Bill Fulbright sighed.
“The New York Times isn’t the only paper running the story. By noon the House of Representatives is going to be like a wasp’s nest somebody just hit with a baseball bat, Oliver.”
Chapter 13
It was horribly quiet in the Taoiseach’s office. The quietness was of that indefinably threatening, dangerous kind which easily provoked unthinking words spoken in haste which were later bitterly regretted.
A less seasoned diplomat than Sir Ian MacLennan, since 1959 the British Ambassador to Eire, the Republic of Ireland, that still young nation made up of twenty-six of the partitioned thirty-two counties of Ireland, might have spoken ill-advisedly, without mulling the consequences of his meanings. Even with over three decades of hard-won experience in the diplomatic service, he was sorely tempted to speak his mind. However, that was not why Her Majesty’s Government had, in its wisdom, sent him to Dublin.
The three Irishmen in the room waited.
The Taoiseach, Sean Lemass drew a tiny quantum of comfort from the greying, elegantly attired and poised Englishman’s poker-faced initial reaction to what he had just learned.
Frank Aiken, the Minister for External Affairs, breathed angry, vaguely disconsolate snorts of air as he teetered at the edge of the precipice and glimpsed the dark nothingness below him.
Lieutenant General John McKeown, the Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces, whose total uniformed manpower — including reservists he could not afford to call up without bankrupting his country — numbered significantly less than half the boots on the ground that the British currently had stationed just in Ulster, was less angry than his political masters, for he knew that if it came to war his forces, outnumbered on land and incapable of inconveniencing the might of British arms in the air or at sea, would have no alternative but to lay down their weapons and surrender or be obliterated within days. A soldier’s lot was simpler than that of a politician because the realities of a given situation were invariable stark, and the scope for manuever limited or non-existent.
Sir Ian MacLennan had heard what he had heard; now he was trying to read the mood of the other three men in the room. It would be this latter judgement rather than the communication of the facts that had just been laid before him which would determine the advice that he would, sometime in the next hour, pass on to his old friend the Foreign Secretary, Sir Thomas Harding-Grayson in Oxford.
His own thoughts were racing; that was bad.
Think of something else, man!
He had lost count of the number of times he had visited Leinster House. The building, its name in Irish ‘Tigh Laighean; had been the home of the Oireachtas, the Parliament of Ireland since 1922. A great white-washed lump of a Georgian building in keeping with much of the architecture of nineteenth century Dublin, it had been the seat of the Dukes of Leinster, the descendents of the Norman Fitzgeralds who first came to Ireland in 1169 and later became the Earls of Kildare. The history of Ireland had trampled through the corridors of this great building in the heart of Dublin…
Sir Ian MacLennan collected his wits.
“Gentlemen,” he sighed, “you will appreciate that it is in all our best interests that I understand exactly what you are telling me and exactly what your motives are in telling me it. Frankly, I think that we have just stepped beyond the realm of what is, and is not, diplomatic. If we in this room cannot speak openly to each other about this matter, honestly and truly, I fear for what may transpire.”
Sean Lemass and Frank Aiken looked to John McKeown.
The soldier was grim.
“It is the understanding of the Irish Government that sometime in the last three weeks a consignment of four experimental prototype General Dynamics Redeye shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles was brought into the country from the USA. One of these missiles was discovered in a semi-dismantled condition along with a full-functioning M171 missile launcher; the other three weapons are unaccounted for at this time. In the last forty-eight hours definitive information has emerged that these weapons are in the hands of an IRA active service unit known to be planning ‘actions’ against ‘high prestige’ civilian and military targets on ‘the Mainland’.”
Sir Ian MacLennan took a deep breath.
“Have you spoken to my colleague the American Ambassador about how these weapons came to be mislaid?” He asked of Frank Aiken.
“The Ambassador refused to comment on the specifics of the case,” he retorted irritably. “He also refused to discuss the specifications of the missing ‘Redeyes’. Apparently those details are classified!”
John McKeown cleared his throat.
“However, after making inquiries via ‘back channels’ I have established that the original US Army requirement for an infantry surface-to-air missile system was drawn up as long ago as 1948, Ambassador,” he explained. “The contract for the missiles that we are talking about — with an infrared homing guidance system — was given to Convair in 1959 and the first test launches were conducted in 1960. Shoulder-launch tests began in 1961 but technical problems had stalled the project around the time of the October War. The missiles smuggled into this country are from the first small-scale production run in the second half of last year and are designated as Mark XM41 Redeye Block I models. All the missiles so far produced were intended as trial, evaluation and practice rounds. The missile we recovered bore US Army certification and testing tags and stencilled serials, therefore, it must at some time have been accepted by, and stored in a US Army armoury prior to its shipping overseas.”
The British Ambassador was interested in this fact but he was not convinced it was the important thing.
“Forgive me, I am not a military man, General,” he remarked, his tone relaxed and non-confrontational despite his roiling emotions. “The provenance of the rockets is academic. If the IRA ever succeeds in getting one of these infernal devices onto United Kingdom soil I need to know how dangerous they are?”
“That I don’t know, sir.”
“Why not?”
“The Redeye system has not been accepted for frontline deployment by the US Army. My understanding is that it was about to begin a two year pre-acceptance testing period.”
“Could it shoot down a V-Bomber or a civilian jetliner, General?”
“Theoretically, yes, sir.”
“And you think the IRA may have smuggled three of these rockets into England?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how long have you gentlemen known this?” Sir Ian MacLennan inquired urbanely, as if the answer to his question was of no consequence whatsoever when in reality it was the difference between ongoing peaceful co-existence — insofar as that was possible given the troubles in Ulster — or at best, a retaliation that was unlikely to be of the minimalistic variety, or at worst, outright war.
“Several hours, Sir Ian,” Sean Lemass said. “We believe that the weapons are in the hands of an IRA man called Seamus McCormick. Your authorities in England, Special Branch and I daresay, MI5, will know him as Stephen Michael McCormick. He was born in Scotland in 1934 and applied to stay in the British Army at the end of his period of National Service in 1954. He deserted while stationed in Derry in October 1961. He had married a local girl from Dungannon when things were much calmer in the north. Her people were Catholics, like McCormick. One afternoon she was returning home with several other women when a gang of boys and young men started throwing stones at them. McCormick’s wife, Siobhan, was struck by a stone, actually it was a half-brick, and in falling fractured her skull. She never regained consciousness. She was twenty-four at the time of her death and expecting her first child. It seems that McCormick had previously joined the British Army to get away from the sectarian strife of Glasgow where he had grown up.”