[PDF file]: l Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War 1 to 9/11 Kathryn S. Olmsted Oxford University Press, 2009, £12.99, p/b 1 1 If I was going to be generous I would say ‘Close but no cigar’ to professor Olmsted’s account. She has at any rate identified one of the central issues, expressed in […]
[PDF file]: Failed Führers: A History of Britain’s Extreme Right Graham Macklin London: Routledge, 2020, £24.99, pb John Newsinger Failed Führers is a volume in the Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right series. At the moment there are almost 60 volumes in the series, already published or forthcoming. The handful that I have so far […]
[PDF file]: […] the cumulative picture of SIS is truly well-informed. His comments about ‘our support for forces of moderation around the world’, followed by almost in the same 17 Iran has accused Britain of not only carrying out ‘secret espionage activities in the country but also funding and supporting certain terrorist groups. . .’ The Times, […]
[PDF file]: Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare Thomas Rid London: Profile Books, 2020, 513 pp, £10.99 Colin Challen The dissemination of disinformation is as old as the hills, and now, thanks to the Internet, its transformation from the analogue age to the digital has given it what Rid explains as a post-modernist […]
[PDF file]: Contents Lobster 60 SUCCESS The CIA in Guatemala, 1954 James Lusher On 18 June 1954, following the positive outcome in Iran a year previously, backed by the President, Congress and the State Department, the CIA launched their next interventionist operation. It entailed replacing the Guatemalan left-wing, reformist leader Jacobo Arbenz Guzman – seen by […]
[PDF file]: […] this in essay in Lobster 72 at . 14 History occurs in a context not of minutes but years, decades, even centuries. When the US embassy in Iran was seized after the overthrow of the Shah, none of the respectable media explained that the Shah had been installed by the CIA after having overthrown […]
[PDF file]: […] This is all being organised by al-Qaeda, and, moreover, ‘it has recently been reported’, that this invasion ‘may be’ being carried out in alliance with Venezuela and Iran. Rubin puts forward a plan for how to defeat this attempted Muslim takeover. Among his recommendations are an immediate ban on all Muslim immigration into the […]
[PDF file]: Sex scandals and sexual blackmail in America’s deep politics Jonathan Marshall Note: In my ‘Blackmail and the Deep State’, also in this issue of Lobster, I discussed the importance of political blackmail as a force in America’s deep politics from the late 1950s to Watergate. This article, which also addresses Watergate, focuses on the politics […]
[PDF file]: The Devil’s Chessboard Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government David Talbot William Collins, London, 2015 HB, 686pp., illus., index, bib., refs., £25.00 This truly excellent biography is at least partly a biography of two men, Allen Dulles and his older brother John Foster. I write ‘at least partly’ because the […]
[PDF file]: Conspiracy theories and conspiracy facts THEY KNEW How a Culture of Conspiracy keeps America Complacent Sarah Kendzior New York: Flatiron Books 2022 John Newsinger Sarah Kendzior is one of the most interesting commentators writing about contemporary America. Her two previous books, The View from Flyover Country (2018) and Hiding in Plain Sight (2020), are essential […]
