ABSTRACT
Some of the British soldiers believed that the Irish 'problem' could be managed without real difficulties; as one officer expressed it, 'I feIt that given three weeks 1 could sort my patch out fairly easily'. 6 This tendency to regard the presence of the troops as short-term was not, however, shared by the British Government. When the soldiers were committed, the British Horne Secretary, James Callaghan, stated that 'this is a limited operation' ,7 but in private Wilson commented that British troops would have to stay in the Province for at least seven years.8 The idea was that the Army would keep the peace while necessary reforms and adjustments were made and the Province returned to normality under a reconstructed Unionist rule. As part of the price of a military presence, Wilson demanded a number of concessions from the Unionists. Two reports were commissioned by the Wilson administration - the Cameron and the Hunt Reports - both of which specifically examined the causes of the riots. The Hunt Report recommended that the B-Specials be abolished and replaced by a special reserve force, a new part-time military force under the command of the British Army. Discrimination in housing and gerrymandering of the local politics were outlawed. These were laudable attempts to make the Northern Irish
Government politically and socially more acceptable to the Catholics, but the reforms made were all short-term measures. Long-term constitutional and political changes were shunned. For example, the introduction of proportional representation was considered as a solution to the political mistreatment of the Catholics but it was rejected by the Labour Government because 'it was a long term measure' and 'in 1969 Wilson and his colleagues were interested only in immediate steps in Ulster,.9 There were several reasons for this hesitancy in confronting the roots of the Irish question. First, the crisis had caught the British Government by surprise and there had long existed a tendency within British politics to avoid confronting the problem of Ireland. lO Secondly, it was recognized that the Unionists would not accept radical changes easily and any m~or reforms would have to be introduced into the Province with great caution. 11 The findings of both the Cameron and Hunt Reports, which were deeply critical of the security operations of Northern Ireland, had indeed produced Unionist anger. On 10-11 October, outraged Protestants attacked the British Army and the first RUC officer was killed, somewhat ironically by a Protestant sniper. The British military were literally the target of both communities.
