A Pretext for War; Ghost Wars

Book cover
Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the abuse of America’s intelligence agencies James Bamford, New York: Doubleday, 2004, h/back, $26.95 Ghost Wars: The Secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 Steve Coll New York: Penguin, 2004, h/back, $29.95   These books cover some […]

The Cecil King coup plot

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008) £££

[…] of the judiciary from the state executive being almost entirely eroded. The criminalisation of foreigners and of dissent increased, beginning with the Asylum Act of 1993 and Intelligence and Security Act of 1994, after which rival law enforcement agencies began competing with the police.(12) Although MI5 made much of its anti-fascist credentials in the […]

The Organising of Intellectual Consensus: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and Post-War US-European Relations (Part I)

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9) £££

[…] would be the key figure in arranging the formation of the CCF, and he is a good example of someone who moved easily between intellectual, political, and intelligence circles.(32) He came to prominence through his single-handed disruption of the German Writers Congress held in East Berlin in October 1947 by complaining about the lack […]

Historical Notes: Anglo-American Conflict? UK becomes a US intelligence target

Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999) £££

[…] told me the story himself very shortly after it had all happened (I was researching a doctorate at Birmingham at the time). The UK becomes a US intelligence target Of course the old undercurrents of distrust did not go away after the foundation of the wartime Anglo-American ‘special relationship’. There is an interesting snippet […]

Fifth Column

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007) £££

[…] knows what it is doing about civil disorder. It is fishing. As the facts come out, they often seem to fit into the standard pattern of poor intelligence and some mistreatment of those arrested. We remain convinced that miscarriages of justice are likely in this mismanaged chaos. We have noted the signs of a […]

Philanthropic imperialism

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007) £££

[…] but is incapable of turning the analysis round: what has US foreign policy persistently done in the past? Who says the CIA and the assortment of other intelligence organisations stopped what they were doing just because the NED was put in front of them as a fig leaf? Might these criticisms also apply to […]

US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat

Lobster Issue 14 (1987) £££

[…] former prime minister.(Sydney Morning Herald, May 19 1987) “Ratu Mara was in it from the beginning,” said one source. The Times on Sunday said that while initial intelligence advice was that it was a narrowly based military coup, within a few days evidence was available to the Australian Government that the coup “was backed […]

Clippings Jan./Feb. 1984

Lobster Issue 4 (1984) £££

[…] of police phone tapping. Police and Criminal Evidence Bill Government guaranteed pupils’ confidential school records will be immune from police seizure. Daily Telegraph 18th January 1984. Police Intelligence Files A box of said found on rubbish tip in Edinburgh. Contents confirm that the police are keeping files on almost everybody. Described by police spokesperson […]

Sources

Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998) £££

[…] late 1950s covered by Carew. They had their own ideas; there was conflict. And there was also Joseph McCarthy. Carew concludes: ‘Links formed within the world of intelligence are not easily broken, and there is no reason at all to suppose that the winding-up of the FTUC and the termination of CIA operations funded […]

Who shot JFK

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

[…] which point it gets very complicated for, thanks to John Armstrong’s research, it seems very likely that there were two ‘Oswalds’ and that some kind of elaborate intelligence operation was being run with them. This was Armstrong’s view in 1997: ‘In the early 1950s an intelligence operation was underway that involved two teenage boys: […]

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