A Direct Line To Foggy Bottom

Ed Moloney with a critical take on Niall O'Dowd's call on Hillary Clinton to intervene in the Boston College subpoena case. the piece appeared in the Broken Elbow.

Niall O'Dowd


This week, more than sixteen months after the Boston College subpoenas were served by the US Department of Justice and the PSNI, Irish Voice publisher Niall O’Dowd finally made a call that most others in Irish-America had made many months before – asking Hillary Clinton to intervene to stop the BC interviews ending up in Belfast.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am glad he has at last done the right thing even if it is so late in the game it may not actually make much difference. But the man does have a direct line to Foggy Bottom and/or Chappaqua – or so he claims – so here’s hoping he makes use of it.

Nonetheless, I do think it is worth asking why he did not do this long before last week and what it was that happened to change his mind? After all look at the groups and individuals in the U.S. who long ago put their names to this call: the AOH, the IAUC, the INC, the Brehon Law Society, a host of Senators and Congressmen, ranging from John Kerry to Frank Pallone and so many ordinary Irish-Americans it would be hard to count them. But not a peep from Mr O’Dowd.

It is not as if there were no good reasons to join the chorus to Hillary. Let’s have a look at just some of them:

♦This one may not rate very high on Niall’s list, but if the interviews get handed over and people end up in the dock, the life of interviewer Dr Anthony McIntyre and the safety of his wife and two small children will certainly be at risk if revenge is sought. Mr O’Dowd knows enough about the psyche of Irish Republicanism to know that this is a very real possibility;

♦The PSNI action may cripple oral history in America, Ireland and Britain for the foreseeable future;

♦The PSNI action is a real slap in the face to all those, not least in the United States, who worked to end the violence in Northern Ireland. By digging into pre-1998 events in an effort to get prosecutions, the PSNI is effectively resuming its war against the IRA, thereby shattering and betraying the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement;

♦The PSNI action reeks of double standards. Contrast this action with the complete lack of interest in pursuing the RUC Special Branch officers, British Army intelligence officers and MI5 agents who were complicit in the UDA killing of Pat Finucane; or the Special Branch officers who gave UVF leader Mark Haddock free license to murder and pillage in North Belfast for so long, or the British Army agents who allowed and encouraged informer Freddie Scappaticci to kill innocents so as to protect valuable IRA informers. And that’s just the tip of an iceberg of cover-up’s of British state criminality that neither the PSNI nor their Historical Enquiries Team show the slightest interest in pursuing;

Pat Finucane – his killing was arranged by British intelligence but no subpoenas for him!

♦The PSNI action is eloquent testimony to the continuing influence within Northern Ireland policing of the old RUC and especially the old RUC Special Branch who have seized on this case and, hiding behind the skirts of the unfortunate Jean McConville, have set out to wreak revenge against those they hold responsible for changing their world. The formation of the PSNI was supposed to herald a whole new era in policing in that troubled region. It wasn’t supposed to be the same old, same old…..;



  Mark Haddock – UVF killer given licence to kill by RUC Special Branch. But no subpoenas for his victims.

♦The PSNI/DoJ action is of enormous constitutional importance to citizens of the United States. Niall O’Dowd writes that efforts to bring the case to the Supreme Court “will almost certainly fail” because the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) which empowers these subpoenas gives the government the power to hand over material to foreign governments. (Incidentally he somehow has got it into his head that Boston College is part of the move to the Supreme Court when of course they have nothing to do with it) But he has got this wrong. What is nefarious about the MLAT is that it actually bestows on foreign governments more powers over American citizens in relation to subpoenas than could ever be exercised by federal agencies such as the FBI. As an intrusion into American constitutional rights, as a subject worthy of consideration by the Supreme Court it is up there with the best. This does not guarantee that it will get there but it is in with a shout.

♦Freddie Scappaticci – given free rein by British Army handlers to kill accused informers to protect real ones. No subpoenas for his victims.

♦And finally, as a newspaper publisher, Niall O’Dowd should be concerned about the vast intrusion into and erosion of First Amendment rights that will follow if this PSNI/DoJ action proves to be successful. One presumes that Niall O’Dowd values freedom of the press – he ought to – and if that assumption is well-based then he should have been one of the very first, not the last, to urge action by Hillary.

From the very start of this affair we have warned of two things: one, that the PSNI move against the BC interviews could seriously damage the peace process in Northern Ireland; the second is that the real and main target of this operation is Gerry Adams. The two are linked of course.

Either because he didn’t believe this or was so overcome by his hostility towards myself, Niall O’Dowd paid no heed to the warnings. Until last week that is, when Dolours Price went on the rampage in the columns of The Sunday Telegraph and the airwaves of CBS news. At that point he then seems to have realised that our warnings were real, that if the PSNI was successful then Gerry Adams could very well face a charge of conspiracy to murder and that in the backwash, the power-sharing Executive in Belfast would likely collapse with possibly dire consequences for the peace itself.

He and Gerry Adams are friends, or at least it sometimes looks that way, and it might be one friend’s concern for another that motivated this week’s Irish Voice editorial. But Niall O’Dowd has also created a small industry out of his own contribution to the Good Friday Agreement, often placing himself at the forefront of the Irish-Americans who acted as midwives to the peace process. Should the power sharing deal collapse then his place in history will disappear with it. Sometimes self-interest can be a great motivator.

Not for the first time, Niall O’Dowd cast aspersions on myself in the course of his editorial, suggesting that “deep hostility” to Sinn Fein on my part motivated the Belfast Project at Boston College which concentrated on interviewing “dissidents”.

Well the best answer I can give to this charge is to say that I am exactly the same journalist that I was in the late 1980’s when our paths first crossed. A brief history of the relationship between myself and Niall O’Dowd will help to fill out this explanation and account for the poison in our relationship.

Niall O’Dowd founded the Irish Voice in 1987. Not long afterwards it was suggested to him that he might hire myself as his Belfast correspondent. This he refused to do, on the grounds that I was regarded as being far too close to the IRA.

I presume he had been fed this line by his mates in the Department of Foreign Affairs then battling desperately to shore up the SDLP in its life or death electoral struggle with Sinn Fein. As the recent Northern Editor of The Irish Times, I had angered the DFA with my coverage of that battle, predicting correctly, for instance, that Sinn Fein would win seats at the SDLP’s expense in working class Nationalist areas due to their advantages in age, class, enthusiasm and drive. But sometimes truth-telling can get you into a heap of trouble.

I heard about all this in Belfast but paid no heed to it. Until a year or so later when we took our annual vacation in New York, picked up a copy of The Irish Voice and saw there articles I had written for The Sunday Tribune, then my employer. I made enquiries and discovered that this had been going on for some time. In fact every week for months, O’Dowd had lifted my articles in the Tribune and published them in the Irish Voice. I was never told about this, my permission was never sought and, needless to say, I was never paid.

Part of me was flattered by this. A year or so before I was poison but since then the quality of my coverage had turned him round. That felt good. On the other hand he didn’t have the gumption to admit he had made a mistake and put our relationship on a proper footing. And then there was the cheapness, the willingness to steal my journalism – it was worth using in his paper, it added to his product but he didn’t want to pay for it. So, I have to say I was tempted to take legal action against him, so outraged was I. But that could cost the paper money and jobs could be lost. So we made a deal. He would be able to use my pieces but he would pay me.

And so it went on until the peace process began to pick up speed. I approached that story in the same way I had all others, which was to dig as far as possible below the surface to discover what was really happening. And what a story it was! When an organisation like the IRA makes such a radical U-turn then it is rarely done in a straightforward way. Lies are told, tricks are played, extraordinary things happen and people get disappointed and disillusioned. But for a journalist like me it is all your dreams come true – great stories as far as the eye can see, a host of sources all with reason to talk. Sheer bliss! But the important point was that I had approached all my journalism, from Kincora, to Paisley, to the SDLP, to Billy Stobie, to everything I had covered in exactly the same spirit.

Alas Niall O’Dowd didn’t see it that way at all. Sometimes a journalist can dig too deep and the rows began, angry calls from New York about this or that article – presumably preceded by angry calls from Suffolk Road in West Belfast. Finally the break came. And the given reason? Well, I wasn’t writing original pieces for the Voice, just sending them articles that also appeared in the Sunday Tribune. That just wasn’t good enough complained Niall O’Dowd as he put the phone down.

And that was the end of my relationship with Niall O’Dowd and the beginning of what promises to be a lifelong enmity. Now, dear reader, you understand.

20 comments:

  1. Ed is this a case of Martybroy Millar,s boss of bosses putting the heavy on O Dowd,I get the feeling that Adams is starting to get nervous.as you say O Dowd and that clique claim to be well got in the right circles might this be a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons if you get my drift.

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  2. may be wrong but between mark haddok and scap. and SB.. was there a trend?

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  3. AM-
    saw you and Ed Moloney on TV on CNN last night here in America. Good and informative documentary. Though I have to say I got a good laugh that they used subtitles whenever you were talking as if you were speaking German.

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  4. This whole thing about turning over the tapes was stupid from the start. How can anyone win here Really? It would as outlined in the above article cause a lot more trouble than do any possible good. I dont know what the Supreme Court will decide. I dont have much faith in them lately but the right thing to do here is obvious. Leave the tapes alone and as promised released after everyone is long gone. Keep the history intact.

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  5. Very dangerous. The thought of allowing that lot even more power to influence the courts is chilling

    Campaigners step up fight against new secret trials

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  6. mackers

    not wanting to come across as the ultimate conspiracy freak, but it has occurred to me the CIA and Brits may already have accessed the tapes and now merely want them in the public domain for their own reasons. Boston College don't come across as very safe and secure to my mind. I'd be amazed if they haven't already been accessed.

    You've done as much as is humanely possible to do the right thing as far as I can see. You should take it easy when this thing finally runs its course.

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  7. Anthony.

    I got a shock when I read this.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19796835

    Former IRA man Anthony McIntyre loses Dolours Price case.

    Mr Justice Treacy said: "In light of the unequivocal response from the PSNI, supported by the threat assessment from the security authorities, I conclude that the applicant has failed to make out an arguable case that disclosure of the Boston College tapes would, as he claimed, materially increase the risk to his life or that of his family."

    But, as is stated, No mentionen of Mrs Jean Mc Connville in that specific interview, but that is not the point, The RUC never even attempted to investigate Jean Mc Connville's disappearence.

    It would be best for all those tapes to evaporate just like the watergate/Castlereagh gate docs did.

    You can rest assured I have the utmost respect for you and your family, also for Ed and his family, Just keep your head held high, and be proud off what you have achieved through those interviews.

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  8. Larry/Itsjustmacker,

    thanks. It was always going to be hard to get a result from the British judiciary on this.

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  9. Maybe I'm missing something, but is there some form of selective amnesia amongst many commentators on this site?
    Gerry Adams, [and his henchmen] throughout the course of the conflict sent young volunteers to their deaths for a so called 'noble cause' that neither he nor his band of acolytes had any intention of fulfilling.
    Ten hunger strikers,[and I mean TEN] were sacraficed using deception, subterfuge and political doublespeak. The Brits were never giving in. Remembering all of this in the context of the GFA, Adams and co. set about dismantling the very DNA of Republicanism in Ireland, in the interests of political expediency and personal gain.
    This deconstruction has led us to the place we are now. A copperfastened de-facto unionist state, where the worth of those who endured the ultimate sacrifice, is measured in the fading paint of a gable mural.
    These people colluded in the establishment of a political agenda that extends diplock courts, internment and hungerstrikes.
    Should it be any surprise that true Republicans will lose no sleep if Adams and his cronies fall on their own sword.
    They did'nt read the Frankenstein novel to the end.

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  10. Truthrevisionist Adams will never fall on his own sword a cara ,he never had one.but I get your point.

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  11. AM-

    No matter what was said or wrote no
    dissident group should make a threat against you- its to late to argue now if the boston tapes were a good or bad idea-they were done and barring some miricle all will be handed over to the p.s.n.i at some stage- I honestly cant see anything new in the Dolours price tapes as she has been telling her life story to the papers and to CBS news yesterday-didn't she look well- its the others who have not been made public yet who might worry how this is going to work out- publish and be damned,its alright to say this at the start-but it could be comming towards the end of this Project soon-

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  12. Michaelhenry,

    thanks for your comments. The only people to issue actual threats to date have been people associated with SF. Then there was the labelling of people associated with the project as informers, ironically by someone who was a colleague of Scap and who we have long suspected of being an agent of influence.

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  13. mackers

    'a colleague of Scap and who we have long suspected of being an agent of influence'.

    At this stage that's basically the entire SF outfit.

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  14. michlehenry.

    barring some miricle all will be handed over to the p.s.n.i at some stage.

    ?.

    You seem well informed, considering your whole top echelon ARE AGENTS.

    Anthony.

    You have hit the Nail on the head, Its about time all this came to the fore, Scaps mucker has evaded for far to long, being protected by the British, I have a name for them all, "Referee's" , "Whistle Blowers" the lot of them are protecting each other with the help of RUC special Branch ,(RETIRED), but brought back into service to open up old wounds which hurt no one but themselves and they want revenge, so i will say to SF, you have Fucked yourselves good and proper, those old ex bastards will do anything to bring you all down, and, MI5 wont get a say in the matter, they just leak stories to the right people and that's the end of PEACE.

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  16. A Direct Line To Foggy Bottom

    Ryan,

    Henry Rollins once subtitled me as well!!

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