[…] country. Unfortunately this ‘cock-up’ version of the Falklands War conspicuously fails to encompass two items: the existence of oil deposits around the islands, and the so-called ‘ intelligence failure.’ The Falklands-and-oil story can be traced quite easily through the annual index of The Times newspaper which is in every reference library. Start around 1977 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] political dimension. Did the Conservative government approve of this? Did they know of this? Larkin presumes so but cannot demonstrate it. Larkin lacks a senior British Army, intelligence officer or civil servant, let alone a cabinet minister, willing to admit this was the policy. (1) For example, he writes p.42: ‘this elite group had […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] Glees, who wrote an interesting study of German Exile Politics in WW2 (Clarendon Press 1982) is shortly bringing out a book on Communist Subversion and British counter- intelligence 1939-45 (Jonathan Cape). Our view of that might be influenced by the fact that he has written for the new Encounter magazine. Michael Scammel, who has […]
[…] released a list of 963 members – a list that shook the nation and lead to the collapse of the government and the wholesale replacement of military, intelligence and civil service personnel. The lodge was headed by Licio Gelli, a wealthy businessman who had fought with the Falange in Spain and then for the […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] the German officer class, British diplomats, politicians and spies had problems categorising Canaris. They never quite understood his intellectual hinterland. He was described rather sniffily by Military Intelligence, as ‘a kind of Catholic mystic’. Little was produced (by them) to support this assertion, although the author notes that he did apparently enjoy visiting Spanish […]
[…] 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 […]
