Declassified documents suggest Johnson believed in 1996 that Britain could crush the IRA
peace process in 1996 in the belief Britain could crush the IRA, according to declassified documents.
Johnson appeared to believe Britain could win a military victory in the twilight of the Troubles, an Irish diplomat said in a confidential note to the Irish government. “Johnson argued for what he called a ‘hard egg’ approach,” the diplomat wrote after they spoke on 13 February 1996, four days after an IRA bomb“Let them use the bomb and the bullet, we shouldn’t give in and we will beat them eventually,” Johnson is quoted as saying.
The conversation underlined the hawkish sentiment in Conservative British political and media circles while John Major’s government edged through a controversial peace process and lay the foundation for the Good Friday agreement. Johnson told the Irish official that the Daily Telegraph, then edited by Charles Moore, considered Major too emollient with the Irish government.
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