KITSON IN FLEET STREET

head of military intelligence in Ulster, has at last surfaced as the subject of a profile in a major national newspaper.

Last weekend The Sunday Times' carried a full page on its centre pages devoted to Kitson-'The Guru of the new model army.

Two senior writers compiled the article-Bruce Page, who has just been promoted managing editor, and Lewis Chester, a ward-winning reporter and co-author (with Page) of 'The American Melodrama', a history of the US election campaign in 1968, and 'The Zinoview Letter'.

The 2,500-word article contained only two pieces of information which might be considered 'new'. Firstly they announced Kitson would shortly become the new commandant of the School of Infantry at Warminster in Wiltshire and secondly that Kitson was on his way to becoming a general. Surprise, surprise. Page: managing editor (Their 'news' that Edward Heath fully supports Kitson's internal subversion 'theories' has been widely reported in these columns on previous occasions.)

The article is therefore insignificant for any great revelation-which is what one may have expected from two such renowned fact-hunters.

Its importance lies in the fact that it presents Kitson as a military man with commendable but perhaps controversial ideas.

But the authors are not happy with simply describing Kitson's ideas—albeit gliblythey give the impression of approving of them.

To put it more bluntly, Messrs Page and Chester have done a whitewash on Kitson and do not disagree basically with what he's planning with his political mentor, Heath.

Alter reading Kitson's two volumes 'Low Intensity Operations' published last October and 'Gangs and Countergangs', an account of his experiences fighting the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Sunday Times' men conclude that Kitson is 'patently an honourable and sensitive officer'.

They go on so say that in Kitson 'respect for democracy runs deeper than it does in most of his critics'.

As Workers Press would firmly place itself as one of Kitson's critics-to put it at its mildest-an account of his past and present conduct is necessary.

It is worth acknowledging that this 'sensitive democrat' has been the key officer in Ulster during three milestones in British imperialism's savagery there: • Internment. • Torture by hideous psychological techniques-exposed by and large by Chester and some of his colleagues on the Insight team. • The Bloody Sunday massacre. It was the Insight inquiry into this murderous event which showed that Kitson had given the orders for paratroops to go in.

None of these incidents rated a mention in last Sunday's article.

Neither did this anecdote from his book on Kenya which gives a clear insight into Kitson's views on 'democracy'.

He describes a secene just before his departure for Nairobi:

I picked up a pamphlet one day on Waterloo Station written by Mr Fenner Brockway. This did nothing to improve my morale because it sowed seeds of doubt in my mind as to whether we were handling the Emergency in a SHEEP Letter in the 'Daily Mirror" "Thanks again to the Daily Mirror for its report on the horror trade in sheep • and other animals to the Continent. They cannot speak for themselves.' Go on!

Famous last words? Victor SPORT We hope the present leaders of ASLEF do not share their union historians' view of the middle class.

Writing in his book "The Lighted Flame', Norman McKillop says of the General Strike:

'Of course I can quite