[…] is the explanation for this unbelievable piece of political camouflage? The only credible answer to date is supplied by Lester Coleman, who claims to have been an agent of the CIA and the lesser known Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) for eight years. In his Trail of the Octopus: From Beirut to Lockerbie — Inside […]
[…] from Colody and Gettlin only in their candidate for ‘Deep Throat’. Instead of Haig, Newman suggested the late Bob Kunkle (my phonetic spelling) who had been Special Agent in Washington in charge of the FBI’s investigation of Watergate. Kunkle — not named in Colodny and Gettlin, or in Hougan — is a plausible candidate […]
Martin Dillon, Doubleday, London, 1994. This one, the third book called ‘the enemy within’ of last year, slipped by me at the time: I didn’t notice a single review. Most of it describes the IRA’s various campaigns against the British, not something I am interested in. However there is one rivetting chapter called, ‘The Intelligence … Read more
Operation Paget, the investigation by the team led by Sir John Stevens into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, briefly tried to investigate a collision between a white Fiat Uno and Princess Diana’s BMW. The head-on collision happened on 22 March 1996, on Cromwell Road, Kensington, when a casino employee lost control of a … Read more
The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs Douglas Valentine London/New York: Verso, 2004, h/back, £20 This comes garlanded with praise from Jim Hougan and Anthony Summers. The praise is justified: this is, as Hougan says, ‘a ground-breaking work of investigative reporting’; and it is, as Summers says, ‘a … Read more
[…] 1988, after Congressional support for the Contras was terminated altogether.(15) By this time Matta Ballesteros was sought by the DEA for the murder in Mexico of DEA agent Enrique Camarena. Two of his associates and co-defendants in that murder case, Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Felix Gallardo of the then dominant Mexican Guadalajara cartel, […]
[…] March 1981, there was this snippet: ‘Why all the fuss about the Panorama programme on British Intelligence? Eventually there was just one cut — Gordon Winter, BOSS agent, former freelance journalist, in a pre-title sequence: “British intelligence has a saying that if there is a left-wing movement in Britain bigger than a football team […]
[…] guerrillas and killed the following month. At the time of his death, both Uruguayan policemen and their victims testified to his role as a torturer. Another CIA agent, the Cuban Manuel Hevia Cosculluela, was later to reveal that Mitrione had once tortured four homeless men to death as a demonstration for his Uruguayan students. […]
The CIA In a recent ‘Witness Seminar’ on the 1975 British referendum on entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), the Conservative MP, Sir Richard Body, who in 1975 was co-chair of the anti-EEC National Referendum Campaign, had this to say: ‘At the very beginning of the campaign two CIA agents came to see me … Read more
In the collection, Contemporary British History 1931-61, reviewed in this issue, there is an essay by Richard Aldrich of Salford University, one of the small but growing numbers of British academics trying to incorporate the activities of the intelligence and security services into post-war British history. In his essay on the Special Operations Executive (SOE) … Read more
