Dear Editor:
The positive reaction to author Patrick Radden Keefe’s book SAY NOTHING and its TV adaptation needs context. Keefe admitted he had no prior interest or activism in the conflict in Ireland. Somehow, he was inspired to write the book after reading of Jean McConville’s death in 1972. The idea for a book likely came from his job as an intern for Robert Gates, Director of the CIA. Curiously Keefe never revealed this CIA association to the Irish journalist and author Ed Moloney whose work and research was the foundation for his fictional work. Gates was embroiled in the Iran-Contra arms cover-up, Bank of Credit & Commerce scandal, and election campaign interference. In other words, no stranger to deep State tactics frequently used by the British. The first British publisher of SAY NOTHING—William Collins—was probably secured for the neophyte Irish historian by Gates thru British contacts who gleefully helped. 
The British have long insinuated themselves into America’s military and intelligence institutions. Until the Clinton administration, the British had successfully blocked America from granting Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams a visa. Who then better to assist in such smear and censor tactics than America’s chief spook with whom the British regularly collaborated. They needed to smear Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, to destabilize the ongoing dialogue of the peace process. In 2014 while running for a seat in Ireland’s Dail, he was arrested in connection with the McConville killing but never charged. There is no evidence linking him to her death save the claims of Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes, two deceased former IRA members bitter that Adams had given up the armed conflict.
The TV adaptation of SAY NOTHING needed this smear for three reasons: to misinform Americans; to influence the Irish elections and to distract from the fury of protest over Parliament’s adoption of the Legacy Act in 2023. The Act abandoned the rule of law to bury the truth of over 1000 NI killings with British police, Army, and MI-5 links to loyalist gangs. The British will not publicly release the final Kenova report on some 250 killings linked to British spies. Perhaps the McConville killing was spy related. Hence the need for British spin.
The book lacked any depiction of the wider conflict in its early stages. The British police and Army were out of control with the Derry murders on Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy killings and internment in 1971. Joan Connolly, a mother of 8, was murdered by a British soldier in August, 1971. Why did the killing of Ms. Connolly not merit Patrick Radden Keefe’s attention or even reference? Because the British were only selling their propaganda and rushing it to print for St Patrick’s Day 2019.
Regards,
Michael J. Cummings
Former Co-founder and Secretary
201 W Evergreen Ave,
Chestnut Hill, PA 19118
