Shorts Yorkshire Post (14 March ’92) reported the admission by the Ministry of Defence that in an operation called HORNBEAM, trawlers had been used during the first Cold War to spy on Soviet shipping. But the MOD spokesperson refused to confirm that some trawlers had carried intelligence officers. Statewatch Bulletin (Jan/Feb 1992) includes an important … Read more
[…] 11 September even after “running out of targets in Afghanistan”; to finish a job that George H.W. Bush had left undone; to avenge Saddam’s 1993 attempt to assassinate the first President Bush; to field-test Rumsfeld’s proposals for military reform; to reduce US dependency on the Saudis by securing some leverage over Iraqi oil supplies; […]
Gone but not forgotten: a further update on Di Terry Hanstock This update follows on from my earlier articles in Lobster 38 and Lobster 39 Never was the old adage ‘She’s dead but she won’t lie down’ more apt than when applied to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Although she died almost nine years … Read more
John Ross Common Courage Press Monroe, Maine, 2000, $15.95 (pb) (www.commoncouragepress.com) John Ross is the foremost chronicler, in English, of modern Mexican history. He is particularly knowledgeable about the Zapatista movement and its revolutionary forerunners. In addition to the very good The Annexation of Mexico – from the Aztecs to the IMF, about said country’s … Read more
[…] Farran walked free after a token court-martial presided over by that arch-reactionary, Melford Stevenson. He returned to Britain a hero. The LEHI did make an attempt to assassinate him, but their bomb killed his wholly innocent brother, Rex, by mistake. Cesarani makes the point that the killing of Alexander Rubowitz is a challenge to […]
Book Reviews Gerry Healey: A Revolutionary Life Corinna Lotz and Paul Feldman Lupus Books, PO Box 942, London, SW1V 2AR, £15.00 Ken Livingstone MP was given a large chunk of a page of the Guardian (tabloid section p. 13, September 6, 1994) to write a review of this book. The bit that caught my eye … Read more
Empires Apart: America And Russia From The Vikings To Iraq Brian Landers Hove: Picnic Publishing, 2009, £15, p/b Is America an empire? Tsarist Russia and its Soviet successor were certainly seen as such through western eyes. That America is not showing the heavily ideologised world through which we frame history. In a bold sweep … Read more
Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices Credit where credit is due Like many other small magazines, Lobster would probably not exist were it not for Central Books, who have been distributing Lobster since issue 16, generating that bit of extra sales revenue to help keep this curious enterprise afloat. To … Read more
Gecas and Special Branch A wonderful example of the reach and power of intelligence connections was provided in January. Why did the British state refuse to extradite Anton Gecas, the WW2 Lithuanian war criminal, to the Soviet Union in 1976? Turns out not only had Gecas worked for SIS at the end of WW2, he’d … Read more
Philip Willan Constable, London, 1991, £20.00 Hats off. A British journalist, living in Italy, Willan has produced that synthesis of the Italian material on the “strategy of tension’ and related parapolitical activity which people like me, without Italian or access to the Italian press, have been waiting for. This is one of those books that … Read more
