New Cloak, Old Dagger: How Britain’s Spies Came In From The Cold

Book cover
Lobster Issue 33 (Summer 1997) £££

Michael Smith Gollancz, London,1996, £20 This is a curious and rather pointless book. In short chapters Smith attempts potted histories of MI5, SIS, signals and military intelligence. These are quite well done, but covering half a century in 20 pages, say, the chapters are barely more than sketches. (The Information Research Department gets a page!) … Read more

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SIS: Dearlove, Spedding and PR

Lobster Issue 42 (Winter 2001/2) £££

[…] is another hackneyed phrase. It is usually used to explain why competency collapsed due to post Cold War complacency which, apparently, blunted the cutting edge of British spy work. This is another nonsense since it implies that British Cold War espionage was excellent, when this was not always the case. Back to Sir Richard: […]

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The Shadow Man: At the Heart of the Cambridge Spy Circle by Geoff Andrews

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016) FREE

[PDF file]: The Shadow Man: At the Heart of the Cambridge Spy Circle Geoff Andrews London: I B Tauris, 2016, £20, h/b This is a revelatory book that, in its own quiet, understated way, is likely to send shock waves through the historiography of British Communism. Geoff Andrews is the author of the disappointing last volume […]

A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont

Lobster Issue 88 (2024) FREE
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[PDF file]: A Spy Alone Charles Beaumont London: Canelo, 2023, £9.99 (p/b) Robin Ramsay This is only the second novel I have reviewed in Lobster.1 The cover and the author blurb tells us that author Beaumont is a ‘former MI6 operative’. ‘Operative’? Why not ‘officer’? The author tells me the word was chosen by the publisher. […]

Right-wing Terrorists and the Extraparliamentary Left in Post-World War 2 Europe: Collusion or Manipulation?

Lobster Issue 18 (1989) £££

[…] regularly in specialized investigative publications like Covert Action Information Bulletin, Bulletin d’Information sur Intervention Clandestine (France), Intelligence/Parapolitics (now Intelligence Newsletter) (France), Lobster (UK), National Reporter (formerly Counter spy) (US, recently defunct), The Public Eye, Celsius (formerly Article 31) (Belgium), Searchlight (UK) and the now defunct State Research Bulletin (UK). A great deal more is […]

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Spooks. Hollis. Tomlinson

Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999) £££

[…] opening of the KGB archives and the testimony of Oleg Gordievsky, you might be forgiven for thinking that the question, Was MI5 Director-General Roger Hollis a Soviet spy? had been answered conclusively and resoundingly ‘No’. You would be wrong – or so says the doyen of British espionage writers, Chapman Pincher. In a piece […]

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Web Update

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

[…] may breach European privacy legislation and the European Commission is investigating four possible breaches of European law (Europe to Investigate Legality of RIP, 27/10/00, www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14288.html and Net Spy Act may be Illegal, Independent 5/11/00, www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Update/ 2000-11/spy051100.shtml) A public consultation on the draft Codes of Practice (on Interception of Communications, Covert Surveillance and the use […]

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Spies, Lies, and the War On Terror

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009) £££

Paul Todd, Jonathan Bloch, and Patrick Fitzgerald London: Zedbooks, 2009, £14.99, p/b, £39.95 h/b   This book is published as the debate rages in America about whether or not the activities of the Bush regime, specifically the torture of various combat detainees and suspects rendered from various parts of the world, should be subject to … Read more

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