[…] left to say. In the absence of evidence of the Iraqi regime’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’, to the distress of the professional diplomats and most of their intelligence services, the Bush-Blair ‘allies’ used dodgy information from defectors, selectively edited what other information they had, or simply made it up as part of the ‘perception […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] exact opposite: he ‘believes’ no such thing. He is well aware of past weaknesses and details many of them, including sections on the media activities of the intelligence services and the Information Research Department. Davies’s belief is that today’s situation is bad and that the future looks bleak. Something troubling is going on when […]
[…] had gained in popular strength, although its steady infiltration of the Iranian government and other institutions continued’.(69) As for the Tudeh’s attempting a coup, a State Department intelligence report of January 1953 noted that ‘an open Tudeh move for power……would probably unite independents and non-communists of all political leanings and would result……in energetic efforts […]
[…] be said, not a shred of evidence that Hollis ever passed a single piece of information to the Soviets, nor that he had any contacts with Soviet intelligence officers or agents. But this doesn’t hinder the conspiracy theorists who will seize on any scrap of evidence to bolster the Hollis theory. As history shows, […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] (emphasis added) when even we had them over a year before, and No. 10 Downing Street, two years before. He attributed to us a ‘conviction’ (‘that disloyal intelligence officers were behind every humiliation that Wilson suffered’) which we don’t have, and announced, as if it were a revelation, that the rumours about Marcia and […]
[…] 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 […]
[…] in 2003, advised Blair against providing anything more than moral support for the US invasion. (9) There was no enthusiasm in the Foreign Office and the defence, intelligence and security establishments were divided.(10) Reasons for the depth of opposition included distrust of the ambitions of the George W. Bush administration, anxiety about isolation from […]
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
