Books The Great Betrayal Nicholas Bethel (London 1984) This is either a ‘snow job’, designed to discourage further research in this area (British intelligence attempts to destabilise Soviet and communist influenced regimes), or is just a poor effort on Bethel’s part. One can’t deny that it is useful – after all, it is the […]
[…] there is an essay by Richard Aldrich of Salford University, one of the small but growing numbers of British academics trying to incorporate the activities of the intelligence and security services into post-war British history. In his essay on the Special Operations Executive (SOE) after the end of the Second World War, Aldrich writes […]
[…] interesting – if unsurprising – that the final edits are done by Blair’s two closest advisors. But by the time Hutton heard this, the memo from Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chair John Scarlett had been released which referred to the JIC’s ‘customers’.(5) Once that concept has been taken on board the game is up […]
[…] for the state to keep control (PR) of these histories because openness and demands for change can impact on existing complex relationships, e.g. with India or Pakistan’s intelligence communities. () Targeting a wholly different area, SIS used a sophisticated version of multiple single messaging on 13 August, summarised in the press by the heading: […]
[…] cover seemed interesting and publishing the names seemed to be some kind of act against the-powers-that-be. But in 1985 there was very little information available about the intelligence services, and every scrap seemed significant. These days, if you want them, you can receive e-mail bulletins with more information about the world’s intelligence services – […]
[…] to reconstruct for researchers a historical narrative based on non-existent and authentic documents supported by published facts with classic disinformation techniques in what is termed in counter- intelligence parlance as “gray” intelligence. The question of whether they are genuine, authentic or real is not the issue here. The important point to keep in mind, […]
[…] been disposed of, I believe, by the Katz and Norton-Tayor article. I never met Rusbridger but enjoyed his letters and shared his lack of regard for the intelligence and security services. His disparaging critics on the right, however, were almost certainly correct in claiming that he had few sources within the spook community. His […]
[…] Why were the widely-signalled warnings of the possibility of a bomb being placed on a Pan-Am flight from Frankfurt ignored? Why was there an immediate and aggressive intelligence operation at Lockerbie after the crash? When the CIA’s presence was reported on Radio Forth by David Johnson (author of Lockerbie: the Real Story), why was […]
[…] detail. The other 80% of the book is little more than padding – on the Israeli commando raid on Entebbe, the SR 71 spy plane, the French intelligence service SDECE, the Chilean intelligence service DINA; ten pages on the career of the SIS officer Anthony Dival; eight pages on the Joint Intelligence Committee and […]
[…] one of the architects of the British Secret State. He played, we are informed, ‘a far more important and active part in the creation of Britain’s modern intelligence community than is generally recognized’; and, moreover, his ‘lifetime shadow war’ in defence of British interests, culminated with Operation Boot, the overthrow of Mussadiq in Iran.(1) […]
