[…] intelligence community – as well as Source #69, who is a retired official of the United States Customs Department and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (now the Drug Enforcement Administration), and Source #70, who is a former Southeast Asian Border Police officer, and Source #71, who is a retired CIA official […]
Lost plot After Lobster 35 I received a long letter from John Pilger, followed by a revised version of it, complaining about my review of his recent book, Hidden Agendas in 35. With the second version came a note asking me to publish his letter without comment. I replied that I was happy to publish … Read more
[…] even to some extent fraud, for more legitimate business. This last statement should be qualified by saying that legitimate business hides dealings in illegitimate commodities, such as drugs. A few serious professional criminals who saw the sign of the times moved into new technology. However, I think that one could say that a great […]
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 […]
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
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
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 […]
