A Diplomat’s Day by Geoffrey F. Hancock

Lobster Issue 63 (Summer 2012)

[PDF file]: […] announced: ‘This is the personal account of the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1976 as seen through the eyes of the British Chargé d’Affaires and MI6 Head of Station in Beirut, Geoffrey Hancock.’ Oh, thought I, how many other memoirs by an MI6 Head of Station do we have? None that I […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 92 (2026)

[PDF file]: […] (paper) pages from The Spectator of 13-27 December 2025 with ‘A secret life’ by James MacManus. This is a detailed account of the life of a senior MI6 officer, the late Roger Horrell.12 There was also an obituary of Horrell in The Times but it is behind their paywall. However, the Telegraph obituary has […]

The Dungavel Handicap Scotland, Churchill and Rudolf Hess, 1941

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021)

[PDF file]: […] of the Churchill government. Prior to departing on his mission for Finland, Borenius was briefed by Claude Dansey and sent with the knowledge of the head of MI6, Colonel See or and also or the conclusion of which appears to be at odds with the facts. 28 Quoted in Matthew & Harrison (eds.), The […]

Sir John Sawer’s speech and some aspects of SIS PR

Lobster Issue 60 (Winter 2010)

[PDF file]: […] T op down language is always a give-away and can be a pleasing indication of progress. So, for example, in Professor 123 Winter 2010 Jeffery’s reference work, MI6, the history of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909 – 1949, there is an example of the huge lobbying pressure that the educator – a crucial spook […]

Operation Chiffon by Peter Taylor

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: Operation Chiffon: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland Peter Taylor London: Bloomsbury, 2023 Hardback, £17 Nick Must This, the most recent in a long line of Peter Taylor’s works on the conflict in Northern Ireland, has been described in other reviews as ‘compelling’,1 ‘a gripping exploration’2 […]

Taylor Operation Chiffon

Lobster Issue

Operation Chiffon: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland Peter Taylor London: Bloomsbury, 2023 Hardback, £17 Nick Must This, the most recent in a long line of Peter Taylor’s works on the conflict in Northern Ireland, has been described in other reviews as ‘compelling’,1 ‘a gripping exploration’2 […]

Taylor Operation Chiffon

Lobster Issue

Operation Chiffon: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland Peter Taylor London: Bloomsbury, 2023 Hardback, £17 Nick Must This, the most recent in a long line of Peter Taylor’s works on the conflict in Northern Ireland, has been described in other reviews as ‘compelling’,1 ‘a gripping exploration’2 […]

The Dr Strangeloves of the Mind

Lobster Issue 59 (Summer 2010)

[PDF file]: […] said he was going to Europe to meet with a CIA team led by Dr. Gottlieb…Sargant was satisfied that the CIA team were doing similar work that MI6 were conducting in Europe – executing without trial known Nazis, especially SS men…Sargant saw Frank Olson after his brief visit to Norway and West Germany, including […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 91 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] is free All issues of Lobster are now available without charge on this site. *new* SIS obit On 24 November The Times published an obituary of the MI6 officer Paul Ritchie.1 It had the clunky subhead ‘Senior agent at the forefront of transforming an agency focused on espionage into a global organisation capable of […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 66 (Winter 2013)

[PDF file]: […] agencies and the impact upon people’s privacy as the agencies seek to find the needles in the haystacks that might be crucial to safeguarding national security.’15 Former MI6 officer, Alan Petty, who writes as Alan Judd: ‘Realistically, however, we’ve no alternative but to go on as before. We have enemies, as Andrew Parker reminds […]

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