There’s no smear like an old smear

Lobster Issue 23 (1992)

The Spycatcher’s Encyclopedia of Espionage Peter Wright Heinemann, Australia, 1991 The cover-blurb says this is ‘the rest of the story’. It feels more like the out-takes from Spycatcher spiced with a few more fragments of interesting gossip. And I do mean fragments: the interesting bits of 260 pages — largish print and much white space … Read more

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

  Wishing and hoping I met Tony Benn only once, while researching Smear! He’s a lovely man with a big blind spot about the politics of the early 1980s in general and the Militant Tendency in particular. Here’s Benn in the course of an appreciation of Arthur Scargill on his standing down as President of … Read more

The Department of Energy’s Guinea Pigs: a preliminary report

Lobster Issue 27 (1994)

[…] probably be against the civilian population of large cities. It can be well imagined the degree of consternation, as well as fear and apprehension, that such an agent would produce upon a large urban population.'(6) Hamilton made a number of proposals for the elimination of large populations, among them ‘fission product aerosols to subject […]

Ultimate Sacrifice

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Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006)

[…] into another book. They rehearse the fragments known about an apparent assassination attempt in Chicago on 2 November (and the fate of the first black Secret Service agent, Abraham Bolden, who was framed on a counterfeiting charge after trying to tell the Warren Commission about the Chicago attempt). But how serious was the Chicago […]

Here, there and everywhere

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Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9)

[…] of this book there are many raves; but continue on down through the second page and you come to a very destructive review by a former FBI agent, Delbert Hahn, who was interviewed by Hopsicker. Before buying this read that. Notes If the Zelig reference escapes you try On getaway styles, I prefer the […]

Publications and Book Reviews

Lobster Issue 6 (1984)

[…] book, like all the others, does not explain the Reagan phenomenon. RR Deadly Deceits Ralph McGeehee (Sheridan Square Publications Inc. USA 1983) Ralph McGeehee was a CIA agent for 25 years operating mainly in South East Asia. He is now a bitter opponent of his old firm and the anger comes through clearly in […]

Blinded by the light: Puppet Masters: the Political Use of Terrorism in Italy

Lobster Issue 23 (1992)

Puppet Masters: the Political Use of Terrorism in Italy Phillip Willan Phillip Willan’s Puppet Masters: the Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, (Constable, London, 1991) is a detailed and interesting book, dealing in a thorough (if partially flawed) way with a fascinating subject. It covers a wide array of interlocking subjects including the infamous P2 … Read more

Books and Pamphlets

Lobster Issue 13 (1987)

Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia J. K. Villiers (Croom Helm, London, 1985) An expanded Masters thesis, full of descriptions of psychological operations by the Rhodesian forces (which failed utterly: and no wonder, they were useless), and rather less about pseudo-gang activities which, like their equivalents in the British operations in Kenya, were a success – i.e. they … Read more

Philby: The Hidden Years

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Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999)

[…] around in certain sections of the British Right for about 45 years since the late and unlamented Kenneth de Courcy first alleged that Rothschild was a Soviet agent. But apart from that – I basically don’t ‘get’ this book. If there is someone reading this with more knowledge – and more interest – in […]

Transnationalised Repression; Parafascism and the U.S.

Lobster Issue 12 (1986)

[PDF file]: […] and flown to his home country, where he was almost certainly murdered by order of his political enemy, the dictator Trujillo. In this case, a former FBI agent, John Joseph Frank (who had worked for the CIA as well as a Trujillo lobbyist) pleaded nolo contendere for his role in chartering the kidnap plane; […]

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