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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Preface

Lobster Issue 4 (1984) £££

The Lobster is a journal/newsletter about intelligence, parapolitics, state structures and so forth. (The scope of our interests should be obvious from this issue.) We welcome clippings, articles, letters, reviews, on these areas. Although we will exercise editorial control over any material sent to us, nothing will be cut without prior consultation with the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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