David McCloskey

And then in August of 1971,

there's the introduction of internment, which is detention without trial, right?

I guess there's an advantage of no written constitution, Gordon, right there.

And IRA supporters can essentially be jailed without any kind of trial or, I mean, without reason, I guess, in some cases.

And I guess there with Scappaticci just about to get out of prison for really some crucial years, let's take a break.

And when we come back, we will look at the intelligence piece of this dirty war.

Welcome back.

After this escalation of the conflict between 1970 and 1971,

The Brits are desperate for intelligence.

The IRA and the provisional IRA is pretty new.

It's a pretty new organization.

It started in 1969.

It's full of younger people.

I think it's safe to say that the British state doesn't really understand this organization very well.

Naturally, they need to recruit people inside it, around it, to understand its plans, intentions, capabilities, and I think crucially in this period, to try to prevent violence.

You don't want to be part of the Fred Force.

All these other groups sound somewhat menacing, but the Fred Force sounds comical.

If you're the British state, if you're the army or if you're the FRU, you have tremendous advantages in this context because you control the legal system.

And so you can... Is it blackmail?

Is it not blackmail?