An Enemy of the Crown

Enemy of the Crown exposes the dirty tricks campaign of Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service to derail the career of the former Irish prime minister, Charles Haughey. Oldfield believed Haughey was a Provisional IRA godfather. In the early 1970s, Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service (MI6) embarked upon a decade long dirty tricks campaign to derail the political career of the former Irish prime minister, Charles Haughey of Fianna Fáil. Oldfield believed Haughey was a Provisional IRA godfather and, therefore, a threat to Britain. Oldfield's operation involved the collection of copious amounts of information from disparate sources about Haughey and his associates, and the incessant circulation of smears that impugned his character. In the event, there was as much intrigue in Dublin in the 1970s as there was in Berlin, Moscow or Havana. Oldfield was assisted in these machinations by a shadowy group of conspirators inside the Irish State’s security apparatus who shared his distrust of Haughey. They have escaped scrutiny for their actions until now. More than a dozen instances of their activities are examined in this book. In the early 1970s, Sir Maurice Oldfield of the British Secret Service, MI6, embarked upon a decade-long campaign to derail the political career of Charles Haughey. The English spymaster believed Haughey was a Provisional IRA godfather, therefore, a threat to Britain. Oldfield was assisted by unscrupulous British agents and by a shadowy group of conspirators inside the Irish state’s security apparatus, all sharing his distrust of Haughey. Escaping scrutiny for their actions until now, Enemy of the Crown examines more than a dozen instances of their activities. Oldfield was conspiratorial by nature and lacked a moral compass. Involved in regime change plots and torture in the Middle East, in the Republic of Ireland he engaged with convicted criminals as agent provocateurs as well as the exploitation of pedophile rings in Northern Ireland. He and his spies engaged in dirty tricks as they ran vicious smear campaigns in Ireland, Britain and the US. MI6 and IRD intrigues were deployed to impede Haughey's bid to secure a position on Fianna Fáil’s front bench and any return to respectability. London’s hateful drive against Haughey saw no let-up after Fianna Fáil’s triumphal return to power in 1977 which saw them win a large majority of seats in the Dáil. When Haughey sought a place at Cabinet, Oldfield and his spies devised more dirty tricks to impede him. While Haughey was suspicious of MI6 interference, he had no inkling of the full extent of London’s clandestine efforts to destroy him. By circulating lurid stories about him, they played a major part in trying to prevent him succeed Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in 1979. This book attempts to shed light on some of the anti-Haughey conspiracies which took place during the period of the late 1960s right through to the early 1980s.