[1] The black propaganda led Prime Minister Harold Wilson to fear that the security services were preparing a coup d'état.
The project was undertaken by members of the British intelligence services and the British Army press office in Northern Ireland, whose job also included routine public relations work and placing disinformation stories in the press as part of a psychological warfare operation against the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
[4][5] According to journalist Barry Penrose, Wilson "spoke darkly of two military coups which he said had been planned to overthrow his government in the late 1960s and in the mid 1970s.
"[4] In January 1974, the British Army carried out Operation Marmion, the occupation of London's Heathrow Airport on the grounds of training for possible violent non-state actor activity at the terminal,[6] without Wilson's foreknowledge.
[6] Airey Neave, a Conservative Member of Parliament, was alleged to have been involved with Clockwork Orange, and to have briefed Wallace on a number of occasions.