Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: No I said here in my statement.  Yes okay I thought he was the person I passed information to but I spoke to him and I can't specifically recall under what circumstances I made contact with him.  I said it was possibly by telephone, you know I had contact with many people at the media in those days.  But I said to him I would not have written down his name on my list if I, it could have been at the Media Conference but, or it could have been a telephone call to my office where I took down his name but I cannot recall the very specific incident.

YASMINE SOOKA: I'm sorry I just want to get this clear.  What you're saying to us is that his name would not have been on your list if you had not passed information over to him.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: No no you must understand, some of the people on my list were policemen in the media, other people were paid informers and agents.  Then there were the majority of the people on my list were like what you can say just friends and I would pass on certain information to specific groups within the media, the groups.  So but I didn't say I passed information over to him specifically and as it appears to me now, I probably just had a phone call or an enquiry.  I said to him perhaps there was an incident like sabotage and he needed information but on a professional, like a professional call through the work, through his work, do you understand?

YASMINE SOOKA: No I'm sorry I'm not happy with that explanation. You see I'm worried now that you were prepared to allow that information in fact in your statement to stand until such time as you were confronted with Mr Bridgeland and it seems as if you or you didn't recognise him and he then challenged you about it and that's what has led to a kind of retraction, so I would like to be satisfied when you actually leave here that I know exactly what that relationship was?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: I would say it was just like on a professional basis.  You know I, in my position I had contact with many many people, well journalists from the media and due to my contact on a very general basis I must have come across his name and therefore I say that I don't think you should read anything into the fact that his name was on the list because there are many other people on the list that never worked for me but they were just friendly towards the police and they contacted the police in a professional way.

YASMINE SOOKA: May I just try one more time...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: One more chance.

YASMINE SOOKA: One more chance, sorry.  Would it be fair to say that even those journalists on your list and you use the words, were sympathetic to the police, and if you were sympathetic to the police in those days you would be perceived as being on the other side...(intervention)

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Well it depends how...(intervention)

YASMINE SOOKA: Your side then...(intervention)

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: It depends who is looking at the situation.

YASMINE SOOKA: The side of the State, sorry Mr McPherson, the side of the State.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: No not necessarily.  There were people, I'm not talking about my list but there were people that had close contact with the police and they were not friends if the police but they needed the information on certain acts and things that happened in the country during that period.

YASMINE SOOKA: But the information that would be passed on would be negative to the people on the other side of the stairs.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: No not necessarily because what has happened in the past was that many of the newspapers were not at ease to present certain facts or say success of the police in their newspapers.  We had to say then make friends with certain journalists to see that to it that our reports successes of the Security Branch gets reported.

YASMINE SOOKA: Would Mr Bridgeland be considered to be in that category of friendly..?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Well as I said I met him on Wednesday. We haven't had time really to talk, I can't judge his attitude, okay?

DR BORAINE: Thank you, Ms Mkhize.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you Chairperson, really I just want clarity regarding what you said.  In page 22 of your document, I don't know whether it's page 9 under paragraph 22.3 you say the objective is amplified in the annexure falls within the scope of the objective of Stratcom.  The subject Winnie Mandela was considered as a revolutionary.
Then when asked about the Mandela Football Club you said no they wouldn't fall under this, because there would have to be approval for that project.  But my question is once you have approved, let's say there's a budget for Stratcom agent to work on a subject, would they have to come to you whenever they're investigating that person?  I thought the subject would be enough to get an approved budget.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Mr Chairperson the question was, would we put agents, I think it was Ms Sooka, the question was put, would we put Stratcom agents within the Football Club and that's what I said why I said no it will not fall within the ambit of the objectives of Stratcom operations because it will serve no purpose to put a person in there because Stratcom was more aimed at influencing and it would be like positive organisations that will bring out say stories or attitudes towards the State for the State and not like with the Football Club which will be against the State.

MS MKHIZE: My last question really is a statement which I will still like your reaction to it.  You remember myself and the Commissioner next to me, we said during the Media Hearings, you spoke under oath, you came prepared and you specifically said to us you met on, if my memory serves me well, on two, you had two official meetings with a Mr Fred Bridgeland and I don't think that was an incidental comment on that day for you to say when you saw him that was a mistake.  It's difficult to accept that.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Ja it's a mistake. Yes.

DR BORAINE: Dr Randera has one question.

DR RANDERA: A quick question Mr McPherson.  Am I right in saying that in this period that we're looking at and we're looking at talking about 1987, 1988 and really the very early part of 1989, that you had nothing to do with Stratcom?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Yes some other Brigadier MacIntyre was the head of...(intervention)

DR RANDERA: No I'm asking about you, I'm not asking about anybody else, about you?

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Yes - no at that stage I was with the intelligence section of Section D and when you say did I have nothing to do, I put it that's what you're asking, with Stratcom, I cannot say I did not have anything to do because we from D Section supplied the intelligence to Stratcom which was then Brigadier MacIntyre.  So indirectly we would have had something to do with Stratcom.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chair.  Mr McPherson do I understand your operations as having amongst other things involved disseminating half truths and in some instances, false information that obviously would have the effect of destroying not only the organisation that people represented but also their personalities?  Like for instance in the case of Mrs Madikizela Mandela.

JOHN LOUIS MCPHERSON: Yes firstly you know when we trained our people we always taught them rather go for the truth and mostly in the cases it was the untold truth.  Things that people didn't want to hear and we made sure that information gets disseminated.  A half truth or if you go for false information, direct false information, people can very often clearly see through it and it doesn't have the same effect, and also half truths doesn't have the same affect than to disseminate the truth.  As I said I haven't got specific information on any specific incident about Mrs Madikizela Mandela, perhaps Paul Erasmus might be in a position to say, what concerns her.