Garda family has good reason not to trust some prominent politicians

He joined the gardaí after his brother Richard was murdered while chasing bank robbers. When Martin became a ministerial driver, it was “common knowledge” among the other drivers that the man suspected of murdering his brother was helped to escape in Neil Blaney’s ministerial car.

EVER since the bungled investigation into the assassination of President John F Kennedy the net of suspicion has been spreading wider. The latest spotlight has been turned on Lyndon Johnson, the man who succeeded him in the White House.

Johnson was actually under investigation for criminal activity on the day of the assassination. Don B Reynolds testified before a private session of a Senate committee that he gave Johnson kickbacks and that he saw Bobby Baker, a Johnson protégé, with what he said was a $100,000 kickback for Johnson from a Fort Worth firm in return for a defence contract.

Reynolds’ testimony was suddenly cut short, however, by the news that Kennedy had been shot and the investigation of Johnson, now president, was essentially buried. In a TV documentary Madeleine Brown, one of Johnson’s mistresses, told of a party in Dallas on the eve of the assassination. Johnson told her the Kennedys “will never embarrass me again. That’s not a threat; it’s a promise.”

Guests at that party reportedly included Johnson, former vice-president Richard Nixon, FBI director J Edgar Hoover and a number of Mafia figures, including Jack Ruby who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald a few days later.

On learning in 1973 that Howard Hunt, a former CIA man, had been linked to Watergate, Nixon feared this would re-open the assassination issue. “In my mind,” Hunt wrote in his memoirs, which were posthumously published this week, “this proves that the president was crazier than anybody gave him credit for. Does this mean he started to believe he had something to do with the assassination?”

If Johnson’s friends were behind the assassination, associating with people like Hoover and Nixon on the eve of the murder would have provided them with cover. Indeed, Hoover frustrated the subsequent investigation. How could he have explained his presence at a party with Jack Ruby? Leaving loose ends in an investigation inevitably leads to speculation. The same thing is happening here.

Last weekend there were allegations that Bertie Ahern went to Manchester with a briefcase full of money in 1994. Garda Martin Fallon reportedly made the allegation, presumably thinking he was doing so in confidence, but Jim Higgins of Fine Gael apparently betrayed that confidence in a reprehensible way. He phoned Garda Fallon and secretly allowed a journalist to listen in. Old Fine Gael dogs apparently don’t learn new tricks. When a garda provided the tip-off about the events leading to the Arms Crisis, Liam Cosgrave also went to the Sunday Independent first, but he never betrayed his source. Ultimately, he questioned the Taoiseach and sparked the crisis.

Martin Fallon has a right to feel aggrieved. He joined the gardaí after his brother Richard was murdered while chasing bank robbers in Dublin on April 3, 1970. When Martin became a ministerial driver, it was “common knowledge” among the other drivers that the man suspected of murdering his brother was helped to escape in Neil Blaney’s ministerial car.

In a letter to the Irish Examiner in August 2004, Finian Fallon, the murdered Garda’s son, wrote that his family was informed of this. In fact, Gerry L’Estrange told the Dáil as early November 4, 1971 that “one of the men who murdered Garda Fallon was brought down to Greenore ferryboat in a State car”.

While he did not name Blaney, he did make it clear he was prepared to name names if anybody pressed him. Of course, those who wished to know already knew.

Some people made a political football of the murder for their own sordid purposes. After Jack Lynch requested the resignation of Michael Ó Moráin as Minister for Justice, for instance, he used the murder to cloud the fact that he had ousted Ó Moráin because his ministerial performance had been seriously impaired by alcoholism. Within hours of the start of the Arms Crisis, the Taoiseach told the Dáil on May 7, 1970: “Deputy Ó Moráin’s condition is not unassociated with the shock he suffered as a result of the killing of Garda Fallon”.

Next day Blaney tried to deflect some of the heat from himself by suggesting that “those working in the ‘super-Special Branch’ would be much better employed tracking down Garda Fallon’s killers than spying on those elected to serve the people of the country”.

Some weeks later, on July 29, 1970, Blaney asked the Dáil: “I would query how active these forces have been in apprehending the murderers of Dick Fallon? The murderer was witnessed by some members of these forces and yet the people involved in the murder have escaped the net”.

Of course, Blaney did not mention that he had his garda driver help the main suspect to flee by driving him to Donegal.

Des O’Malley, who was Minister for Justice when Blaney made his allegations, later told the Dáil on July 6, 2001 that “there is some reason to believe Garda Fallon may have been murdered in April 1970 with a weapon which had been part of earlier illegal arms shipments into this State. There is also reason to suppose that some senior gardaí suspected that a prominent politician was fully aware of this earlier importation and had turned a blind eye to it”.

Even though he did not mention names, it was widely believed the prominent political was Charlie Haughey. As Minister for Finance in 1969, Haughey had sent his brother, Jock, to Britain as part of an official team to galvanise “those disposed to be friendly” to help relieve the distress in Northern Ireland”.

THE Special Branch later reported that Jock actually engaged in negotiations to purchase arms, and they suspected he returned with some pistols. Later, during the Arms Trial, it was disclosed that Charlie Haughey had used his authority as finance minister to direct customs to admit a planned consignment of arms without inspecting them.

Gardaí who investigated the Fallon murder later said they “were told to take it easy”. The Department of Justice’s file on the murder was supposed to be released in 2001, but it was withheld. Why? The Fallon family have long known that the father of a prominent member of the Government was questioned by the gardaí in relation to the murder of Dick Fallon. When there are grounds for suspecting a cover-up, every effort should be made to reassure the family, but the questions posed by the Fallons have been ignored. One can certainly understand their frustration.

Dick Fallon was not only sacrificed, but FF politicians made a sordid political football of his murder. They were the ones who raised most of the questions for their own ends, but they provided no answers for the family. They have not even released the file on the case under the 30-year rule.

With so much political interference and so many lose ends, the Fallon family have every right to an inquiry into the handling of the case. One could understand why Martin Fallon might not have thought too highly of Fianna Fáil, but after the way his confidence was abused, he probably does not think too much of Fine Gael either now. Who could blame him?