Shocked Irishmen
From David Bell, JP, and J. W. Kennedy, MP for Gomac, Belfast Sir: Northern Irish readers are shocked at your leading article and Professor John Vaizey's contribution in your issue of September 11. For Professor Vaizey to state: "in the first place it seriously reduces the effectiveness of the Army elsewhere . . .", when suggesting that too much of the Army is committed to Ulster, and then later in his contribution to suggest that the Army under his proposal would act "as a Northern Ireland police force," is surely a typical example of professorial double think. One cannot have it both ways.
Your leading article is even more muddled than the professor's contribution and particularly when it states that "the Stormont regime and experiment has failed." Further, you use the headline Tinkering with Ireland,' which might well in 1969 have read 'Meddling with Ireland' when the Wilson government initiated many of the troubles which have now beset this sad little part of the United Kingdom.
Prior to 1969 we were at least spared the massive destruction, bombing and murders that our community now suffers. To illustrate this need I say more than that over 100 have died in the past two years and today, September 17, the twenty-third soldier has been murdered.
The terrorists' campaign of bombing and arson continues and security forces' press statements today show the tally of explosives used this year: January, 150 lbs; February, 380 lbs; March, 231 lbs; April 265 lbs; May, 365 lbs; June, 519 lbs; July, 1,408 lbs (this forced the security forces into advising the internment policy); August, 1,349 lbs. This effectively is an increase in eight months from just over one hundredweight to well over half a ton. Hundreds of explosions, millions of pounds' worth of damage — this surely cannot be blamed on politics alone, but rather the blame is on the terrorists and subversives, who are at war with the ordinary people, both Unionist and anti-Unionist, both Protestant and Catholic, in this part of the United Kingdom.
David Bell J. W. Kennedy 15 Oskney Street, Belfast 13
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