[…] B’ episode of 1976/7, the subject of this book, which saw a group of the CIA’s critics on the right being given access to the Agency’s raw intelligence data, was one of the key moments in the counter-attack against detente with the Soviet Union in the 1970s. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, […]
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 […]
[…] 1995. It describes the internet and its potential as a tool for the DoD, both for gathering and disseminating information, for psy-ops and support of unconventional warfare. Intelligence source ‘The internet is a potentially lucrative source of intelligence useful to DoD’; e.g. information about the plans and operations of politically active groups. It can […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] Mayne, and an investigation of Loyalist sectarian killers, The Shankhill Butchers (1989). His book opens with the attempts in 1970 by Captain James Kelly of Irish Military Intelligence to import weapons for the North (Kelly’s books were reviewed in Lobsters 13 and 15) and continues through the history of the Northern Irish conflict up […]
[…] that’s what Washington wants”, he would say, “then I’ll support it.” ‘ (p. 240) And was it known, for example, that ‘the weekly report of the Joint Intelligence Committee in London…. was the product of a combined effort with the chief of our CIA station’ (p. 225), or that in 1967, when Soviet Foreign […]
[…] died after making inquiries into a helicopter deal between the Iraqis and Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen. You discuss this as one of several anomalous deaths among intelligence assets in the context of asking why anyone would want to work for the spooks. Naiveté is the obvious answer, but you failed to mention that […]
[…] HORNBEAM, trawlers had been used during the first Cold War to spy on Soviet shipping. But the MOD spokesperson refused to confirm that some trawlers had carried intelligence officers. Statewatch Bulletin (Jan/Feb 1992) includes an important update to their paper on Gladio network, quoting from the Belgian parliamentary commission into the subject. The update […]
[…] relationship between organised crime and the funding of political parties, and Jack Ruby’s mafia presence ensured the silence of the Washington political establishment. As for the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies, first and foremost they had to bury their links with Oswald. The FBI had to conceal the fact that they knew of […]
[…] and becoming a barrister. Though not yet a qualified lawyer, during his brief career at the MOD, his work was sometimes connected with legal aspects of the intelligence services. He was a minor member of that London NW1/NW5 set(2) and still lives in Kentish Town within a hundred yards or so of retired Labour/SDP […]
