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 […]

Letters

Lobster Issue 10 (1986)

[…] denial had been broadcast throughout the country, and I can only assume that it was believed. After all, one would think that the former Director of Naval Intelligence and the National Security Agency would know with some precision where he was when this country was undergoing its greatest political crisis of this century. Indeed, […]

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 […]

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 – […]

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 […]

MISC.: Wapping. Gordiefsky. October Surprise. Stone’s JFK. Martin Luther King

Lobster Issue 26 (1993)

[…] pro quo for the pension he is now receiving, is to bolster the key myth of MI6, that while we may be the junior partner in the intelligence relationship with the U.S., we’re the best, the most subtle and the most reliable — the people to handle those uncouth Yanks, to hold their hands […]

Termini

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Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001)

[…] society in 19th century use of private detectives to break labour organisations; the history of so-called ‘red squads’; the growth of federal law enforcement agencies and their intelligence gathering; the growth of private, political intelligence gathering from McCarthy to the ADL network blown in the 1990s; And much more, all done in a couple […]

From roll back to blowback

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Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001)

[…] chemical and biological weapons were ‘blowback’ from U.S. activities. Creating blowback is one of the things the CIA – no, let’s be fair: the U.S. military and intelligence agencies in general – are good at. AP reported on 6 January that the suspects in a series of bombings by Muslim extremists in Manila had […]

Last Talons of the Eagle

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Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999)

[…] authors have to writing a serious historical work. Have they never heard of St. Elmo’s Fire? Or could a simple explanation just be legitimate disinformation from Allied intelligence agencies? And what about the Germans’ known experiments with TV and radio-controlled anti-aircraft missiles? A top secret Nazi project is probably the least likely explanation. Some […]

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