[…] Africa. The spooks must love having Labour in office, terrified to oppose anything they ask for. Hitherto secret Whitehall committee trying to deal with unauthorised exposure of intelligence material was itself exposed in the Sunday Times 21 May 2000. A page of the Guardian (tabloid section) 24 September 1999 was devoted to the Ken […]
[…] Terrorism Industry: the experts and institutions that shape our view of Terror, written with Jerry O’Sullivan (for Pantheon Books, New York, 1990) an examination of the think-tanks, intelligence agents and assorted media manipulators who have attempted to develop ‘terrorism’ as a more cogent focus of political loyalty than the tattered remnants of its predecessor, […]
[…] majority of MKULTRA documents in 1973 during the Watergate scramble to plug leaks and obliterate history. Helping Gottlieb destroy these documents was the then Director of Central Intelligence, Richard Helms. But due to one family’s own diligent search for truth, in a strange case of Justice Delayed, the truth about MKULTRA may finally come […]
[…] Phoenix, about which Valentine has written a widely-praised book, involved identifying and assassinating supporters of the North Vietnamese, while Operation Chaos was a domestic surveillance and counter- intelligence operation. But still: these quibbles aside, this big book (500 plus pages) is a fascinating collection of stories, and adds some major pieces to the vast […]
[…] of England’s regulatory role is finally being examined in the High Court. That book raised awkward and far-sighted questions about the role of the British and American intelligence services in relation to BCCI and to the corrupt bank’s clear links with prominent politicians and international terrorism: there aren’t many places outside Court 73 of […]
[…] Epstein’s website, but sadly doesn’t repeat my favourite Bush I conspiracy anecdote – the one about the FBI memo in which ‘Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency’ denounced a Republican (!) political rival, for JFK-assassination-related activities, in 1963. In the end, maybe the pressing reason to keep the book out of Britain […]
[…] (See the anodyne obit in Guardian 25 October). Expendables Two recent examples of the way HMG treats its employees when they become embarrassing. Peter Bleach, a former intelligence officer turned arms dealer, is in prison in India after an arms deal he was involved with went sour. The Indian court agreed to examine notes […]
David W. Wrone University Press of Kansas; 2003, h/b, $29.99 (UK prices vary) In the conclusion to his Pocket Essentials Who Shot JFK?, the editor of this journal asked: ‘Where are the historians?’ David Wrone is a former Professor of History at Kansas University, and so his book provides at least part of an … Read more
John McMurtry London: Pluto Press, 2002, pb £15.99 I shouldn’t be reviewing this. I haven’t digested it properly and it is going to take some time to do so. But I don’t want to leave this for six months without promoting it. I used to try and preserve books in good condition, didn’t write … Read more
[…] he subsequently received. I suspect the evidence was exaggerated at a higher level in MI5 in order to ensure that Mr. Smith received a heavy sentence. The intelligence services depend on disproportionate sentences for breaches of the Official Secrets Acts to cultivate the mystique of the importance of their work. I believe Mr. Smith […]
