150. Britain’s Man Inside the IRA: How to Run a Killer (Ep 2)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Classified – Episode 150: Britain’s Man Inside the IRA: How to Run a Killer (Ep 2) April 22, 2026
Hosts: David McCloskey & Gordon Corera

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Episode Overview

In this compelling second installment exploring Britain’s notorious agent within the IRA, the hosts unravel the murky realities of running a high-level informant during “The Troubles.” The focus is on Freddie Scappaticci—codenamed “Steak Knife” (or “Stakeknife”)—the IRA’s ruthless internal security enforcer who shockingly operated for years as an agent for British Military Intelligence. The episode delves into how Scappaticci was recruited, the internal rivalries between British intelligence branches, the operational and moral dilemmas of “handling” a killer, and the profound consequences on all sides.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Context: Intelligence Operations in Northern Ireland

• Setting the Scene:

  • Late 1970s–1980s: Northern Ireland, one of the most dangerous environments for police globally ([01:30]).
  • British intelligence’s desperate efforts to infiltrate the IRA; IRA aggressively hunting down informers.

• Intelligence Players:

  • The RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) had local primacy but faced limitations recruiting Catholic agents ([04:15]).
  • The British Army, with greater resources, increasingly took the lead in intelligence efforts, sometimes clashing with the RUC ([04:40]).
  • MI5 was surprisingly peripheral during these years—mainly supporting the other services, not running primary agents ([05:19]).
  • The Force Research Unit (FRU), a secret Army group with the motto "Fishers of Men," centralized agent handling from the 1980s onward ([08:58]).

• Notable Quote:
  "Northern Ireland was the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer. The risk was twice as high as El Salvador."
  – David McCloskey ([01:20])

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2. The Recruitment of Freddie Scappaticci

• Timeline Unclear, Motivations Debated:

  • Recruitment believed to be c. 1978; exact circumstances murky, fueling ongoing intrigue.
  • Examined theories:
    • Walk-in: After falling out with the IRA, possibly after a personal dispute, but this is disputed ([09:17]).
    • Blackmail: Allegations range from pornography to suspected abuse, but the hosts doubt prolonged blackmail was sustainable ([11:59], [13:01]).
    • Legal Risk/Financial Gain: Tax evasion or building fraud offered leverage; in return, Scappaticci may have received financial rewards ([15:59]).

• Composite Motivation Most Likely:

  • “I think it’s both making a problem go away and also the promise of financial gain... Those two things merged together for a guy like Scappaticci.”
    – David McCloskey ([15:59])

  • Reportedly received upwards of £80,000 per year, plus property and other incentives ([17:36]).

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3. Handling “Steak Knife”: Tradecraft in Belfast

• Operational Routine:

  • Meeting Frequency: Handlers saw Scappaticci every 7–8 days.
  • Security: Meetings involved sudden “bundling” into vans, then moving to safe flats or debrief houses outside the city for secrecy ([20:17], [23:26]).
    • "He’s being met by his handlers on average every seven to eight days." – Gordon Corera ([20:17])
  • Communications: Rather than sophisticated spy gear, a dedicated, state-controlled phone line was provided for urgent intelligence ([24:57]).
    • “He’s got a phone number he can call any time to pass intelligence.” – Gordon Corera ([24:57])
  • Record Keeping: All debriefs recorded on cassette, with special agent files kept in a secure, isolated unit nicknamed “the Rat Hole” ([24:48]).

• Inter-Agency Tension:

  • Despite skepticism about his reliability, MI5 and RUC tried to “steal” Steak Knife from FRU due to his immense value ([29:14]).

• Code Names & Databases:

  • Used various code names (e.g. “Steak Knife”, Agent 5027) and a now-lost intelligence database "Bograt3970" ([27:05]).

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4. The Dilemma: Moral & Operational Complexity

• Scappaticci’s Value:

  • As #2 in the IRA’s internal security, he had unrivaled access—central in the flow (“Clapham Junction of the IRA”; [32:42]).
  • Provided intelligence that thwarted IRA operations, including kidnappings and planned attacks ([32:58]).

• Tactical Trade-offs:

  • Authorities had to balance acting on intelligence and protecting their source; acting too often risked exposing Scappaticci ([34:38]).
    • "If you use the information he provides to disrupt all... you raise questions... It could potentially get back to your agent."
      – David McCloskey ([34:38])

• Moral Quagmire:

  • Running agents inside criminal or terrorist organizations inevitably means leveraging compromised individuals.
  • Scappaticci participated directly in violence—including murder—against suspected informers, turning the British state into possible accomplices by omission.
    • “He is not just breaking the law... he is directly involved in murder. And he... tells his handlers...” – Gordon Corera ([39:04])
    • “Handlers... are to some extent complicit or at least knowledgeable.” – Gordon Corera ([40:51])
  • No proper legal or regulatory framework existed for such scenarios, fostering a “maverick culture” ([35:54], [37:04]).

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5. Case Study: The Killing of Michael Kearney

• Detailed Example of the Dilemma:

  • Michael Kearney—suspected informer—was killed by the IRA after multiple warnings from Steak Knife and other agents ([42:03]).

  • British Military Intelligence received clear, repeated warnings, but did not intervene.

  • Notable Quote:

    • “Despite those warnings, they don’t do anything. And he’s found dead on the border…” – Gordon Corera ([43:47])

• Complexities Further Highlighted:

  • The loss of innocent life; risk that agents might be forced to betray or participate in harm against other informers.
  • The “grim math”—sacrificing some lives to save others and keep the “golden goose” source in place ([45:13]).

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6. Looking Ahead

• Themes for Next Time:
  • The continuing complexities and dark realities of running violent assets.
  • How the cost in human lives and ethics were debated among handlers and officials.
  • Reference to bonus content/interviews for subscribers, including with Patrick Radden Keefe (author of "Say Nothing") ([37:14], [45:33]).

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Memorable Quotes

• “The rat hole is exclusively for managing Steak Knife’s intelligence.” – David McCloskey ([24:48])
• “There is a real undercurrent of glamour throughout this entire story… Go work in a porter cabin called the Rat Hole.” – Gordon Corera ([24:40])
• “Handlers... are to some extent complicit or at least knowledgeable... what does that mean morally, ethically, legally?” – Gordon Corera ([40:51])
• “That is the stark kind of moral calculation... the British state is making as they run this guy.” – David McCloskey ([45:13])

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Noteworthy Timestamps

• [00:40] – Introduction of Scappaticci (Steak Knife) and context of British intelligence in Northern Ireland.
• [08:58] – Establishment and function of the FRU ("Force Research Unit").
• [13:36] – General Wilsey’s memoir reference to Scappaticci’s recruitment.
• [17:36] – Discussion of money as Scappaticci's motivator.
• [20:17] – How handlers managed Steak Knife operationally.
• [24:40] – Description of “the Rat Hole” and unique procedures for Steak Knife.
• [29:14] – Inter-agency rivalries over handling of Steak Knife.
• [34:38] – Operational dilemmas in balancing source protection and disruption.
• [39:04] – The legal/moral implications of running a murderous agent.
• [42:03] – Case study: The killing of Michael Kearney as a snapshot of the wider moral conundrum.
• [45:13] – Reflection on the “grim math” and foreshadowing of escalating complexity.

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Summary

This episode offers a chilling, insightful account of Britain’s high-stakes, ethically fraught penetration of the IRA through one of its most notorious operatives. Through a nuanced breakdown of intelligence operations, the problematic recruitment and handling of Freddie Scappaticci (“Steak Knife”), and detailed case studies, McCloskey and Corera bring listeners deep into the dilemma of running killers as state agents. At each turn, tradecraft crouches alongside moral compromise, forcing hard questions about what’s justified in the shadowy world of counterterrorism.

For anyone interested in espionage, morality in intelligence work, or The Troubles, this episode is indispensable—a window into a world where every decision might cost lives, and where the line between hero and villain is all but erased.

Transcript

[David McCloskey]

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the declassified [e-mail]. How did the British security forces recruit agents during the Troubles? And how did the IRA try and hunt down those who had become informers? Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

[David McCloskey]

And last time we left off with Freddy Scappatici, number two in the IRA's internal security unit, its counterintelligence function. It's the late 1970s. He is in charge of some pretty dirty work interrogating and in some cases executing suspected informants who are working for the British state. But we left off last time with the revelation that Scapatici himself had become an agent for the British state. And that angle to this story is what we'll be looking at in this episode. Now, bit of context. Last time we briefly looked at different parts of the British security establishment who are operating in Northern Ireland. We have the ruc, the Royal Ulster Constabulary or the the police, which kind of has primacy in the area. Its Special Branch is tasked with collecting intelligence. Just to set a bit of the table here for what this, this conflict felt like if you were a member of the security forces or the IRA during the late 70s and early 1980s. Interpol data in 1983 showed that Northern Ireland was the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer. The risk was twice as high as El Salvador, which was the second most dangerous place at the time. So this, this world that Scapatici is in, these security forces that are attempting to penetrate the ira. The IRA that is attempting to weed out informants. This is a really high stakes intelligence game that is being played out on top of a really violent chessboard in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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[Gordon Carrera]

so the ruc, the police force, is a target of the ira, but it's also trying to recruit agents. But it is seen as close to the Protestant community, which makes it harder to recruit Catholics as agents. And so it doesn't really have the resources and the experience to run a large scale intelligence operation. So other organisations are also going to get involved, particularly the Army. Now, it's technically supporting the ruc, but in practice they're often doing their own thing. They're much bigger, they have more resources and inevitably there's quite a bit of tension between them and the ruc. The army see themselves as more professional, perhaps less inclined to use blackmail, able to run agents with a longer shelf life as well. Those are, you know, some of the tensions that exist.

[David McCloskey]

One British security service that we haven't actually we didn't talk about in the first episode, which maybe listeners will find surprising, is MI5.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Coming to this story, I would have presumed that a high level agent who is being run inside the United Kingdom, that this would be an MI5 story. But it's not been to this point.

[Gordon Carrera]

No. And I think it is fascinating when you look at this because actually MI5, by the time the conflict kicks off in 1969, actually has very little kind of access or agent or source network in Northern Ireland. And it's still primarily behind the scenes even at this point. So its role is primarily just supporting the RUC and army and running their agents. And there's definitely tension there because going back to the tensions, the army tend to see MI5 as kind of soft middle class types who come up from London. The only agents that MI5 are supposed to be running and recruiting at this point are ones who can provide strategic intelligence about threats against the mainland, against Britain or British interest overseas. And even when it comes to countering terrorism on the mainland that's actually the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, which has the primacy there. It's going to be much later that it takes over the leading role that it now has in Northern Ireland. But at this point, its main job is actually installing and maintaining bugging devices and things like covert cameras for the RUC and to some extent the army as well. So the army is really the main focus, the military and military intelligence for this story, which I agree, I think for a lot of people might be surprising, but last time we talked a little bit about the Fred Force, which was the early former group running agents. But once you get to the end of the 70s and the start of the 80s, you get a shift in the way the intelligence game is being run to try and centralise the process a bit more. Part of that is because 1979 sees a series of major attacks. You get the killing of Lord Mountbatten, a close relative of the royal family, in August of that year, as well as, almost simultaneously, an ambush in Northern Ireland that kills 18 soldiers. Earlier that year, you've had an MP airy neave blown up as he leaves the House of Commons car park. Margaret Thatcher comes into office 79. She wants to push the intelligence war harder against the ira. Interestingly enough, she actually recalls from an academic role, the former head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, to be the Security and Intelligence Coordinator on Northern Ireland. To beef up that role. He is the person who Alec Guinness models his portrayal of John Le Carre's George Smilyon in the TV series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which airs on British TV around this time as well. So a kind of interesting side note about the MI6 officer coming in, he actually, interestingly enough, Maurice Oldfield, doesn't last very long because within a few months of being appointed to this role, the authorities are made aware of homosexual activities which had obviously, in terms of vetting and security clearance, he'd concealed going back a number of years. And there have long been rumours that that was revealed as part of a deliberate smear campaign by other parts of the security forces. Now, whether that's true or not, who knows? But it, you know, gives you some idea how even the. Within the security world, there were kind of tensions and difficulties. But the one thing you get at the start of the 1980s is the creation of this thing called the Force Research Unit, or the fru, which is the more centralized intelligence gathering section of the army. Its motto, Fishers of men. And the FRUs operation in the biblical sense, right? In the biblical sense, yeah. Not. Not Going out fishing with men but trying to catch them. And the fruit is going to be operational till 1995. It's said to have run over a hundred agents. And amongst them is Freddie Scappatici, we

[David McCloskey]

should say the FRU that is inside the army. That is inside the British Army. So Scapatici, do we know when and how he's recruited? I mean, I guess it seems to have been around 1978 or around then. But do we know why they recruit scap?

[Gordon Carrera]

No one knows that. Sure. I think that's the first thing to say. There's a lot of different stories about, about this and I think it's worth picking them apart a little bit. It's pretty clear. I mean, some agents do become agents because they want to save people's lives because they hate the violence. I think we can assume, given what we know about Scapaticci and what we talked about him doing, that's not his motivation.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, not his profile. He seems to actually enjoy the violence to some degree.

[Gordon Carrera]

Exactly. Yeah. So there are these different accounts. You get some in Richard o' Rour's book Steak Knife, Henry Hemings book Four Shots in the Night. There's also an excellent BBC podcast series called Steak Knife by Mark Organ and Kieran Cassidy, which, which is a great piece of investigation into this. And so, you know, different accounts in different places with different emphasis on this. You know, one story is that he's beaten up by another IRA member over an affair with that other man's wife, which then prompts Scappatici to sign up as a walk in. Now, I don't know what you think, but that's quite a big step to take. And I think the truth is walk ins were not really always very trusted by the Brits. So that account has definitely been disputed as the most likely.

[David McCloskey]

Has it been disputed simply because of the fact that he was a walk in? I mean, I'm applying this sort of CIA lens to this, but I often think, you know, volunteers walk ins oftentimes end up, you know, end up becoming very valuable, very valuable assets. But is the, is the dispute around that piece of it or is it, is it more around the dynamics of his personality? It doesn't fit. What's the, what's the skepticism drawn from.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, even the fight with the other senior RA member? Aspects of that, I think have been disputed by the other guy. So I think it's worth bearing in mind aspects of all of them might be true because there's also stories that he fell out with some senior figures in the IRA and had been marginalised. So we talked about a little bit last time that he wasn't quite immediately back on the inside of the IRA when he comes out of his second internment. And he does seem to have resented periods when he's not in the inner circle. Now another version is that he was blackmailed into becoming an agent, possibly over his interest in hardcore pornography. Now bizarrely, hardcore pornography is something we're going to come back to at the end of this story because it does play a role in his story and we do know that. And he supposedly had kind of cupboards of these videos. But it strikes me as a bit of a stretch that that would be enough to, to blackmail you and turn you into doing what he does.

[David McCloskey]

Dunno what you think, as we'll see. I think given the duration of his cooperation with the fru, I suppose some amount of legal leverage could have been part of the initial pitch, the initial recruitment. But I don't, I don't see blackmail as a kind of sustainable dynamic in the relationship because it'll last for just so many years, as we'll see.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I think that's right because there's another story which is that he's got an interest in young girls. Now that could be about smearing him, but there is an account by a former colleague in which this former colleague recalled Scappatici making lewd remarks about young girls and there's an allegation which again is never confirmed, that he was reported for having abused an underage girl. Exact age is a bit unclear around this period of 76 to 78. And of course if you're prosecuted for that, that could be a disaster, you know, and a problem, you know, within the IRA as well as at home. I mean, again, never confirmed. But I agree, you know, blackmail for a long standing relationship.

[David McCloskey]

Not sure it couldn't be the only piece. I don't think it could be the only piece. It's like a. It's potentially a piece of the puzzle, but it's not the whole puzzle.

[Gordon Carrera]

And then there's this interesting account from General Sir John Wilsey, who was general officer commanding for the British army in Northern Ireland, who writes a memoir where he doesn't name scap but it does it. Certainly he's talking about him and he claims one of his skillful and quirky sergeants who had a bit of a rebellious streak and frequented pubs and drinking clubs slowly reeled in Scappatici around 1977.

[David McCloskey]

In his memoir, Wilsey writes of his skillful and quirky sergeant, he bided his time until intuitively he judged the moment right to cast his fly. He then hooked and landed his fish. The fish represented the security forces biggest intelligence breakthrough at the time and arguably the army's most significant contribution to the whole campaign. Well, that's saying something without kind of saying anything in a way because it doesn't really explain what handholds this skillful sergeant may have had on Scappatici to make the pitch effective.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, and even this is seed as being a bit of a dodgy account. I mean, Scappatici wasn't much of a drinker. The bar the general mentions wasn't one that Republicans would actually go to. And British soldiers would not recruit Republican bars anyway. I mean, one British soldier, a very kind of unusual character called Robert Narak, does try and go to a bar like that in 1977 to recruit someone. He's almost on a kind of solo venture it feels like at the time, but. But he gets found out and his body has never been recovered. I mean, one claim, probably a myth, is that that's because it was fed into a meat mincer. So you know, the idea that this was how it could go down, you know, with kind of soldiers going to Republican bars and just talking to people,

[David McCloskey]

chatting somebody up at a bar feels especially a like hardened guy like Scapaticci. It feels. That feels a stretch to me.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, it does. So then you get to, I think, more interesting theories. One is that he could have been turned after he was arrested for involvement in a building fraud. Now we mentioned last time how he'd made some money from involvement in a quite complex tax evasion scheme to do with his building work. And other people would be sentenced to years in jail for similar activities. So you could imagine that he gets discovered doing that. He doesn't want to go back to jail. He's already after all, been interned for years. And you know, it's not very glamorous either being, you know, going back to jail for building fraud and that he gets initially reported for this, perhaps to the police and then the army recruit him. Although I think the only bit that's a bit odd about that is it would have been the police who would have investigated or found out about the fraud. But it's the army who recruited in the military. So this possible. I think that's more in the possible category.

[David McCloskey]

To me that answer feels kind of right. I mean, it's sort of blackmail light in a way. I guess it's using the leverage that the State has to make a big problem go away. Yeah, and the other bit of this that I think maybe adds some color is, I mean we know, I guess very few facts, but we know some facts authoritatively from Kadova, which is the investigation into Steak Knife and we'll come back to that later. But it says that the army's cultivation and recruitment of Steak Knife began in the late 1970s. And the motivation for him first wanting to become an agent was linked either to the risk that he was facing criminal prosecution or a desire for financial gain. And the risk from prosecution certainly fits with the tax evasion scheme. It fits maybe with the, you know, incident with an underage girl. But as we'll see, and this is why I think you could explain the long term duration of this relationship is, I think it's, it's both making a problem go away and also the promise of financial gain to come. So it's not purely this like jailhouse recruitment where we're using leverage over you. We're also going to, we're going to pay you quite well over, over the years to kind of, you know, compel your cooperation with us. Those two things merged together for a guy like Scappatici, I think really works. When we talked earlier about how he likes stuff, he likes vacations, he's got his Manchester City season tickets. You know, I mean he's, he's in many ways very self interested and self oriented and I think this, you know, that pitch plays into those aspects of his personality.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, that's right. And I mean, I think he's reported to have been paid at one point more than 80,000 pounds annually by his handlers. So, you know, with lump sums, you know, help to buy property. So, so money's a factor. I mean, you know, Henry Heming in his book Four Shots in the Night says the best guess is that he's first done for tax to be an informer and then reeled in by the army. But also I think the idea that they're exploiting the fact he's annoyed at some other people in the ira, he wants a bit more power. You know, this offers him a way back to the heart of it. I think that mix, I agree, kind of feels about right. But it does mean that he's going to be recruited by military army intelligence and eventually this thing called the Frou. He's going to get various pseudonyms, including State Knife, which we should say is spelt in various different ways and you know, in different documents in different times. It ends up being the S T, A, K, E, K, N, I, F, E. All one word, but there's different forms at different types.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, we should say what is a steak? Because when I. When I heard steak knife the first time, I thought of a knife used to cut a steak. So S T, E A, K. Right, knife. But that's not how it's spelled.

[Gordon Carrera]

No. And I think just the name has got used in different ways and slightly corrupted and ended up as this spelling. But where it comes from originally we don't quite know because he does get different code names and he also gets numbers. So at various points he's agent 5027 and 6126. And the first two numbers normally tell you the location and the latter two are the unique identifier for the FRU. Worth saying that senior officers from RUC Special Branch are aware of his recruitment and identity from the start, and so are MI5. So they are aware of it. But he is fundamentally going to be

[David McCloskey]

run by the army and those FRU handlers. Again through the Force Research Unit inside the army in Northern Ireland. Those FRU handlers are assigned a steak knife for anywhere between one to four years. One was assigned for a total of seven years, albeit with a break in there. But he's handled in a kind of somewhat normal way, I guess, where you have case officers that rotate in and out of that relationship. And I guess here it's interesting to think about what kind of environment Belfast is in those years for agent handling, because it sounds from the outside, it feels like a hard place to meet agents. People know each other, run into each other all the time. So how does the FRU actually meet with and handle steak knife?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I think that's a really good question because he's being met by his handlers on average every seven to eight days. So relatively frequently, although not every day. But you're right, it's a kind of small city. The way it's understood is normally he will be out somewhere and then be bundled into. This is typically how they would be. Most agents would bundle them into a van or a car on the move at an agreed location and then either talk whilst moving or be taken to some kind of a safe flat for a debrief.

[David McCloskey]

And you have actually been bundled into an MI5 van, isn't that right, Gordon, when you were arrested?

[Gordon Carrera]

It wasn't when I was arrested, this was. Thank you for raising that, David. It was actually when I was making a radio documentary for the BBC, I should say say. But it was a quite an interesting Insight into what it's like to be taken to an agent deprived. So I was being taken to meet a real agent who was working undercover in a kind of Islamist setting in London. And I was going to interview him for radio, so kind of anonymously and made this arrangement. We talk about it in the, in the documentary where I met in the middle of Waterloo Station. And what I didn't know was there was a surveillance team watching us to make sure no one else was following us or there was nothing else going on. And then I was walked a kind of circuitous route around station, taken outside. And there's one of these vans and this is like an MI5 van. I remember going to the back of the van and it is a strange experience because it's like blacked out, there's no windows in the back of the van, and then driven around and it was kind of slightly scuzzy van, I'm going to be honest, wasn't particularly glamorous. But that feeling of being in the back of a blacked out van. And we drove around for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes. And the point is, you have no idea where you are, you know, or where you're going or how far you're going. And we ended up in a lockup, a kind of garage. And for all I know, it could have been around the corner from Waterloo Station where we started. And we've been driving in circles all that time. And then I got taken into the lockup to kind of meet this agent. But I think that is the closest I've come to being bundled into a security force van and taken to a debrief. What about you?

[David McCloskey]

I have yet to be bundled up and tossed into a van for a debrief. So I feel a little jealous. I feel a little left out, we should say. It reminds me of the episodes we did on the airline plot where we went into some depth on breaking and entering operations and surveillance. And it's not glamorous, you know, it's. The SCSI van really fits. And we should say our producer, Becky, it has noted here that many people think that steak knife was supposed to be spelled S T E A K, sort of suggesting a sharp operative designed to cut the ira, slicing the organization to pieces. But steak knife S, which is how it's spelled, S T A K E knife is believed by sub to be a clerical error by military handlers leading to the nickname Mistake Knife. So there you go, Mistake knife. So the SCSI vans, though, it's not MI5.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, not MI5. It's a fruit.

[David McCloskey]

It's the fruit.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's the fruit. And they take him to what are called. They use these things called debrief centers for the fruit, which are basically houses. And this, I've seen pictures of some of them. They use kind of bungalows, quite isolated houses outside of the city where you can have a proper meeting. And those sessions with the handler are then usually recorded on audio cassette tapes. The handler then goes back to the headquarters, the kind of army barracks in Lisbon, and gives an oral debrief to the commanding officer of the fruit about what had happened. There's also a copy of the transcript which is placed on the agent's personal file, which also included in that file or the so called contact forms which are created for every physical meeting with an agent. Now, it's interesting, but Steak Knife, they immediately realize is really important because of the importance of the information he's given, the access he's got to the ira. They establish a special subunit specifically to deal with his intelligence, which is in a secure part of the barracks in a kind of group of fenced off porter cabins, which is known as the Rat Hole, which is again, not the most glamorous name.

[David McCloskey]

There's a real undercurrent of glamour throughout this entire story, isn't there, Gordon?

[Gordon Carrera]

You go work in a porter cabin called the Rat Hole.

[David McCloskey]

This is the grittiest possible intelligence story. The Rat Hole is exclusively for managing Steak Knife's intelligence.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. Which I think gives you a sense of his importance straight away. And it's partly so they can, you know, manage him, his intelligence separately from other agents. So you kind of keep it very compartmented. And that's overseen by the commanding officer of the FRU, plus, you know, others who can, you know, MI5 and others kind of give admin support. Interesting enough, it's not staff 24 7, but there is a phone line dedicated solely to Steak Knife and which is staffed around the clock within the intelligence section. So he's got a phone number he can call any time to pass intelligence, day or night. So he's doing, he's passing on intel from phones as well as those meetings which are on average once every seven to eight days.

[David McCloskey]

So he's got no spy gear here. Right. I mean, he's, he's just going to a phone, calling this, this number to set up a meeting or to pass intelligence directly over the phone.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And again with other kind of intelligence stories we've done, that would be surprising, isn't it? Because normally they've Got to have covert, you know, communications. But again, it goes back to that point that this is the British state running agents on their home turf. So you have control over the environment, including the phone network. So there's no danger of the state or the security forces, you know, being able to get phone records or to tap phones because you are the state and the security force running the network and running the phone. So in a sense you have that little bit more control over the things like phones without needing kind of COVID communications.

[David McCloskey]

I guess it is remarkable when we have done more modern spy stories of just how much more complex now the tradecraft has become around comms and how much harder it is because I mean the way he's being handled in this case, I mean it's almost, it feels quaint, it almost feels ancient. Now the idea that he could just go to a payphone or go to, you know, maybe, maybe he's not making these calls. I presume he wouldn't make these calls from his home because I suppose the IRA maybe would have the ability to tap like a phone line, but he could go to any number of other phones in the city, be in pattern and make a call. You know, it's not that hard.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, he just needs to find a call. Yeah. So then his, you know, there's a special intelligence database known as Bograt3970.

[David McCloskey]

That's your Gmail address, right, Gordon?

[Gordon Carrera]

Bograt3970. You're giving it away, David.

[David McCloskey]

There you go, listeners. Try that, try that email, see where it goes. Right.

[Gordon Carrera]

Although interesting enough, there is this intelligence database which all physical trace of which has since disappeared, which is a little bit mysterious. One of the many mysterious disappearances in the Steak Knife story.

[David McCloskey]

We should say, do we know what, what happened?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, it's disappeared and I think we'll come back to that towards the end where there is a tradition of disappearances, even fires at buildings where, you know, evidence is being kept, which is just odd coincidence. But so State Knife's intelligence is going to get passed to the RUC, Special Branch and MI5 on a near daily basis in forms of kind of source reports with this code name on it. Now some of it is so sensitive it's written up on a manual typewriter with orders that it's not entered into the main database and there's just a kind of flood of intelligence. So the operation investigating him, Operation Canova, recovers 377 intelligence reports over an 18 month period at the start of his career. In one 11 day period it's recorded that he contacted his handlers by phone on two occasions and was met on a further four occasions. So that's six contacts in an 11 day period. So it's a pretty, you know, intense relationship. And some of that, some of these intelligence, I mean, it sounds like it's pretty mundane. It's like, well, I saw this guy on the street or I saw these people drinking in this pub, or, you know, I heard a little bit of this conversation here. But some of it is really, really, really detailed intelligence reports. But, you know, we don't know the exact nature of a lot of it

[David McCloskey]

and we also don't really have any insight into his relationships with his handlers. Yeah, we don't even know who handled him inside the fruit. Is that right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, it is. Right. And that might be something we come back to at the end because, you know, there are kind of legal questions around all of this. And I think that issue of how he's handled is interesting because again, when there's this can over report, this investigation into it, there's people from MI5 who said that the FRU handlers were seen by MI5 as gung ho and not well managed with relatively little meaningful oversight. This is part of a kind of battle, if you like, because then, you know, the FRU are like, you know, MI5 knew everything we were doing and MI5 are like, no, no we didn't. You know, there's, there's a lot of that and you can sense some of the tension. So, you know, again, from some of these official reports, early on, MI5, you know, says, oh, he's an unreliable mercenary petty criminal and, you know, although well placed, has frequently failed to give advance warnings of pirate activities and a very large proportion of plans on which he reported seem to have come to nothing. But at the same time, we do know that both Mi5 and RUC special brands try and take him over from the fruit. So despite some of those early concerns from MI5, at various points they basically try and steal him, lure him, take, you know, pull him over from the fruit. Because I think that's all a sign really of how valuable he is.

[David McCloskey]

And so maybe there with an understanding of how Scapaici is handled and how his intelligence is being sifted into the different security forces involved in Northern Ireland. Let's take a break and when we come back, we will see how you run a high level, important agent who's also involved in a tremendous amount of violence.

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[David McCloskey]

Well, welcome back. This dilemma, Gordon, I think is going to characterize or sort of infuse so much of the rest of this series, which is, on the one hand, the British state has a golden goose source operating at the highest levels of the ira. On the other hand, he's involved in really nasty dirty activities, including in some cases he's directly involved in murder. And I think that kind of dilemma is, is so central to the complexity around this case. But I think let's start with what's he offering, what's he providing? What information is of such value that we could even consider this trade off in the way that SCAP is handled?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. So he is number two, as we said, in the internal security unit. But what that offers is first of all the fact that he's just a senior IRA man. So he knows who's who, who's up, who's down, who's meeting. He's got the gossip. There's talk that he's able to, you know, drive round with other senior figures in his car, with his car being bugged, you know, is one of the claims. For instance. Instance. He's also got a sense of who's joining, who's in. The ISU is actually described as the Clapham Junction of the ira. Now David, do you know what that reference means? Maybe not.

[David McCloskey]

I know that Clapham is a part of London. It is in South London.

[Gordon Carrera]

Very good.

[David McCloskey]

Yes. There is a Clapham common. What is Clapham Junction?

[Gordon Carrera]

Clapham Junction, which is actually really in Battersea rather than in Clapham. Long story.

[David McCloskey]

That's confusing.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's very confusing. The reason is that lots of train lines going into London stations go through Clapham Junction. So you've got, so it's actually for a long time, the busiest, I think, train station not just in Britain, but in Europe or something like that. Because you've got trains going to Victoria and Waterloo, they all go through Clapham Junction. And that's the analogy with the isu, which is that lots of activity within the IRA went through the isu. So in that sense it was the kind of, in the wiring diagram, it was right at the middle of things because we talked a bit about how they set up separate cells. But the ISU needs to have a kind of oversight of Lots of different things. So for that reason it's a really valuable place to have an agent. And he starts straight away, it seems, helping foil kidnap operations the IRA is running in Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland, against wealthy businessmen. And some of the people get released and, and he's able to provide detail on operations. This all goes through his handlers and it's shared into something called the Tasking and Coordination Group, the tcg, whose job it is is to decide the operational response to specific bits of intelligence. It's run by the RUC special branch and they've got a 247 capability that if they get a bit of new information from SCAPATICI about something specific or any agent, they decide what to do about it operationally. But there is a very high level of control over what's done about it in order to protect the source. So, you know, the idea is you can't disseminate where it goes or decide what you do without reference to what the risks are to this vital source.

[David McCloskey]

I guess you have a fundamental, I guess in some ways, operational dilemma, which is if SCAP knows about five upcoming operations, attacks, whatever, if you use the information he provides to disrupt all of them, you raise questions about, well, where do those breaches come from? And it could potentially get back to your agent. Right. So you have to be thoughtful about how you use his information, what you let go, what you disrupt and how you do it. Right.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

So there's an operational dilemma at running this sort of source. There's also a fundamental moral dilemma, which is this is exactly the kind of agent you want because you were, if you're the British state, you see yourself as being we're at war with a terrorist organization. Again, this would be the British States mentality. We need people inside that organization to provide us information about what's going on. But at the same time, recruiting people inside those organizations means you're going to tend to not recruit angels. You're going to recruit people who you know, again from the standpoint of the value of the information they provide. You kind of want people whose hands are dirty because they're the ones who are going to have the information that you actually want from inside that organization. But their hands are dirty, which is a problem.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And almost the dirtier their hands are, the more higher place they'll be and the more useful they are and the harder the dilemma gets. And it's really interesting because one of the problems is that the FRU will have is that there is basically a lack of rules, regulation, or, or a framework to deal with this fact. Because, you know, officially those running agents are instructed in their training that agents could not commit crimes. Now this is a total charade and everyone knows it. Because the whole point is you're running an agent within the ira, which is a prescribed organisation, which means membership of it is illegal. So without even committing any acts, your agent is technically breaking the law. So immediately, you know, before you even get to the violence, which we'll come to with Scappatici, you've broken what are technically the rules for running agents. And so the whole business is kind of without rules. And this is going to be one of the challenges. And you know, the Canova report says this fostered a maverick culture for some where agent handling was sometimes seen as a high stakes dark art and was practiced off the books. So you immediately get a problem here that the boundaries are not clear about what you allow an agent to do or want them to do or how you run them.

[David McCloskey]

This will also be a dynamic or sticking point that we'll drill into in our conversation with Patrick Radden Keefe for club members, because we'll talk a lot about kind of the nature of how you run informants and sources in this kind of intelligence game. And you know, I guess you could also going back to steak knife a bit, I guess in some cases you could. And frankly, the agency did this while running assets inside terrorist organizations, you know, during, in Iraq or Afghanistan, where you would try to come up with solutions whereby your agent wouldn't directly be involved in violence. So examples of like if you recruit someone who's in Al Qaeda or the Taliban and they're regularly firing rockets at a U.S. or you know, mortar fired, a U.S. facility in Afghanistan or Iraq. Well, make sure you miss right things like that. I mean, seriously. Yeah, these are, these are actual cases where, you know, we need the guys who are at these organizations, but we also need to make sure that they're not actually conducting violence against Americans. And so you try to come up with these kind of artful ways to get around it. But I guess the problem for SCAP is that he can't really be in the middle of an operational discussion with somebody or conducting an interrogation and just say, like, I've got to go to the bathroom, I'm going to step out, like someone else handle this. Right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Suspicion would fall on him, naturally. And so it's. You end up in this situation, which is so complicated, where he's not just breaking the law by being a member of the ira, but he's he's directly involved in murder. And this is where the comparison with like the agency in the war on terror totally falls away, is he's committing murder against citizens of the United Kingdom.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, that is where this is so complex and dark. I mean, this is when it, the fact it's in your own country feels different. You know, he is not just breaking the law by being a member of the ira, but he is directly involved in murder. And he, we know, tells his handlers that he is directly involved in murder, you know, and that this is recorded by his handlers. You know, this is what makes this such a kind of complex, challenging case. You know, Scappatici knows when someone is brought in by the IRA as a suspected agent and he tells his handlers, and he tells his handlers, you know, I may be involved in killing this person. This is then reported up to this group, the TCGs, which is the kind of group run by Special Branch, which decides how to act on the intelligence and whether to intervene based on his intelligence. They effectively are given the decision about whether someone lives or dies. Because to some extent, the Scapatici has got people's lives in his hands because he's interrogating them and potentially executing them. But he is telling his handlers and that it is up to his handlers to decide are we going to do something about that or not? You know, do we want to try and intervene or not? So they are, and this is, I think, the moral complexity of it. They are to some extent complicit or at least knowledgeable. I think that's probably a better way of putting it. But what does that mean morally, ethically, legally, in Scapatici's, you know, dark deeds? I mean, this is where you, I think, start to understand why it is called a dirty war. Because of it is, as you said, also happening within, you know, the United Kingdom.

[David McCloskey]

The other bit of this that I think makes it really, really challenging to discuss and debate the value of an asset like this or how you'd run them is in some of these cases, Scapatici would have provided the fru, the British state, with advanced knowledge, with like, warning that someone was about to be killed too, which is another piece of this. It's not just like looking back because there's a whole separate conversation around kind of these, like, dirty assets or agents where they've been involved in illegal activity in the past. And then you're trying to evaluate future cooperation based off of, you know, misdeeds from, you know, their misspent youth or what have you. But in this case, what makes it so hard is that he is in some cases scapitici, in some cases is saying this person is going to be killed.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

And conceivably, you know, we could look back on some of these and say, well, the FRU could have intervened, the British state could have intervened in theory to prevent these, these murders from, from happening and chose not to in order to keep Steak Knife in place.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, let's use an example because I think that maybe conveys some of the complexities of it. An early killing that the Nutting Squad does, one of its earliest ones. Michael Kearney is 20 years old. Someone has told the Brits he's delivered bombs to a lockup. He's arrested by the security forces but then released. Means he comes under suspicion. He's handed over to the ISU on 27 June 1979 and is accused of being an informer. Now, two days later, after he's handed over to the ISU, the first report is received by the British through Steak Knife. So through scappetici warning that Michael Kearney is going to be executed. Now, there's still over the course of the next two weeks. This is interesting, I think from one of the reports. Two separate agents on three occasions tell British Military Intelligence and Special Branch that he was going to be killed. I mean, one of the interesting things about that is it makes clear they've got multiple agents actually reporting on this. It's not even just Steak Knife. They've got multiple agents saying he's going to be killed. And despite those warnings, they don't do anything. And he's found dead on the Fermanag border on 11th of July. So two weeks after the first report and he asked to say a prayer before he was killed. Huge stigma. Interesting enough for his family for him having been killed for being an informer. And people are told not to go to his funeral, for instance, but many years later, after work by his brother, the IRA actually accept that he hadn't passed information that he hadn't been an informer and they did shot him in the wrong. I mean, what do we make of that case?

[David McCloskey]

There's so many layers to this, which is, you know, do you let your agent get involved in murder to protect his position? If you do that, are you murdering people who the IRA suspects are informers but are not in some cases, I guess you could also run up against a situation where do you let your golden goose agent murder other agents or provide you with information that they will be murdered and let it happen. So in some cases, you could have one agent actually killing another. You know, so there's, there's a whole level of operational complexity to this thing and also so much moral complexity, because I'd imagine that every frou case officer who handled Steak Knife would have said, he's providing us with really, really important intelligence that is saving lives, and these lives that are lost are worth it. That's kind of the grim math that I think they're doing. Is that what he's providing at the moment or Steak knives potential future value outweighs the value of, of those lives? I mean, that is the stark kind of moral calculation that I think that frankly, not just the handlers, the British state is making as they run this guy.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. So I think let's leave it there and next time we'll drill down a bit further into some of these cases and the kind of reality and the complexity of how Steak Knife is running and being run as an agent inside the ira, but also how things get, I'm afraid, even darker and more complex as the killings mount.

[David McCloskey]

But of course, members to the Declassified Club can listen to this entire series right now. Get early access to all of it. You will also get access to our bonus interviews. Doing an interview, as we mentioned, with Patrick Radden Keefe, the author of say Nothing, looking at this kind of intelligence conflict inside the Troubles. And you can sign up for all of that at the rest is classified.com

[Gordon Carrera]

and you can get tickets for our live show, the live show September 4th and the 5th, when we'll be on stage at the South Bank. So do have a look for tickets for that before they disappear. Our last one in January did sell out, but so sign up for that. Sign up for the newsletter as well, which gives you the latest on what's going on with the podcast. But otherwise, we will see you next time.

[David McCloskey]

We'll see you next time.