It's Saturday, April 18th, 1970.

The guard of a special branch are out at Dublin Airport, waiting on the flight carrying the consignment of weapons to come in from Vienna.

Captain James Kelly, John Kelly and Albert Likes are in Vienna.

They've been there all weekend, meeting with the arms dealer Otto Schluter,

trying to organise submachine guns, pistols and ammunition to be flown to Dublin.

It's been six months of trying, and this is the fifth attempt to get black market guns into the country.

Were they going to make it this time?

The man in charge of those special branchmen waiting at the airport is at home on the other side of the city, Peter Berry. His phone is ringing. On the other end of the line is

the Irish Minister for Finance, Charles Hahi. He has arranged that customs will clear the

consignment through, but he's just found out that the guardee intend to seize the weapons anyway.

And Charles Hawke has rung Peter Berry on foot of this news.

Hawke had phoned Peter Berry, the secretary of the Department of Justice.

The story of that phone call is taken up for us now by historian Michael Heaney, who you

heard there, Irish Times journalist Harry McGee, and the author David Burke.

How he asked, well, what's going on and why are the weapons being, why is the consignment

being stopped?

He didn't refer to him as weapons.

And Peter Berry, who was very opposed to any arms coming in or anything that would assist

the IRA in whatever guise the IRA would be, said that that wasn't possible and it wasn't

going to happen.

And how he has this idea that pops up onto his head and he says to Barry, according to Barry,

would the arms be allowed in if there was a guarantee that they would go straight to Northern Ireland?

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