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Robert explains how he spent hours soul-searching about whether to meet the IRA delegation at peace-builder Brendan Duddy’s home in Derry. Journalist Peter Taylor reveals the extraordinary story of how a former undercover MI5 officer put his life and career on the line to encourage the IRA to end its violent campaign and embrace politics More Usual UK delivery timescale (excluding custom prints) is between 5 and 7 working days from the date of dispatch. Please allow up to 14 working days for delivery. For custom print delivery pricing and timescales see below.
As the government’s national archive for England, Wales and the United Kingdom, The National Archives hold over 1,000 years of the nation’s records for everyone to discover and use. For their part, the British, while stressing that there could be no withdrawal without the consent of the majority of people in Northern Ireland, would use deliberately vague language. They told the IRA that they were prepared to discuss “structures of disengagement”, for example, while withholding their reservations about the century in which they believed that might happen. Nobody could foresee that 23 years later the train would hit the buffers of BrexitPeter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer. Considered to be one of the finest American short story writers, Taylor's fictional milieu is the urban South. His characters, usually middle or upper class people, often are living in a time of change and struggle to discover and define their roles in society.
On the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Peter Taylor tells for the first time the gripping story of Operation Chiffon, the top-secret intelligence operation that helped bring peace to Ireland. In this compelling account, the author and documentary-maker describes how decades of covert communications between the British government and the IRA eased the path to the Good Friday agreement – helped by an unlikely hero . . . A deeply researched and highly readable book The same year Sinn Fein published minutes of the meeting, compiled by Mr Kelly, which revealed the spy said: “The final solution is union… this island will be as one.” Absorbing … timely … The secretive, delicate, and complex machinations of [Operation Chiffon] are skilfully woven through a comprehensive retelling of the Troubles by Taylor … The author expertly captures that story here, of a collective effort by many resolute individuals, so that they will never be forgotten in what they didThe Irish have an old saying that “When the big man falls in battle, the fight rarely continue s.” As the IRA was never defeated militarily, it is perhaps unsurprising that the peace and stability of Northern Ireland are still threatened by dissident republicans determined to achieve a united Ireland through force of arms. Pivotal to the story of Operation Chiffon was the promise “Robert” made to the IRA’s high command: “The final solution [to your ‘armed struggle’] is union. It is going to happen anyway. The historical train — Europe — determines that. We are committed to Europe. Unionists will have to change. This island will be as one. ” Ireland is still divided , and Brexit derailed the “historical train” of European integration with the UK, ensuring that the Belfast Agreement can be viewed, twenty-five years on, not as a denouement to “the Trouble s” , but rather as a crucial punctuation mark in the history of contemporary Ireland. Operation Chiffon, as the communications came to be known on the British side, also chronicles the extraordinary risks that the go-betweens sometimes took, and the ways in which they frequently redoubled their efforts to achieve peace through dialogue at those times when the carnage was at its most unspeakable and their chances of success seemed most remote. Gerry Kelly also takes part in the documentary, saying that the MI5 spy “did the right thing” by defying his bosses and meeting the IRA in the wake of the Warrington atrocity. In light of how high the human and political stakes were , it is unsurprising to discover that Operation Chiffon is a compelling, exhilarating historical account. A significant journalistic “scoop” for the author, it is also an authoritative, scholarly, insightful and balanced treatment of one of the most extraordinary intelligence cases of modern times. Setting the operation and its antecedents in their proper historical context, Taylor supplies his readership with a kaleidoscope of detail, vignettes and personal recollections pertaining to the epoch in question.
It was by then well known that in 1972 the British government had flown a group of IRA leaders, including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, to London for talks with the then Northern Ireland secretary William Whitelaw. Now the Observer was reporting that the latest talks had been in progress “for many months”. Taylor recounts how Oatley readily admitted his rule-breaking to his political masters: it was, Oatley said, “very naughty of me”, but he was less than a week from retirement. When the second infraction was discovered, Robert felt obliged to resign from MI5. Yes, I misled the prime minister so I misled the Queen as well. It was a hard and really very unpleasant thing to have on your conscience. I felt very alone.”
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