British TV Documentary Vindicated

An independent inquiry made public Thursday vindicated a controversial British TV documentary, marking a rare victory for embattled TV journalists here. The findings were a slap in the face for the Thatcher government, which quickly criticized them.

The documentary in question, “Death on the Rock,” produced by the commercial TV company Thames Television, questioned the official version of one of the government’s most controversial acts--the shooting by undercover British soldiers in Gibraltar last March of three unarmed IRA terrorists.

The government issued a statement condemning the inquiry’s findings, saying that the program contained “many serious and damaging inaccuracies” and that the inquiry had bent over backward to be fair to the broadcasters.

The four-month inquiry, chaired by former Conservative minister Lord Windlesham at a cost of nearly $200,000, found that the producers were “experienced, painstaking and persistent. They did not bribe, bully or misrepresent those who took part . . . . We accept that (they) were acting in good faith and without ulterior motives.”

The final paragraph of the 145-page report was expected to particularly anger Prime Minister Maragaret Thatcher. “Whatever view is taken of the state of public opinion and the legitimacy of government intervention,” the conclusion reads, “the making and screening of ‘Death on the Rock’ proved that freedom of expression can prevail in the most extensive, and the most immediate, of all the means of mass communication.”

Many people in British television fear that “Death on the Rock” may be just a temporary victory in what they regard as a concerted government campaign to muzzle the medium.

John Wakeham, majority leader in Parliament, noted that an inquest had ruled the killings were lawful, and said of the inquiry’s report: “The government profoundly disagrees with it.”

The battle between the prime minister and British broadcasters has been one of the most notable features of Thatcher’s decade in power. The government has not shirked from using threats, intimidation and even legislation to impose its will on a television industry that it views as subversive and left wing. This has led to some extraordinary clashes between the two--none more dramatic than the current episode.

The inquiry’s findings have done wonders for flagging morale among TV journalists here. “This is a real victory for freedom of thought and expression,” said one senior TV Thames executive. “It shows that this government can’t go on and on repressing freedom.”

However, many believe that in the face of controversies like this one, investigative journalism remains under threat.

“My feeling is that the whole climate for investigative journalism has been made more difficult ever since Mrs. Thatcher came to power,” said veteran TV journalist Michael Cockerell. “However they rationalize it, TV executives are less and less keen on investigation for a whole range of reasons--most of which go back to No. 10 Downing Street.”

Northern Ireland has long been the most politically sensitive subject in British journalism, and “Death on the Rock” was condemned by the government even before it was aired last April. The foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, made two requests for it to be banned until after the inquest on the deaths had taken place in Gibraltar. But the go-ahead was given by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, the body responsible for regulating ITV, Britain’s commercial network and the main opposition to the BBC.

The TV team had gone to Gibraltar and knocked on scores of doors. The witnesses they found told disconcerting stories--of people apparently executed with their hands up and a soldier firing into the chest of a prostrate man. The question at the heart of the program was whether the British soldiers were acting in self-defense or whether they were operating a “shoot-to-kill” policy--simply eliminating a group of known terrorists outside the due process of the law, without arrest or trial.

The eyewitness accounts in “Death on the Rocks” all contradicted the official line, and Thatcher described herself as “beyond anger” that they should have been broadcast. In the resulting furor, extraordinary attempts were made in the press to discredit the program and its chief witness, Mrs. Carmen Proetta.

At the inquest in Gibraltar, the government produced soldiers and intelligence officers who claimed that the shootings were a mistake. The jury returned a verdict of “lawful killing.”

When one of the TV program’s witnesses tried to withdraw his statements, a cry went up for Thames Television’s blood. The company was left in little doubt that it would lose its franchise on the spot if it did not hold an independent inquiry.

Thames Television initiated the inquiry by Lord Windlesham, a former member of Mrs. Thatcher’s Conservative Party who had himself served in Northern Ireland, and senior attorney Richard Rampton, who specializes in defamation law.

When she first came to power, Thatcher’s anger was mainly directed at the BBC. Just before the 1979 election, her closest political friend, Airey Neave, was blown up by Irish terrorists in the House of Commons parking lot. A BBC program edited by Roger Bolton (who also edited “Death on the Rock”) featured an interview with a masked member of the Irish National Liberation Army, claiming responsibility.

Some months later, after the murder of Lord Mountbatten, a BBC team filmed an IRA maneuver in the small Irish village of Carrick More. An inflammatory account of what went on was published in a newspaper that was shown to Thatcher during a cabinet meeting. That afternoon in the House of Commons, she angrily called on the BBC to “put its house in order.”

It was the first in a series of stinging clashes between the government and the BBC, ranging from programs about official secrets to alleged bias in its news reports of the American bombing of Libya.

There are many who believe that these bullying tactics have worked. Today, the BBC has fewer arguments with the government and produces little that could be described as investigative journalism. Michael Cockerell recently left the BBC after 13 years on its top current affairs show, “Panorama.” “I perceived a significant cooling on the kind of subject I could tackle,” he said.

Now Thatcher has turned her attention to the commercial network, which she believes (with some justification) has become fat and complacent because of its monopoly on TV advertising. The Independent Broadcasting Authority made its stand on “Death on the Rock” at a particularly unfortunate moment. The government has decided to abolish it and replace it with a less powerful body.

Even the government’s critics concede that the government has been clever. Through its constant attacks on TV and its recent ban on TV interviews with members of Sinn Fein (the IRA’s political wing), it has managed to spread the notion that television is full of anti-Thatcherite subversives who are on the side of the IRA. The prevailing climate in Britain is now one in which asking legitimate journalistic questions about the government is somehow equated with being unpatriotic.

“Death on the Rocks” editor Roger Bolton believes that, despite the Windelshem report, the future of TV journalism is looking bleak.

“I think the Windelshem inquiry would be incomprehensible to American journalists, because in America there is a completely different approach to information and the role of the press,” he said. “American journalists are not called unpatriotic when they try to bring into the public domain information that is inconvenient to politicians. If we do it, it is assumed we must be left wing or supportive of terrorism.

“But we have to keep going. The only way the violence will end is if the IRA is stopped from being able to recruit people. Events like Gibraltar help them to continue recruiting. One has to explain that basic fact to the British public. The electorate has to be informed--even if it doesn’t want to know.”