[…] one of the members of Rhodes’ circle, “a brilliant young graduate of Cambridge, Jan Smuts, who had been a vigorous supporter of Rhodes and acted as his agent in Kimberley as late as 1895 and who was one of the most important members of the Rhodes-Milner group in the period 1908-1950 …. became the […]
Tony Geraghty Harper Collins, London 1998, £19.99 Before dawn one Thursday in December 1998 a team of six Ministry of Defence police raided the home of the writer and journalist, Tony Geraghty. After seven hours, they left taking his computer, modem, disks and work in progress, having charged him under Section V of the Official […]
I don’t agree with the BassettMatthews line (‘War and peace plots’, Lobster 51) on (i) Chamberlain’s flight to see Hitler in the Munich crisis (it was to avert a war, not a coup) and (ii) Philby’s criminal responsibility for prolonging World War Two. The latter point credits far too much influence to one individual. The … Read more
Kissinger Commission Letter in International Herald Tribune 22nd January 1984 from one Eugene L. Stockwell who testified before the Kissinger Commission on Central America. He writes: “During my hour and a half testimony most of the commissioners repeatedly indicated that they believed today’s Nicaragua to be as bad or worse than Nicaragua under Somoza; Mr … Read more
[…] largely sympathetic feature. (Donald MacIntyre got very worked up about accusations that Tony Crosland could stoop to dirty politics and may well have been a CIA ‘ agent of influence’.) In response to the Ian McIntyre review I wrote a letter which included this. ‘I would have taken Mr McIntyre’s analysis more seriously however, […]
[…] gave up on the Labour Party in 1992 with the arrival of John Smith as leader and my involvement declined from being branch secretary and local election agent to being just another inactive member, unable to cut the cord. I eventually resigned over Iraq. A conspiracy theorist? Much of the content of this book […]
Michael Smith Gollancz, London,1996, £20 This is a curious and rather pointless book. In short chapters Smith attempts potted histories of MI5, SIS, signals and military intelligence. These are quite well done, but covering half a century in 20 pages, say, the chapters are barely more than sketches. (The Information Research Department gets a page!) … Read more
[…] foreign policy establishments of the NATO bloc. Had he been on the Soviet side of the Cold War, he would have been long dismissed as an “ agent of influence’. Former Liberal MP Michael Winstanley (Lord Winstanley) died in July. A long obituary in the Daily Telegraph of July 19 failed to mention Winstanley’s […]
[…] of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, added the following information on LFI. (2) The Director of Labour Friends of Israel is David Mercer, former research assistant and electoral agent for Gwyneth Dunwoody, ‘life president’ of LFI. The parliamentary register of Members’ interests shows that recent visitors who have had flights and accommodation paid by Labour […]
[…] chief of provisions Colonel Botha.’ ‘Gehlen, who was always interested in the undertaking, its figures, its personalities and its results, succeeded in recruiting Violet as a special agent and granted him 6000 DM a month for many years. He also claimed that this sum had been agreed with the former head of the SDECE, […]
