Sir Frank Kitson: highly decorated general 'a convenient scapegoat'

An obituary in The Times reports that General Kitson died on January 2, saying: “No general in recent times has provoked more intense and sustained controversy.”

He was one of the highest ranking officers to serve in the province during the Troubles, and was described by former BBC journalist Peter Taylor as a ‘hate figure’ for Irish republicans.

However, Dr William Matchett said the Military Cross recipient has been wrongly accused of using tactics developed in earlier counter-insurgency emergencies – including Kenya and Malaya – in Northern Ireland.

Dr Matchett said: “A lot of misinformation has filled the airwaves on Sir Frank Kitson. At the Bloody Sunday inquiry he testified that nothing he wrote of in previous 'Small Wars' made it into Northern Ireland. How the security effort developed with intelligence-led policing to the fore bears that out.”

The author of ‘Secret Victory: The Intelligence War that Beat the IRA’, added: “The highly decorated soldier was a convenient scapegoat for republican propaganda.

“And it is the latter that has come to define what we call 'the Troubles' better than anything else.”

Kitson wrote a number of books on military tactics including, in 1971, ​’Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency And Peacekeeping’, which was based on his experiences in dealing with guerrillas in the colonies.

In the Daily Telegraph, a book reviewer concluded: “To understand the nature of revolutionary warfare, one cannot do better than read Low Intensity Operations ... the author has had unrivalled experience of such operations in many parts of the world.”

Kitson’s track record includes playing a key command role in some of the Army’s most controversial operations during the early days of the Troubles, including the introduction of internment without trial and Bloody Sunday.

With a particular interest in counter-insurgency tactics, he established the army’s undercover Military Reaction Force that has come under scrutiny in recent years as complaints of unlawful killings have been pursued through the civil courts.

SDLP founding member Paddy Devlin once said of Kitson, that he “probably did more than any other individual to sour relations between the Catholic community and the security forces”.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told the BBC that the general’s legacy was “a very negative one” and that his tactics “destroyed lives”.

Dr Cillian McGrattan of the Ulster University rejected the narrative that portrays the Army as meting out gratuitous violence.

“Gen Kitson's death will no doubt provide an opportunity for republicans to roll out the self-absolving story that the IRA was merely responding to Army violence,” he said.

The politics lecturer said republicans around 1969/1970 often “provoked” a military response.

“Republicans had maintained a strong presence in Belfast and organised riots to provoke the police and Army into responding. With the Army on the streets from August 1969, republicans quickly decided to take their 'war' to 'the Brits' to try to force the issue of partition,” Dr McGrattan added.