I’m aware of the Colin Wallace story so when I saw the review (from a few weeks ago) for the new film about him on ‘Declassified UK’ I thought this will be old hat. Sure enough the usual ingredients of any tale of ‘troubles’ N Ireland were there, Kincora. The MRF and ‘Clockwork Orange’ etc.
However the documentary brought all these threads together and also through contributions from Fred Holroyd another ex Army Spook and Investigative reporters such as Robin Ramsay you get a chilling insight into the meat grinder that is the British Security State a grinder that indeed can turn on its own such as happened with Wallace.
The title is misleading as it’s less ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ than the man who ‘Knows’ too much! As the end of the film indicates there is still much murk around the ‘dirty war’ in Ireland. Wallace himself comes across as a cold fish although as he says at one point in the film it would not help to get agitated and excited.
The underlying theme of the documentary is how easily it was for the press to be fed a diet of misinformation and to use it. That has not changed. I’m left wondering who was the intelligence officer who committed suicide (mentioned at the end of the item) who used 14 and 15 years old schoolgirls as intelligence ‘source’ and why is the UK or Indeed Irish media not probing this?
Documentary link here on Youtube – well worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8FDPU-tDBU
Review here on Declassified UK:
https://declassifieduk.org/the-man-who-knew-too-much/
Bernard Moffatt
AGS Celtic League (31st December 2021)
