@@ Green Slime "Gordon Kerr" behind British false-flag operations in Iraq @@
Arash
November 26, 2000
The Force Research Unit (FCU)
The secret wars of a spymaster
By Neil Mackay
Home Affairs Editor
Gordon Kerr not only ran a secret army unit which helped terrorists to kill innocent
people in Ulster, as we revealed last week. He also worked against British
intelligence in Cold War Berlin
There's a phrase set aside in the British army for men like Brigadier Gordon Kerr
(http://www.sundayherald.com/fru.shtml) and it's ''Green Slime''. Soldiers don't
mince words, and to regular squaddies and military brass, Brigadier Gordon Kerr and
his Intelligence Corps are on roughly the same level as pond life. Highly effective,
immensely powerful and very dangerous pond life, but pond life nevertheless.
The "Green Slime" tag is partly down to the distinctive emerald beret worn by "Int
Corps", but let's be frank, it's more a nod to Int Corps' back-stabbing,
double-dealing and underhand tactics and morals. And Kerr is, after all, the
archetypal spy; a spook's spook and a master of dirty tricks and dirty wars. It
should, therefore, come as no surprise that there was one thing Kerr wasn't short of
during his stint in Berlin during the early 1980s: enemies.
As one of the top spies in the divided city at the height of the Cold War, Brigadier
Kerr's job was taking on the KGB and the East German Stasi.
But his leading role in this cloak and dagger theatre was not enough for Brigadier
Kerr, who is currently the British military attache to Beijing. According to
officers, who served with him in Berlin, Brigadier Kerr's Intelligence Corps unit was
also engaged in a dangerous turf war with other seemingly respectable British
intelligence agencies which could have had disastrous consequences; it even
threatened to undermine and close the last, vital diplomatic links between the
British and Russian armies.
"If Brigadier Kerr's Int Corp had been successful in its hostile takeover of
legit British operations, it would have shut down that line of communication during
one of the worst periods of the Cold War, and we would have lost our main route to
the Russians", a former Berlin British intelligence officer said.
"It would have been like hanging up the telephone while trying to negotiate not
blowing the world to smithereens".
Brigadier Kerr's role in the secret Cold War against his own side was a sign of his
warped sense of duty and led to the most shameful chapter of Britain's dirty war in
Ulster. As the Sunday Herald revealed last week, under Kerr's command, the Force
Research Unit (FRU) - the most secretive and dangerous of all the covert British
military intelligence groups - regularly passed documents on Catholics and
nationalists to loyalist terrorists who they were running as agents.
These loyalist double agents, including the Ulster Defence Association's chief of
intelligence, Brian Nelson, were handed packages of photographs and military reports
detailing the movements and addresses of potential targets, which in turn were passed
to loyalist murder gangs.
In total, an estimated 15 civilians died as a result of FRU collusion with loyalist
terrorists.
One victim of this collusion was the Catholic solicitor, Pat Finucane, who counted a
number of prominent republicans among his clients.
Other victims included known Provos and high ranking republicans; but a handful -
perhaps five - were so-called innocents, people who had no other reason to die other
than the fact they were Catholic.
As far as we know, Brigadier Kerr's activities in Berlin between 1983-85 had less
dramatic consequences, although whether that was due to luck or design is still
debatable. As commander of Three Intelligence and Security Company, or Three I-Spy,
he was in one of the most sensitive intelligence-gathering posts in eastern Europe,
and Britain's leading, frontline cold warrior.
East German Stasi files passed to the Sunday Herald show that during this time
Brigadier Kerr's men carried out more ''flag tours'' - secret intelligence missions -
than the French and U.S. military intelligence put together.
An officer who served with Brigadier Kerr in Berlin said his tactics were
"pointlessly aggressive and confrontational".
Brigadier Gordon Kerr's Int Corps seems to have used the same tactics it employed
against the ''Sovs'' to take on its rivals in other branches of British intelligence
in Berlin, particularly a little-known, but essential, outfit called "Brixmis".
At the time, Berlin was the fiercest battleground in the spying war between east and
west. Against the backdrop of the Afghan war and ever-deteriorating relations with
Warsaw Pact countries, one of the few channels of communication left open between the
Soviet armies and UK forces in Berlin was "Brixmis" - the British Commander in
Chief's Military Mission to the Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
"Brixmis" acted as a legitimate military liaison between the Red Army and the British
Army on the Rhine. It was trusted by the Russians. Even the USSR army marshall, Pjota
Koschewoj, said Brixmis acted with ''tact and good manners''.
Its ''clean'' status made "Brixmis" a key part of the Cold War. But, according to
intelligence officers in Berlin at the time, Brigadier Kerr wanted to take it over.
Int Corps began machinating against "Brixmis" staff. Allegations of spying for the
east were made against "Brixmis" officers and their families, and bad reports found
their way back to London on the effectiveness of "Brixmis" personnel.
The intention was clearly for Int Corps to get their own man into "Brixmis" so that
deep-cover spooks could take over every arm of the British Cold War operation against
Russia.
''We were run by the straight army, not the Green Slime, and the Soviets knew
that'', one Brixmis officer said.
''Three I-Spy wanted an Int Corps guy running Brixmis. That would have seen an
organisation which was trusted by the Russians taken over by the likes of Brigadier
Kerr, who was, in Soviet eyes, running wild through Berlin at the time. If that had
happened, Britain's interests in Germany would have been seriously damaged. The role
of Brixmis was to keep open channels of communications between the Russians and
British. If Int Corp had taken over, that would have stopped.
''We were the last line in the sand before all-out hostilities. To Russian eyes
we were legit. If Brigadier Kerr's mob had taken over it would have been disastrous.
Our role was to build confidence with the Russians and to help prevent a nuclear
holocaust. We have to remember we had two major armies involved in a confrontation in
Berlin and any misunderstandings could have been fatal''.
To make matters worse, Brigadier Kerr arrived in Berlin at the same time as General
Mikhail Zeitzev took over as Commander of the Soviet Armies in Germany. An
ultra-hardliner, Zeitzev, or "Big Z" as British agents called him, pushed the
stand-off in Berlin to the brink.
During Zeitzev's tenure, an American major was shot dead while spying on Russian
tanks, a French NCO was killed and three British soldiers were almost crushed to
death by a Soviet armoured patrol.
Brigadier Kerr's behaviour also outraged the head of the East German Stasi, Erik
Meilke, as East German secret police files shown to the Sunday Herald reveal.
A senior intelligence source who served in Berlin said:
''Big Z had decided that he wasn't going to take any prisoners. If Brigadier
Kerr's men had moved into Brixmis, there would have been serious consequences. We
were in the middle of a period of sustained hostility. If Brigadier Kerr's lot had
forced a change, that would have been the final break in communications with
Russia''.
The Sunday Herald's investigation into Brigadier Kerr's activities - through speaking
to his contemporaries and men who served under him in the shadowy world of espionage
and counter-insurgency - pieces together a picture of an officer described as ''drunk
with power''; a brilliant soldier who decided to live life by his own rules, and a
man who was, and probably still is, prepared to accept that terrible things must
happen for Britain's greater good.
''He's the perfect advocate of the ends justifying the means'', said one
intelligence officer who knew him.
As one would expect for a soldier who is among the top six spies in the UK, there are
big gaps in what we know about Brigadier Kerr. Of his early years, there's little
information. We know he comes from Aberdeen, is aged 52, and that he graduated from a
Scottish university in 1970. The fog begins to lift around the time he arrives at
Glencorse, the training depot for the British army in Scotland, in 1971. His high
level of education was a military rarity in those days, and marked him out as a
potential big-hitter. Second lieutenant Gordon Kerr, army number 489090, was
nicknamed "Craigie", and was, as his peers from those days recall, a ''good chap''.
As a young officer in the Gordon Highlanders he served in Cyprus before his first
posting to Armagh in 1972 - the bloodiest period of the Ulster Troubles. The
high-flyer was appointed an Intelligence Officer, and then the regiment's officer
commanding the Intelligence Section. So began his undercover work. Dressed in
civvies, he grew long hair to fit in with Ulster's civilian population, drove - and
constantly resprayed - an undercover ''scout'' car and developed relationships with
RUC Special Branch, MI5 and terrorist touts, or informers.
By the time he left Ulster in June 1973, he'd helped arrest four leading Provos:
Edward Howell, the OC (officer commanding) 2nd PIRA; Raddo Bradley, adjutant of 1st
PIRA; Micky McMullan, the OC of 1st PIRA's B company and Thomas Callan, OC 1st PIRA.
In 1974, he was promoted to Captain before being posted to the British Army's
Intelligence Training Centre in October 1975.
He was briefly with the ''Det'', the SAS-trained 14th Intelligence Company - the
forerunner of the FRU - before being sent to the army's Ulster HQ in Lisburn and then
transferring from the Gordons to the Intelligence Corp. At this stage, Kerr vanishes
off the radar before resurfacing at the army's Staff College in 1980, where he was
promoted to major before moving to Berlin.
After Berlin, he undertook a brief stint as senior instructor with the Special
Intelligence Wing in Ashford, Kent. It was a CME - or covert methods of entry team -
from Ashford which is alleged to have helped FRU men set fire to offices used by the
Stevens Inquiry team in Ulster. Detectives under the command of Scotland Yard's
commissioner, Sir John Stevens, are currently investigating FRU collusion with
loyalist terrorists and are planning to interview Kerr and arrest a number of FRU
staff.
In Ashford, Gordon Kerr, and his Irish wife, were involved in the resettling of
British Army agents whose cover had been blown while undercover in Ulster. In 1987,
now ranking as a colonel, Gordon Kerr took over as OC of the FRU; and it was then
that civilians started to die in Northern Ireland at the hands of loyalist gunmen,
aided and abetted by the security forces.
As one FRU source told the Sunday Herald:
''My unit was guilty of conspiring in the murder of civilians in Ulster on about
14 occasions. We were able to take out leading Provos with the help of the UDA. It
was a great military coup''.
Brigadier Kerr, according to FRU sources, was not a maverick - he was sanctioned from
the top. After leaving the FRU, which still operates today, Gordon Kerr returned to
Berlin on more intelligence matters and was then promoted to brigadier - hardly
evidence that military top brass and the government were displeased with his
undercover operations in Ulster.
In army terms, Gordon Kerr has what's termed ''protezione'' - a Mafia term meaning
protection. Brigadier Kerr has connections going right to the heart of the British
establishment and his position as military attache to Beijing makes him the effective
joint number two in Britain's entire military intelligence operation. It would have
been the current chief of the defence staff, General Sir Charles Guthrie, who is also
Int Corps' colonel-commandant, who approved Kerr's promotion.
But Brigadier Kerr's time may be running out. Stevens has already arrested a clutch
of loyalists as part of his inquiry, and charged one FRU member with intimidation of
witnesses. The fingerprints of British military intelligence personnel are on
documents used by loyalist gangs to plan assassinations. New information, reported on
our front page today - revealing how Kerr sanctioned illegal incursions over the
Irish border by British military intelligence officers - has prompted diplomatic
outrage in Dublin.
All the descriptions of Brigadier Kerr by the intelligence officers and soldiers we
spoke to who worked with him throughout his 30-year career, shared the same view -
that Brigadier Kerr saw himself above the law. Both Ulster FRU officers and Berlin
intelligence officers, describe him almost identically.
"Brigadier Kerr wrote his own moral code. He decided what was morally acceptable
in Britain's best interests", one Berlin officer said. Or, as FRU sources put it:
"Kerr was the boss of the FRU and the FRU were deciding who could live and who
should die in Ireland".
Gordon Kerr's Force Research Unit - a covert British military intelligence cell -
passed information to loyalist terrorists, recruited as double agents, which was used
to kill Catholics and Republicans in Ulster during the 1980s. The FRU's main agent
was "Brian Nelson", the UDA's chief intelligence officer. Nelson was later jailed,
even though Gordon Kerr gave evidence for him in court using the cover-name "Colonel
J".
http://www.safrc.com/Militarisation/html/fru4.htm
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