To the editors:
Your cover story (April 10) about Jeanne Bishop and the supposed Irish connection in the murder of her sister and brother-in-law paints Ms. Bishop as a victim of FBI dishonesty, Winnetka police naivete, and Chicago media crassness. In telling this strange story John Conroy made numerous references to “Irish activists.” He was less than scrupulous in explaining what these individuals are “active” in doing. The whole truth gives an interesting twist to Jeanne Bishop’s posture as a grieving victim.
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It is understandable for a concerned U.S. citizen to want to work with nonsectarian groups like Amnesty International to highlight the operational excesses of the British troops in Northern Ireland. Ms. Bishop is a lawyer who should know that many serious political–as opposed to paramilitary–organizations can and do pursue the claims of the army’s victims in such cases to the European Court of Human Rights.
Noraid raises money in America, much of it in Chicago, which is used to buy weapons. Some of these weapons are used by the IRA to maintain the protection racket by which they intimidate Ulster citizens (and which, as any inhabitant of Belfast will testify, accounts for the majority of the city’s bombings). The remainder of the weapons supplied or paid for by Noraid are used to kill people who have transgressed the sick code of the IRA zealots. The “Irish activists” condone a sentence of capital punishment for such crimes as working in an office which provides services for the British Government or the army. Just as often the “freedom movement” may execute people entirely at random in accordance with its tactic of trying to achieve political change by intimidation. The same day that your newspaper appeared several utterly blameless people were murdered by Ms. Bishop’s friends in London, many others maimed.
John Conroy replies:
Mr. Cooper’s letter is riddled with errors. His first mistake is that he appears not to have read the article very closely. He claims, for example, that I reported that Jeanne Bishop was an active supporter of Noraid. That statement appears nowhere in the article.
