Trick or Treason: the October Surprise Mystery

Lobster Issue 26 (1993) £££

Robert Parry Sheridan Square Press, New York, 1993 ISBN 1-879823-08-X This is an account both of the October Surprise story and of the author’s attempts over two years to stand it up. This works at several levels. The first is an intelligible recounting of the main features of the developing October Surprise allegations. He reviews … Read more

Secrets and Lies

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009) £££

[…] history of CIA mind control and germ warfare Gordon Thomas JR Books (www.jrbooks.com) 2007, h/b, £20   Gordon Thomas has written a number of books on the intelligence services and this has a glossy cover, voluminous appendices and some admiring quotes. But it adds little to what we already know about the CIA’s research […]

Fifth Column: The decadence of our political system

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008) £££

[…] counsel of the UK and other similarly-minded allies. This is the very essence of the liberal progressive ‘third way’ model which has been promoted by the British intelligence and security establishment and which was central to the decision to follow the US into Afghanistan and Iraq. This model made one big assumption that seemed […]

No one ever suddenly became depraved

Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6) £££

‘Britain, 2005. Saddam Hussein, still the ruler of Iraq and possessor of a long-range nuclear missile, seeks revenge on the west. Warned by intelligence reports of Saddam’s plan, the United States deploys a space-based missile shield, which will catch the Iraqi rocket before it gets to Washington. The key installation is based in Yorkshire […]

Plotting for Peace and War

Lobster Issue 22 (1991) £££

[…] aristocrats and eccentric M.Ps or forces which were much more powerfully rooted in the structure of the British State? What was their relationship with the security and intelligence services? Why did Churchill feel the need to have his own intelligence adviser, Sir Desmond Morton? Costello seems to believe that the pro-appeasement faction was powerful […]

Freedom of Information — new access legislation

Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

[…] you where it is. Absolute exemptions are not subject to any public interest test, and include information supplied by, or concerning: the Security Service, MI5; the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6; GCHQ; the Special Forces, e.g. the SAS; tribunals concerning intelligence and interception of communications including the Investigatory Powers Tribunal; and the National Criminal Intelligence […]

Public Servant, Secret Agent: The Elusive Life and Violent Death of Airey Neave

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Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002) £££

[…] In the House of Commons on 14 December 1977 Stephen Hastings MP, a former MI6 officer, using Parliamentary privilege, ran the disinformation attributed to the former Czech intelligence officer Joseph Frolik that a group of British trade unions leaders were ‘agents’ of Soviet intelligence. Frolik was being run by the CIA. (p. 321) These […]

The History of Espionage

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8) £££

The clandestine world of surveillance, spying and intelligence from ancient times to the post 9/11 world Ernest Volkman London: Carlton, 2007, h/b, £20   This is a lavishly and creatively illustrated, large format, (i.e. slightly bigger than A4) glossy paper, coffee-table book on the history of espionage. A former journalist with Newsday, and author […]

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8) £££

[…] the history of the Agency, merely a history. Huge areas of the Agency’s activities have been ignored, as Jeffrey Richelson, one of the best informed historians of intelligence points out.(7) Richelson’s complaint is that the author has concentrated too much on the Agency’s covert operations. This is clearly true if we are to take […]

Historical Notes: Channel 4 SOE mystery. Venona Decrypts

Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000) £££

[…] Dansey have given such a bizarre and terrible mission to Dericourt? Timewatch argued that Dansey hated SOE, regarding it as a nuisance which disrupted the gathering of intelligence from Occupied Europe. If one of SOE’s most important operations could be sabotaged, then the organisation could be taken over by MI6, and attention could be […]

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