Spy Wars

Book cover
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 […]

The covert origins of the Biafran War

Lobster Issue 25 (1993)

[…] Office, bugging, tapping, intercepting mail — as well as producing inept anti-communist propaganda. Then as independence loomed, the Colonial Office/MI5 team were replaced by the Foreign Office/ MI6 people. Smith’s encounter with colonial corruption climaxes with his discovery that among his duties was election rigging for the British. ‘I had been ordered during the […]

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 […]

The Citizen Smith case or the spy who came in from Oporto

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)

[…] Portuguese readers that he came to Oporto in a KGB training mission as it was said in court in November 1993……. And I recall that the ex- MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson saw an MI5 report on the case which concluded that Mr. Smith had not given any important or damaging information to Victor Oschenko. […]

Hacks, pols and PR

Book cover
Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] this small but powerful ‘Political Class’ has, through the practice of ‘manipulative populism’, done to a variety of British institutions, including the Civil Service, the Foreign Office, MI6, the legal system, the monarchy and Parliament. Oborne writes well and his anger-fuelled text carries the reader along at a great lick. One thing that made […]

PR, espionage and language

Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] regard for your family, your children or you.'(21) There, too, was that old chestnut: ‘SIS insists it is not dominated by a macho culture – indeed female MI6 officers play on people’s emotions in a way men cannot…’ (22) Yes, some women do. However, only the dated believe this is their unique value to […]

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, […]

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 […]

Tittle-tattle 1

Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002)

[…] was assistant editor of The Economist. Lloyd and Leonard Jr. keep interesting company at the FPC. Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (see above) is ‘senior researcher’ and career MI6 officer Meta (now Baroness) Ramsay is on the advisory council. Alongside Lloyd and Ramsay are Sir Michael Butler, the former British permanent representative to the European […]

The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro

Book review
Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996)

[…] example, to show their methods – the deaths of the British journalist Jonathan Moyle in Chile, Ian Spiro, said to be working either for the CIA or MI6 – or both – and Abbie Hoffman. Moyle’s in there because he was interested, apparently, in some of the same people as Casolaro; and Spiro’s in […]

Accessibility Toolbar