Friends of the British Secret State

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] one Soviet employee has ever been busted for involvement with the IRA. On close examination Massie’s story dribbled away into nothing. All he actually had was “Israeli intelligence believes Shabtal Kalmanovitch may know how the network in organised and financed.” Gerard Kemp Another old spook outlet, Gerard Kemp, is still putting his name to […]

The Thimble Riggers: The Dublin Arms Trials of 1970

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

[…] second version of this story by James Kelly. The first, Orders for the Captain, was reviewed in Lobster 15. Kelly was a senior officer in the Irish intelligence service who became involved in an attempt by the Republic’s government to buy deniable weapons for the Catholics in the North in 1970 when there appeared […]

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 History of Espionage

Book cover
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 […]

MI5: New Threats for Old? Turning up the Heat: MI5 after the Cold War

Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994) £££

[…] (p. 6) It defies belief to think that anti-fascists would deliberately admit to covertly monitoring fascist meetings from within the same premises: such would alert Nazi “counter- intelligence”. This points, therefore, to the state having at least one, or maybe more, operatives inside the local BNP, and them being very confident indeed. ‘(Emphasis added) […]

Operation Black Dog

Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998) £££

[…] CW armoury. The bomb was dropped on elements of the Republican Guard in Southern Iraq, I was informed. Heavy casualties resulted. The operation, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, was a counter-strike, following an Iraqi Scud that fell on Israel. The missile had contained Sarin. Fuming, the Israelis had prepared to detonate a nuclear […]

Reading Italy

Lobster Issue 6 (1984) £££

[…] from BCM/Refract, London WC1N 3XX, price £4.50. Christie has amassed a great deal of information about the European fascist and neo-fascist movements and their links to the intelligence services of various NATO countries. Delle Chiaie is a thread running through the book but by no means its sole subject. The narrative is well held […]

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 […]

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