Ed Moloney, founder of the now utterly discredited Boston College oral history tapes, has an interesting reaction to my article yesterday raising the point that it was a “Get Adams” initiative from start to finish.

He accused me of stealing articles from him in the 1990s for the Irish Voice rather than addressing the points I made and of opposing his writings because it was pro- Sinn Fein during that period

As an accusation it is laughable.

Here is what he wrote:

“Niall O’Dowd founded the Irish Voice in 1987. Not long afterwards it was suggested to him that he might hire myself as his Belfast correspondent. This he refused to do, on the grounds that I was regarded as being far too close to the IRA. It is easy to forget these things but in those days Niall O’Dowd would rather have been dead than be seen in the company of Gerry Adams and as for his sympathy for the North, well he always was very keen to get adverts from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.”

Actually Ed I had Gerry Adams on the cover of my newspaper The Irishman in San Francisco in 1983 after I spent a day with him in Belfast and as a cover story in Irish America Magazine, which I founded in 1985, long before I ever came across you.

I was the first to offer Gerry Adams a column in any publication worldwide at a time when he was banned everywhere as I saw how the efforts he was making for a new politics and peace had to be supported.

So that’s that. Also Irish Voice has never had an ad from the Northern Irish Tourist Board in its life.

As to using your articles without attribution? Why on earth would I do that? I already had an Irish correspondent.

Didn’t happen Ed and you know it; I really don’t know what swamp you are dragging that nonsense up from. It is plucked out of thin air.

Sorry you have to feel you make up stories rather than stick to the truth.

You also know we let you go when we found you were trying to recycle old Sunday Tribune articles as fresh news to us when you eventually did contribute to Irish Voice.

No, the problem you had Ed was that you never got over the IRA calling a ceasefire without telling you.

You had the wrong information all the time and I tried to tell you that but you were so arrogant and in the know that you did not listen.

You may even remember a meeting in a Belfast hotel called Dukes where I brought a group of American business and labor leaders to meet with you and you went on about no possibility of a ceasefire and we were likely wasting out time. I told you then you had it all wrong and you were quite offended.

I don’t think you ever forgave Sinn Fein for not taking you into their confidence and for you utterly misreading the situation. You’ve been on a “Get Gerry” binge ever since.

Wrong then Ed and wrong now Ed.

Face up to it.