GUN-SMUGGLING TRIAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100430003-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 2, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100430003-5
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE: MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
PROGRAM CBS Evening News
DATE November 2, 1982 6:30 P.M.
SUBJECT Gun-Smuggling Trial
STATION WBAL-TV
CBS Network
Baltimore, Md.
DAN RATHER: An eight-week-long gun-smuggling trial in
New York's Brooklyn federal court went to the jury today. The
question to be answered: Were the defendants working for the IRA
or the CIA?
David Culhane has our report.
DAVID CULHANE: He is an unlikely-looking conspirator.
Michael Flannery is a retired insurance man. And this day he and
Margaret Mary, his wife of 47 years, are on their way to mass
at Blessed Sacrament church in Queens, New York, a trip he has
made daily for most of his 81 years. And this day he is on his
way to federal court, a trip he has made each day for the last
eight weeks. Both trips, he says, are a part of his destiny.
MICHAEL FLANNERY: I was born into a land that I love,
as everyone should love their homeland.
CULHANE: The home he loves is Ireland, a country
wracked by political violence for longer than anyone can
remember. Michael Flannery remembers because at 14 he was an IRA
soldier, then a prisoner of war. At 24 he was ordered to leave
the country. He came to the United States and continued to
support a united Ireland until a revulsion in the United States
against the violence in Northern Ireland led to a crackdown.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: We will do everything we
possibly can to prevent American citizens' assistance to the
terrorists in Ireland.
CULHANE: If American policy changed, Michael Flannery
didn't. He was arrested by the FBI on one of those mornings when
Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100430003-5
 Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100430003-5
he came out of church. He and four other men were charged with
conspiring to smuggle guns to the Irish Republican Army.
FLANNERY: We were doing no wrong. We were working with
CULHANE: In court, he and his co-defendants suprised
everyone by suggesting a link with the CIA.
MAN: With the knowledge, assuredly. With the approval,
I don't know.
CULHANE: A former CIA man who is now writing a critique
of the agency testified that the CIA at least knew of the arms
traffic. The prosecution scoffed at the idea of a CIA
connection, and the case is now before the jury.
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