Scott: Well, sadly, we start "Breakfast Time" today with the news that early this morning, a major bomb explosion rocked the Brighton Hotel where Mrs.

Thatcher and other Conservative leaders are staying.

Male reporter: The IRA bomb killed 5, injured 33, and all but killed Mrs.

Thatcher and senior members of her government.

Male reporter #2: Over the last 12 years, the IRA's attacks on mainland Britain have claimed over 80 lives and caused more than 1,000 injuries.

Their targets have been chosen to cause maximum psychological damage, hitting favorite shopping haunts or military and political figures.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Magee: It was a perfect target.

Absolutely the perfect target.

We were always thinking in terms of how we would hit the British establishment.

We were talking about those in government or their financiers, supporters, administrators.

All of that we'd regarded as legitimate targets.

♪♪ ♪♪ I knew when the bomb was going off, but I had no means of knowing that it had gone off until the next morning.

Interviewer: Did you manage to sleep that night?

Magee: Uh, fitfully.

Not really.

No.

Interviewer: Why?

Magee: Well, in anticipation that it would be discovered at the last minute or, you know, it wouldn't go off.

Worse still, it wouldn't go off.

You know, that you'd messed up and the connection wouldn't have been made.

Interviewer: And that'd be your fault?

Magee: Yeah, it'd be completely my fault.

We'd never get another opportunity like that again.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Thatcher: When it's all over, you really begin to realize the enormity of what happened.

In church on Sunday morning, the sun was just coming through the stained-glass windows and falling on some flowers right across the church.

And it just occurred to me that this was the day I was meant not to see.

♪♪ John: Is this the right way round?

Interviewer: Yes.

You'll be on the left.

See if this takes you back into the spirit of Brighton.

Could you tap the space bar?

Man: Oh, God.

I reckon this is the finest -- my opinion -- this is the finest 9-mile promenade in Europe.

This is.

In Europe.

John: [ Chuckling ] Interviewer: Does this look familiar?

John: Yes, it is.

False teeth.

My father was a clergyman in Brighton, so I knew the town quite well.

But of course, when you're small, you love the whole concept of rock and the rest of it.

[ Seagulls crying ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] Female reporter: Well, the Conservative Party conference opens in Brighton later this morning.

Our paper's reviewer is Conservative Party chairman John Gummer, who joins us in Brighton.

It's fine weather, is it, with you today?

John: Well, I don't think I've looked at the weather terribly much so far this morning, but I can hear it outside.

It doesn't sound terribly fine.

♪♪ ♪♪ Penelope: Now, can I warn you?

I cry all the time.

I am pathetic.

So if I do, please stop.

-Interviewer: Of course.

-Penelope: Thank you.

Interviewer: Of course.

Of course.

John: Where's my -- Darling.

[ Indistinct conversation ] Penelope: We've blown pictures, but without the teapot.

Interviewer: How long ago did you meet?

John: We've been married for 47 years, so it must be 50 years ago.

Penelope: It's 50 years ago.

Yeah, later this year.

Photographer: [ Speaks indistinctly ] [ Camera shutter clicks ] Can I have you both looking in that direction?

John: I think both -- Penelope: We both thought it was so silly.

[ Both laughing ] Penelope: Didn't I always dream of this day?

[ Speaks indistinctly ] John: Everybody had their wives or husbands there.

And they all knew each other, too.

Penelope: As we would rush from one party to the next, we'd cross and recross, everybody trying to get to everything.

We'd say, "Oh, hi.

See you in a minute."

And it was all just jovial.

[ Applause ] Man: Great pleasure to introduce our principal guest for this evening, the Prime Minister, the Right Honorable Margaret Thatcher.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ John: The conference was one in which no one ever had said that this was a moment in which we had to be particularly careful.

We always were careful.

We -- That was part of what you did.

But I can't say that there was any circumstance in which police had said, "This is a very special occasion.

We've had warnings and such like."

Looking back, perhaps we should have.

Male reporter: In the last year, and especially in the last few weeks, there's been a very dramatic and very real revival in the IRA's savage role in Irish politics.

Bomb explosions have been shattering property and lives.

♪♪ ♪♪ Magee: I was living in Unity Flats, which was a very small Catholic enclave right at the start of the entrance to loyalist West Belfast, the Shankill Road, but really did feel like we were occupied and we were having to defend ourselves.

Things that were happening that the British Army were doing in our districts, you know, people I knew and those people being killed.

And then you were a witness to the incidents.

You know?

My understanding of it was that we were in a, like, a real war situation in the fight against the British army.

Woman: [ Yelling indistinctly ] Soldier: Why don't you shut up?!

Magee: We knew who our enemy was, you know?

Because they were pointing guns at us.

And they were sent over by politicians to point those guns at us.

[ Gunfire ] Man: You mad bastard!

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ Explosion ] John: The argument that terrorists always have is that they are forced to do what they're doing because of the incipient violence which has been played on them for generations or for previous times.

I don't think that justifies doing what the IRA was doing.

I mean, it is wicked to kill people.

It is wicked to blow people up.

It is wicked to leave bombs so that they could kill anybody without any kind of -- That's wicked.

♪♪ Magee: The turning point for me was being arrested in 1972.

They were scooping every young male nationalist at some point and bringing them, questioning them and building up a dossier of information, an overview of the district.

They used to call it going for your tea.

"You're coming with us for your tea."

That meant you were going there.

Suddenly became my turn.

They had something called the Black Room.

Funnily enough, it's similar to this, except a lot shorter.

And it had no roof on it.

It was like a portacabin without a roof.

But when I was there, I would have been manhandled.

You know, like, you know, beaten up.

You know, it shocked me.

It scared me, I think.

I said, "No, I've got to do something about this.

I'm not gonna let them get away with this.

You know, I'm not just gonna be a victim here."

And so I did make an approach to join the IRA.

I never for a moment thought, though, that I'd be in the IRA decades later, you know?

Male reporter: This man has an insight into the IRA's military thinking.

He's Danny Morrison of the IRA's political wing, Provisional Sinn Féin.

Morrison: It's dead simple.

People complicate it.

Britain has no right to be here.

End of story.

But they must know that when they were here and when they were acting aggressively and shooting us down in the streets, there was gonna be a price to be paid.

Male reporter: Why bomb England?

Morrison: Well, obviously, there's an old saying that one bomb in England is worth 100 in Ireland.

And that is true because we've seen that whenever people are killed in Ireland, it gets minimal coverage on British news.

But a small bomb in London gets coverage all over.

Smith: I've seen this sort of thing so many times before in Northern Ireland.

It doesn't amaze me, but perhaps I think the people in Great Britain, that's to say Scotland and Wales and England, will now understand what they see here, what's been happening all these years in Northern Ireland.

Interviewer: Now take us into the perspective of a young man like Patrick Magee, who decided to join the IRA.

Morrison: I can't remember what year he began working for me.

He worked on "An Phoblacht," republican news.

I was the editor.

Pat was brilliant at graphic design and brilliant at crosswords, but very quiet, intense, deep thinker.

I mean, a true asset to the Republican struggle.

Interviewer: You know, before you joined, do you sort of have an internal thought process which asks questions about what you'd be willing and not willing to do?

Magee: Well, I can't remember a time when everything was sort of prefigured out.

You know, there's a constant turnover of personnel, people being arrested or having to go on the run or being killed.

There was a high turnover in engineers, as we would call them, you know, people who were handy with explosives.

And suddenly, I mean, it was down to me to fill in the -- to fill the gap.

Interviewer: This -- this -- this -- this was -- Engineers are people that make bombs.

Magee: Mm-hmm.

I was good at making them.

I guess you could say I became proficient.

It's an attitude, I think, more than anything else.

It's about being grounded, being careful, thinking things through.

The circuitry involved is very basic.

It's so basic.

It has to be very simple.

You're talking about rigging an alarm clock up, you know, with a wire and a battery attached to it, and then to a detonator and the arm comes round, makes contact, the bomb goes off, you know, it creates -- A circuit is created.

That was put into a bag, and you or somebody else would be carrying that into a building.

♪♪ Male reporter: Reserve police officers from the Metropolitan force have been drafted into Brighton this week to help the Sussex Police cope with the Tory party conference.

So how tight is the security surrounding the conference?

McDowell: I would defend anybody's right to have Republican views.

They can have whatever views they want.

It's a democracy.

But when the killing starts, that's where you draw the line.

Because I was Northern Irish, I was always sent into the Irish pubs.

When you go into a pub, you walk in with your head down, your eyes towards the floor, you go straight to the bar and you have a pint, preferably Guinness.

Our job was to build up intelligence, which then led to evidence, which then led to convictions.

So you were fishing -- anything, any intelligence.

Huge pressure on the police.

Margaret Thatcher was surrounded by a protection team at all times.

There would have been sniffer dogs.

There would have been a search of the hotel.

So it would have been declared safe.

They would have spoken to the anti-terrorist squad.

"Do you know of anything?"

They would have spoken with Special Branch in London who would have liaised with the Garda and the RUC.

And if there was any whispers, they would say, "Oh, we think there's a threat to Thatcher."

But there were no whispers.

Male reporter: There is a special atmosphere to the conference hotel at a Tory conference.

It's part cocktail party, part sounding board for gossip, rumor, flattery, even character assassination.

What will Mrs.

Thatcher say on the subject when tomorrow, she makes her 10th conference speech as party leader?

She's come a long way in that time.

♪♪ Thatcher: Do you see?

It's duller.

It's duller.

That's much better.

Not too close.

Yes.

That's marvelous.

It's different altogether.

♪♪ Interviewer: It's fairly safe to say that you were quite close to Mrs.

Thatcher at the time.

John: Yes, of course.

The great thing was that once Mrs.

Thatcher knew you were loyal, she enjoyed a good argument.

And we used to have very good arguments late into the night.

Thatcher: It's just nerves.

You either sniff or you swallow or you gulp.

John: At that time, the Tory party was in the doldrums, the government wasn't very good and there was a sogginess about politics, which she was determined to put right.

Thatcher: I think we all know in our hearts it's time for a change.

[ Cheers and applause, camera shutters clicking ] ♪♪ Male reporter: There was no mistaking the feeling that election fever is definitely in the air.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ Man: [ Speaks indistinctly ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Male reporter: At precisely the time the explosion occurred, Mrs.

Thatcher was 7 miles away in north London.

She'd just made a speech about courage and compassion.

When Mrs.

Thatcher was given the news, nobody knew that the victim was one of her closest friends.

Interviewer: How did the assassination of Airey Neave affect Mrs.

Thatcher, do you think?

John: Oh, well, she was devastated, of course.

Devastated, not only because of her friendship with him, but because of the nearness that this brought the whole thing.

She had total commitment to destroying this evil.

[ Cheers and applause ] Female reporter: An historic day for Britain.

Mrs.

Thatcher is now set to become Britain's first woman prime minister, as well as the first in the Western world.

Thatcher: In the words of Airey Neave, whom we had hoped to bring here with us, there is now work to be done.

[ Cheers and applause ] Well, the real powerhouse of the place is the secretary's room under the leadership of Robin Butler, who's my principal private secretary.

They're absolutely marvelous.

Butler: Goodness me.

When did she say that?

Interviewer: You're absolutely marvelous?

Butler: Yes, sir.

Well, I'm glad she thought so.

My name is Robin Butler.

I was a career civil servant, and I was head of Margaret Thatcher's office in 10 Downing Street.

Margaret Thatcher was physically demanding, and one didn't get a lot of rest or -- or sleep.

Yes, okay, certainly.

Margot.

The PM's got a few minutes between meetings now, so if you could take some work up to her in the red box.

I can't say that I found her easy, personally.

She was not the sort of person I would have wanted to go on holiday with.

♪♪ [ Applause ] Coates: I believe that Social Security payments to strikers' families should be abolished.

And that unions should pay the cost of policing their own picket lines.

Woman: I thought the debate on law and order was just a little too vague for my taste.

I like something a little more stronger.

Interviewer: Did you foresee the strength of character that Mrs.

Thatcher had?

John: Oh, she was obviously remarkable.

I mean, let's be absolutely clear about that.

She had to do a whole series of very tough things, and she had to show people that she was not -- As you know, the lady's not for turning.

On the Falklands, she was not gonna be turned on the IRA.

She had a real understanding that once you set your hand to it, you had to stick with it.

Interviewer: Do you remember Thatcher getting elected?

Magee: I do, yeah.

[ Clears throat, sniffles ] I suppose -- Believe it or not, there was even part that thought, "Well, it's a woman."

You know, not necessarily politics, but in itself, it's innovative.

You know?

It's progress at a certain level.

You know, might make a difference.

♪♪ Butler: Margaret Thatcher was rather like a boxer who gets hit and gets knocked back onto the ropes.

But their reaction is not to lean against the ropes, but immediately to come out and hit back.

♪♪ Atkins: Their demand is for political status, which means that they expect the government to treat them differently from other prisoners because they allege a political motive for their crime.

Thatcher: Faced now with the failure of their discredited cause, the men of violence have chosen in recent months to play what may well be their last card.

Male reporter: Bobby Sands, the hunger striker and newly elected MP, is thought to have no more than a few days to live.

The three Irish MPs who saw him yesterday have said he's determined to die unless the demands of the Maze prisoners are met.

Well, now, Danny Morrison, you are Bobby Sands' own nominated spokesman up there in Belfast.

Does this now, do you think, mean that Mr.

Sands will either have to give in or to go ahead and die?

Morrison: I would say I probably think about the hunger strikers every day.

And it's what, 42 years now?

43 years.

Sands: My son has offered his life for better conditions in prison, but not to cause further death outside.

That's all I can say.

Male reporter: How is he today?

Sands: He's died.

Morrison: The hunger strike lasted for seven months.

Seven months.

For those seven months, we -- our office was open 24 hours a day.

We slept on the floor.

Man: This is the collection.

We ask you to give as you can.

Morrison: Thatcher, in particular, was so intransigent.

She had opportunities after opportunities to resolve it.

Male reporter: I asked the Prime Minister whether the government's policy of no concessions to the H-block campaigners meant she was prepared to see an endless stream of hunger strikers die.

Thatcher: That is a matter for those who go on hunger strike and those who are encouraging them to do so.

I will not give political status or special category status to people who are, in fact, criminals and who are the enemies of society.

John: She was winning and she was determined.

She knew that the one thing she had to deal with was the terrorism.

They saw her as intolerably tough and therefore as somebody who really didn't understand.

But, of course, there was nothing to understand.

Morrison: She killed people.

She killed people.

Hughes: We were on our way up to Lisburn when we got word that he had died.

Male reporter: Yeah.

What was the last communication that you had from your brother, the last message?

Hughes: I talked to him yesterday.

He said he would end his hunger strike after the British government would grant the five demands.

Feeling that, he says, "I believe I will die."

♪♪ ♪♪ Morrison: We knew the prisoners.

Joe McDonnell, who died -- Joe McDonnell's wife's mother delivered me.

I was born at home in Corby.

She delivered me.

Joe and I were interned together in the 1970s.

Kieran Doherty, who died on hunger strike -- Kieran was in the class below me.

His brother Michael sat behind me in class in that school.

So we were all very, very, very close.

And when a hunger striker died, it was your brother who died.

It was awful.

♪♪ Sorry.

♪♪ Magee: There was a definite concentration of thought after the hunger strike.

There was a real visceral need felt by many to, you know, respond to the trauma we've all come through during that period.

♪♪ Interviewer: If you just twist your body a fraction towards the camera.

-Jo: Okay.

-Interviewer: Thank you.

Jo: I wasn't at all political, you know.

I was a little bit kind of -- "Oh, we just need to love.

You know, like, meditate."

And I didn't tackle, like, the real issues around that time.

But I do remember the hunger-striking time and being horrified that Maggie Thatcher refused to listen to them.

That really shook me.

Around that time, my cousin Diana would have got engaged and married Prince Charles, and I didn't even go to the wedding because the life I was having felt more real.

I spent a couple of years in the Himalayas.

I lived without running water, without electric, very simply.

Interviewer: And you've seen that one a million times, I'm sure.

Have you?

Jo: Oh.

[ Laughs ] That's how I lived.

Interviewer: Look how happy.

Jo: I thought change happened through inner change.

I lived in peace time and I was safe, and it never occurred to me that I'd be affected by a bomb.

Thatcher: You're looking straight into that one, aren't you?

Yes.

It's just that at my age, your neck shows your age.

Yes.

-Man: Heavens.

Thatcher: Someone once said that I had my face lifted.

I said, "It hadn't dropped yet, but the neck's..." [ Light laughter ] Magee: Margaret Thatcher was well in our sights at that stage.

We were looking for where she was available, and the conferences was a natural one.

Interviewer: So can you walk me through how -- how you -- how you sort of -- how you did it?

Magee: No, I won't talk at all about any of the operational detail of that -- of the -- of the Brighton operation.

Interviewer: What can you say?

Can you tell me that you put the bomb three weeks beforehand in the room?

Magee: I'm not too sure how long it was before.

It was certainly more than two weeks.

I think two and a half weeks, might have been three weeks, but I don't want to say any more.

Interviewer: But the idea was that you could plant the bomb and leave.

Magee: Exactly.

You know, the thing was secreted and you're away from the scene.

I ended up down in the County Cork.

My concern would have been just to keep safe.

I couldn't afford to be arrested.

I was under no illusion.

If I get caught, I'm going down for 20 years.

Interviewer: As it gets nearer and nearer the, you know, the time... Magee: It was ticking down.

Yeah.

[ Vehicles passing ] [ Slow music playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Brett: My name is Lesley Brett.

I was working as a sales manager in the Pink Coconut nightclub and discotheque in Brighton.

Brighton was like a huge fun palace.

There was nothing bad.

Might have been lots of things naughty about Brighton.

The most scary thing we had was the ghost train on the pier.

That wasn't very scary.

[ Chuckles ] We would have extended a welcome to any politicians that were attending the conference.

Interviewer: It was a busy night?

Brett: It was busy.

It was let your hair down night.

The dance floor was packed.

I remember that because we were standing up at the top gallery, leaning over, sort of trying to pick out if there was anybody that we recognize.

But I do remember a lot of tuxedos, and I do remember a lot of lovely dresses and ladies made up with their jewels that were obviously not normal Pink Coconut clients.

They were there to enjoy themselves in the evening after putting in, I presume, quite a hard day at the political conference.

Man: Needs to be turned on.

Let's see if it's turned on here.

Edward: My name is Edward Berry.

My father was Anthony Berry.

My father was at the conference.

He was deputy chief whip.

So he would have been there in a professional capacity.

Interviewer: Would your father have considered himself a target for the IRA?

-Edward: No.

My father would not have considered himself a target.

I think a lot of these politicians of that era came in wanting to do good.

I'm under no illusion.

Plenty of them like the idea of becoming powerful.

And my father wasn't one of those.

[ Chuckles ] So this is a -- this is a photograph taken, I think, from 1964.

This is my father's campaign to be elected member of Parliament for Southgate.

What he did was arrive with these four kids with little badges that said, "Vote for Daddy."

Well, why would you not?

[ Chuckling ] You have me at the front.

We have my elder sister, Alexandra.

We have Anya and Jo.

Jo: I remember just being very proud that I was asking people to vote for my daddy, who was so special to me.

Edward: The night before the bomb went off, my father invited me to dinner.

He was enthusiastic.

He was positive.

We obviously had conversations about my life.

I was very excited about the new job that I was starting, and he was very proud of that.

We then walked back, um, to the hotel, to the Grand Hotel.

I said good night to him.

My last memory of my father is a man walking away from me full height.

He was a tall man, 6'4", and a, you know, a happy man.

Male reporter: "Everyone is a friend here.

You can recognize an enemy," said one MP, "by the warmth of their greetings."

The insincerity of that kind is very calculated.

But there's a further element to the atmosphere, for at this very moment Mrs.

Thatcher and her closest advisers are closeted upstairs, working on her conference speech tomorrow.

Interviewer: What were you doing on the night of the 11th?

Penelope: Well, we went off to all the things together, as one did, and then I went to bed and John went to the Prime Minister's suite to put the finishing touches to her speech.

Butler: For Margaret Thatcher, the whole week had been taken up with preparing this speech.

I was sitting in this chair in Margaret Thatcher's suite, hoping that the evening would end as soon as possible.

John: We were finishing off the speech, doing the odd bits and pieces.

There wasn't much more to do.

And so it was at that point that I left her room to the room opposite.

[ Waves crashing ] Brett: Pink Coconut closed at 2:00.

Of course, there would be a kind of 10 minutes shuffling the last people out onto the street for their cabs.

And I suppose by the time we left there, it must have been about 10 to 3:00.

Butler: There was a document on which the office wanted a decision from the Prime Minister by first thing next morning, and she said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to look at it and deal with it now."

Penelope: I was sort of just dozing off to sleep, I think, or had just gone to sleep.

Brett: We were probably about 20 yards shy of the corner of West Street.

We crossed at the traffic lights.

Butler: I was tired, almost sleepy.

Everybody else had left her sitting room and she was going through this document.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Brett: I'd never heard such a loud explosion in my life.

The ground trembled the way it would do with -- with an earthquake, I presume.

My immediate thought was gas explosion.

I thought a gas boiler had gone up.

Penelope: I heard this humongous noise.

Dreadful, dreadful noise, and I somehow knew it must be a bomb.

John: There was a second bang, which we thought was another bomb.

Actually, evidently it was that the roof had been lifted off and it came down again, and therefore made this second bang.

And then there was silence.

Penelope: I thought that John and Mrs.

Thatcher and Robin Butler were all lying a sticky mess.

Butler: I thought to myself, "That's a bomb.

What should I do?

Here I am, alone with the Prime Minister, and it's no doubt aimed at her."

John: I said, "Get down on the floor!"

So we all got down on the floor.

I don't know quite what we were supposed to be doing in that, but it seemed to be the sensible thing to do.

So we all fell onto the floor.

I was on my knees, opened the door like this, and looked round the corner.

And on the other side, I saw Mrs.

Thatcher's head come round the corner looking at me.

By this time, a policeman appeared, and we moved them into a room at the end of the corridor.

Butler: Margaret Thatcher broke away and went to the reception desk and she said was everybody accounted for?

And then we went -- were taken out of the back of the hotel where there was a car waiting.

♪♪ John: I then got on with my own business, which was what on earth had happened to Penny?

The bomb was over there.

I was sure that she must be dead because that was where the sound came from.

♪♪ Brett: The whole thing was just enveloped in this huge, thick cloud of dust.

I could hear masonry falling, I could hear metal scraping and people screaming, which was the most... dreadful, dreadful thing to -- It was just such a shock.

But I saw out the corner of my eye blue and white lights.

Just like angels.

There was no noise, no noise of engines, heavy road trucks, no sirens.

Just blue and white lights flashing like little angels coming along.

And that was the fire service.

Bless their hearts, they turn-- From then on, it was just total misery.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Penelope: I ran out of our room and there was dust coming everywhere.

It was a very big stairwell at the Grand Hotel, and...I suddenly saw this figure.

John: I was covered in this white stuff that had all come down from the plaster.

And so the very first thing I heard was, "Have you seen John?"

Penelope: And he said, "It's me."

[ Laughs ] So that was alright then.

Interviewer: And how did you feel?

John: Well, I...I -- I just hugged her, that's all.

I feel it was the most amazing moment.

And then, of course, you came back to reality.

Woman: For Christ's sake, go away!

Male reporter: As dawn broke, firemen were still searching what was left of Brighton's once grand hotel.

The firemen are now getting close to Mr.

Tebbit.

He's in a crouching position with the rubble of his room more or less on his back.

Tebbit: I remember the extraordinary feeling of being bundled hurly-burly in the midst of a mass of debris until one came to a rest.

Interviewer: You were trapped for four hours, weren't you?

Tebbit: Yes.

Interviewer: But you were able to reach over to your -- to your wife's hand.

Tebbit: Yes.

That's right.

The weight of the debris had doubled her over, and we think probably it was not so much that the spine was damaged as the blood supply was cut off.

[ Reporters shouting ] Man: Right way, please, right way.

Male reporter: Prime Minister, can you tell us how you are, please?

Thatcher: Very well, thank you very much.

Our worry is whether there's anyone under that rubble.

Because I don't know whether you've seen it, but it's pretty awful.

You hear about these atrocities, these bombs.

You don't expect them to happen to you.

But life must go on as usual.

Male reporter: And your conference will go on.

Thatcher: The conference will go on.

The conference -- Alright?

Alright, John?

The conference will go on as usual.

Male reporter: Thank you, Prime Minister.

[ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Scott: A very good morning to you.

It's now 6:30 on Friday, October the 12th.

Well, sadly, we start "Breakfast Time" today with the news that early this morning, a major bomb explosion rocked the Brighton Hotel, where Mrs.

Thatcher and other Conservative leaders are staying.

The Prime Minister escaped unhurt, but tragically 2 people were killed and 27 were injured.

Interviewer: Tell me -- tell me about hearing the morning news bulletin.

Magee: Well, I think the first report was that a bomb had gone off and that two people had been killed, and that's all I needed to know, that it had gone off.

I know this will sound crass and all of that, but I -- Then I slept, then I slept.

♪♪ Edward: On the 12th of October, the phone rang at probably about 6:00 in the morning and it was my sister Jo.

And she said, "Is Dad okay?"

So I said, "I don't know what you mean."

She said, "Well, there's been a bomb at the Grand."

I walked along and the first thing I encountered was the Metropole Hotel.

I went into a room full of people covered in dust.

A lot of people still in nightwear, pajamas, dressing gowns.

I found myself looking for my father.

Butler: At about half past 7:00 in the morning, Margaret Thatcher appeared.

I said to her, "Prime Minister, I'm afraid it's much worse than we first thought."

And she didn't hesitate for a moment and she said, "Well, the conference is due to begin again at 9:30.

And at 9:30, we must start."

And I was incredulous.

I said, "This terrible thing has happened.

Some of your closest colleagues have been killed, others seriously injured.

The rescue's still going on.

You can't mean to go on with a party political conference, can you?"

Jo: Maggie Thatcher started the conference, and I remember we were looking to see if Dad was there, if somehow maybe he'd got in without us noticing.

I mean, we were glued to the TV to see what was happening, but unlike everyone else, we weren't watching... unemotionally.

We were -- That was our dad we were looking for.

That waiting is probably the hardest waiting ever.

Edward: This is not good news.

This is -- this is all wrong.

I've not heard anything.

♪♪ Man: [ Speaking indistinctly ] We'll leave it.

You want to push it over?

Colacicco: When we arrived, it was utter chaos.

Ambulances, fire brigade turning up.

More police officers screaming.

All bomb scenes have this expectation of picking up body parts, being faced with very gruesome scenes.

But at the time, you're not affected as such.

It's something that hits later.

To pick up a body part, put it -- It's an exhibit.

It's part of the crime scene.

♪♪ It was a stage where everyone had been accounted for, except one particular individual who had been on the sixth floor.

We went to that area.

He was in a wardrobe buried under rubble.

And that's where we recovered the last body.

And I would say that I held the anger and the anguish of that ever since.

Magee: I remember going into a pub in Cork City itself.

The TV would have had huge coverage of the bomb.

And I just tried to pick up the mood around the bar, you know?

There was a lot of giggling and, you know, it was -- It went down well, and that sounds terrible, but it did.

I mean, it was popular.

For a lot of the people, it was revenge.

It was felt as revenge, us getting one back.

In Belfast, it was a jubilation in our areas.

Absolute jubilation.

That raised people's hope that we would prevail.

Interviewer: Are you also feeling, "...I did that, I caused that pain"?

Magee: No.

Um, I could be a hypocrite.

We were there to do that.

You know, the -- the five people killed and those injured.

I think it was about 30 or 30-odd people injured.

I wouldn't have felt beyond the label I had applied to them.

You know?

They were Tories in conference.

That was good enough.

That justified it.

Interviewer: What was your personal reaction to the bomb having gone off in Brighton?

Morrison: Well, now that I'm old, you know, I find it -- the tragedy of death to be terrible.

Worse looking back.

But at the time, to be honest, probably regret that the IRA didn't kill her.

[ Applause ] Thatcher: The bomb attack on the Grand Hotel early this morning was first and foremost an inhuman, undiscriminating attempt to massacre innocent, unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for our Conservative conference.

And the fact that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and determined is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.

John: She showed no weakness at all.

These were her friends.

These were people she had worked with.

These were people whom she cared about.

And yet she knew she had to be above that.

Morrison: She put on a brave face, as you would expect afterwards.

But there's no doubt in my mind that she knew that the hunger strikers, the comrades of the hunger strikers, could reach her.

Thatcher: This government will not weaken.

This nation will meet that challenge.

Democracy will prevail.

♪♪ Male reporter: They cheered and stamped their feet for more than 7.5 minutes.

♪♪ ♪♪ And that's the shattered hulk of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, until early this morning.

The most stylish of settings for a party in power at its conference.

Now it's evidence of the most murderous attempt on the lives of an entire British cabinet there's ever been.

It didn't take long today for someone to take responsibility, and that was the Provisional IRA.

A statement from Dublin this morning had a chill ring to it... The first victim of that bomb to be named this evening was Anthony Berry, MP for Enfield Southgate.

♪♪ Edward: As it -- as it happens, my father wore a signet ring, and he gave me the same ring, which I wear.

He gave me it -- gave it to me when I was 21 and someone said, "Well, perhaps we can use this to identify."

So I -- They took my ring away.

Jo: My brother rings from a call box.

They found his body and he'd identified the body with his own signet ring.

Edward: This is the moment we all had sort of been dreading, but was -- there was a certain inevitability that we knew that my father had died.

Jo: I just had to get out of the house.

So I'm walking down the road with my hand going up and down, and I didn't care what people were thinking of me.

I was going, "Dad's dead.

Dad's dead.

I just got to realize, Dad's dead.

My dad's dead.

He's been killed.

He's dead."

I remember a builder high up on a building, looking down at me and going, "Come on, love, give us a smile.

It can't be that bad."

And I looked up and I said, "It is.

My dad's been killed."

Male reporter: A memorial service was held in London for Sir Anthony Berry, the Conservative MP who was killed in the Brighton bombing.

Jo: The pain was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I was wailing, I was screaming, and I was like, "How am I going to recover?"

And I thought I was gonna die in the depth of the emotions that I had.

It was too much -- pain was too much.

The me that I've talked about, the free spirit believed in meditation, also died in that bomb.

Like, she did not exist anymore because now I'm in a war.

Male reporter: The five who died were Sir Anthony Berry, the Conservative MP for Southgate, Eric Taylor, chairman of the North-West Area Conservatives, Roberta Wakeham, wife of the government chief whip, Mrs.

Jeanne Shattock, the wife of the Western Counties chairman, and Mrs.

Muriel Maclean, the Scottish President's wife.

Interviewer: Do you remember a point that it began to sink in that five lives had been lost and some of them were close friends?

John: It was a slow thing.

It started on the day and just became more and more clear.

Visiting Norman Tebbit and seeing the terrible condition in which both he and Margaret were, of course, you became utterly aware of the awfulness of what had happened.

Interviewer: When did you hear that your friend Roberta Wakeham had lost her life?

Penelope: I don't know when I heard that she'd lost her life.

But the awful thing was, I could suddenly hear her laughing.

It is absolutely my belief that once people die, somehow they sort of go round people they've known.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Penelope: She was one of the good mates amongst the wives.

Interviewer: And I can tell it was a terrible shock.

All of this.

Penelope: Oh.

Interviewer: Yeah.

I mean, what can you say about it?

Penelope: Well, you don't imagine it.

♪♪ Male reporter: 10 weeks ago, an IRA bomb devastated the Grand Hotel, Brighton, killed five, injured 33, and all but killed Mrs.

Thatcher and senior members of her government.

Today, Brighton Police made a fresh appeal for information about a guest who stayed in the hotel in September using a false name and address.

♪♪ At Scotland Yard, fingerprint experts positively identified the missing guest as Patrick Joseph Magee, a Belfast man in his 30s and a well-known member of the IRA.

His one distinguishing feature -- a finger missing on his right hand.

Interviewer: Would it be an exaggeration to say one of the most wanted men in the world at that point?

Magee: Well, I guess that must have been the case.

Of course it was, yes.

I worked -- always worked on the principle.

What information do they have about you and how you look?

And all they have are photographs when arrested.

So I was pretty convinced all I had to do was ensure I didn't look like, you know, my mug shots.

♪♪ McDowell: This was the number-one priority of all police officers in the United Kingdom.

Our job was to follow the sympathizers and see if they lead us to Magee.

The longer and longer he was at liberty, the more the pressure grew.

Where is this man?

Why haven't you caught him?

Magee: England was a big field of haystacks.

You would lose a needle in 'em.

The commitment I made at the time was to be out of the country for two years.

♪♪ You just kept it tight.

Because, you know, this is the only way you can survive.

I was on my own most of the time.

But, you know, you're used to your own.

You know, you're used to that.

You know, you get used to that.

But at this particular stage, I had actually split up.

I didn't have -- You know, my wife at the time -- I was married, but we had split up largely because I was away too much, you know, because of being active.

It took its toll.

I mean, there was one period when I was away for eight months and there are not many relationships, I think, can survive no contact at all for eight months.

None.

Not even a letter, phone call.

No contact at all.

Interviewer: Did you have -- Did you have children at this point?

Magee: Yeah, I had a son.

Interviewer: How old was your son?

Magee: He would have been about 6.

He was 6.

When you're looking back on it, that's probably the -- the source of greatest regret.

The impact on, you know, your -- your loved ones.

I feel hugely conflicted about that.

And you will carry that, and I still will always carry that.

And that's part of the price.

♪♪ McDowell: We were told that someone may be coming across from Northern Ireland.

And we were to go to Scotland for the operation.

Our job was to monitor Peter Sherry.

He was suspected -- I have to say suspected of killing at least nine people.

Now, the RUC were telling us, "Follow this guy."

Okay?

"Don't lose him."

There's a little bit of theater involved in surveillance.

It's an art form.

One of the ways that surveillance watch people is to pretend to be a kissing couple.

A female officer and a male officer sat down in the railway station and started canoodling and stroking hair.

Meantime, they're watching Sherry.

She had an earpiece.

And the female officer said, "Ah, there's a meet."

She said, "I think it's Magee."

The first thing that came back was, "Are you sure it's Magee?"

When they're talking, I noticed Pat's missing part of his finger.

So I came out and I said, "It's Magee."

We followed them to a flat in Glasgow.

Magee: I remember we were sitting around having a meal.

I think we had plans to go out that evening.

There was some concern that the landlord was due to come round to collect the rent.

And so when there was a knock on the door, I went, half anticipating the landlord.

As soon as I opened the door, I knew it was the police.

I just remember saying, you know, "Can I help you, sir?

Yes.

Can I help you?"

You know, while this was happening, this split second, it was so fast.

Suddenly there was other bodies appeared and rushed in and captured the others.

Female reporter: A cache of explosives and arms, which could be one of the biggest terrorist hauls ever made in Britain, has been uncovered by police in the block of flats they've been searching in Glasgow.

Male reporter: The terrorist bomb factory contained timing devices which were already running, guns, ammunition, and enough explosives to make a bomb 10 times bigger than the one which wrecked the Grand Hotel in Brighton.

16 explosions had been planned using long-delay bombs.

They were to hit London and a dozen seaside resorts at the height of the summer season.

McDowell: I have to tell you that the Scottish Police were very large gentlemen, and I get in the driver's seat and I look in the mirror and there's these two huge Glasgow police officers and Patrick Magee.

And I look in the mirror and I go, "Ah, Pat."

And his eyes were looking straight at me, and it was like looking at the eyes of a shark.

Cold eyes.

You know, he's thinking.

You can see his eyes thinking.

Magee: I was looking a way out of it.

I was looking, you know, really desperate, thinking, you know, about -- looking for any angle, some way of taking advantage of a situation and -- and hopefully in the chaos, get away, you know?

It was impossible.

Female reporter: Good evening.

The man who tried to blow up the Prime Minister and most of her cabinet is tonight beginning a life sentence in prison, guilty of the murder of five leading members of the Tory party at their conference in 1984.

Interviewer: We were looking at some of the headlines.

The killer in Room 629.

That's from the "Daily Star."

Magee: Oh, I missed that one.

Interviewer: You can have that if you want.

Magee: No.

Keep it.

Interviewer: This is "The Times," you're called inhuman.

Magee: Mm.

Yeah, I remember that one.

Yeah.

I refused to stand for the judge, so I had this process of being dragged on my feet and held, you know, while given the verdict.

I didn't want to convey to him that I was taking what he had to say with any sort of wit.

And what he had to say didn't matter, and it didn't.

Interviewer: This week, the man who tried to kill you and indeed killed some of your dearest friends was convicted at the Old Bailey.

What's your reaction?

What's your feeling seeing those verdicts brought -- Thatcher: Whatever violence, to whomsoever it occurs, I hope those who perpetrate it will be brought to justice, because it matters to the whole stability of our society.

Interviewer: Do you have any personal feelings towards Patrick Magee?

Thatcher: I have no personal feelings except a total hatred and contempt for violence.

Interviewer: You voted in the past for the return of capital punishment.

If ever there was a case for the sort of offense which you and people who think like you on that issue would hang a man for, it is this, isn't it?

Thatcher: I have always voted for the return of capital punishment.

I don't believe that people should be able to go out and do the most hideous crimes.

Interviewer: Prime Minister, thank you very much for talking to us.

Thatcher: Thank you.

Yes, that is terribly bright.

♪♪ That's a bit better.

-Man: Is that alright?

-Thatcher: That's better.

Much better.

[ Clears throat ] Butler: I didn't notice any change in Margaret Thatcher as a result of the bomb incidents, but I think that her utter defiance did, in the end, cause her downfall.

Thatcher: Ladies and gentlemen, we're leaving Downing Street for the last time after 11.5 wonderful years.

Morrison: When she left, we were all in our trenches... still.

There was complete stalemate.

She was an impediment to peace.

To us, she represented war.

Butler: I don't regard the British government as having beaten the IRA.

What I do regard them as having achieved was the defeat of violence as a means of achieving political ends.

It was the fact that the British government were staunch -- and in particular Margaret Thatcher was a leader in that -- That in the end, I think, caused the nationalists to decide that it had to be achieved by politics or by negotiation.

Man: [ Speaks indistinctly ] ♪♪ ♪♪ That's him.

That's him.

Okay.

Jo: We didn't know he was coming out of prison.

I turn on the TV.

Male reporter: The man who plotted to murder Margaret Thatcher and her entire cabinet in Brighton, the Brighton bombing, has been released from prison.

Jo: He's free.

My dad's not free.

My dad can't come back.

How is this justice?

Male reporter: The trial judge said he should serve at least 35 years.

Now he's free after just 14 years in jail, much to the anger of Conservative MPs.

Interviewer: Are you angry?

Tebbit: I'm not terribly pleased.

I don't believe you can ever achieve peace without justice.

And what has happened is unjust.

[ Reporters shouting questions, camera shutters clicking ] Jo: I remember looking into his eyes and thinking, "Does he feel any remorse?"

♪♪ Man: There he is.

Front seat, front row.

Jo: He's just whisked away.

Interviewer: And what was that making you think and feel?

Jo: Well, I'd like to meet him.

Magee: I mean, you're -- you're literally knocking on the door about to go in and meet the daughter of somebody who died in Brighton.

And, well, that's -- that's pretty daunting.

Jo: I shook his hand and said, "Thank you for -- for coming."

And I remember looking at him and thinking, "You don't look like my idea of a terrorist."

He started off by giving me a lot of justification of his cause.

Magee: I went there, as I said, with this feeling, an obligation of explaining our intent, what our purpose was in targeting Brighton.

Jo: I was about to leave because I saw him justifying killing my father.

And that was difficult.

And then he said to me, "Tell me about your anger and your rage."

Magee: Just telling me things about her father.

She talked about it, about his own kind of view of the world.

Jo: He was a family man.

He was a caring, compassionate politician.

He was wonderful.

And that I missed him.

Magee: She wasn't hitting me over the head with it -- "This is the man you killed."

She was just explaining something about her loss.

And then in my head, something clicked.

It says, "I killed this guy."

You know, who, at some level, many levels, created this woman, you know?

And that's -- that's shattering.

That realization.

At some level, I had reduced him, all he stands for, to the point where he's the cipher who, you know, you can take this action against.

I had been reduced.

Something in me had been narrowed.

Jo: That's then when he stopped.

He, like, ran out of words and he just looked at me and he took off his glasses and he rubbed his eyes and just said, "I don't know who I am anymore."

Magee: I remember -- I remember saying to Jo that, "I'm sorry I killed your dad," you know?

And she said a very extraordinary thing.

Jo: Well, the words just popped out of my mouth.

[ Chuckles lightly ] "I'm so glad it's you."

Interviewer: What on Earth did you mean?

Jo: I couldn't have predicted that he would go on this journey to move from a -- from justifying to being open and vulnerable, because if he hadn't, I wouldn't have met him a second time.

Interviewer: Roughly how many times have you met with Patrick Magee between then and now?

Jo: I don't know.

300 or 400 times.

[ Sniffles ] Interviewer: So... Edward: The gritty bit.

[ Laughing ] Interviewer: Yeah, I mean... Take this off my hands.

-Edward: No, I'm not going to.

I'll let you go through the pain and I'll just decide what I'm gonna say.

Interviewer: If you hold it together.

If you could... You may have seen this before, but if not, I'll be interested to see what it... Woman: Jo wanted to meet again.

Pat said yes.

Magee: There's no right for me to sit here and be forgiven.

I mean, in a sense, it's a political thing.

I knew what I was doing and I would even defend actions I've taken, et cetera.

But I think it's very important to be confronted with the consequences, to be confronted with your opinion as a consequence that, you know, I suppose I deserve, because there's always a price to pay for it in terms of my humanity.

Edward: I have no emotion.

I really don't.

I'm sorry.

I just -- I have -- I have nothing to offer on the subject of this gentleman.

Interviewer: What's going through your head?

Colacicco: I don't know if it should go on camera.

Brett: I wonder what it really feels like inside his head.

I wonder what his mum thinks.

Penelope: Well, the reason he did it was because he believed in his cause.

He felt so strongly about it that he took these extraordinary, strong actions.

But... John: Terrible actions.

Colacicco: I mean, for him to use the word "humanity" is just disgraceful.

Who does he think he is?

That the people he's maimed and killed... Edward: If my sister is on this particular journey, if it does good, then that's -- that's -- that's fine with me.

McDowell: I did meet Patrick.

They were having this presentation.

I sneaked up on Patrick again and said, "Patrick, I'm behind you."

"Oh.

Oh, Brian, is that you?"

[ Laughter ] And I shook his hand, and a lot of my colleagues said, "You shouldn't have done that."

I said, "Look, he's changed.

He's adjusted.

He's analyzed what he did.

Now he understands the consequences.

He's met the daughter of someone he's killed."

Magee: Hello, Joanna.

[Indistinct] coming across?

Stormy?

Choppy?

Jo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Magee: Let's get in that car.

It's gonna be wet.

Are you okay?

Have you got a coat?

You'll need it.

[ Indistinct conversation ] Interviewer: Why did Pat meet Jo, do you think?

Morrison: Because he's honest.

He's an honest person.

He was involved in a conflict.

He didn't invent the conflict.

He responded to the conflict.

So what Pat is doing is actually confronting the truth here, and the outworkings of the -- of the consequences of one's actions.

Interviewer: Is there a conclusion you want to reach with him?

Is there something he can say or do that would make you feel like, "Ah, we've got there"?

-Jo: Hmm.

Well, is there a place to get to?

But if there is such a place, it would be him saying, "Nothing is worth killing someone for."

He says that he will never forgive himself because he isn't saying what he did was wrong.

Because he's holding on that they had no choice.

Like, how, as human beings, how can we deal with the fact that we've killed?

You know, I don't know.

I think -- I don't know.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Interviewer: Do you think learning this would make it impossible for you to -- to carry out something like the Brighton bomb ever again?

Magee: I think the very fact that you know more about a person makes it impossible.

Interviewer: Impossible for what?

Magee: To hurt them.

So on that level, yes.

Um...the usual -- It sounds like a cop-out, but it isn't.

When people don't have resources or don't feel they have alternatives, that happens, violence happens.

The work with Jo, um, has been my response.

Interviewer: Thank you.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪