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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Trouble makers

Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] gave an example of why the British state is willing to eat almost any amount of shit handed to them by the US. ‘The UK has no intelligence assets in central Asia. We are dependent on information given to us by the United States’ CIA and NSA.’ The British overseas lobby in Whitehall – […]

In Brief. Libya. Syria and the Gulf oil war. Lester Coleman

Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994)

[…] in his fifties. This identification, along with allegations – later disproved – that a Swiss-made timing device for the Lockerbie bombing was supplied exclusively to the Libyan intelligence service, led to charges against two Libyans and sanctions against Libya. Syria and the oil war in the Gulf In August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. James […]

Conspiracy theories are go!

Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995)

[…] speeding ticket at the age of seven, has an IQ of over 200, and concludes that ‘he reads ten thousand pages a week of economic and political intelligence per week – with near total comprehension.’ Bill Clinton, leader of the fascist New World Order? The militias-New World-Order-Clinton strands overlap a good deal, most spectacularly […]

The Terrorism Industry (Book review)

Lobster Issue 21 (1991)

[…] O’Sullivan, Pantheon Books, New York, 1989, $15.95. Since the revelation of the activities of Forum World Features in the mid 1970s, it has become apparent that Western intelligence services have used ‘research institutes’ and ‘study centres’ with impressive and neutral-sounding titles to put over their world view and create public antipathy towards the enemy […]

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