GEHEIM (“SECRET”) is West Germany’s representative in the international stable of state research publications. Geheim has appeared three or four times a year since 1983, and its editors are experienced state research journalists in the Federal Republic – Rudolf Gossner, author (with Geheim contributor Uwe Herzog) of an exhaustive work on the undercover activities of … Read more
Sean McPhilemy Roberts Rinehart, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 1998, $24.95 Sean McPhilemy was the producer of a Channel Four documentary, ‘The Committee’, shown in 1991, which made a series of startling allegations about collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and Protestant paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in the killing of Catholics. The programme — which I … Read more
Books High Times: the life and times of Howard Marks David Leigh (London 1984) Howard Marks was – who knows? maybe still is – a major British dope dealer who got famous, not for importing huge quantities of dope (15 tons of grass in one venture) but because he became embroiled with MI6. Having said … Read more
Gerald D. McKnight Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005, 478pps, $29.95. The commonly accepted view is that the Warren Commission was a prisoner of its sources (i.e. the FBI) and that, coupled with a notable lack of general curiosity (‘We’re supposed to closing doors around here, not opening them,’ quoth Wesley J. Liebler), … Read more
Thanks to Terry Hanstock and Ian Tresman for contributions. Contributions, comments and info welcome. – My email address is Electronic Privacy/ECHELON The importance of taking advantage of the current debate about Echelon summarised by Nicky Hager: ‘…the lack of serious debate can protect the intelligence agencies from political accountability and control…..it is probably the … Read more
Official openings We don’t have a Freedom of Information Act, and are not likely to get one from any of the British political parties. Imagine a conversation in the office of the new Labour Prime Minister in a year or three: ‘FOI? Too much trouble, too much aggro with Whitehall. As if we need any … Read more
Background 1. Following the rioting in East Belfast in October 1972 when the late Tommy Herron declared war in the British Army, there was increasing disquiet among UDA ranks. On 14th October 1972 a manifesto was issued on behalf of a breakaway group calling itself the Ulster Citizens’ Army. This manefesto stated: “The Ulster Citizens’ … Read more
[…] the media and Cathy Massiter, were given access to raw intelligence files on a hitherto secret Army undercover unit which was working with the Protestant paramilitaries to assassinate members of the Provos. As the lead paragraph of the Telegraph story stated in 14 point bold, ‘We have seen secret files, that for the first […]
As I write this in late May 1998, the world is watching two Indonesian traditions, locked in a dramatic struggle to determine that country’s future. One, representing one of the world’s most tolerant Muslim cultures, seeks a non-violent return towards the democratic civil society that prevailed in the early 1950s. The other apparently hopes to … Read more
Miscellaneous Publications Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’, The CIA and American Democracy, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989, price not stated) is, with Blum’s The CIA: a Forgotten History, the best single volume on the CIA. Of particular interest is the author’s account of the political system’s response to the revelations of CIA archives in the … Read more
