A 1972 film about the IRA was directed by a Nazi hunter with ties to Israeli intelligence, a new BBC programme reveals.
The Secret Army follows journalist Darragh MacIntyre as he attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding the making of an extraordinary American documentary, filmed inside the IRA in 1972 but which vanished for almost 50 years.
The lost film includes footage of Martin McGuinness, then a rising young IRA leader, sitting in a car that was later used to bomb Derry. It also shows the late Sinn Féin politician displaying a gun and ammunition to children.
The documentary had been due to be released worldwide, but instead it had just a few showings in the United States, of which one was positively reviewed in the Irish Times by a US correspondent.
During his investigation, MacIntyre uncovers the original film reels in New York. He investigates how this documentary was made and finds one of the American production team who was present in the North for the filming during the bloodiest year of the Troubles.
MacIntyre also tracks down some of the former IRA men who appeared in the documentary.
The BBC investigation found that the director of the 1972 documentary, Zwy Aldouby, was an Israeli writer and journalist who had been a Nazi-hunter after the second World War.
The CIA had been gathering intelligence on him and, according to declassified CIA documents seen by the BBC, Aldouby was working under the guidance of Israeli intelligence during the filming of the IRA documentary.
Former IRA members who took part in the film and spoke to the BBC said they were unaware of Aldouby's intelligence connections.
The Secret Army will be broadcast on BBC Two Northern Ireland on March 27th at 9pm, and BBC Four on April 2nd at 10pm.
