INQ 1873 (Bloody Sunday Inquiry)

This article is part of SpinWatch's Northern Ireland Portal.

INQ 1873 was the designation given to a witness at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry who gave evidence anonymously.

A document disclosed to the inquiry written by INQ 1873 and dated 17 July 1970 contains details of a visit to Northern Ireland of two psyops officers from Britain on 15-17 July 1970. Present were 'GSO 1 (Psyops) JWE' (ie General Staff Officer 1 Psychological Operations Joint Warfare Establishment - INQ 1873) and 'SCN LDR (Psyops) DOC' (ie Squadron Leader at DOC). This visit saw INQ 1873 meet with UKREP Mr R Burroughs and Tom Roberts the Deputy director of Information at Stormont.

A submission by counsel to the inquiry described his role in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s as follows:

2.1 Lieutenant Colonel INQ 1873 was sent to Northern Ireland in October 1970 in order to run the Information Liaison Department. He was an expert in psychological operations in combat situations [Day 242/7] and was responsible for psychological operations in Northern Ireland under the direction of the CLF [Day 242/52]. In or about September 1971 the Information Liaison Department was disbanded and replaced by the Information Policy Unit.

2.2 Colonel Tugwell arrived in Northern Ireland on 30 August 1971 to become head of the Information Policy Unit. INQ 1873 was appointed his deputy. Tugwell said that he was sent to Northern Ireland at short notice because, so General Carver told him, there was a crisis in confidence about Army public relations [Day 240/60].

A statement by Maurice Tugwell to the inquiry confirmed that INQ 1873 'had been the head of the Army Psychological Operations branch at the Joint Warfare Establishment at Old Sarum' and 'a PsyOps specialist.'

According to Paul Foot in his book Who Framed Colin Wallace in 1970 the first head of 'a new unit' in Army HQ in Northern Ireland called 'Information Liaison - later Information Policy' was 'commanded by a military officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel.' 'The first of these', reported Foot, 'was Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Johnston'.

Other sources have named a Lt Col Johnston as involved in psychological operations at the time. For example, John McGuffin cites Peter Watson (in his book War on the Mind) as describing a 'Lt. Col. B. R. Johnston', as 'the foremost British authority on psyops.' At a Psyops training course held on February l4th-15th, 1972, some two weeks after Bloody Sunday Johnston spoke 'about the useful experience that they could all gather from N. Ireland.'