UDA threat
Eamon Phoenix
The British Secretary of State for the North indicated in December 1972 "he had never equated the UDA with the IRA in the viciousness of their activities".
Documents just released show Mr William Whitelaw outlined his views to an Orange delegation at Stormont.
Security, power-sharing and the proposed Council of Ireland dominated the meeting between Whitelaw and a Grand Orange Lodge delegation which included Rev Martin Smyth, Mr James Molyneux, MP, and Sir George Clark. The delegation complained at the failure of the British Prime Minister, Mr Heath, to meet them during his recent visit to Northern Ireland.
Turning to security, the Secretary of State said he was gravely disturbed by a recent development which could inhibit successes against the Provisional IRA. The recent spate of sectarian murders meant "support for the IRA would be encouraged in some areas and there would be renewed demands for more troops to be diverted from hard Roman Catholic areas to other areas, with the consequent risk of a resurgence of IRA activities".
Mr Whitelaw said it was wrongly alleged all these murders were the work of Protestant extremists, but he believed some of them were and that the attack on Catholic workers at the Rolls Royce factory in East Belfast the previous night had been the work of Protestants. The security forces, he said, frequently encountered "a wall of silence".
The Orange Lodge said they accepted a good deal of the recent murders were the work of Protestants. However, they warned that if the security situation were to drift, "murders on this scale would be a natural consequence". The Secretary of State said "he had never equated the UDA with the IRA in the level of viciousness of their activities. He believed many UDA members would shrink from the kind of murders which were now being committed."