological warfare unit.

Because I grew up in Northern Ireland, because I
knew a lot of the background, I was then asked to

explain some of the significance in terms of
emblems, in terms of labels and so on so forth.

I was really bringing
into the PsyOps team

the Irish dimension as it were, in terms
of history, emotion, symbols, sounds.

Maurice Tugwell the head of the
Army’s psychological warfare school

and a veteran of Britain’s colonial
counter-insurgency campaigns

commanded the PsyOps unit.

Maurice Tugwell believed that, "all
information agencies in Northern Ireland

should speak with one voice:"

any organization critical of
British policy was an IRA front.

Information Policy, PsyOps was
a highly sensitive activity

and it really needed some form of cover, that gave
its officers access to the public and the press.

Information Policy was in the same building,
on the same corridor, as the press office.

So, a visiting journalist going down
the corridor to the press office

would almost see the whole corridor
as part of army public relations.

Where as a key part of that had no
bearing on public relations per se.

On the 9th of August 1971 the British government
approved the internment of dissidents without trial.

Many of those imprisoned were not terrorists, but
civil rights activists and Irish nationalists.

The perception at that stage
was a bad one globally.

And of course,

the IRA were very good from PsyOps point of
view, they used that to make Britain look bad.

Reports of torture
surfaced in the Irish press.

Where there were
allegations of brutality,

the Information Policy unit
planted with selected journalists

the fact that the techniques
used by the security forces

in questioning detainees
were actually less

demanding than the techniques
we used on our own soldiers

when we were teaching
them how to avoid

or deal with interrogation if
they were captured by the enemy.

Stories of torture and arbitrary imprisonment
without trial fanned feelings of historical injustice

and with that the popularity
of the IRA increased.

The violence from
all sides escalated.

In 1972, 479 people were
killed and almost 5000 injured.

Each day the psychological
operations team would look at

the violence of
the past 24 hours.

Some activities would require a quick
response, we needed to do something that day.

But sometimes there were
themes developing, that

for example some type of terrorist
activity was creating a problem

and therefore we would have to
take a more strategic look at that.

A theme was a broad issue that Information
Policy identified as a concern.

Major themes included community
support for paramilitary organizations,

who were portrayed as
organized criminal groups

that intimidated and
exploited local communities.

Information Policy attempted to spread
uncertainty and conflict in target groups.

The international perception of the
conflict was another major theme.

Themes were used to color
events with a message

that supported Information Policy’s
long term PsyOps campaigns.

When journalists visited or
phoned the Army Press Office,

they would be passed through to
Colin Wallace and his colleagues.

We then from a PsyOps point
of view either had an agreed

position which we would take on this, feeding in
the various themes that we wanted to put across.

Or in certain cases we had a number
of journalists who were much more

pro the role of the armed forces in Northern
Ireland and we would then call them direct

and explain the background
that we wanted to put across.

The propaganda was deliberately
designed to create conflict,

to disorientate the IRA to unnerve
them and to again to separate them

from the community whose support they needed
in order to remain a viable organization.

We discovered at one
stage they were using

nitrobenzene to mix with fertilizer
to make their bombs more effective.

We discovered that nitrobenzene
had a carcinogenic quality

and therefore there
was a real danger

that people mixing these explosives
unless they were protected properly

were likely to develop
cancer at a later stage.

This was a
scientific fact. But

exactly how much exposure
etcetera we had no idea.

But because there were sufficient
scientific hooks with that,

we circulated that
information to the press.

And the good thing about it was lots
of experts from the scientific world

agreed with the conclusion, that
nitrobenzene was a carcinogenic.

Newspapers picked up the story and
quoted an anonymous army spokesperson,

who was none other
than Colin Wallace,

who claimed that "symptoms of nitro
poisoning are difficult to spot.

By the time they are visible it
is too late to treat the victim.

Vomiting and a coma follow and later
the glands and liver break down."

The Guardian reported: "Children
finding it stored in a derelict house

or people forced to store it by the
Provisionals could suffer from the poisoning."

On occasion bombs would
go off prematurely

and quite often the people
transporting the bomb would be killed.

And where we got a bomb going off
prematurely, although we knew the reason

from the subsequent
examination of the device

why it had gone
off prematurely,

we would quite often try to shift the
reason for that onto something else.

In campaigns of a political nature army
PsyOps worked with Hugh Mooney of the IRD.

One of the themes the IRD used in its propaganda
was trying to link the IRA to the Soviet Union

and the broader communist

threat.

And so one of their plans involved
telling journalists or leaking a story

that Soviet submarines

were dropping subversives, who had been
trained by the KGB, off the coast of Ireland.

IRD acquired at one stage some photographs
that the Royal Air Force had taken

of a Soviet submarine off
the coast of Scotland.

A dossier was then built up by
IRD, creating a credible story that

this submarine which then

had moved off the coast of Donegal rather
than Scotland, from the story point of view,

that this was

clear evidence that the Soviets were directly
involved in the violence in Northern Ireland.

So IRD set up a meeting with
the News of the World in London.

We took across photographs,
various other documents

and material to
substantiate the story.

This was given to the News of the
World, who ran it as a front page lead.

It was a huge story and it got wide
circulation again around the world.

Hugh Mooney identified himself to the
journalist as a member of the Foreign Office.

The Foreign Office was a cover
for the activities of IRD

and therefore he was listed as a
senior member of the Foreign Office

and that is how they knew that
he was a genuine official.

We would try to manipulate the terrorist
organization simply by information.

Just to delay and get them to lose
faith in what they were doing.

But at the other end of the scale there
may be a technical intervention, where

again one would try to get

for example a weapon to misfire or to
explode or something of that nature.

On one occasion the IRA was struggling with
using heavier weapons such as bazookas.

And it turned out that they were using
them with the safety cap still on.

The IRD decided to conceal
this explanation and instead

issue a dummy army order suggesting that
the shells be tested electronically.

The IRD hoped

that this would result in explosions
going off in the hands of IRA members.

In Northern Ireland, a clandestine unit, the
Military Reaction Force, dressed up as civilians

and injured and killed numerous
Catholics in drive by shootings.

Information Policy would
point out to journalists

that the weapons used were those
that the paramilitary groups carried.

As a result, the press attributed the
attacks to the paramilitary groups.

In one incident the
police discovered

that an undercover army unit
had injured a group of people

at a bus stop in a drive by shooting
on the Glen Road in Belfast.

The police wanted
to press charges.

PsyOps dissuaded the police by threatening
to reveal that the ammunition used

had been given to
the army by the police.

Information Policy established
close relationships with journalists

and their publications.

The whole thing is about
knowing the target audience

but also knowing the
journalists as well.

Sometimes you know
the relationship was

very good and it was almost
at a humorous level.

And journalists might ring me up, say "look
Colin I'm quoting you as saying this,"

and I would say:
"but I didn't say that,"

and they said "I know but
we knew you would say that."

And it was at that level,
and unless

that quote was really way off mark,
I would be quite happy with that.

99% of the work I was doing
was un-attributable,

and then you also have
off-the-record information, which

you know, journalists would
know but couldn't actually

report on. So literally that would
just be built into their story

without any reference
to where it came from.

Professional journalists are
very good, because they realized

that if they didn't actually stick by what
was a journalistic agreement after all,

then probably we would not cooperate
with them in the same way in the future.

How important was it for
PsyOps to be believable?

The press quite often said that PsyOps
was largely about propaganda and

using disinformation.

But in the vast majority of cases we
were working on real intelligence.

See, real intelligence is much
more powerful, because

when the terrorists check
out their own sources

it has to be credible. They
have to be able to stand it out.

If they can show it is false, then
of course it is a waste of time

and really does
not go anywhere.

So most of the material that we
used, the most effective stuff,

was genuine intelligence,

and had to be credible

not just from a journalist point of view, but it had
to also be credible from a terrorist point of view.

On the 5th of August 1973,

an article in the Belfast
Sunday News reported

that sheep had been sacrificed
in a black magic ritual

on Copeland Island Beach
North East of Belfast.

It was a front-page headline in the
Sunday News, which lots of people read.

The story was that sheep had been ritually
killed and mutilated, that was the story,

and that it was Satanists
who had done this.

As a would-be anthropologist,
an undergraduate at the time,

it tweaked my interests and I

began to pay attention as other news
stories appeared in other the local papers.

The more I looked the more I found
and I began to be really surprised

at the degree to which this had been a
local news paper story in Northern Ireland.

From August 1973,

stories of witchcraft
and black magic

began to surface in many
local newspapers.

The first thing that I had to
do was try and understand

what witchcraft
would look like.

We had no idea so I bought
a book on the subject.

Then the whole idea

of the sacrifice of animals or
whatever it might have been,

we got blood from the cook
house from the army cook house

and we would
scatter that over the

makeshift altars
that were there.

Some of that
material then we left

and it would be discovered by
local people and then eventually

they would talk about
it to the press and

gradually the story built up and
build up over a period of months.

This was a way of really

getting the interest of the press,
getting rumors going around and therefore

doing the things that we
really wanted to happen.

The ritual sites were often located in
old graveyards and abandoned properties.

You have to remember

that this was a time in Northern Ireland when
all kinds of unusual things were happening.

Assassinations were a very regular thing, some
of them were particularly bloody and brutal.

Torture, mutilation, using knives
and blades and things like that.

People were talking about ritual
murders and all kinds of things. So,

all of a sudden all of
the moral certainties

no longer seemed to be
quite just as certain.

Information Policy sent fake
Readers’ Letters to the local press

to help fan the rumours.

Quite often on different subjects
we would write to local newspapers

drawing attention to something
or criticizing something

and then the newspaper
would publish that. It would

usually be about a local issue and it
was very much done at that local Level.

But then we would pick up the
publication of those letters and

we would then circulate those
letters more to the national press,

to reflect what would be
portrayed as local views.

Don't forget that

we were not just influencing the press. The
press is only one way of influencing the public.

We had to be able to influence
all sorts of other people who were

you know communicating
with the public.

The churches then

in the 70s had much more influence
of course than they have today

and therefore this involvement of
witchcraft was quite important.

The key thing we
wanted the Protestant,

sorry we wanted the clergy
to do, I think was just

to try and go back to reject
all types of violence

and questionable behavior. And whether
that was drugs or witchcraft or terrorism,

it was to say that these
activities really have no

place in the society that
we were trying to create.

And because

at that stage people's world was
dominated by the fear of terrorism,

we were directly linking a lot of these
things together. It was important to look at

evil bad and terrorism
all within one package.

They were particularly
interested in

getting at the Protestant population and
getting them to believe in this stuff.

They were trying to scare the
bejesus out of the local population

and to attach that fright to the terrible
things that going on ergo the paramilitaries.

That is I think what the core
job of what they were doing was.

They were trying to discredit the paramilitaries.
They were trying to associate them with

bad things, drug dealing, dodgy
financial dealings, etc. Etc.

We were just saying, look, the

fact that the community has now sort
of dissolved into this violence,

which is becoming more and more sadistic
in terms of sectarian assassinations,

you know, where do you
draw a halt as a community.

I think it helped to bring
home to people, that

there was something going on
in their community that really

was not good for
them as a whole.

That is a strange
way thinking,

because you know you are part of the army
and the idea is that you are fighting a war.

But you are saying the
witchcraft campaign was about

bringing a sense of morality
back to the community,

you wouldn't really have thought
that the army would think about that?

Probably not but I think you see it is
a war but it is not a conventional war.

Terrorism is fundamentally a propaganda
war that is backed up by armed conflict.

So, it was just I think
going back to

say to people "you know you have grown up as I
did in Northern Ireland with a very strong belief

in the community and in our own
church, whatever that religion was,

and surely we have drifted
a long way from that

as a result of the violence
of the last five six years."

On the 8th of September 1973

the burnt and mutilated body
of 10-year-old Brian McDermott

was discovered by the
river Lagan in Belfast.

People began to speculate: "was
this a black magic killing" and

it certainly contributed towards one
of the threads and the rumors and fears

that autumn, which was that Satanists
were looking for children to abduct.

Newspapers reported rumours that "a boy
or girl under seven would be sacrificed."

The police actually issued

a statement saying they believed that
the murder may have involved witchcraft,

that was a concern for us at that stage because
bearing in mind that we were creating this concept.

At that point we stopped using
witchcraft as a concept.

But that was in September

and according to Richard Jenkins
the witchcraft scare continued

all the way to the
beginning of 1974?

I think that's right, and one of the points
we were making is that when you create a story

it gathers momentum over a period of time
and I think although we stop doing things,

there were lots of other stories and rumors
going around. There may also have been people,

you know, creating these
things for fun really.

But we certainly stopped after Brian
McDermott’s death. There's no doubt of that.

I’m absolutely clear. But it may well be
that the aftermath of that was still going on

for a period of sometime, even to
the beginning of the following year.

From early September
to December 1973,

there were more than 70 articles
referring to black magic and witchcraft.

By the beginning of the following year the topic
had almost completely vanished from the press.

When the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson visited
Northern Ireland, he was briefed by Colin Wallace.

Would the Prime Minister
have been aware

that you were in fact in
military intelligence?

Oh, I don't believe they would have been. I’m
sure he saw me simply as an army press officer.

Did you yourself have a brief
for when you interacted with him?

Yes, what happened was that there
were certain key things that we felt

the Prime Minister should
know. So, the idea is that

you don't want him to be wrong-footed
by not being able to answer

the basic questions about
security in Northern Ireland.

Influencing the press, the
clergy and key decision makers

was one aspect of psychological warfare, another
was influencing persons of interest directly.

Quite often we were trying to influence
people where we had no direct access to them.

And so when you are trying to move
somebody or change somebody's thinking,

sometimes you had to target them through one
or more sort of relays of other people. So,

it is never straight
communication.

A lot of information we were
disseminating was not through the media,

it was also through people,

and therefore it had to be cut out so
that the person handling it quite often

didn't realize who
the originator was.

And that made it all the more credible,
when that person who was known to the target

was passing this
information on to him.

Information Policy created profiles of persons
of interest and people in their social networks.

The key thing was that

when you knew a lot about a person
and the people they worked with,

like any other
part of society,

there were people who
didn't like each other,

there were people who were
jealous of each other.

Because we had the
relevant intelligence,

if we could plant
it the right way,

you could for example if one person was
suspicious of another for some reason,

you could increase
that suspicion,

by feeding information in that would tend to
reinforce their own views of that individual.

So, it was that type of activity.

Could you explain more about

the kind of techniques you used
to create psychological conflict?

I have to be careful
with that because

what I don't want to do is actually share
techniques that are still having impact.

And so there is
a Grey area there.

But it is basically along the lines that
we are saying, first of all is to identify

relationships, look at how toxic
those relationships may or may not be,

and then try to maneuver them by planting
information in, to have that effect.

You build up quite a
comprehensive profile

of that person and
their associates.

Now it may be that
some of those associates

are totally innocent of any
involvement in terrorism whatsoever.

They just happen to be good friends
from school days and so on and so forth.

It is really
creating a picture

of that person so
you almost know

what their response will be to
something that you do.

This is a very different
use of psychology

and I think a lot of people wouldn't
be aware that this knowledge exists

and that people study psychology
for these kinds of purposes?

I think that's true, but you have to be
careful because we did do lots of things

that had a positive
psychological effect.

Like for example we ran youth
clubs, we ran community relations.

I was the Army's Father Christmas going
around schools and hospitals at Christmas.

We actually provided funds for
projects. We took kids away from

the really bad areas
of Northern Ireland,

from opposite
sides of the fence,

Catholic and Protestant together, we
took them away to the mountains camping.

Colin Wallace was refused clearance to
target high-ranking protestant paramilitaries

in psychological operations.

These individuals who at times colluded with
the British army were on an excluded list.

A number of protestant clergy and politicians
on the other hand were legitimate targets.

Psyops targeted individuals who were
not members of terrorist organizations,

but who had influence in
communities of interest to PsyOps.

In the Catholic community,

personal conflicts were the most common
reason for a person to become an informant.

We couldn't admit to what we were doing, the army
didn't admit to what we were doing and so on so forth.

A senior figure political or
military might ask us to do something

and then for political
reasons usually

they would say it would be a
really good idea if X happened

but then they would
quite often say but

I don't want you to tell me how you go
about it because I may have to deny it,

and that was a classic example so in other words the
person doesn't want to lie that they were involved.

Senior figures were deliberately kept in
the dark about the specifics of campaigns,

so that they could deny involvement should
they be called upon to answer questions.

At the age of 29 Colin Wallace was the
youngest Senior Information Officer in the MOD.

During his time in
Information Policy

he was put forward for New Year’s
Honors 3 times by his superiors.

In 1973, the IRD was withdrawn
from Northern Ireland.

The IRD focused on framing conflicts both at
home and abroad as part of a clash of ideologies,

between Communism
and the West.

Army Intelligence saw the IRD as involved
in political propaganda of limited relevance

to their anti-terror and
counter-insurgency campaign.

The military feared that

having the IRD in Northern Ireland
was undermining the credibility

of their own PR campaigns

and Lisburn and the army headquarters was
becoming known as the Lisburn lie machine.

Not long after the departure
of Hugh Mooney and the IRD,

a meeting was convened at Stormont
Castle, the HQ of MI5 in Northern Ireland.

At this meeting a campaign code-named
Clockwork Orange was launched.

Colin Wallace was asked to liaise with an
operative by the cover-name, John Shaw.

He never came to army headquarters
at any time when I was there.

All the meetings I had with him
were at the White Gables Hotel.

I think the idea with that was
that there would be no direct link,

particularly with some of the information
that we were using, between him and the army.

Colin Wallace alleges John Shaw supplied
him with material that included smears

on politicians from the three
main political parties in Britain.

Why were you given that information,
considering the sensitivity of it?

As I say, this was background,
because if we are looking

for example at the
increase in violence,

that has to be put in context,

particularly if you are briefing
journalists in depth or foreign journalists.

You have to explain at that stage
what led up to the violence.

So, in other words, the violence
was really the activity,

but the background was coming from
the briefing papers that I was given.

Some of the forgeries that
Information Policy and MI5 and IRD

concocted in Northern Ireland
came into my possession.

To Merlyn Rees, who at one point was
the Minister for Northern Ireland.

This is apparently from the American
Congress for Irish freedom, 1971.

This was an IRA front in America. This is a letter
apparently thanking Merlyn Rees for his support,

which of course Merlyn Rees didn’t
support it, but there you go.

According to Stephen Dorril

some of the smears Colin
Wallace received from John Shaw

were already in
circulation in Britain.

Britain had a very
sophisticated system

whereby there were scores
of people around the country

whose job it was just to
sit in bars, coffee bars,

talk to people, go to clubs
and spread rumors

and gradually kind of build up this
idea about someone or some operation.

It was smears about sex,

accusations that
Wilson had affairs.

The British Prime Minister,
Harold Wilson,

had been sexually compromised
on a trip to Moscow.

There were accusations about,
which is again kind of

interesting in retrospect, about him
being too close to Jewish people.

So, there were kind
of anti-semitic smears.

That Wilson was corrupt that
he had secret bank accounts …

A few years ago the
son of a MI6 officer

contacted me and said

"You've written about my
father, but did you know that

when he retired in 1970 he went into the
City of London and he started a newsletter

and spread rumors through this
newsletter and smears about Wilson."

Here's another fake - A Swiss
account supposedly held by

Edward Short, who was the

leader of the House of Commons at
the time I think, another Labour MP,

a fake bank account showing
he had 30,000 pounds.

A journalist who trusts somebody
like Colin can easily be manipulated.

He would say to somebody: "okay,
yeah, I think I know so-and-so,

talk to that person or I can supply
you with this bit of information

or I have this document
I will allow you to look at

which will back up what I am saying
or what this person has told you."

It is a very sophisticated
kind of system.

This is thought out about what it is you
want to achieve with this particular story.

This might be part of a chain. It might
be part of an operation that is ongoing,

with the idea that you kind of
sway the argument or you

change the view of something,
smear somebody.

In October 1974 at a
meeting with John Shaw,

Colin Wallace demanded proof of
political clearance for Clockwork Orange.

He never saw or heard
from John Shaw again.

Colin Wallace
turned his attention to

undermining the Republican support
network in the US and Ireland.

He created a dossier that linked
fundraisers and businessmen

supportive of Republicans
to weapons smuggling.

Colin Wallace traced the serial numbers of weapons
captured in Belfast to arms dealers in the US.

He identified a leading
fundraiser and major benefactors.

The story was intended as an
exclusive for a major publication.

The Irish Joint Section
of MI5 and MI6

reported in a telegram that "The
Managing Editor of the Daily Telegraph

was prepared to give the
article wide coverage…"

Colin Wallace was asked to
supply additional photographs.

Information Policy ran a photography department
that gathered images for intelligence purposes.

These images could be used as
supporting material in press briefings.

The Daily Telegraph published a special
investigation. Reporter Christopher Dobson, wrote:

"I have spent the last two months investigating
the way in which the IRA gets its money.

I have traveled to the
United States and Ireland

in tracking back the serial numbers
of arms captured in Belfast,

and I have looked into the lives
of the paymasters of terror."

The press helped Information Policy to
target individuals and organisations

to which PsyOps had no direct access
due to their geographic location.

The article provided no evidence of
the funding or smuggling of arms,

however the reader was left
with the distinct impression

that the individuals and organization
highlighted were responsible.

William McGrath was a prominent individual in
loyalist politics, the Church and the Orange Order,

and the head of an
organization called Tara.

I was asked to encourage the press to look
at what Tara and McGrath were all about.

Tara was an organization

that was really designed to prepare
for a doomsday situation by loyalists.

If there was an IRA Campaign,

or in fact as McGrath said the Irish
Army might even invade the North.

Attending the meetings of Tara

there were members of
the Ulster Volunteer Force,

which was then a proscribed
loyalist paramilitary group.

There were also police
officers attending it.

In 1973 McGrath issued
a proclamation,

that was designed to make the
Roman Catholic Church illegal.

William McGrath was also
the housemaster of Kincora,

a home for boys from troubled
backgrounds between the ages of 11 to 18.

Colin Wallace issued 3 separate briefings on
McGrath, the press did not follow up the story.

The Army was informed
by Special Branch that

if they moved against McGrath it would
be a great propaganda coup for the IRA

and significantly damage the political
structure in Northern Ireland.

In December 1974, Colin Wallace was summoned
to the Ministry of Defence in London.

Everything as far as I was
concerned, in terms of my job,

how I was regarded by annual performance
reports, all those things were perfect.

And so I was a bit surprised
to be told then by

the senior MOD official who saw me
that because my life was in danger

I had to be moved
out of the province.

A farewell party
was organized.

A prominent cartoonist recorded
Colin Wallace’s departure.

I moved to my new post and

a day after that a police officer
from Northern Ireland arrived

with a Special Branch officer

and said that they were
investigating the fact that

I had given a restricted
document to a journalist.

For the past six years
I had been supplying,

you know, as part of my job description,
highly sensitive information

to journalists from different
countries around the world.

Unbeknown to Colin Wallace, MI5 had made an assessment
that he was disgruntled and a security risk.

The disciplinary hearing that followed concluded
that Colin Wallace should be dismissed.

But, that he could keep his
pension if he resigned voluntarily.

Peter Broderick, a colleague of Colin Wallace’s
in Army Public Relations, tried to support him

and was informed that Colin Wallace was
a member of a terrorist organization.

Peter Broderick was then transferred
out of the Ministry of Defence.

When my disciplinary hearing
was finished and I realized that

clearly it had been rigged,

I then engaged a solicitor purely for personal
protection to tell him what had happened to me.

He said that he was involved

in dirty tricks against
politicians in Northern Ireland

and he also said that this had now
started to move over onto the mainland.

That he was involved in
a dirty tricks campaign

against mainland politicians and in
particular he mentioned Harold Wilson.

Colin Wallace moved
to South-East London

and began to speak out about
his work in Information Policy,

he lobbied MPs, supplied information to the
press and wrote to the former prime minister.

Harold Wilson already held suspicions that
MI5 had undermined him and his government

and had communicated
this to two journalists.

He thought they had mounted a campaign
of denigrating him personally,

of using official material that had been gathered
and then misused by leaking it to newspapers.

They released a book,
which was largely ignored.

In 1977 the IRD was
quietly closed down.

After an internal investigation into the
plot against the former prime minister.

I corresponded with Lord Hunt.

He was asked to carry out the investigation
into the alleged plot against Harold Wilson

and he spoke to a number of people
including the heads of MI5 and MI6.

He said that there was a plot,

that there were dissident elements
within both organizations.

He wrote that report which
went to the new Prime Minister

and a copy of it was supposed to have
been deposited in the Cabinet Office.

I asked the Cabinet Office where was the
copy and they said they could not find one.

Colin Wallace unaware of the demise of
the IRD began a new life in West Sussex.

In January 1980

the Irish Independent published an article on the
abuse of boys at the Belfast boys home Kincora.

The Housefathers William McGrath,
Joseph Mains and Raymond Semple

had been sexually abusing
the boys in their care.

Politicians in Northern Ireland
demanded a full inquiry.

Did you see this man in Arundel between
6:15pm – 11:30pm on Tuesday 5th August 1980?

The body which was found
last Friday in the river

had head injuries.

This is a matter for the pathologist
who is making his examination,

to find out whether in fact the person died as a
result of drowning or as a result of the head injuries.

Colin Wallace had fractured Mr. Lewis’
skull with a karate style blow

during a meeting at his house after he was
accused of having an affair with Mr. Lewis’ wife.

He hid his friend’s body in the boot of his
car and later dumped it in the river Arun.

Colin Wallace was charged
with the murder.

The prosecution alleged he was infatuated
with Jane Lewis the deceased’s wife.

He was found guilty of manslaughter and
sentenced to ten years on the 20th of March 1981.

65-year-old William McGrath
seen here in the foreground.

He ran two bible study centres
in Belfast in the 50s and 60s.

McGrath was also a founding member of
the protestant paramilitary group Tara.

This man was one of
McGraths victims.

He would come up when you
were getting dressed and

then he would start
doing things you don’t like.

There was one time I was bleeding. I
told him to stop. It was unpleasant.

You couldn’t turn
to no-one you know.

One of the Army’s former press officers at
Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn, Colin Wallace,

is now a key figure in
the Kincora investigation.

Mr. Wallace who is presently serving 10
years for manslaughter in an English jail

was also known to have links
with British intelligence.

Kevin Dowling, exactly what did
Colin Wallace tell you in 1973?

He certainly said that
McGrath was a homosexual.

You must remember that the conversation
I had with him was in 1973.

I don’t remember the
conversation entirely clearly.

It has been suggested to me that McGrath
was in fact some kind of an army informer

and that the police felt
obliged to protect him in order

to bring to book
greater criminals than he.

Exactly what part did
British intelligence play

and were they aware that William
McGrath was employed at Kincora.

British Army files relating to the Kincora
Boys’ Home disappeared from army headquarters.

It was rumoured that William
McGrath was an MI5 informant.

McGrath, Mains and Semple, who
ran the Kincora Boys’ Home,

were sentenced
in December 1981.

All were released
in under 2 years.

Meanwhile, Colin Wallace was still only
at the beginning of his 10-year sentence.

When I first got to know him,

he was in prison

and it was bizarre.

He was actually
protected in prison.

Other prisoners believed him.

He actually had
kind of bodyguards,

because they thought probably
correctly that he might be

killed, assassinated in prison.

Clive Ponting was head of the legal
department at the Ministry of Defence in 1983

and remembers a meeting with MI5
where Colin Wallace was discussed.

There was never
any suspicion that

Wallace was making these stories up and
that it was all totally unfounded and

very easy to rubbish.

It was very much a matter that the
story was being contained at the moment

because he was
in jail. But that

in a few years time, he would
be back out again and

could be expected to start
making the allegations again.

One evening in prison, Colin Wallace
read an article about Fred Holroyd,

a former Military Intelligence
Officer in Northern Ireland,

whose experience bore
some resemblance to his own.

Colin wrote a letter to
Fred asking for help.

When I got to the prison

I realized this
was the same man

that I met in the secret corridor, who
had an office in army headquarters.

The MOD repeatedly were refuting
that he was anything more

than a civilian clerk with a Walter Mitty
complex. And yet here he is with an office

in this secret corridor with the political
officer MI5, MI6, all of the people

who were running the
army were in that office.

I went on the same day that the murder
was committed, at the same time.

You know you have got every man and
his dog walking along that path.

You have fishermen overlooking at
about a hundred yards away on a bridge.

You have all sorts of courting
couples walking along and

the river boats going
up and down the river.

The thing was, you know, it's
Trafalgar Square on a Saturday.

The story that the police
had put out was a lie.

I also discovered a witness
who had seen the dead man

after he had allegedly been killed by Colin and
the police persuaded her not to give evidence.

He was sitting by the window
with the gentleman he was with.

A man approximately in his 50s with thinning
grey hair combed back over the top of his head.

And as far as I remember, I
think he was in a grey suite.

Whatever exchange came from Jonathan Lewis it was
sharp and back to fiddling with his glass on his knee.

He looked far from happy.

She was frightened of the police.
She thought the police were in on it.

Fred Holroyd door-stepped the
boatman who had found the body.

And he didn't know who I was. They
all get very frightened when I arrive

and start asking questions about things
that they are worried about themselves.

And he said: "I can tell you that the buggers
wouldn't let me give the evidence I wanted to give,

which was you know
that I had reversed back and

my propeller had
hit the guy in the face

and that is what
caused the wound."

And I said: "Yyou are kidding,"
and he said: "No."

So I said: "Are you prepared to
put that down in writing?" He said:

"Well if I have to, but the best thing would be
to get me in a court and ask me questions and then

I have to answer in a courtroom and
the police can't do me any harm."

When Colin was still in prison he
was via his solicitor, he was sending

out various documents
that he had written.

I was unemployed,
and in those days in Hull,

in Mrs. Thatcher's Britain in a place
like Hull with unemployment at 10 percent,

if you had something to do

and I did, the people on the
dole would ignore you for years.

So, I carried on doing
this journalism stuff.

Lobster, an obscure magazine made on a
photocopier, with a circulation of 150,

co-founded and co-edited
by Ramsay and Dorril,

may at the time have been the
only publication in Britain

to take Colin Wallace’s
allegations seriously.

I wrote this, which was you know 50 pages,
an attempt to explain Colin’s story.

We printed quite a lot of
these about a thousand copies

I think and we went to London
and had a press conference.

So, two hicks from the sticks turn up carrying
this big document and saying here's a big story.

The media were not impressed at
all, virtually no response to it.

In January 1987 Colin Wallace
was released from prison.

A journalist called
Julian O' Halloran

went to Lewes Prison and actually filmed Colin
Wallace as he stepped out of the prison gate

and interviewed him and it was
going to be broadcast on Newsnight.

I was actually watching Newsnight when
there was a great kerfuffle in the studio.

Something had happened and bits
of paper were being looked at,

headphones were being checked.

What happened was
the Wallace segment

had been yanked at the last minute
by a man called Alan Prothero,

who at that point was
deputy director of the BBC.

Prothero was a part-time army
officer in the territorial army

and his speciality was
media - military relations.

I went down to
visit him and Fred

and it was in the middle of winter. We were
sitting in Colin Wallace’s unheated house.

He had come out of prison and
he couldn't afford to heat it.

So we were all sitting you know in
our coats in Colin’s living room

and I remember
saying something like,

"So your plan is that me and you
two guys with no money between us

are gonna take on
MI5 and the MOD?"

"Yes that's the
plan," they said.

Irish broadcaster RTE
picked up the story.

The record says that Colin
Wallace killed Jonathan Lewis.

- Oh yes, absolutely.
- Did you?

No, I didn’t, I had nothing
at all to do with his death.

I wasn’t involved in any way.

But I mean if I am not calm
about it. If I panic about it.

If I create a fuss. If I
get excited about it,

that is not going to
change the verdict

any quicker than if I stay calm and deal with
it properly through the correct channels.

Eventually I was hired
by Channel 4 News.

Colin had these
hand written notes

that he claimed he had written down
from this MI5 disinformation project

against Labour MPs.

Robert Parker of Channel 4 News went to a
forensic scientist called Dr. Julius Grant.

What chances do you think there
are that these notes are forgeries?

Well, from what I already said,

the chances that they are
forgeries seem to be rather remote.

And thus these documents were in fact written,
probably when Wallace said they were written.

While we were working together
on bits and pieces about Wallace,

another journalist in ITN, who was
one of their crime correspondents,

began feeding information
he was getting from the MOD,

the Ministry of Defense,
denigrating Wallace.

We were also getting similar stuff
from professor Paul Wilkinson,

a terrorism expert, again denigrating Wallace
and saying he's a fantasist and a liar.

Investigative journalist Paul Foot
wrote a book about Colin Wallace.

Wallace began to appear in the
British media more frequently,

including on popular ITV weekly
debate show Central Weekend Live.

If you take the case
of Mr. Wallace here.

As every body else who is ever
convicted of any crime,

poor Mr. Wallace was framed. I don’t
believe he was framed, it’s a fact.

Any responsible journalist in Northern Ireland in
the early 70s knew what Colin Wallace was up to.

There was this
gung-ho character

who was running around
in the dead of night

shoving envelopes full of documents
into the letter boxes of journalists.

And you would say
there is Colin at it again.

I for one I was probably
the first person in the CIA

who got into this dirty-tricks business. It
wasn’t as dirty as a lot of people think it was.

A lot of people find
it very objectionable.

Just a minute. To blacken someone is a
hell of a lot better than killing them.

In World War 2
we killed people,

and now we got
into the business

where we are simply playing dirty
tricks, to prevent having World War 3.

You are the man that
sparked all this off.

I did not join the
security forces

to discredit the Labour Party, the
Conservative Party or the Liberal Party,

and because I was deflected from my main
job into doing political disinformation,

I was not actually doing the
job I had joined to do.

Good evening, a civil servant sacked after making
allegations about an MI5 dirty tricks campaign

has been awarded £30,000
compensation by the government.

Calcutt QC was asked
to conduct an inquiry.

In his report he reveals
that MOD officials

contacted Mr. Wallace’s disciplinary hearing
beforehand, thus influencing the outcome.

The Defence Secretary Tom King asked
Mr. Calcutt not to write a full report.

Labour’s Northern Ireland
Secretary between 1974 and 76 said

he had been the victim of a
dirty tricks campaign.

Who instructed Mr. Wallace

to do the job he and others did.
That is what we have to know.

We want to be sure that this sort of thing never
happens again. I feel very strongly about it.

Mrs. Thatcher having insisted there
was no evidence to back such claims

was forced to admit in the
Commons that she had been misled.

This followed the discovery of
documents in the Ministry of Defence,

which related to a propaganda
campaign code-named Clockwork Orange.

He is calling for the government
to launch a full inquiry.

Injustice to me is really
a minor matter.

The much more important matters are the
allegations that there was an attempt to

influence the general
election in 1974

and indeed the assaults on the
children in Kincora during the 70s.

My aspect of the story is only
a minor one by comparison.

The government
specifically ruled out

the re-opening into the
investigation of the alleged cover up

of the homosexual abuse of boys
at the Kincora home in Belfast.

Information about homosexual
behavior at the Kincora Boys’ Home

was used to blackmail prominent
figures in Northern Ireland.

After I left Northern Ireland another
intelligence officer came in called Brian Gemmell

he was told about the allegation
surrounding the abuses at Kincora.

He wrote a report about
it and he submitted

that report to a senior
MI5 officer, Ian Cameron,

who then told him
to stop investigating.

You know on the phone we have
got phone calls of generals

who have said, "Yes I knew all
about Kincora, I was told and

I took it to MI5 and they said it was none of my
business and I left it to them. It was their business,"

and all this sort of stuff and you know the
realization, like me the light is dawning

that we are not
who we say we are.

Journalist David Leigh tracked down Denis Payne,
the former head of MI5 in Northern Ireland,

to a sleepy village
in the countryside,

and confronted him with the
Clockwork Orange allegations.

I am under an obligation to say absolutely
nothing. I can’t say anything at all.

I mean you have collected all the information,
I can’t believe anybody is in the slightest bit

interested in it, but,
I have nothing to add.

In 1996 Colin Wallace appealed
his conviction for manslaughter.

Today, 15 years after he
was jailed for manslaughter,

Colin Wallace from West
Sussex, cleared his name.

He served 6 years in the 1980s after being
found guilty of killing an antiques dealer

near his home in West Sussex.

During the appeal hearing,

the Home Office pathologist admitted that
a Secret Service agent had suggested to him

that the injury was caused by a karate chop to
the head and not from the propeller of a boat.

The hearing at the Court of Appeal
focused largely on new medical evidence

about the injury
Jonathan Lewis received.

Jonathan Lewis was most probably attacked
at the river bank and not at his house,

and he said there was no evidence that his
body had ever been in Colin Wallace’s car.

He says he was the victim of
an MI5 dirty tricks campaign.

Now Mr. Wallace is demanding a
full investigation into his claims.

Even after Colin Wallace had received
compensation his troubles with MI5 were not over.

While I was working at BAA,

MI5 contacted the
head of security there

and then I was made
redundant after that.

Now I can't say MI5 was
responsible, but again

why were they still meddling in
my case after all those years.

The media reported Colin Wallace’s
appeal and aired his allegations,

but they did not
ask themselves

what role they themselves had
played in spreading fake news

and what lessons they could learn
for their reporting in future.

Colin Wallace repeatedly called for
a full investigation into his claims.

But there was to be
no full investigation,

only an ever longer list of
inquiries and legal disputes

spanning decades, as the
allegations faded from public view.

We now look at

probably five inquiries
that all failed totally

to do what Parliament assured
the public that it would do.

Still to this day
Colin is a problem.

There are major efforts
to restrict what he says.

Kincora is a prime example, the boys home
where it is alleged intelligence people

were involved recruiting people used
people etc the inquiries into that

have been
incredibly restricted.

And Colin on the one hand will be told: yes come
and tell us your story tell us everything.

Then when it gets nearer you get a
document from the minister that says

I am sorry you can talk about that area
but no way he's going to talk about that

or MI5 … he cannot talk about this area because
that gets him into an Official Secrets area.

So even to this day 40 years on they
are still trying to shut him up.

The whole system you see is
unaccountable and it's insidious

it's easy for MI5 to
say no we don't do it

because nobody can prove
what they did and they didn’t.

Today, the role the military and
intelligence services can play

in manufacturing and
manipulating the news

is considered a conspiracy.

Despite extensive press coverage
of Colin Wallace’s allegations,

not a single person in a position of
authority has been held to account.

When Hugh Mooney of the IRD was
asked under oath at a public inquiry

about his PsyOps work,

he lied and claimed he was
never involved in PsyOps,

despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary.

Hugh Mooney walked away,

no questions asked and became
a successful businessman.

This is a very,
very secretive society.

It runs through everything.

Secrecy is the British disease. It's
not anything else, it’s secrecy.

If you believe in the democratic
process there has to be oversight

and at the moment we
don't have oversight.

Because vetting is an important issue
for politicians who are looking for

ministerial appointments

and service people or police officers
moving into the higher level,

you must have access
to classified information.

If MI5 don't agree to you
having that clearance,

if they take that clearance away
from you, then your career is doomed.

So, you never know about it, it is an invisible
threat that is hanging over people all the time

and therefore the
danger is that MI5

has almost an invisible degree of influence
that really is way outside what it should be.

And it is therefore virtually impossible to
challenge MI5 on some of the decisions they make.

Politicians are careerists, most of them they
want to go up the ladder, become ministers,

and if you start criticizing or investigating
the army or the intelligence services,

this will not do your career
any good whatsoever.

And this is also true for journalists, not
a good career path. This is sticky stuff.

People are saying well
why are you fighting

with the Army and the MOD,
surely you are a part of that.

I am only fighting with the MOD
because I was given no choice,

because the MOD didn't
even talk to me.

If I hadn't fought when I did

I would probably still
have a conviction

and I still wouldn’t have got the admissions
out of the government that we have now got.

People realize that the full truth hasn't come out and
although authorities think they may have been clever

and believable to dodge around the issue
the public have a totally different view.

People are pretty aware of when
things are not actually truthful

and they know at the moment they
haven't had the full truth about

what has happened
in Northern Ireland.

So, can you give an example of the areas
of the troubles that are still closed?

I can't say precisely, because
that would put me in jeopardy.

And it would put
Colin in deep jeopardy.

But there are certain areas

of the troubles which have simply
not been talked about at all.

There are things about,

there is a suicide
in Northern Ireland

of a military intelligence officer, one of
the key events. It is an official secret.

A suicide is an official secret and
so far no one has written about it.

And some of the events around that
are appalling, in that he ran agents,

agents, who were 14 and 15
year old Catholic schoolgirls.

This is how desperate the army at
some stage became to get intelligence.

And you kind of say: "How do you run
a 14 year old Catholic schoolgirl."

In the story of Colin Wallace

the press helps direct the
present by spreading fake news

and the media helps digest the past by
creating a discussion about the past.

The role of departments of the state
in creating and shaping reality

is not acknowledged.

And even after the media
has become aware of this,

it does not inform the public of
the implications of that omission.

Power is not held to account, no key
decision makers are held to account,

and they and their organizations
make no admission of wrong-doing.

The files that would serve as proof of
their actions either destroyed or hidden.

In this story the press serves
as a complex mechanism

that helps to reinforce
and legitimize power.

Allegations of
wrong-doing and injustice

become lost in inquiries
and legal disputes,

that drag on to this day
and that most people

no longer
understand or believe.

We are told that a free press
will hold power to account.

But what of those individuals and institutions
that will never be held to account

and have never been held to account. Should
the press include that truth in its reporting?

Or are some truths destined to be
nothing more than versions of fake news?

Former residents of the Kincora Boys’
Home are still fighting for justice.

The British Home Office, Foreign Office,
MI5 and MI6 continue to engage in PsyOps.

The British Army’s psychological warfare
unit is currently called "The 77th Brigade".

Together they target Britain’s perceived
enemies, real and imaginary, with impunity.

Colin Wallace continues to participate as a witness
in inquiries relating to his time in Northern Ireland.

He lives on the same street, in the
same house, in the same village where

the unsolved murder of Jonathan
Lewis took place over 40 years ago.