The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Mr Brian Faulkner, was a "short-term thinker" who understood the demands of extremists but did not have the leadership qualities to implement genuine reform, according to British sources in 1971.
In a highly critical report compiled by the British representative to Belfast, Mr Harold Smith, about Faulkner's leadership, he told the British Home Secretary, Mr Reginald Maudling, that the prime minister talked too much about security matters and not enough about equality.
The report, sent to Maudling on June 10th, 1971, stated that when Faulkner was appointed after Maj James Chichester-Clark's resignation, Catholics believed his unionist background would make it difficult for him to understand their feelings of injustice and inequality, while unionists feared his ambition for reform might "betray their interests."
Smith noted that reform would be worthless if Faulkner failed to demonstrate he was not simply a "captive leader of a unionist party permanently in power" in Northern Ireland. He continued: "His concentration on security issues leads one to the suspicion that he does not well understand that if there is a solution to the problems of Northern Ireland it is, at bottom, not a military one . . . it begins to look as if he lacks that authority, combined with a hint of malice, which a leader needs.
"It suggests he is not the tough man we had hoped to see. The main political pressure which he feels is the threat to his position from the extremists and Mr Paisley (the DUP leader)." In September 1971 the British Central Policy Review staff prepared a memo on Northern Ireland policy stating that the army was increasingly aware that it could not restore effective security without a new policy deal.
A moderate unionist group could not win the 1973 election, the memo noted. "The future prospect is therefore very black", and direct rule would become inevitable in 1973 because London could not accept a Craig-Paisley government.
Earlier, in March 1971, a British official in Northern Ireland suggested the recruitment of 650 members of the UDR for Border patrols and guard duty in rural areas.
However, responding to the March 16th note, the British Defence Secretary, Lord Carrington, indicated that a two-tier UDR was unnecessary and unacceptable. He acknowledged that a large number of the disbanded B Specials were decent people who did not deserve the unsavoury reputation attached to the force and that was why many of them had been accepted into the UDR. Lord Carrington suggested the "bogeyman" image of the B Specials was at times overstated.