David Eastwood

David Eastwood (1919-2010) was an Army and MI5 officer.

Acccording to Nigel West, He served as director of intelligence in Northern Ireland from 1971 until 1973. This strongly suggests that Eastwood was the MI5 officer who testified to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry as 'David'.

Early life

Herbert David Eastwood was born in Bangor, Wales, on 27 January 1919. He was educated at All Saints Bloxham and St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

Early Army career

Eastwood was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and posted to India on internal security duties.

Second World War

After the fall of France, Eastwood's unit was recalled to England to become part of the 31st Independent Infantry Brigade Group and later the 1st Airlanding Brigade Group. Eastwood was appointed GSO3 (Air) and took part in the allied landings in Sicily. On his return to England, he was asked to brief Operation Overlord planners on mistakes made during the operation. He then served with 21st Independent Parachute Company at Arnhem, where he earned the Military Cross, and in Norway.

Malaya

After the War, Eastwood joined the Malayan Civil Service serving during the Emergency. He became district commissioner for Trengganu, before being posted to Malacca.

Minstry of Defence

Following Malayan independence in 1957, he joined the Ministry of Defence in 1959. He subsequently served in Jamaica.

Northern Ireland

In his initial statement to the Saville Tribunal, 'David' said:

I am a retired member of the Security Service and am aged 81. In 1970 I was appointed as the Security Liaison Officer for Northern Ireland.

Some three months after arriving in Northern Ireland, I was appointed Director of Intelligence for Northern Ireland. I was based at the Army's headquarters in Lisburn and was given an equivalent military rank of Major General.

Eastwood is probably the individual referred to in the following comment by Christopher Andrew:

The Security Service officer appointed as SLO in Belfast in July 1970 later recalled that when he arrived 'the scene was chaotic, with mutual distrust between the police and the army, the Home Office was responsible, but not in effective political control.'

'David's statement to the Saville Tribunal continued:

The Director of Intelligence was a comparatively new post and there was no established procedure for how I was supposed to operate. My task was to co-ordinate the intelligence gathering effforts of the various elements of the security forces operating in Northern Ireland at the time. My role was to oversee a department consisting of Security Service and military officers. I had to liaise with the police, and in particular the Special Branch of the RUC. The people in my department both received intelligence from the RUC and obtained intelligence themselves. The intelligence was collated and assessed for inclusion in reports that were then disseminated within Whitehall and the Intelligence community. A lot of the documentation would be addressed to me as Director of Intelligence but such was the volume at the time that there was much that I would not have seen. It was my job to ensure that this collation and dissemination was done as efficiently as possible.

My priority was to improve Special Branch where necessary through the provision of training and assistance. I also tried to ensure that the Army and Special Branch did not fall over one another in their operations. My role included assessing security and ensuring that agents were not killed through sloppy handling. My department created various intelligence reports and if there was time I would try and check them to see that everything was being done properly but I was never the originator of the intelligence they contained. I personally would rarely have received the individual Brigades' internal intelligence summaries nor those reports prepared by the Army or Ministry of Defence in London, although members of my department could well have seen them.

Special Branch were a lot better at intelligence work than they were given credit for. Although I had army officers within my department only one, my deputy, was from the Army Intelligence Corps.

Ballykinler

According to Simon Winchester, interrogators at Ballykinler Army Barracks were effectively under Eastwood's command.

He was awarded a CBE in January 1973, with the London Gazette describing him as a 'senior technical advisor' in the Ministry of Defence.

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