[…] in America. It covers everything from the apparently trivial – campaigns to get kids still in primary school to snitch on their parents if they are using drugs – through to Cointelpro and all its successor projects. Redden discusses, among many other things: a law enforcement system dependent upon criminals licensed to operate by […]
[…] Neither Roy Hattersley, nor Anthony Howard, who reviewed this in the Daily Telegraph, noticed (or thought worth mentioning) a major feature of Falkender’s behaviour: she was doing drugs, speed (purple hearts, named by Donoughue), sleepers and tranquillisers. Donoughue shows that Wilson’s doctor, Joseph Stone, certainly gave her some of them. These days we know […]
Frost/Nixon Or, a load of old dick When Frost/Nixon first appeared at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London back in 2006 I wondered why on earth anyone would want to stage, to recreate, what was, essentially, a non-event. Why indeed? One can imagine mere actors relishing the opportunity to ‘interpret’ Frost and Nixon but who … Read more
A spook, moi? One of the formative experiences of my youth – and we’re talking early 1960s here, beatnik days, when wearing a narrow leather tie was pretty hip – was going to the Mound in Edinburgh on Sunday nights. The Mound is like Hyde Park Corner in London, a place where local by-laws allow … Read more
[…] campaigners however, the book has less to offer. In many of the topics, such as those covering the Calvi murder, the plots against Harold Wilson, the CIA drugs connection etc, anyone who has been following the topics will feel that some of the more obvious and important texts have not been referred to. The […]
The three Arrigos In the last Lobster (‘Spookaroonie’, p. 26) I noted the comments on <intelforum.org> of Maria Arrigo, a ‘social psychologist with experience in [intelligence] operations’ asking for evidence of ‘covert weapons experiments in post-war South America’ and wondered what was afoot. It was just an interesting little snippet which I came across at … Read more
Terrorism: how the West can win editor Benjamin Netanyahu (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1986) This is a collection of papers read at the 1984 Jonathan Institute conference on terrorism held in Israel, and because these were originally papers there is no documentation: what we have is 230 pages of assertions. The contributors range from current … Read more
Patriots not sneaks After a year of New Labour I feel beholden to write something on this subject, but what is there worth saying that isn’t blindingly and depressingly obvious and predictable? Jack Straw, who took over as Home Secretary, and thus formally as the boss of MI5, is determined to sedate any sleeping dogs … Read more
[…] 1977 the NAP was in the coalition government and controlled the Education Ministry (in order to terrorise students) and the Customs Ministry (which facilitated the flow of drugs, guns and terrorist cadre in and out of Turkey.) Then in September 1980 the military took over again and the Wolves were banned. They’d served their […]
Korean war biological warfare? Issue 11 of the Bulletin of Cold War International History Project contained what appears to be evidence that the allegations by North Korea and the Chinese that the US were using biological warfare during the Korean War were false – were in fact disinformation. Documents apparently from former Soviet archives seem … Read more
