[…] loyalist paramilitaries. These two factors led to the Provisionals’ readiness to abandon the armed struggle on the right terms, and seem to have convinced Trimble that a new game was underway. One should not underestimate the radical nature of his transformation. When James Molyneux stood down as Ulster Unionist leader in August 1995, Trimble […]
[…] cupboard seemed a good idea. But these days, dozens of books about our ‘secret services’ later, the ‘Secret’ Intelligence Service flaunting its bureaucratic muscle in that shiny, new building on the Thames, we have intelligence stories everywhere. Mere collating of intelligence material seems less interesting – as does the publishing of names. Which might […]
[…] his government was the bad guy in the story and the Libyans might be telling the truth. There is, it should be noted at the outset, nothing new here on the bombing. There are, however, thirty or so photographs of Chasey skiing at Vail, Colorado, shaking hands with Senators, foreign leaders, Presidents etc.; and […]
[…] No Philip Agee, he! I wonder if Shayler thought things they would be better under Labour and he wouldn’t get clobbered? It isn’t clear from this account. Notes 2 See for example the article criticising MI6 by former British ambassador, Peter Heap, ‘The truth behind the MI6 facade’ in The Guardian 2 October 2003. […]
[…] sometime full-time soldier, now with the BBC, Urban affects not to be just the traditional defence correspondent, dependent on the droppings of the MOD press office. He notes in this book that while he was entitled to non-attributable briefings from the MOD, he chose not to have them while writing it. While non-attributable briefings […]
[…] Carter administration has taken up Nixon’s demand for an Official Secrets Act which would provide criminal sanctions against future Daniel Ellsbergs. *** John Dean, Blind Ambition ( New York, Simon and Schuster, 1976): p81 cf. Watergate Hearings, Vol.2 p788 U.S. Cong. House Committee on Armed Services, Inquiry into the Alleged Involvement of the Central […]
[…] the world from America but has been unable to save the Labour Party from the machinations of a relatively small number of misguided and/or shyster careerist politicians. Notes 2 A short summary of Corfe’s philosophy is at 3 Corfe writes of American culture as if there was just one when there are many cultures […]
[…] in Lobster, has uncovered a fascinating mass of information relating to covert cross-border operations by the Ulster security forces, and the subsequent “shoot-to-kill” inquiry conducted by the new retired Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, John Stalker. Basing himself largely on the evidence of Captain Fred Holroyd, Doherty unravels a whole series of covert […]
[…] is deemed to be consistent with notions of a ‘free press’ and ‘political science’. In the second approach, by contrast, one can consider the facts of the real world.’ (emphasis added) I read that and let out a sigh of pleasure. Call me a naive empiricist, but I like the sound of ‘the facts […]
[…] would be dismissed by non-historians as obvious baloney. For example, looking at the rationale of ‘spreading democracy’ offered by the neo-cons for the invasion of Iraq, Porter notes: ‘…the haste with which the US, whenever she conquered countries in the post 9-11 period, set about instituting free markets, privatisation and so on there, usually […]
