From Edward Herman I was taken aback by the review of Russell Kick’s book, You Are Being Lied To, by Phil Edwards, in Lobster 42. It contains a venomous and completely idiotic attack on Noam Chomsky (and indirectly on me as a co-author of the propaganda model), and it has other deficiencies as well. Let … Read more
It is well known that counter insurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson, after his ‘success’ in Malaya, went to Vietnam, under the title of British Advisory Mission, to help the Americans. He was head of the mission until 1965, subsequently visiting Saigon a number of times before being appointed a special consultant by President Nixon. Less … Read more
Is the picture on the right that of the old Spycatcher himself, Peter Wright? It has been used as if it is three times, in the Sunday Times on 12 July 1987 and 16 October 1988; and more recently, the version shown, heavily cropped to illustrate Wright’s obituary in the Independent, 28 April 1995. It … Read more
Kees van der Pijl Routledge, 1998, £15.95 From the late 1970s a group of Dutch academic Marxists – including Henk Overbeek, Meindert Fennema, Frans Stokman, Robert J. Mokken and Kees van der Pijl – began studying networks of capitalist power, setting up their own international scholarly network in the process (involving, among others, Beth … Read more
Paul Routledge London: Fourth Estate, 2002, £16.99 In Lobster 39 (p. 23) I reported the snippet of information from a recent biography of James Callaghan that Mrs Thatcher, while leader of the Opposition, in 1977 had twice gone to to see Robert Armstrong, then Home Office liaison with MI5, to put the beliefs of her … Read more
This began as a review of Deacon’s Truth Twisters by David Teacher, and grew as we both saw bits and pieces we could add to it. Richard Deacon’s The Truth Twisters (McDonald, London 1987: Futura, London 1988) is a classic of Western disinformation purporting to describe Soviet disinformation. Deacon lines up all our favourite state … Read more
House of Bush, House of Saud Craig Unger New York: Scribner, 2004, h/back, $26.00 I bought this because it was reported in the UK that the book couldn’t be published here due to our ‘stricter’ libel laws. Naturally, I wondered who among the Bushes and the Saudis might consider themselves libelled. The book is … Read more
Through The Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy In An Age Of Illusions Anthony Verrier (Cape, London 1983) This will probably turn out to be an important book, maybe even a little landmark in the (scanty) literature on British foreign policy since the war. So far it has been largely ignored by the literary/political establishment, receiving … Read more
Al Martin Pray, Montana: National Liberty Press, 2001, $14.95, ISBN 0-97-10042-0-X Alexander ‘Al’ Martin is a retired Lt. Commander in the US Navy, a former member of the Office of Naval Intelligence and a middle-ranking player in the thicket of scandals known as Iran-Contra. This might be the most startling book written about post-war American … Read more
See note (1) James ‘Bo’ Gritz, linked to the US Army Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), was detained with Lance Corp. Edward Trimmer whilst trying to enter Thailand. (Guardian 23rd September 1983) They were apparently on another mission looking for American POWs. In December, for the first time since 1975, American troops were in Laos investigating … Read more
