[…] and drabs of official information — all sanitised and ‘weeded’ — being doled out to the handfuls of people who are interested in this country’s history. Top Secret: An Interim Guide to Recent Releases of Intelligence Records at the Public Record Office, by Louise Atherton, is rather a large drib — practically a torrent […]
[…] per se. The Kennedys had too many of their own secrets at risk. In 1963 the knowledge of John Kennedy’s sexual promiscuity was still largely an insider’s secret — as was the family’s various links to the mafia, from Joe Kennedy’s bootlegging days to the mob’s assistance in the election of 1960. A decent […]
[…] Seagrave published a number of documents I provided to him about four years ago under an agreement of confidentiality. Some of these I later published with The Secret Gold Treaty (8) and so not only did he breach a confidentiality agreement but also copyright. I privately insisted he cease publishing but he didn’t have […]
[…] draft Bill (www.cfoi.org.uk/draftbill240599pr.html): ‘Deeply disappointing’ and ‘in key areas the Bill is weaker than the Conservatives’ Openness Code’. Criticisms include: Safety info can be classified as top secret; it replaces the Code’s public interest test by a voluntary test; it replaces the WP’s ‘substantial harm’ test with a lower ‘prejudice’ test; it contains ‘catch-all’ […]
[…] heart, you’re as thick as Des Wilson appears to be in taking them on board. Even Sir Robert Armstrong, one of the real pillars of this country’s secret state, is apparently in favour of more ‘open government’. Times 2 July. Another memoire, by ex MI5 Joan Miller, suppressed by the government. Sunday Times 29 […]
[…] Lobster 39 went to the printer and didn’t pursue it. I should have. The following references are from Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State (London: Fourth Estate, 1991) Geoffrey Goodman was repeatedly burgled in 1976, one of many among Wilson’s inner circle who were being burgled in this period. […]
[…] And that wasn’t the reason the deal fell apart in the UK. It fell apart because of a dispute between HM Customs and the rest of the secret state; and, when the whole stupid mess ended up in court, the late Alan Clark MP was unwilling to see MI6 agent and Matrix Churchill executive […]
Nigel West London: Greenhill Books, 2006, £25, h/b The books of ‘West’ that I have read all have the same problem: he tells you that some of the material comes from past or present intelligence officers and hints that in those sections you are getting ‘the real inside story’. Somewhere along the way, for … Read more
[…] played a part in convincing Agca to accept the role of accuser of Bulgaria. He further claimed it was General Pietro Musumeci, former vice-director of Italy’s Military Secret Service (SISMI), who had proposed the plan to the Camorra. (Times 18 June 1983) This allegation has appeared before, in 1983, when it wasn’t taken up […]
[…] inform every account, however, is the contrast between Orwell’s supposed status as a ‘socialist icon’ and his informing on other left-wing writers to a department of the secret state. Both sides of this equation need examination. Part of the problem is the notion of Orwell as a ‘socialist icon’, some sort of left-wing ‘St […]
