[…] a cartoon strip ‘The Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File’, written by Stephanie Caruana (based on a much longer work by Bruce Roberts). It was the first conspiracy theory I had ever read and I was very struck by it. So I went into Hull University library and began checking its central claims. They […]
[…] have done it already and better than I could. (1) For the most part the author sticks to what is known but occasionally cannot resist a good conspiracy theory. He tells us, for example, on p. 71: ‘1969-72 The CIA, with apparent DOD co-operation, undertakes a super secret domestic operation to “neutralize” America’s already […]
[…] between. As far as it goes it is quite interesting, initially rather amusing, to read the lunatic opinions of the far-right on almost everything from the Global Conspiracy to fluoride. But by about page 40 the succession of dotty prophets gets wearisome. The one section worth photocopying, perhaps, is that on the far-right’s reactions […]
[…] end of the remarkable sequence of events in the three years preceding Hasting’s statement to the House of Comments which are documented in Smear!, show that the conspiracy theories of the subversive-hunters of the British right – Brian Crozier et al – had ‘captured’ a significant section of the leadership of the Conservative Party […]
[…] wrong horses. But there is slightly more to it than this, for Becker is creeping up on a position not so very dissimilar to the kinds of conspiracy theories popular during ‘roll-back’s’ hey-day, in the early 1950s: “Let us, for the sake of argument accept the explanations for our giving aid to Mozambique. Perhaps […]
[…] to our slowly increasing knowledge of IRD’s activities. One of the author’s major themes is IRD’s constant attempt to fit events on the ground into its Communist Conspiracy theory, regardless of the actual situation – just as they did in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. (The Information Policy Unit there looks increasingly like IRD’s […]
[…] the oddest programmes he has ever seen. The single most striking thing about McPhilemy’s story is his neglect of much of the context in which this alleged conspiracy was said to be taking place. In 1987 Brian Nelson, working for the British Army, had returned to Northern Ireland, rejoined the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), […]
[…] clearly the 80 pro-Israel groups in the US, of which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the biggest and best organised. This is not a conspiracy (it doesn’t have to be under the US constitution) and is openly influential. AIPAC and its allies allocate campaign funding for candidates at all levels of […]
[…] very much on an old boy basis’ (a finding which prompted efforts to open up the Service to a more meritocratic ethos thereafter). As far as the conspiracy was concerned Hunt admitted ‘There is absolutely no doubt at all that a few, a very few malcontents in MI5, a lot of them right wing, […]
[…] report on the police use of computers, published by the GLC. For details see Publications. RR 007 Murray Sayles’ long apologia for the official version – “a conspiracy of circumstances” – in the Sunday Times (May 20th and 27th 1984). More interesting is the Defence Attache (June) piece by the pseudonymous P.Q. Mann, which […]
