[…] for fourth and fifth men working for Moscow, and away from those now working, in effect, for Washington. By 1979, Andrew Boyles The Climate of Treason presented Thatcher with a gift by blowing Anthony Blunts cover, and heaping further obloquy on Keynes former alma mater. When the Empire was finally wound up in the […]
[…] as being a ‘link with the foreign office’, he was trusted by the Foreign Office mandarins even more than security overlord Sir Maurice Oldfield, appointed by Mrs Thatcher in 1979. The appointment in 1980 of Sir Brooks Richard, an ex-diplomat, as Security Co-ordinator in Northern Ireland, was seen as giving the Foreign Office ‘game […]
[…] ’75 he was living in Switzerland and listed his occupation as ‘tax exile’. His current address is Tonbridge, Kent (he stopped being a ‘tax exile’ during the Thatcher years) and is ‘active in personal development and social change’. Currently a Senior Partner of Performance Consultants Ltd., he has written a number of books including […]
[…] end of ideology (ideology): Fukuyama-Huntington-Friedman, one could also add Charles Murray, greatly marketed by the new right. The New Labour set seemed attracted by how the ‘ Thatcher think tanks’ had done so well, but I wonder how much they knew here, the extent of the influence of the Heritage Foundation, how this tied […]
[…] beyond normal 30 yrs. Remarks by Lord Donaldson, Ch’mn Advisory Council on Public Records in 24 th Annual Report of Public Records Office. (Guardian 1 July 1983.) Thatcher personally stops publication of two books: official histories of war-time MI5 and war-time counter intelligence operations. (Guardian 25 November and 8 December 1983) Anthony Lester QC […]
[…] the women’s movement as evidenced at Greenham Common, much more dangerously so. The Iran Contra documents make clear that the first Reagan administration was seriously afraid that Thatcher, and even Kohl, might not be re-elected. This was a prospect not to be contemplated if their successful opponents were not to conform to traditional NATO […]
[…] an endorsement better than that, thanks very much. And if ‘the Establishment’ was cross with ‘West’ it didn’t stop him becoming a Conservative MP; and under Margaret Thatcher, who hated dishers of dirt and secrets. So, for me, ‘West’ has always been a puzzle: a conservative (and Conservative) historian of spookery with ambiguous relations […]
[…] too convincing. The problem is he doesn’t give precise dates for this supposed event. One is left to suppose that it all revolves around the ‘rise of Thatcher’ – a formula he rightly refuses. The historical perspective he brings to bear down-plays the decisive significance of the 1980s. It all looks, in retrospect, as […]
[…] in Northern Ireland, what amounts to a revisionist history in miniature of WW2 intelligence operations on the British side, and a sardonic post-script on the Falklands: “Mrs Thatcher postured absurdly in the immediate aftermath …an illusion about an independent almost an imperial role comparable to that which regards nuclear weapons as deterrents to every […]
[…] was quickly moved to one side. Holroyd notes that Stalker’s downfall came after he and Colin Wallace had sent their file of allegations and evidence to Mrs Thatcher in 1984. After which ‘two events took place: the first was the Government’s robust attempt to stop Spycatcher; the second was the attack on the integrity […]
