The Libyans and the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher

Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999) £££

[…] US; but all carried out by Republican governments. Is it possible that on both sides of the Atlantic the professional diplomats and the rational core of the intelligence community are slowly throwing off some of the vile nonsense perpetrated in the Reagan-Bush-Thatcher years? The release of various official US documents which could easily have […]

The Clash of the Icons

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

[…] to reproduce conversations verbatim, a talent that made him a highly prized asset of the CIA station chief, John Hart, in Saigon. Hart and the CIA’s foreign intelligence staff wanted to know what influential Vietnamese citizens and officials were privately thinking, and plotting; so, through his CIA contacts, Ellsberg was introduced into Saigon’s most […]

Fifth Column: The decadence of our political system

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008) £££

[…] counsel of the UK and other similarly-minded allies. This is the very essence of the liberal progressive ‘third way’ model which has been promoted by the British intelligence and security establishment and which was central to the decision to follow the US into Afghanistan and Iraq. This model made one big assumption that seemed […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Spooks and the House of Commons

Lobster Issue 42 (Winter 2001/2) £££

An interesting piece by Mark Hollingsworth appeared in Punch of 23 May-5 June 2001, ‘Spooks in the House’, on intelligence and security personnel who become MPs. Some of the material was familiar but less well known were Raymond Fletcher, and Le Cercle. Fletcher was a Labour MP who was witch-hunted by MI5 as a […]

Let my people go

Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

[…] Thabo Mbeki, or their ministers, civil servants, diplomats and generals. They will be able to target opposition politicians too. They will become immensely powerful. If adequate artificial intelligence applications could be developed – what are called ‘Turing Test-compliant’ artificial intelligence applications – it would soon become affordable to target millions of people with automated […]

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