Des O’Malley is out with a defence of his and Jack Lynch’s legacy regarding the arms crisis today in the Sunday Independent. Some thoughts;

He has misrepresented the allegation. The arms were for the citizens defence committees NOT the IRA. The operation was conceived before IRA split into provisional and official camps. The CDC’s contained moderate nationalists many of whom went onto become SDLP members.

He has also described it as ‘illegal gun running’. But the point is that if it was authorised by Lynch and Gibbons then it was not illegal, it was a legitimate covert state operation. It’s legality or otherwise was never established in a court.

The men who subsequently opposed importation of arms were men of ‘caliber’ therefore it is inconceivable that they would be party to such a thing. Ergo, the inference is the men who supported it were not men of caliber.

Senior civil servants involved loyalty to the state and adherence to the law was unquestionable. Why then was crucial evidence withheld from the defence side in the trial, subsequent documents shown to have been crucially doctored?

Wha was the role of Colonel Delaney and Commandant O’Sullivan who supposedly held an opinion that Captain Kelly had ‘gone rogue’? Why did his actual commander at the time, the Director of Intelligence Colonel Heffernon, support Capt Kelly position that he was acting lawfully?

Colonel Heffernon stated that he was being pressurized to commit perjury and refused to do so resulting in collapse of the trial. He was ostracized, had his career ruined, and didn’t become Chief of Staff. A high price to pay.

Des O’Malley asks why other ministers didn’t know about it. A highly sensitive covert military operation should not be discussed by 20 odd people at cabinet in any country. That’s how leaks happen, operations get compromised, and people die. It has to be tightly controlled.

He’s right to ask about involvement of Jock Haughey and Irish America. That shouldn’t have been necessary and it’s not clear why this happened but possible theories are that those involved didn’t trust security of state agencies and personalities so took it outside their control.

There is a large and growing body of evidence to support the view that it was a legitimate operation that was unwound as part of an internal political power struggle. There is a shrinking body of evidence that it was hardline ministers and a rogue Captain setting up the Provos.

Slightly ominously, he states that he has had visibility of internal files in the department of justice and they have been ‘heavily pruned’ in this area. He rather loosely blames Haughey and Seán Doherty but provides no evidence of when it happened or why.

He is correct however in pointing out the inconsistencies in Seán MacStiofáin as a rogue Garda agent that sprung the info to them about the arms import that triggered the arms crisis. This is illogical considering that he supposedly wanted arms in the country to launch his war.

It will be interesting to see what new evidence is cited by the author in this regard. MacStiofáin more generally needs further scrutiny, in particular his peculiar past. But the focus on dynamics of internal political rivalries takes it off other aspects - external to the state.