Advertising, Iraq and espionage

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

Advertising In 1960s Iraq, the children of the poor carried their most treasured possessions to school in much coveted, branded soap-powder packets. When these eventually disintegrated, what remained was stuck up on the classroom wall. As a result, children could pick out the words ‘Tide’ or ‘Omo’. Praised by their teacher for doing so, a […]

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The Pinay Circle and Destabilisation in Europe

Lobster Issue 18 (1989) £££

[…] from the SDECE in 1982 by Marenches’ successor, the Socialist appointee Pierre Marion, Roussin moved over to become Chirac’s ‘Chef de Cabinet’, putting his previous experience of Iran to good use as operational head of Chirac’s 1987 hostages cell. (See Lobster 16).Also in on the 1979 Teheran trip was the SDECE’s expert, named in […]

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The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8) £££

[…] state is taking steps to counter it. Hence, in part, the formation of the state-sponsored youth group Nashi (Russian for ‘Our’).(6) Similar activities are taking place in Iran. Hence the arrest, earlier this year, of Iranian academics with links to American-funded organisations.(7)Similar techniques are being used in South America.(8)Little of this is secret: the […]

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Deep Black: the secrets of space espionage (Book Review) & Journals

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] Irangate. He shows America’s failure to spot the storm to the subsequent reinforcement of the CIA contingent following a twin-track policy of supporting anti-Khomeini exile groups outside Iran while building up agent networks within the first post-revolutionary government of Medhi Basargan. They succeeded in winning over Bani Sadr (President of Iran), Amir Entesam (Deputy […]

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US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat

Lobster Issue 14 (1987) £££

[…] Agency and retired a General in 1976. 1953 The General admits to being involved in the coup against Mossadegh which resulted in the Shah taking over in Iran. 1960-62  Military attache in Rome, helping CIA distribute funds to right-wing parties. 1964 In Brazil. Described as “lynchpin” in General Branco’s bloody coup against Goulart. Branco […]

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Yo, Blair!

Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

[…] British Government to the Americans’ in MI6’s house journal, The Sunday Telegraph (9 July 2006). What that ‘kow-towing’ looks like was illustrated in ‘Blair beefed up his Iran speech to please Bush’ (Sunday Telegraph 28 May 2006) in which Toby Harnden and Patrick Hennessy reported: ‘Tony Blair made significant changes to one of his […]

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Was the Director of Central Intelligence a Soviet agent?

Book cover
Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006) £££

[…] such instance, the September 11, 2001 attacks are another. Operations can fail – as with the Bay of Pigs – or succeed only too well – Guatemala, Iran, Congo – their unforeseen consequences bringing disaster for the locals or the masters of the operatives. Counterintelligence can fail to find spies – Aldrich Ames – […]

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Secrecy and Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq

Book cover
Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005) £££

Robert Parry Arlington (VA): The Media Consortium, 2004; $22.95 (US); p/b Order from   This is the book I have enjoyed most since the last Lobster and it is one of the best books I have read on American politics and parapolitics. Robert Parry really is very good indeed: he has the serious investigative journalist’s […]

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The CIA and the Culture of Failure

Book cover
Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009) £££

[…] advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the wreckage of Iraq, with more than two million external refugees and the ethnic cleansing of its Christian population, the rise of Iran as a major regional power, and now the implosion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, prob-ably the most dangerous development of all.’ But for whom has this been […]

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The Big C: Further notes on ‘conspiracy’

Lobster Issue 24 (December 1992) £££

[…] — Middle Easterners discern them in the merest accidents….. neglecting conspiracy theories can lead to a profound misreading of that region….’. He declares that ‘The shah of Iran and Anwar as-Sadat lost their countrymen’s respect because both were (wrongly) seen as agents of Washington.’ Wrongly, huh? Depends on how he is using ‘agent’. Do […]

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