First documented printed use was in 1978

There are claims it was popular in ireland in the mid- to late 70’s as a critique of people who defended the IRA by pointing out british atrocities (I do not have time to get into that right now), but there’s no documentation for this. Which is weird, one would assume there would be some if it was common vernacular. There is this article in the Wall Street Journal that claims it appeared in an irish paper in 1974, but I’ve not been able to find any actual proof. Just articles that refer back to the author of the article.

Now the first use is by “Lionel Bloch”.
This is Lionel Bloch
What a swell guy! Child of Jewellers who were comfortable in Romania until 1948. Lionel moves to London to get a big boy education, which he uses to write for the Jerusalem post and litigate on behalf of the Israeli embassy. In his off-time he dedicated himself to anti-communist activities.

Such a storied term! I wish I could find out who popularised it in the 80’s. In modern usage we can thank Edward Lucas who used to write for The Economist, but in more recent times has worked as a dedicated foreign correspondent who is an expert on espionage and subversion. In his own words he would rather call himself a “senior advisor” so seems like he didn’t do a lot of correspondence.
In the early 90’s he was in Tallinn, Estonia to help start an english-language magazine.