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 […]

Is Libya still the prime suspect for the murder of WPC Fletcher?

Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996)

[…] sensational episode. Fairly quickly after this appalling crime, expressions of disquiet with official explanations were voiced. If guns had been taken into the Libyan embassy, surely the intelligence agencies would have known? If there had been a Libyan embassy plan to fire at the anti-Gaddafi demonstrators on that fateful day on 17 April 1984, […]

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 […]

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 […]

Vatican Connections

Lobster Issue 1 (1983)

[…] and comments – in IHT 31st March 1983. 18. William Pfaff in IHT (14th April 1983) gives an account of what is said to be a Soviet intelligence document alleging that Brzezinski and Cardinal Koch (both of Polish origins), with the assistance of the West German Cardinals, organised the election of Wojtyla, the current […]

Secrets from Germany

Lobster Issue 15 (1988)

[…] surprisingly, Geheim devotes a fair amount of space to the CIA: five articles in this issue. Barbara Muller continues the listing (begun in issue No1/87) of American intelligence bases in Germany. She lists over 100 locations in Central and Northern Germany used by either the CIA or US Military Intelligence. Michael Opperskalski presents a […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 – […]

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