[…] 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 […]
[…] no information about this man’. After the meeting Robertson returned to MI5 headquarters and told ‘Mr White’ (presumably Dick White, later head of MI5 and then of MI6) before telephoning Edinburgh for information. The Assistant to the Regional Officer spoke to Robertson and said that he would ‘make enquiries about the case and let […]
[…] 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.
[…] itself, involved in them. Christie’s book presents great problems for this reviewer. Who, in this country, is qualified to say anything intelligent about it? Some members of MI6 maybe. This kind of parapolitical research into anything just isn’t practised here: Christie’s book is virtually without precedent in this country. So, the first thing to […]
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 Centre for Conflict Studies, Washington.’ (Presumably sponsored means paid for by.) It includes a paper by ex ISC Peter Janke, now Director of Research for the MI6 operation, Control Risks. Editor Tucker is a former Deputy Head of IRD. No team like the old team. (Thanks to H. G. in Canada for the […]
[…] They present a devastating picture of Blair and his court that brims over with telling detail. Of particular interest to readers of Lobster is the revelation that MI6 head-hunted Charles Clarke when he was Neil Kinnock’s political adviser. It is good to know that the Home Office is in a safe pair of hands. […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
