A review of the (bad) reviews of Smear! Wilson and the Secret State

Lobster Issue 22 (1991)

[…] 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, […]

New Cloak, Old Dagger: How Britain’s Spies Came In From The Cold

Book cover
Lobster Issue 33 (Summer 1997)

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

Feedback

Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7)

I don’t agree with the Bassett–Matthews 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

New Labour Notes

Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] 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 […]

People

Lobster Issue 26 (1993)

[…] 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 […]

The Irish War: The Military History of a Domestic Conflict

Book cover
Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999)

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 […]

Politics and Paranoia

Book cover
Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

[…] 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 […]

Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith

Lobster Issue 17 (1988)

[…] 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, […]

Web Update

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)

Thanks to Terry Hanstock and Ian Tresman for contributions. Contributions, comments and info welcome. – My email address is Electronic Privacy/ECHELON The importance of taking advantage of the current debate about Echelon summarised by Nicky Hager: ‘…the lack of serious debate can protect the intelligence agencies from political accountability and control…..it is probably the … Read more

The CIA and Mountbatten

Lobster Issue 4 (1984)

[…] of money disputing this, and Goleniewski considered Mountbatten to be the leading opponent of his claims to the Russian throne. (On all this see Guy Richards’ Imperial Agent) A major Goleniewski supporter in the CIA was the late Herman Kimsey, a top assassination expert, who was also Associate Chief of International Intelligence for the […]

Accessibility Toolbar