The Dirty War, and, The SAS in Ireland (Book reviews)

Lobster Issue 21 (1991)

[…] the United Kingdon believed that unorthodox methods and techniques were required in the war. The intervention of these groupings, which included Special Branch, military intelligence, MI5 and MI6, was uncoordinated. Much has been written about that period, some of it honest journalism, but most of it (emphasis added) propaganda inspired by the terrorists and […]

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, […]

The smearing of Colin Wallace

Lobster Issue 14 (1987)

[…] never alleged this. “In an account he claims to have written in 1976 as evidence of his intimate involvement in the intelligence world, Wallace talks of an MI6 operative he knew. In fact that document reveals an event – the death of a policeman – that actually occurred in December 1981.” I think I’ve […]

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 […]

The New Spies: Exploring the Frontiers of Espionage

Lobster Issue 27 (1994)

[…] that Mr Adams would, either.) On the British end of things Adams tells us, inter alia There has been a complete purge of the upper echelons of MI6 in favour of younger people. (So a lot of disgruntled senior people to leak in the future?) SIS has got a lot of good sources inside […]

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.

Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State

Lobster Issue 27 (1994)

[…] of bureaucratic and organisational models of the modern state, concluding that inter-agency rivalry is to be expected — or you can have an overview of the MI5/ MI6 turf wars. You can’t, yet, have both. Which is not to say this book is ‘Parapolitics for Beginners (with sociology degrees)’. Some of Gill’s academic digressions […]

The Blairs and their Court

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] 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. […]

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 […]

Miscellaneous: Gemstone. Workers’ Revolutionary Party, MI5 and Libya

Lobster Issue 20 (1990)

[…] to disguise operations. Brierley retains his connections through his Charter Corp’s holding in Teltherm. Keston College In Lobster 19 we referred to Keston College as a probable MI6 operation. One of our readers had the wit to send our reference to Keston to the BBC, asking for comments. The editor of the Radio 4 […]

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