How many divisions does the Pope have?

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina Uki Goni London: Granta Books, 2002, £20 If there was a category of work called Detective History, Uki Goni really ought to be awarded Book of the Year. Undeterred by the shredding and incineration of key documents, rebuffs from the supporters of Peron […]

Who’s afraid of the KGB

Lobster Issue 6 (1984)

[…] society. On this it is worth looking at Stephen de Mowbray’s Soviet Deception and the Onset of the Cold War in Encounter (July/August 1984). De Mowbray, ex MI6, is one of the quartet who wrote the introduction to Golitsyn’s New Lies For Old, discussed in Lobster 5. He argues that the Soviet Union misled […]

Lobster Issue 51: Contents

Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006)

[…] and their efficiency, my thanks. This issue contains a striking example of how the world has changed. Which newspaper has been running stories about alleged involvement of MI6 in the assassination of Princess Diana? That famous lefty rag, The Daily Express. Looking at Terry Hanstock’s account of the recent developments in the Di murder […]

Downing Street Diary: With Harold Wilson in No. 10

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] Lord Wigg, the former George Wigg MP, who, for the first couple of years of the Labour government of 1964/5, had been Wilson’s advisor on MI5 and MI6. This relationship came to grief when Wilson followed Wigg’s advice in the D-Notice Affair and came off worst in a pissing contest with MI5. After which, […]

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

Lobster Issue 16 (1988)

[…] Meyer Lansky in Bermuda. Parker paints a picture of the British royal family tinged with homosexuality, drug addiction and general decadence, and attributes to a hitherto secret MI6 report, allegations that the Duchess had been an enthusiastic participant in threesomes in some high class brothels in China. Another version of this territory is said […]

Spinning the European Union: pro-European propaganda campaigns in the British media

Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] the Information Research Department (IRD). This covert unit, established by the Labour Government in 1948, was financed from the Secret Intelligence Services budget, with close links to MI6. The government’s campaign had three stages. The first involved the dissemination of information to the press and public; the second, from the announcement of the terms […]

Brief Notes on the Political Importance of Secret Societies (Part 2)

Lobster Issue 6 (1984)

[…] to the capture of a small army of Soviet ‘moles’ in Britain, Sweden, West Germany, Israel, Denmark and France. His most important catch was the high ranking MI6 official George Blake, whose unmasking led in turn to the exposure of Kim Philby, the most famous ‘mole’ of all time. Most disturbing of all, however, […]

Scenes From an Afterlife: The Legacy of George Orwell

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] along the lines of sympathy to the Soviet Union or Red China. Those most hostile to Stalinism have tended to embrace Orwell, while those least hostile have tended to parrot Communist slanders from his believing the working class smelled to working for MI6. Scenes From An Afterlife is essential reading for anyone interested in Orwell.

Ken Livingstone’s questions

Lobster Issue 16 (1988)

[…] in the Information Research Department in each year since 1971.”And got an answer. IRD is the one bit of the secret state, not officially a part of MI6, which the state can’t refuse to answer questions on. The figures are: 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 117 99 91 91 88 85 85 […]

Spy Wars

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

Spy Wars: Moles, mysteries and deadly games Tennent H. Begley London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, h/b, £18.99   Begley was one of James Angleton’s allies in CIA counterintelligence and this book is the Angletonian view of the Nosenko case, one of the touchstones or causes célèbres of the CIA in the post-war […]

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