A week later, on 9 September, White mentions Archie Doyle as having commanded the assassination of Sergeant Denis O'Brien, Irish Special Branch detective and himself a former IRA man, near Dublin. It was a highly controversial affair, opposed by the IRA GHQ in Belfast as damaging to the Northern Campaign, and precipitating a massive manhunt by the Irish police. It was IRA Chief of Staff Charlie Kerins who was two years later caught, charged with the O'Brien assassination and eventually executed for it. White, however, claims that it was Doyle who actually commanded that action, on Kerins's orders. (Doyle, who openly spoke of his part in killing O'Higgins, seemed far more reticent about this part of his career).