>>>>>I don't think HMG ever quite knew what to do about the IRA. I certainly wouldn't. If they were, as they said, soldiers that implied they had to be treated as POWs. If they were criminals they had to be accorded British justice. And of course the result was an ever shifting a somewhat schizophrenic policy that satisfied few. And then there was the fact that the IRA, the Provos, the UVF etc were all engaged in truly criminal activities both in and out of the UK.
>>>>>
>>>>and was financially supported in part by some Catholic Irish-Americans...
>>>
>>>An Irish friend informed me on that matter.. It seemed that the US government was directly involved in financing the IRA. He mentioned Ted Kennedy . Only after 9/11 this stopped for self-explanatory reasons.
>>
>>With respect to your Irish friend - that's nonsense. Irish Americans were directly involved in financing the IRA. The US government was not. Ted Kennedy was of course sympathetic to the Irish just as his father had been anti-British (and pro-German) while ambassador to the Court of St. James.
>
>I should refrase that... (individual) politcal members were involve in financing the IRA. Ted kennedy supported the funding of the IRA.
>Again this is what I've been told.

He publicly denied it:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5089/is_200506/ai_n18494104

Certainly doesn't match up with his other actions:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4346193.stm
http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=4876
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article429290.ece
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/reports/america.html

Of course, what one professes in public and what one does in private are often two different things for politicians...And then there were the early years of which little has been made public knowledge..