THIS week’s Icon is famous for his death. A pity, as it overshadows the life’s achievements.

He rose to high rank in the Scottish National Party; served as aide-de-camp to Admiral Lord; successfully opposed nuclear waste dumping. He fashioned Israel’s maritime law and was an emeritus professor of the University of Haifa.

The problem with Willie McRae’s death is that it wasn’t clean. It was a shot to the head. But who pulled the trigger? Official version: he did. Sceptics’ version: the state did. Or the nuclear industry.

Or high-profile paedophiles fearing public exposure. Or drug smugglers.

These days, with conspiracy theories prospering on social media, it’s wise to be sceptical of sceptics. But sceptics and conspiracy theorists have much ammunition in this case: two bullets fired; no fingerprints on the gun – found 60ft from the body; deceased previously under surveillance; a supposed suicide phoning ahead to have a fire lit at his holiday cottage; his crashed car pointing the wrong way for his intended journey.

Smoking guns everywhere. But, despite numerous books, articles and TV documentaries, the death of this larger-than-life character remains a mystery.

First: the life. McRae was born on May 18, 1923 in Carron, near Falkirk. The boy excelled at school. The young man edited a local newspaper in Grangemouth while reading history at the University of Glasgow, where he gained a first-class degree.

In the Second World War he was commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders but transferred to the Royal Indian Navy, in which he became a lieutenant commander and aide-de-camp to the aforementioned Mountbatten, while enthusiastically supporting Indian independence.

After the war, McRae returned to Glasgow University, for a degree in law this time. He became a solicitor and, in the General Elections of 1974 and 1979, stood unsuccessfully for the SNP in Ross and Cromarty. He also stood for SNP leader, coming third.

Nuclear case
At a public inquiry in 1980, he “single-handedly” prevented the United Kingdom Energy Authority from disposing of nuclear waste in the Galloway Hills. At the time of his death, McRae had been working on another nuclear case, opposing plans to dump waste from Dounreay in the sea.

So: the death. On Good Friday, April 5, 1985, at 6:30pm, McRae left his Glasgow flat to spend time at his cottage at Ardelve, by Loch Alsh. 

Before leaving, he showed a briefcase of documents to a friend, PC Donald Morrison, and told him: “I’ve definitely got them this time.”

Who them? Has it anything to do with the fact that, with his flat having being broken into repeatedly prior to his death, he’d taken to carrying documents relating to Dounreay with him at all times? 

Such documents were not found on him when he died. The one copy kept in his office was stolen during a break-in. No other items were taken.

Less speculation, more certainty: at 10am on Saturday, April 6, an Australian holidaying couple noticed a maroon Volvo car “straddling a burn” on moorland, 90ft from the junction of the A887 and A87 roads at Bun Loyne, Glenmoriston.

The tourists flagged down the next car to pass, whose driver was a doctor, Dorothy Messer, accompanied by her fiancé and another passenger, David Coutts, an SNP councillor in Dundee, who knew McRae.

They found the driver’s door of the Volvo wedged shut against the bank of the burn. 

Inside, McRae lay with his hands folded on his lap, a “considerable amount of blood on his temple”, and his head slumped on his right shoulder. Dr Messer estimated McRae had been in that position for 10 hours, putting the time of the incident at about midnight. He was still breathing. One pupil was dilated, indicating possible brain damage.

Put on life support
An ambulance took McRae to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, from where he was transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – standard procedure for head injuries.

He was put on a life-support machine, and six hours after he’d been found, a nurse washing his head discovered what appeared to be the entry wound of a gunshot. An X-ray confirmed McRae had been shot above his right ear. A bullet was detected in his head. 

His brain was severely damaged. Next day, Sunday April 7, after consultation with next of kin, McRae’s life-support was switched off.

Back at the car, the lone police officer found a holdall inside and asked Coutts to gather the various effects. As he did so, Coutts noticed 20 yards away a heap of other papers “meticulously ripped up” and formed into a pyramid topped by McRae’s smashed watch and a garage bill. Peculiar. There was no briefcase, but Coutts collected  “a couple of books, a Bible, a half-consumed half-bottle of whisky”.

On the Sunday of McRae’s death, the car was removed – before, the following day, a Smith and Wesson .45 revolver was found 60ft from the car’s last position. It had been fired twice.

An autopsy left an open verdict, suggesting suicide. However, given the circumstances, person, and sums that didn’t add up, clamour for an inquiry grew. None was granted. 
The SNP conducted its own inquiry, with Winnie Ewing coming “up against a brick wall” and declaring herself unsatisfied with the official account. The issue has never gone away.

Winnie Ewing

In 2015, a campaign for a Fatal Accident Inquiry collected more than 13,000 signatures. However, McRae’s brother Fergus, a retired GP, described such demands as “futile”, insisting there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his brother’s death. He said the family knew more about Willie than the public, but this was “not something I am willing to go into”.

Independence links
SOME concluding thoughts: if there were political surveillance, it may have been less to do with nuclear waste or high-ranking pervert scandals, and more for past alleged links with folk backing dangerous means to achieve independence. 

Bear in mind, though, that in the 1980s pretty much everybody was under surveillance.
Two bullets? He could have fired one to test the gun. But did he really own a gun? Critics say there’s no proof.

A friend, and police officer, said McRae was “in great fettle” when he left Glasgow. Why would he commit suicide? Whispering campaigns alleged mental instability, alcoholism, sexual shenanigans. But where’s the proof?

A recent book, Firebrand by Ron Culley, casts considerable doubts on the suicide thesis. Then again, McRae’s family are adamant there was no foul play. Difficult one.