The Spy Who Would be Tzar: The Mystery of Michal Goleniewski and the Far-Right Underground by Kevin Coogan

Lobster Issue 83 (Summer 2022) FREE

[PDF file]: […] Goleniewski actually meant any of this is unclear. Coogan writes that Goleniewski ‘single-handedly destroyed Polish intelligence, exposed Soviet control over West Germany’s spy service and saved Britain’s MI6 spy agency from certain catastrophe.’ (p. 5) And perhaps Goleniewski was the last defector of any importance. But with this much hindsight it is clear none […]

Tittle-tattle

Lobster Issue 60 (Winter 2010) FREE

[PDF file]: […] week-long sequence of events starting in late October. One, British Airways chairman Martin Broughton complains about the UK ‘kowtowing’ to the United States on airport security.1 Two, MI6 chief Sir John Sawers gives a lecture saying why his service should be excluded from general government cuts.2 Three, we have an international terror scare, with […]

Angles Morts

Lobster Issue 88 (2024) FREE

[PDF file]: […] invasion of Lebanon killed her lover. The Sunday Times and two other Fleet Street newspapers turned down the story of a transgender Mossad spy who had double-crossed MI6. See ‘Olivia Jayne Frank, 1956-2023’ in this issue at or . 1 2 Script by James Warner Bellah and Lewis Goldbeck for the 1962 John Ford […]

View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] it more carefully, I was struck by the omission from this account of the role played by Oleg Penkovsky, the GRU colonel who was providing SIS ( MI6) – and thus the Americans – with detailed information on Soviet nuclear weaponry. Crucially, Penkovsky told SIS how few missiles the Soviets actually had and that […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 86 (2023) FREE

[PDF file]: […] children wept bitter tears on camera and no-one mentioned UK military aid to radical Islamists fighting Gaddafi. There are no references in the official report to SIS, MI6 or the Secret Intelligence Service.102 On the other hand, Nick Must noted that the report contains 76 references to ‘MI5’ and 213 to ‘Security Service’ – […]

Suddenly in September?

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021) FREE

[PDF file]: […] the Middle East was reflected in the contribution of Lady Manningham-Buller, the former MI5 deputy chief. She told the Lords that when she and the head of MI6 met the Bush team in Washington shortly after 9/11, ‘the decision was about al-Qaeda, its base in Afghanistan and its close relationship with the Taliban. I […]

Holding pattern

Lobster Issue 69 (Summer 2015) FREE

[PDF file]: […] days of Elizabeth I and Francis 17 18 Walsingham. This explains the continual presence of the present Queen in the background of many narratives concerning MI5 and MI6. It’s more than simply the ultimate loyalty of the two services to the head of state rather than to her government, it’s a matter of living […]

A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont

Lobster Issue 88 (2024) FREE

[PDF file]: […] Robin Ramsay This is only the second novel I have reviewed in Lobster.1 The cover and the author blurb tells us that author Beaumont is a ‘former MI6 operative’. ‘Operative’? Why not ‘officer’? The author tells me the word was chosen by the publisher. It is set in post–2020 UK, with a recognizable Boris […]

South of the border

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021) FREE

[PDF file]: […] students.5 Among the luminaries are the Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin, who is a Senior Visiting Fellow.6 His profile is light on any detail, especially his relationship with MI6. Enter ‘Coughlin’ into the search engine on Lobster’s home page and you’ll get the fuller drift. Many of the ex-spooks are quite open about their past […]

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