Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy (10 page)

Niall McCarthy tried to dismiss the damaging evidence given by Gibbons by contending that the Minister for Defence was posturing as having been opposed to importing the arms even though he never so much as suggested to Capt. Kelly the whole thing should be called off. ‘I think,' he continued, ‘it is hard to find anywhere – and I mean anywhere – in the evidence of Mr Gibbons anything convincing in his action and in his deeds consistent with what he now says was his view of what was happening at the time.'

‘But, Gentlemen,' Charlie's counsel said to the jury, ‘if Mr Gibbons' attitude to what was happening was as he now declares it to be, surely he would there and then have said, “Capt. Kelly, you cannot go on with this – this must stop”.' But Gibbons did nothing. He left the captain go out of his office without a reprimand, a rebuke or a warning.

Delivering his summation to the jury, the prosecutor challenged Charlie's testimony. ‘For the purpose of establishing the case made by Mr Haughey in his defence, it is necessary,' he said, ‘to disbelieve the evidence of four other witnesses: Capt. Kelly, Mr Fagan, Mr Berry, and Mr Gibbons.' He then outlined some of the discrepancies.

Capt. Kelly had testified that he told Charlie of the nature of the consignment. Moreover, there was ‘one piece of evidence which is crucial to the case, crucial in the sense that a verdict in favour of Mr Haughey cannot be reconciled with this piece of evidence,' the prosecutor continued. ‘Mr Berry said that Mr Haughey said on the telephone, could the consignment be let through if a guarantee was given that it would go direct to the north?'

‘Gentlemen,' the prosecutor added, ‘if it was just Mr Haughey and just Mr Berry, or just Mr Haughey and just Mr Fagan, or just Mr Haughey and just Mr Gibbons, or just Mr Haughey and just Capt. Kelly, nobody could quarrel with the decision that you are not prepared to reject Mr Haughey's account. But I think you have to consider the cumulative effect of the evidence: is he right, and all they wrong? Because you, gentlemen, have got to hold that they are all wrong.'

During an RTÉ interview with Vincent Browne in 1998, Kevin Boland confirmed a story that he had told Browne eighteen years earlier, that he had actually discussed the arms issue with Haughey before the crisis erupted, so there was no doubt he knew that arms were involved. Thus, Haughey was clearly lying when he testified about not knowing about the guns. ‘When he denied that he was involved in it,' Boland stated, ‘he was not telling the truth.'

In his charge to the jury on the final day of the trial, 23 October 1970, the judge spent some time on the conflict between Charlie's testimony and that of Berry and Gibbons. In each instance, he contended, one of them committed perjury.

In one sense, Gibbons' testimony seemed particularly credible because so much of it was against himself. ‘Poor Mr Gibbons was the anti-star of the trial,' reported Sir John Peck, the British ambassador to Ireland. ‘From his evidence it is hard to avoid drawing a number of inferences, all unflattering. He seems to have been foolish to the point of idiocy.'

Gibbons, who had earlier denied in the Dáil that he was even aware of the gun-running plans, told a different story at the trial. When he was challenged about this discrepancy, he essentially admitted that he had lied to the Dáil by lamely stating that he was not under oath there. The judge suggested that the jurors would have to decide themselves whether the denials in the Dáil showed ‘Mr Gibbons to be a man given to half-truths and lies, and whether, as a result you should treat him as being discredited as a witness.'

Generally, however, the evidence that a witness gives against himself is considered most effective. Haughey's self-serving evidence conflicted with evidence that Gibbons, Capt. Kelly and Anthony Fagan had given against themselves, so there was little doubt in the minds of many people about who had told the truth.

‘Either Mr Gibbons concocted this and has come to court and perjured himself, or it happened,' the judge said. ‘There does not seem to me to be any way of avoiding a total conflict on this issue between Mr Haughey and Mr Gibbons.' The discrepancies were so great that he did not think they could be attributed to a simple memory failing of one of the participants. ‘I would like to be able to suggest some way you can avoid holding there is perjury in this case,' Henchy continued. ‘You have a solemn and serious responsibility to decide in this case, firstly, whether Mr Gibbons' conversation took place or not, and, secondly, whether Mr Berry's conversation took place or not. I shall not give any opinion on these crucial matters because, were I to do so, I might be thought to be constituting myself the jury.'

As far as the conspiracy charge went, however, all this would be important only if Capt. Kelly was found guilty. If Charlie's testimony was believed he could be found not guilty while all the others could be convicted. Thus the crucial issue was whether Gibbons had authorised the importation. If he had, then the operation was legal. Henchy told the jury that they could conclude that when the Minister for Defence was informed about the planned importation and ‘did not say No, in categorical terms, Capt. Kelly was entitled to presume that Mr Gibbons was saying Yes. That is a view that is open to you.'

‘Did the accused come to an agreement to import arms and ammunition into the state without the authority of the Minister for Defence?' was the main question that the jury had to answer, according to one of the jurors. They found the answer simple. ‘It was a completely unanimous verdict,' he explained. ‘It didn't take an awful lot of time actually.'

Another juror explained that he had concluded that ‘the cabinet had decided to get these arms in and get them up to the north, and at some stage they changed their mind, or some of them changed their minds. For me, it was a big charade from the beginning.'

The verdict was a foregone conclusion. The Taoiseach had conveniently gone to New York for a meeting of the United Nations. Everyone who attended the final session of the trial had clearly ‘come to cheer the inevitable result', Kevin Boland wrote.

It took the jury less than a hour to reach a verdict. ‘Not Guilty' on all counts.

The court immediately erupted into a wild scene of cheering and shaking hands. Outside in the foyer Charlie's supporters were ecstatic.

‘We want Charlie,' they shouted. ‘Lynch must go.'

‘I was never in any doubt that it was a political trial,' Charlie declared at a press conference immediately afterwards. ‘I think those who were responsible for this debacle have no alternative but to take the honourable course that is open to them.'

‘What is that?'

‘I think that is pretty evident,' he replied. ‘There is some dissatisfaction with the Taoiseach at the moment.'

When asked if he would be a candidate for Taoiseach himself, he said he was ‘not ruling out anything'.

His remarks were unanimously interpreted as a challenge to the Taoiseach. But Lynch was confident of coping with any challenge to his leadership.

‘If the issue is raised,' he told newsmen in New York, ‘I look forward to the outcome with confidence.'

Lynch's supporters were ready for a showdown. As a test of strength they called on all members of the parliamentary party to show their loyalty to the Taoiseach by going to Dublin airport to welcome him home from the United States. ‘Everyone had to be there unless he or she had a doctor's cert', according to Boland. As a result an overwhelming majority turned out, and Charlie's challenge promptly evaporated.

There was little doubt that Haughey lied about his knowledge of the whole affair, but then so did Lynch. One of the jurors later raised serious questions about Lynch's relationship with Gibbons. ‘Either Jack Lynch wasn't aware of what went on in the Four Courts, or he ignored what went on in the Four Courts,' the juror argued. There is no doubt that Lynch did follow the trial.

The British ambassador reported, for instance, that Lynch ‘told me privately that he was furious with Mr Gibbons for his performance as a witness, and that he seems to be getting into an impossible position. I thought it very likely that his resignation would be ready to be put in the Taoiseach's hand when he returned.'

Lynch refused to reinstate Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney to cabinet, even though they had been cleared in court. He justified this on the grounds that they knew of the plans to import the arms but had not informed him. Gibbons admitted in court that he also knew of the plans, so why did Lynch retain him?

Surely, it was because Gibbons had actually informed the Taoiseach about the plans. In late 1969, Gibbons told Hefferon that Lynch had been asking questions about Capt. Kelly's activities as a result of a warning from Peter Berry. Gibbons later stated that he ‘did pass on information to the Taoiseach at that time in 1969 that there was questionable activities on the part of certain members of the government making contract with people they should not make contact with, certainly without the sanction of the government and the Taoiseach.'

Yet nobody questioned Lynch, or pressed people like Gibbons, Moran, or Berry to say what they told the Taoiseach. It was like investigating Watergate without ever asking what Richard Nixon knew.

Had Haughey not testified, he could later have explained his behaviour on the grounds of trying to help the people of the north. But with the benefit of more than a quarter of a century of hindsight, there are no medals for realising that it was a crazy scheme. The arms consignment consisted of more than 330 machine guns of various types and 200 grenades, Those would not normally be considered defensive weapons.

‘The giving of arms to untrained people is a most serious matter,' Hefferon successor, Col Patrick Delaney warned Gibbons on 22 April 1970. ‘John Hume expressed the view that such action would be “suicide”.'

Haughey had never shown any real sympathy for the IRA, so why was he prepared to supply weapons? The most likely explanation was that it was part of the ongoing power struggle within Fianna Fáil. Charlie had sympathy for the plight of the Nationalist people, but his prime motivation in becoming involved in the whole affair was to ensure that Neil Blaney did not gain unchallenged control of the green wing of the party.

Although Charlie was acquitted by the jury, he still had some questions to answer. During the trial it came out that the controversial arms shipment was purchased with public money and the Dáil decided that the committee of public accounts should investigate the whole affair in order to determine whether money allocated for relief of distress in the north had been misappropriated.

Legislation was passed setting up a select twelve-man committee to investigate. It was given power to subpoena witnesses to testify under oath. Members of the committee included Ray MacSharry, Jim Tunney, Ben Briscoe and Sylvester Barrett of Fianna Fáil, Garret FitzGerald, Dick Burke and Eddie Collins of Fine Gael, as well as Justin Keating and Seán Tracy of the Labour party.

Most of the witnesses at the Arms Trial were called and the hearings inevitably covered much of the same grounds. Some witnesses were actually cross-examined on testimony given at the trial. As court rules did not apply during the committee hearings, witnesses were able to give hearsay testimony that would have been inadmissible in court.

Chief Superintendent John P. Fleming of the special branch admitted at the outset that all his pertinent information was second-hand ‘from confidential sources' whom he was not at liberty to name. He made some sensational disclosures.

‘I know,' Fleming declared at one point, ‘that Mr Haughey had a meeting with one of the leading members of the IRA' and promised him £50,000.

‘For what purpose?' the committee chairman asked.

‘For the IRA, for the north.'

When asked for further details of the alleged meeting, however, he said he was ‘not sure of the date or the place'. All he could say was it took place somewhere in Dublin in either August or September 1969. He was then asked if he thought Charlie had any more meetings.

‘I am not sure,' the chief superintendent replied. ‘I know his brother, Pádraig was deeply involved.'

A striking feature of Fleming's evidence was how much the security people knew about Pádraig Haughey's activities. This was not material gathered in hindsight. Capt. James Kelly related details of his own involvement later in his book
Thimble Riggers,
which suggested that even at the time there were grounds for suspecting that they were under intense security surveillance.During November John Kelly learned that arms were available in London, and he went there in an attempt to purchase them. ‘John, accompanied by a Dublin man, Paddy, headed for London,' Capt. Kelly recalled. ‘John briefed me on what was afoot on the night before their departure.' The Paddy referred to was Pádraig (Jock) Haughey, younger brother of Charles J. Haughey, the Minister for Finance.The two men were kept under surveillance by British intelligence. They were photographed coming out of Oxford Street tube station. Kelly noticed a man standing on his tip toes at a bus stop looking at them with a radio to his ear. Further down the street he noticed a woman take a radio from her handbag after they passed her. This was before the era of mobile phones. They met Capt. Peter J. Markham-Randall, a small swarthy man with a goatee. He said that he was half-Arab and had served in the British army. Many Irishmen had served in the British army over the years, he noted, and they remained just as Irish. In the same way he had strong Arab sympathies.

John Kelly was deeply suspicious. They had already made arrangements with the bank in Dublin to arrange to cash a cheque drawn on the account of George Dixon at a bank in Piccadilly next day, but they had obviously become so spooked that they flew back to Dublin separately instead.