Many thanks, as always, to Terry Hanstock for contributions. Comments and contributions welcome. My email is ‘War on Terrorism’: Repercussions of 11 Sept. 2001 The Sept 11 2001 attacks on the US and subsequent ‘war against terrorism’ have provided law enforcement/intelligence agencies with an opportunity to push for sweeping new powers, plus fast-tracking of … Read more
From Garrick Alder Re: John Newsinger’s ‘Orwell and the IRD in Lobster 38 The appearance since Lobster 45 of further details of Orwell’s dealings with the IRD has reminded me how very interested I was by Mr Newsinger’s admirable reappraisal of the Orwell/IRD incidents. Two things have struck me that seems to have escaped comment … Read more
[…] ‘report’ is a seemingly interminable expression of faux surprise at other regimes’ xenophobic resentment towards foreign spies, black propaganda, heavily funded ‘protest groups’ and media, consultants and agent provocateurs fomenting civil unrest with the overthrow of the state as their aim. The Lugar Report’s sources are all within the NED ‘family,’ thus engendering that […]
[…] supporter of Mr Neville Chamberlain.’ (25) Hulton, like many right-wing Tories, may have supported corporatist aims in war-time, but never socialism. He was almost certainly a loyal agent of MI6’s Section D. In 1939 he helped set up the bogus news agency Britanova and, in 1941, used the Picture Post as a front for […]
[…] Czech intelligence officer Husack to the MI5 officer attached to his Ministry did not prevent MI5 later using those contacts to try and portray Stonehouse as an agent of the Soviet bloc. Charles Laughlin MP reported contacts from another Czech official but MI5 did not tell him that the official was an intelligence officer […]
[…] Hollywood movies, Turkey has put its own spin on espionage and made its most expensive movie ever – Valley of the Wolves – which follows an intelligence agent as he travels to Iraq to avenge the death of a Turkish soldier. The Times 17 February 2006. PRs always look to the major set pieces […]
[…] of covert and clandestine politics which are directly relevant to this study. See, for example, Gary Marx, ‘Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: The Agent Provocateur and the Informant’, American Journal of Sociology 80:2 (September 1974), especially pp. 402-3. One of the few dissertations dealing directly with this topic, though not […]
Francis Beckett and David Hencke London: Constable, 2009, h/b, £18.99 This is quite interesting and impressive; but with a strange spin. There is a lot of (to me) new detail on the impact of the event on the Labour Party and trade unions, on money given to the NUM from other unions and on attempts … Read more
[…] kind of false defector organised by Naval Intelligence. When the KGB failed to take the bait he came back to start a new career as a COINTELPRO agent, flirting with Marxism and pro- Cuban activities. (Incidentally, while a great deal of research has concentrated on his time in New Orleans with the Fair Play […]
[…] is certain. I do not see what is accomplished by suggesting, as he does here, that Martin Bright of The Observer might (or might not) be an agent of the state. Except to irritate Bright – and maybe send him looking for a libel lawyer – if he ever hears of it. Notes from […]
