Great Northern? Was the author of Swallows and Amazons a Soviet secret agent?

Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995) £££

[…] claim in The Times by the Cambridge historian Professor Christopher Andrew, that Arthur Ransome has been identified in KGB documents as ‘the most important secret source of intelligence on British foreign policy’ for the Cheka, the terror organisation of Bolshevik Russia, has infuriated lovers of Ransome’s work. Unlike Michael Foot, similarly traduced, Ramsome is […]

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 […]

I am being slagged off, therefore I am

Lobster Issue 25 (1993) £££

[…] after this curious telephone call, I was sent a photocopy of the review of Smear! by Robert Cecil from the Winter ’92 issue of the Journal of Intelligence and National Security. To quote the biographical material on his book about Guy Burgess, A Divided Life (Bodley Head, London, 1988), Mr Cecil is a former […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Soviet ‘threat’: “Russia Puts The Brake On Military Spending”

Lobster Issue 4 (1984) £££

[…] over the estimates of Soviet military capability tends to get overlooked in favour of the more exciting aspects of US foreign policy and the work of US intelligence agencies. This is a pity, because those estimates form the basis for the official US government definition of ‘reality’. A low estimate of Soviet spending/capabilities makes […]

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 […]

Plot elements in the Colosio Murder Mystery

Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996) £££

[…] Some sources within Mexico City report that Carlos Salinas is in fact still a visitor there, protected by a large bodyguard of military and federal police, with intelligence provided by the USA… 1993 24 May Cardinal JUAN JESUS POSADOS OCAMPO and six others are assassinated at Guadalajara International Airport, by members of the ARELLANO […]

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 […]

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