''In an open society such as ours, it is all too easy to use tactics
which are not themselves unlawful for subversive ends, and those who are
entrusted with safeguarding our democratic institutions from subversive
attack must not be prevented from looking into the activities of those
whose real aim is to harm our democracy, but who, for tactical or other
reasons, choose to keep either in the long or the short term within the
letter of the law in what they do.''
Leon Brittan, Home Secretary, on the security services' powers,
January 1985.
''HERE'S one hint,'' said the retired police officer who had just
stated baldly that he knew how the fiery Scottish nationalist Willie
McRae met his death five years ago today. ''One of the policies of MI5
in all these matters is to muddy the waters as much as possible so that
no-one can see the bottom of the pond.''
John Conway's hint was heavily laden with the implication that McRae
did not take his own life on a lonely Highland road that day, as the
authorities have indicated, but that he was murdered by agents of the
State, as his friends have always claimed. Many of these friends,
including members of the recently-reconstituted Siol Nan Gaidheal
nationalist movement, will gather tomorrow at a small cairn on the shore
of Loch Loyne marking the spot where McRae received the mortal gunshot
wound to his head.
What inspires such loyalty to the memory of a charismatic, somewhat
dangerous man? To find the answer to that, you cross the Connel bridge,
turn off Benderloch's main street and inquire at the second croft on the
right. From there, Michael Strathern sends out his rallying calls and
letters of protest on notepaper bearing the legend ''The Willie McRae
Society''.
''He had truth, integrity and compassion,'' he explains. ''Far from
diminishing with time, that influence has become enhanced, so it is
hardly surprising that Willie has been adopted as patron of the new Siol
Nan Gaidheal movement.
''We may be shocked, but we should not be surprised by political
assassination. If Willie McRae did take his own life, as the
London-appointed Solicitor General for Scotland implies, why are they
going to such lengths to cover it up?''
It is worth looking at the versions of events that can be conjured out
of the known facts of that Easter holiday weekend five years ago. The
official version is as follows.
McRae, aged 61, a lawyer and leading figure in the SNP, set off from
Glasgow on Friday, April 5, to spend the weekend at his cottage in
Kintail. Some aspects of his lifestyle are cited to indicated he was
potentially suicidal. He gave more than just legal advice to the
terrorist wing of Scottish nationalism; he was a homosexual and a heavy
drinker; illness may have been recurring; he was under some business
pressure; he had a drink-driving charge hanging over him.
Therefore, some time after midnight, three-quarters of the way to his
destination, he pulled off the Invergarry-Kyle of Lochalsh road, took
out his revolver, fired it once to test it, and then shot himself in the
head. At 10.45am a tourist flagged down a passing motorist. By
coincidence it was a party colleague of McRae, Dundee councillor David
Coutts, accompanied by his wife and a friend, Dr Dorothy Messer. The
scene was in disarray, possessions strewn around, including the gun
which was later found some distance away in a ditch.
The unconscious McRae was taken by ambulance to Raigmore Hospital in
Inverness, still presumed to be the victim of a car crash, and then
transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Only there did an X-ray reveal
a bullet as the cause of the head wound, and he died without regaining
consciousness.
The official conclusion is that although someone must have interfered
with the scene of the incident, throwing away the gun, rifling papers
and credit cards and even stealing items of value, the death itself was
not suspicious. Case closed.
But why was the callous theft, from an unconscious man left to die,
not a crime worthy of investigation? Whisky and a carton of Gold Flake
cigarettes specially imported from Dublin had vanished, as had his
briefcase and contents, and a #100 Scottish banknote -- his first
earnings as a lawyer, kept as a nationalist momento. Strathern said: ''I
sent a letter to the fiscal stating that, quite apart from the question
of supposed suicide, 'I can report that Willie was not only shot but
robbed -- what are you going to do about that?' I did not receive a
reply.''
The theft also fails to square with a statement by the then Solicitor
General, Peter Fraser, the present Lord Advocate, three months after the
death: ''I personally took the decision that there should be no Fatal
Accident Inquiry. This is not unusual where the circumstances, so far as
ascertained, reveal no criminality on the part of another person, known
or unknown . . . I am not in a position to elaborate upon my
reasoning.''
That has been the official position ever since. Political soundings
were taken within the SNP, but the party did not press for an inquiry,
even when an internal investigation by Winnie Ewing concluded: ''I
regret, therefore, that I cannot, as I hoped, say to the national
executive committee that I am satisfied that Willie did commit
suicide.'' The final word was left to McRae's brother, Dr Ferguson
McRae, who lives in West Lothian; when the next-of-kin turned down an
FAI, the book was closed. Dr McRae has turned down requests to discuss
the issue since then.
But the scenario drawn from the known facts by McRae's friends is very
different. A fitting and colourful subject for a work of fiction, McRae
was a dangerous man in so many ways; reckless concerning his personal
health, lifestyle and political leanings -- his first brush with MI5
came as a young officer in the intelligence section of the Royal Indian
Navy, when he campaigned for Indian independence and befriended Ghandi.
And he was dangerous to the present-day establishment, whether as the
clever lawyer spinning out the Mullwharcher nuclear dumping inquiry to
several weeks (with Dounreay to come), or as the paymaster and brains
behind the Scottish National Liberation Army, who were engaged in letter
bombings.
If, as many believe, the security services were involved in the
bungled murder of the elderly rose-grower Hilda Murrell, a nuclear
protester and aunt of the signals officer who held the key to the
controversy over the sinking of the General Belgrano, then it becomes
less far-fetched that McRae might be assassinated.
Debris and glass found at the scene later by friends, but not
seemingly checked by the police, indicated that his car may have been
run off the road. He had changed a tyre earlier in the journey -- hardly
the actions of a man contemplating suicide. There are doubts about
whether the entry wound was on the side or back of the head -- the
latter would seem to rule out suicide -- while the absence of powder
burns would also indicate the shot came from a distance.
The investigation by John Conway, a member of the legal group Justice,
also raises fresh questions. As a former member of the Northern
Constabulary, now retired to his native Warwickshire, he has uncovered a
sinister bureaucratic chain of command, and some decidedly odd facts.
How could it be, for example, that news of the ''shooting'' was the talk
of pubs and clubs in Inverness and Nairn as McRae lay in Raigmore, but
the bullet was not supposed to have been discovered until his transfer
to Aberdeen?
This undermines the official position that a prompt police
investigation was not instigated because they thought it was simply a
car crash. ''Because of who and what he was, William McRae for years had
been a 'known person' not only to the security service MI5, but also to
Special Branch officers of Strathclyde Police and the Northern
Constabulary, within whose area the car incident occurred,'' wrote
Conway.
''The Government policy in these matters is to 'sweep it under the
carpet', and so it was that within a few hours of its commencement the
police investigation came to an abrupt halt. The police having little or
nothing to report to him, the procurator-fiscal was not in a position to
hold a Fatal Accident Inquiry.''
Conway acknowledges that McRae, in his will, asked for a quiet burial,
which may have influenced his brother's stance on an FAI. However, he
adds: ''What is equally certain is that it was Home Office intervention
at an early stage which restrained the police from making a full-scale
investigation in the first place.''
If Conway's assessment is correct, that can only mean the authorities
felt they had something to hide. Whether that something was a botched
surveillance operation or a deliberate assassination we may never know,
but John Conway believes MI5 were involved -- a belief that will bring
added determination to tomorrow's ceremony at the cairn.
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