His successor in 1979 was Jack Hermon, who for some years had been groomed for a senior position having sat on the Bourn Committee which had produced the idea of Police Primacy. Hermon had grown up in Larne in North Antrim, a strongly Protestant area. After considering a career as an accountant, he had joined the police, serving initially in the religiously mixed areas of counties Londonderry and Tyrone.
In 1963 he had become the first RUC officer to be sent to the police staff college at Bramshill in Surrey. After returning he was involved in the policing of a tense sectarian period in west Belfast. During this posting he was involved in a riot when constables were ordered to remove an Irish tricolour from the window of a Sinn Fein election candidate’s shop. He was convinced the police should have stayed away and not done the work of local unionists, who considered the flag’s presence an offence. Coincidentally, the incident was regarded as something of a watershed by the young Gerry Adams.
As a Chief Superintendent, Hermon was put in charge of retraining the force after its twin maulings of 1969 – first from the Bogside rioters and then from the Whitehall inquiry which had followed. He later served in Britain, broadening his perspective.
During the years that followed his appointment, Chief Constable Hermon and the RUC were to become virtually synonymous. A strong-willed man, he moulded the organization in his own image, as had John Reith at the BBC or J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI. His style was appreciated by many who felt the force needed strong leadership able to withstand the assaults of local politicians. He won considerable independence for both the RUC and the Army in operational matters, something for which many senior officers were grateful. But like any forceful leader he was not without his critics: some officers felt he had a tendency to meddle, and was a poor delegator who became increasingly set in his views and intolerant of the opinions of outsiders.
At the outset Hermon was perceived as a moderate in some ways. He was considered sincere in his desire to boost the number of Catholics serving in the force. A senior Army officer who worked with him says, ‘He may have faults, but bigotry is not one of them.’ After taking charge he gave a speech to RUC cadets at a passing-out parade in Enniskillen. He told them that he expected the highest personal standards from them. But parts of his message were considered by some police officers to be naive: ‘I have been fortunate enough in my career to walk down a street on my own, meeting and talking to people, without a flak jacket, without a gun. I want to see the day when you too can do the same.’
Experience led Hermon to set the preservation of morale in the RUC as one of his main objectives. He became deeply suspicious of attempts at outside scrutiny: he had seen the problems which outsiders could cause – from the Hunt Report (into RUC handling of the 1969 riots) to the Bennett Report in 1979 (into interrogation practices at Castlereagh). He held many politicians, particularly those unionists who expected the RUC to act as the strong arm of loyalism, in contempt. Hermon was subsequently seen as a ruthless street-fighter in seeing off outside scrutiny of his force and as a man who could be dictatorial in attempts to impose his personal beliefs on others. He tried, for instance, to remove women from active positions in the RUC and brushed aside officers who he thought drank or gambled too much.
Like Kenneth Newman, Hermon wanted to rein in offensive operations by Army special forces, according to senior Army officers. But like his predecessor, Hermon was also motivated in part by simple, institutional self-interest rather than repugnance for those types of operation. He was keen to continue the development of RUC special units. He well understood that his predecessor had fought the tough battles necessary to establish Police Primacy and that he would enjoy its fruits, in terms of real operational power and control of an intelligence establishment which was in the process of integration.
Lieutenant General Creasey was also about to depart. His failed attempt to roll back Police Primacy in the wake of Warrenpoint, despite Whitehall’s polite unwillingness to label it publicly for what it was, had in any case made his position very difficult. He was to be replaced in 1979 by Lieutenant General Richard Lawson. In one sense Lieutenant General Lawson did not, at first sight, seem like ideal material for the role of GOC. He was not an infantry officer but came from the Royal Tank Regiment and, short of embracing the measures demanded by the loyalist lunatic fringe, there seemed little scope for the use of armour in Ulster. However, his cool, self-effacing manner allowed him to establish a good working relationship with Chief Constable Hermon. Both men had been left in little doubt by Whitehall that any further disagreements would be unacceptable. In the uncharacteristically direct words of one mandarin, ‘Lawson and Hermon had been given firm instructions that they had to work together and there should be no frigging about.’
The GOC and Chief Constable established a close rapport, trying to shape the overall direction of security policy and leaving the resolution of operational matters to their respective deputies. After the shocks of August, the Prime Minister maintained close contact with both men through frequent phonecalls and occasional meetings. With these new appointments the crisis
