by Ann Williams
The government arranged secret talks with the Red Brigades, but the talks led them nowhere. The government were simply not prepared to release the 13 members of the Red Brigades who were held in Turin in exchange for Moro’s life.
On May 7, Moro was allowed to send a final letter to his wife saying,
They have told me that they are going to kill me in a little while, I kiss you for the last time.
BRUTAL ASSASSINATION
On May 9, the Red Brigades, frustrated with their lack of success in negotiating with the Italian government, decided to kill Moro. Telling him that they had decided to take him to another location, the terrorists bundled him into a car and told him to hide underneath a blanket on the back seat. As soon as Moro had covered himself they opened fire, emptying as many as ten rounds into his crumpled body.
The Polizia di Stato discovered Moro’s bullet-riddled body in the boot of a car in the Via Caetani, which is a site in between the Christian Democratic Party and the Communist Party headquarters.
Mario Moretti, the man who actually shot Moro, made a statement to an Italian newspaper regarding the murder that it ‘was the ultimate expression of Marxist-Lennon revolutionary action’.
Although no one was immediately arrested for the murder of Aldo Moro, over the next ten years, many Red Brigade leaders and members were arrested which considerably weakened their organization. With very limited funds and few members to carry out terror attacks, the group today is almost inoperable.
Just as in the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Moro case became shrouded with conspiracy theories, none of which have ever been proven. People are still asking today why, out of the many terrorist crimes in Italy, was no effort ever made to rescue Maldo either by force or negotiation? The case still haunts Italy today and over the years powerful evidence of official misdeeds and cover-up have emerged. There have even been suggestions that we need look no further than Italy itself for the motive behind his murder. At the time Italian politics was in a state of turmoil and some of the reforms that Moro was proposing could have easily upset the political balance of ruling authorities, especially the Christian Democratic Party.
Airey Neave Bombing
He was one of freedom’s warriors. Courageous, staunch, true. He lived for his beliefs and now he has died for them.
Margaret Thatcher
Airey Neave was a prominent British Conservative MP who helped to mastermind the rise of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. On March 30, 1979, he was murdered when a car bomb that had been fixed to his car detonated as he drove away from the Houses of Parliament. Afterwards, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA, a paramilitary organization that had split from the official Irish Republican Army (IRA), claimed responsibility for the killing. It was the group’s first major terror attack.
ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ
However, after the assassination, there was some controversy as to whether the INLA was actually behind it. Various politicians claimed that Neave had been on the verge of shaking up the security services for alleged corruption, and that he had been murdered by MI6 agents. Others alleged that Neave had himself been planning to bring down, even murder, Labour opposition politicians. Whether or not these allegations were true, no one was ever convicted of his murder, a circumstance that has continued to foster rumours about why he was assassinated, and by whom.
Airey Neave was born into a privileged family background in 1916. He attended the prestigious Eton College before going on to study law at Merton College, Oxford. During World War II, he became a prisoner of war and made several daring escapes, including one from the notorious Colditz Castle. In August 1941, he made the first attempt, but he was caught because his home-made Nazi uniform was spotted. (According to his autobiography, he had dyed the fabric green himself, but because he was colour blind, it was too bright.) The following year, he made another attempt, accompanied by a Dutch officer, and this time managed to escape through a trap door under a stage while a play was in progress. The pair walked all the way to Switzerland and then made their way through France, Spain and Gibraltar, finally returning to England. This made Neave the first British army officer to make an escape from Colditz and return all the way home unharmed. He became a well-known national figure, writing several books about his adventures during the war, and also participated in the Nuremberg Krupp trial, in which German industrialists were accused of helping the Nazis to themselves for war, and of using slave labour – including prisoners of war – in their factories.
CHARRED BODY
During the 1950s, Neave became involved in politics, but his career stalled because of ill health: he had a heart attack in 1959 which meant that he had to pace his workload. Even so, by the 1970s he had risen to a prominent position in the British Conservative Party, and had become a champion of Margaret Thatcher, who 1975 appointed him campaign manager in her bid for party leadership. He was very close to Thatcher, who appointed him shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. However, just before the 1979 election that swept Thatcher to power, and which would have made him a member of the Cabinet in the new government, he was brutally murdered.
On March 30, 1979, Airey Neave got into his car and drove out of New Palace Yard in the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament). At 2.58 p.m., there was a huge explosion and onlookers saw a car with smoke pouring out of it, standing on a ramp between the MPs’ car park and the courtyard below Big Ben. The blast was heard in the House of Commons, where Parliament was just about to be closed before the upcoming General Election. MPs, journalists and police rushed to the scene to find the car burning, its windows broken, with a charred body behind the steering wheel. Both of the driver’s legs had been blown off. Incredibly, he was still breathing, but unconscious. He was rushed to hospital, but he died eight minutes after arrival.
VIOLENT THUGS
The victim, who was wearing the formal dress of black coat and striped trousers favoured by Tory MPs, was soon identified as Airey Neave, one of Mrs Thatcher’s most devoted aides. There was a national outcry, and members of all the political parties denounced the crime. Mrs Thatcher paid an emotional tribute to her former friend and ally, calling him ‘one of freedom’s warriors’ and describing him ‘a gentle, brave and unassuming man’. She added: ‘He lived for his beliefs, and now he has died for them.’
The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) claimed responsibility for the murder. The INLA was a relatively new terror group, formed in December 1974 as the military wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP). The IRSP had split from the official IRA after the IRA had declared a cease-fire, and the IRSP had committed themselves to the continuation of terror attacks on British military and political targets.
There was a great deal of in-fighting between the different wings of the IRA during this time, and several leading figures in the movement were assassinated, prompting an image of the group as a bunch of disorganized thugs dedicated to violence and brutality rather than to political change. According to some sources, their reputation was so bad that INLA slogans painted on walls in Northern Ireland were often changed to read ‘I Never Leave Anything’, while IRSP ones became ‘I Rob Shops and Post Offices’.
AN INSIDE JOB?
What was remarkable about Neave’s assassination was that no one was prosecuted for it – even though he was such a prominent member of the Tory party who, had he lived, would have held high office in Thatcher’s new administration. There was much speculation as to the reason for this. Some believed that the police had simply failed to track down the INLA operatives who had planted the bomb. The IRA and its splinter groups had become adept at covering their tracks, and it may have been that there were simply no leads for police to follow in this instance. However, there were those who suspected otherwise, and they believed that Neave had not been killed by the INLA or any Republican group, but that he was the victim of an ‘inside job’.
Early on in Neave’s career, he had been recruited as an intelligence agent for the
British security services. It was thought that in the early 1970s, when his assassination took place, he may have involved in a right-wing plot by British security services against the Labour government of Harold Wilson. (At that time, the security services feared a change of policy under the Labour administration and were politically committed to the continuation of cold-war tactics against the USSR.) Later, after Neave’s death, journalist Duncan Campbell alleged, in an article in the New Statesman magazine in 1981, that Neave had planned to have Labour politician Tony Benn assassinated were he to become Prime Minister. Both these claims suggested that Neave’s relation to the security services was a complex one, whether or not it had something to do with his eventual demise.
HIGH-LEVEL CORRUPTION
Another allegation, made by Irish journalist, Kevin Cahill, maintained that MI6 had killed Neave because he had threatened to prosecute senior members of the service for corruption. Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell, known for his controversial views on racial segregation, had a different view: he believed that Neave had been killed by American agents, because the USA disagreed with his policy on Northern Ireland. According to Powell, the Americans had worked in tandem with MI6 to assassinate Neave, so as to ensure a policy in Ireland that would be acceptable to them.
Whatever the truth of the matter, although Prime Minster James Callaghan announced directly after Neave’s assassination that ‘no effort would be spared to bring his murderers to justice’ no one was ever charged with the crime. This prompted further speculation, which still continues to this day. In recent times, a new theory has emerged, that the killing was perpetrated by the INLA helped by a left-wing informant, possibly working within the Houses of Parliament.
A SOLDIER’S DEATH
It is always the case that a leading politician has many enemies, and thus that, when he or she is assassinated, many will be suspected of the crime. But what is puzzling in the Neave case is why the authorities have failed to prosecute anyone for the murder, especially as the INLA publicly claimed responsibility for it. Their failure to do so has prompted speculation that the establishment has something to hide; and that, if the culprits were brought to justice, there might be a story to tell that would reflect badly on the politicians at Westminster, on government intelligence agencies or possibly on Neave himself.
In the meantime, the story behind the assassination remains something of a mystery. Even Neave’s daughter, Marigold, believes that not all the facts have yet emerged. She has, she claims, found it difficult to get any information out of the authorities regarding her father’s assassination. ‘They only say, “He died a soldier’s death’’,’ she recently told a journalist. ‘I think there was a cover-up.’ But whether or not this is the case we shall never know, unless the assassins are brought to book.
Iranian Embassy Siege
They then took the two terrorists, pushed them against the wall and shot them. They wanted to finish their story. That was their job.
A hostage (talking about the SAS)
The siege of the Iranian Embassy in London, which lasted for six days, was one of the most dramatic terror attacks ever to take place in the UK. It was also one of the first such attacks to be covered from beginning to end by the world’s media, heightening the sense of tension as fears for the hostages held captive in the building grew day by day. Not only this, but the siege attracted public attention, for the first time, to the British army’s counter-terrorist team, the SAS (Special Air Service). The team were brought in as a last resort after the Iranian terrorists brutally murdered one of the hostages, and in a final shoot-out, which was filmed live on television on a bank holiday Monday, the soldiers stormed the embassy, killing all but one of the terrorists. Within only 15 minutes, the SAS had brought the siege to an end, to the immense relief of the hostages, their families and the world at large – but the political fall-out from the incident had only just begun.
THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS
The morning of Wednesday, April 30, 1980, started out as a morning like any other at the Iranian Embassy in Prince’s Gate, Kensington. Standing outside the building was PC Trevor Lock of the Metropolitan Police. Despite the air of quiet calm in the street, British security forces were aware that the embassy needed constant surveillance: this was a period of intense political conflict in Iran, following Islamic revolution there the previous year. In the wake of the Shah’s overthrow, many radical political and religious groups in Iran were now vying for power, and the embassy in London, a symbol of the country’s links with the West, was likely to be a focus for this struggle.
The security forces were right to be vigilant, and perhaps they should have been more so. On that fateful morning, PC Lock left his post outside the building for a few minutes and nipped inside for a coffee with the concierge. As the men were chatting, a face suddenly appeared at the window. PC Lock was about to come forward to let the person in, when a hail of bullets were fired at the door, shattering the glass panel. Within seconds, six terrorists rushed in, quickly overpowering the policeman. Then, waving their guns at the terrified embassy workers and visitors in the lobby, they took 25 more hostages. They forced them all, at gunpoint, to sit on the floor, and put PC Lock on a chair in the middle. The nightmare had just begun.
STANDOFF
Initially, it appeared that the gunmen were members of a radical group called the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan, and they wanted to gain political sovreignty for the region in southern Iran known as Khuzestan. Both Iran and Iraq had for many years struggled for control of this region, which is rich in oil. However, the terrorists then went on to demand the release of 91 political prisoners held in jail by the Ayatollah Khomeini after the Islamic revolution. Later, once the siege was over, it transpired that the terrorists had been trained in Iraq, prompting speculation that the whole incident had been masterminded by Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to undermine the Iranian government prior to the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war.
When news of the attack came in to Whitehall, the security services immediately sprang into action. Terrorism was an issue at the top of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s agenda, especially after the assassinations of Lord Mountbatten and Conservative MP Airey Neave the previous year. While the SAS set up a base in a building next door to the embassy, military officials and government ministers gathered in the cabinet office briefing room, otherwise known as Cobra. When the terrorists’ demand for the release of the prisoners came in, the Iranian government flatly refused to comply. It was clearly going to be down to the British to resolve the situation.
THREATS TO KILL
Over the next six days, the world watched as the siege continued. Police officers outside the embassy negotiated with the terrorists, offering them food and cigarettes in return for leaving the hostages unharmed. Inside the embassy, as the hostages’ mental and physical condition deteriorated, PC Lock struggled to find a way out of the crisis. He had a gun hidden away in his clothing, but he could not think of a way of using it without running the risk of a blood bath. So instead, he waited, consumed with guilt at having left his post outside the embassy at the crucial moment when the gunmen first appeared.
To begin with, the terrorists were reasonably humane, releasing five of the hostages as the siege progressed. Concessions were made, and there was even talk of offering the terrorists a safe passage home if they kept the hostages safe. However, as the siege wore on, it became clear that no such offer was on the table: whatever the outcome of the attack, they would be captured and tried as criminals. As the terrorists became more desperate, they began to make threats to kill one of the hostages unless their demands were met.
Abbass Lavasani, the embassy’s press attaché, became the first victim of the siege. Lavasani was an idealistic young man who was fervently attached to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism. He saw this as his chance to become a martyr for his country, and he apparently offered himself as a sacrifice to the cause. According to
PC Lock, Lavasani said, while chained to a banister and waiting to be executed, that he was not afraid to die. Lavasani was shot three times, and his body was thrown out of the front door of the embassy onto the pavement.
OPERATION NIMROD
It was this horrific act that prompted the authorities to finally declare a state of emergency and send the SAS troops into the embassy. By all reports, the soldiers themselves, far from being afraid to undertake such a risky operation, were only too keen to start the attack. They had been in training for such an event for many years, were armed to the teeth with extremely powerful shotguns, and had never had the opportunity to practise their skills. In fact, by the time they went in, they were hoping that the terrorists would not surrender, so that they could finish the job as they had been trained to do.
Six days after the siege began, the SAS tore into the building, guns blazing. Television programmes were interrupted – including the snooker championship, which thousands of viewers were watching – to watch the extraordinary sight of a wild-west style shoot-out in the heart of central London. When the smoke cleared 11 minutes later, it emerged that the SAS had been victorious. All the hostages except one, who was shot dead by a terrorist, had been rescued. Five of the terrorists lay dead, and the sixth had been captured. The siege that had lasted for six days had finally ended – in only a matter of minutes.
Operation Nimrod, as the exercise was called, had in military terms been an unqualified success. Afterwards, Mrs Thatcher went in person to congratulate the team, who had shown such tremendous bravery and skill. However, in the days and months after the siege, when the political implications of the event began to become clear, some of their actions, and those of the British government, began to be questioned.
