Decoding the IRA (43 page)

To maintain secrecy, the IRA was very cautious in making any references to the Soviets. Aside from two documents from the autumn of 1925, any significant information that James Gillogly and I have discovered has been in cipher. There are some references, which are not in cipher, but it would be impossible to deduce their meaning without already being familiar with the encrypted text. It's also possible that information could have been written in secret ink and no longer available. Even within the coded documents the IRA tended to be indirect and cryptic. For instance there was only one direct mention of ‘Moscow' and agents were virtually always referred to by their pseudonyms. The IRA agent in America, ‘Mr Jones', cautioned Twomey:
‘I am [of] the opinion that you should not write any despatches relative to ‘Stephen' [the Soviet intelligence officer in the US] on official paper even in cipher.'
³³

The IRA agents in London and America performed a range of services for the Russians and with differing degrees of success.

The IRA–Soviet connection in London

In London the IRA supplied the Soviets with information on military technology and with false passports for spies. They also collected money from the Soviets for the work done in both Britain and America. The quality and quantity of information supplied by the IRA in Britain failed to match that obtained in the US.

The principal agents in London were the IRA OC. Britain and his Red Army intelligence (RU) contact ‘James'. For the first part of 1926 the OC. Britain can only be identified by the last letter of his initials, ‘M'. In September 1926 ‘M' was replaced by George (also known as ‘HS'). ‘James' was the RU officer in contact with the IRA in London, and he may have been the same person as ‘Mr X' whose cryptonym was no longer mentioned after 1925. Also involved with the London connection was Seán MacBride (or ‘Mr Ambrose'), who at the time lived in Paris.

George's information was acquired by various methods and through a wide range of contacts: visits to the Patent Office, purchases of items (often from shady sources), journal subscriptions under false names, the existing IRA network in Britain, informants in factories supplying military equipment and a small number of informants in the military or police.

In the latter part of 1925 the OC. Britain supplied the Soviets with information on ships, drawings of a specified airplane engine, a sample of a gas mask, and drawings of airplane navigational equipment that had been obtained from the Patent Office. Later George wrote to Twomey asking him to send on specifications of aircraft engines manufactured at the Beardmore engineering company in Glasgow, where the IRA had an informant. He was particularly interested in two powerful engines suitable for air force bombers, the Typhoon and the 1,100 horsepower Simoon:
‘They [Beardmores] make the best aero engine on the market. Could you get me particulars about their Typhoon one, also their Simoon one? All information should be reliable.'
³⁴
Twomey even contacted the IRA in Cork and asked them the feasibility of getting
‘working drawings of [the] latest designs of tractors out of Fords [car factory]'
.
³⁵

At the time the royal navy had the most advanced sonar system (called ASDIC) for detecting submarines and information about this would have been invaluable to the Russians. In the autumn of 1926 Seán MacBride
travelled from Paris to London, where he met with both George and Moss Twomey. MacBride asked George for
‘particulars of [a] submarine detector [system]'
³⁶
and received back ‘a brief specification and a complete drawing'.
³⁷

‘James' also handed over £200 to George for a piece of telecommunications equipment or wireless (referred to as the ‘phone'). However, George's middleman, Fitzgerald, took the money and reneged on the deal, leaving ‘James' out of pocket.
³⁸

George spent considerable time and effort buying military manuals, books and journals for both ‘James' and the IRA's own use, among them
The Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies
.
³⁹

The IRA was able to help out the Soviets with false passports, and in March 1927, when a communist agent Kate Gussfeldt was arrested with a passport in a false name, the British secret service, MI5, traced it back to the IRA.
⁴⁰
In April 1927, when the Russians planned to send an agent, ‘John' on undercover work to Romania, ‘James' approached George for help. George wrote to Twomey:
‘J [James] told me that “John” is going to Roumania [
sic
] and J would like if you could make him a representative of some woollen mills for that part of the world, if this is possible. Send papers etc. to my covering address and send [textile] samples to [the] address I gave you when [you were] here. He will need everything a representative of a firm is supposed to have
… I would be very glad if you would give it your immediate attention as it's extremely urgent.' George typed the name and the address of the false business on a piece of paper and handed it to an IRA volunteer ‘Reynolds' to bring to Twomey.
⁴¹
But ‘Reynolds' then re-wrote the name in pencil and brought this note with him. When he arrived in Dublin, neither he nor Twomey could read the name.
⁴²
In the meantime, George, ‘thinking ye [Twomey] had the matter on hand', destroyed his own copy of the name and address, and so five weeks later the IRA still hadn't helped

James out.
⁴³

Then there's the strange case of E. Donnelly, a military police officer who was convicted by court martial for stealing secret codebooks. MI5 intercepted a letter addressed to him in prison, which was purported to be from ‘Dr Gately', the same name the IRA had forged as a referee
on the passport application for Kate Gussfeldt.
⁴⁴
In April 1927 Twomey wrote to George:
‘Donnelly has got two years' hard labour. [He] was tried by court martial. Can you get [the] evidence against him and how he was caught?'
⁴⁵
George replied: ‘I had a letter from him after his arrest saying he was suspected of knowing something about things that were missing. I think myself that he must have been caught in the act.'
⁴⁶
These oblique comments paint a picture of an IRA agent caught stealing secret code or cipher books, which were to be passed on to the Soviets.

On one occasion ‘James' offered to write for the IRA journal,
An tÓglach
:
‘James and his friend, who have had great experience in street fighting and guerrilla tactics could be got to write for our paper.'
⁴⁷
Twomey realised the potential instructional value of these articles:
‘Independent of printing James' articles in
An tOglach
, we would like to get them. [We] would print some of them.'
⁴⁸

Russian money

The primary reason the IRA worked for the Russians was for the money that was handed over in London and later in Amsterdam. Twomey estimated that it cost about £400 per month to maintain the IRA, with additional money required for any significant operation.
⁴⁹
The two main sources of income were Clan na Gael and the Soviets. Support from the Clan was steadily decreasing and Twomey summed up the situation:
‘Were it not we are in such desperate need of cash and that [the] assistance from Clan [na Gael] is so very disappointing, I would not be so keen on this business [the agreement with the Soviets]. To me the maintenance of this [connection] … appears indispensable to our carrying on the Army here.'
⁵⁰
Later he wrote that the IRA ‘could not carry on' without Soviet financing.
⁵¹

Of even greater value than money to the IRA would have been Soviet-supplied weaponry. ‘Stephen' promised ‘Jones' that the Soviets
‘would give us all the material [weapons] we would need'
. ‘Jones' didn't believe ‘Stephen' and he told Twomey to
‘test them'
on this promise.
⁵²
Twomey pushed ‘Jones' to
‘ask “Stephen” to be more explicit as to [the] offer of material. Where will he give delivery and … what facilities will he give to get it into Ireland?'
⁵³
It's probable that Stephen's promise was unauthorised
and merely given so as to encourage ‘Jones' to continue to supply him with intelligence. On another occasion ‘James' obliquely hinted that ‘when our work together comes off better we can help you more and in different ways.'
⁵⁴
Despite these statements the Soviets likely had no intention of ever providing the IRA with weapons, short of war breaking out between them and Britain.

Initially the Soviets agreed to pay over a monthly stipend but they decreased the amount on a number of occasions and sometimes paid nothing for months. Ultimately they were manoeuvring to pay only the IRA's expenses for acquiring the information and equipment. It seems likely that this was a deliberate Russian ploy, but there was also a financial crisis in Russia, caused by a combination of internal economic woes and the expenditure of large amounts of money on foreign adventures, particularly support for the Chinese nationalists and their communist allies.

One way to generate money is to print it and this the Russians did. In October 1926, Seán MacBride reported from Paris:
‘Several bad £50 Bank of England notes have been passed here lately. These are said to emanate from Russia.'
⁵⁵
Later in 1929 the Soviets are known to have printed counterfeit American $100 bills.
⁵⁶

Other than to say that Soviet cash was crucial to the IRA, it is hard to know exactly how much was handed over. The amount of money provided was continually changing. In January 1926 the OC. Britain received £200 from ‘James'.
⁵⁷
Later in the summer ‘James' complained bitterly about the work the IRA was doing in London: ‘The expected progress has not been fulfilled', the IRA had not sent over sufficient men to do the required work, had not provided information the Soviets wanted about Ireland and little material had been purchased and even that was slow in coming. At this time the stipend was temporarily cut in half (due to
‘the economic crisis in our country'
), leaving £250 for the IRA.
⁵⁸
This suggests that the full stipend was £500 monthly, and is supported by George's communication in November 1926 stating that he was owed £1,000 for October and November, of which ‘James' had paid £350. However, at the same time the Russians also announced that henceforth the amount was being reduced to £100.
⁵⁹

This threw the IRA into a financial crisis, and with Twomey temporarily
imprisoned in Mountjoy, George requested Andy Cooney:
‘Come or send someone over to deal with the matter immediately.'
⁶⁰
Cooney met with ‘James' on 26 November and ‘James' said that
‘he was very anxious that we should continue to work for them, but [he] could not give any money, outside of minor expenses'
. Cooney replied that the relationship was terminated and ‘James' agreed to write to Moscow
‘for further instructions'
. Cooney was furious with the Russians:
‘They let us down at a most critical time [their London] agent failed to carry out a definite agreement made with [the] late CS [Frank Aiken].'
⁶¹
In Cooney's opinion:
‘He [‘James'] may be replaced by another man, a thing we should encourage.'
⁶²
But despite Cooney's attitude the IRA continued to gather material for the Russians.

In America ‘Mr Jones' asked ‘Stephen' what the situation was from his perspective. ‘Stephen' responded that he was
‘very enthusiastic re. [regarding] our relations. He said that his people were very doubtful when the thing first started, but now they decided that they were very pleased, not only to work with us, but that they would like to consolidate relations. That they further decided that they would also give us all the material [weapons] we needed, also the financial end of it would be satisfactory to us.'
⁶³

By February 1927 the agreement was in a state of limbo, and aside from £150 that ‘James' had handed over the previous December, the IRA had not received
‘a penny of [the] monthly amount guaranteed'
.
⁶⁴
Twomey added:
‘[It's] difficult to understand these people, [with] ‘Stephen' desiring to continue and [the] London man [wanting] to break off, if [they're] working under [the] same superior direction. It may be [that] they do not consider [the] London business very important, or [that it] justifies [their] expenditure. If it is finally decided to discontinue [the] London end, we can probably make a special arrangement about America. We will not continue or incur risks for nothing.'
⁶⁵

Meanwhile, the Irish trade unionist and socialist leader, Jim Larkin went to Moscow in November 1926 to attend a meeting called by the Comintern to inquire into why an Irish Communist Party hadn't been founded to replace that dissolved in 1924.
⁶⁶
Twomey mistook the visit as evidence of Larkin's continued influence in Moscow, and suspected that
this was an explanation for the withdrawal of Soviet support:
‘We have evidence that recently certain so called extremist and revolutionary labour groups in Ireland have cut across us … we would endeavour to squelch these people. We could prove they are not national[ist] and are really counter-revolutionary.'
⁶⁷
Twomey added:
‘Larkin is not a revolutionary [figure] now, except in speech, and outside of [a] section in Dublin, has no influence whatever.'
Desperate to find a culprit, Twomey even added Fianna Fáil to the mix:
‘We have strong suspicion Fianna Fáil have made touch also lately, and both this party and Larkin have cut us out.'
⁶⁸
Blaming Fianna Fáil was not as bizarre as it now seems. At the time there were a number of left-wing members of Fianna Fáil, including P. J. Rutledge, the vice-president, who supported land reform in Ireland. Furthermore, in the subsequent September 1927 general election Larkin called on voters to support Fianna Fáil,
⁶⁹
while in 1928 de Valera visited the League Against Imperialism's Berlin office.
⁷⁰