Did the Mossad steal John le Carré’s cunning plan?

Lobster Issue 79 (Summer 2020)

[PDF file]: […] le Carré’s cunning plan? Andrew Rosthorn In the July 1982 foreword to his 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl,1 John le Carré 2 thanked the Israeli ‘ intelligence fraternity’ for their ‘advice and co-operation’. The author (whose 25th spy thriller, Agent Running in the Field,3 was published by Penguin in October) offered ‘sincere thanks’ […]

Team mercenary GB: Part 1 – the early years

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016)

[PDF file]: […] operation into motion. Each time, however, it seemed as if the usual unofficial sanction was not entirely forthcoming. From impounded arms shipments to stern warnings from the Intelligence community, the plot seemed doomed. Indeed, 2 See Christopher Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies, (London: Routledge, 2006) pp. 46-49. […]

Moscow Gold: ‘the Communist threat’ in post-war Britain

Lobster Issue 25 (1993)

[PDF file]: […] replacement. (This, rather than MI5 incompetence, may explain why so few Soviet operations were exposed in post-war Britain.) More cynically — and cynicism is appropriate where all intelligence and security services are concerned — MI5 had two compelling reasons not to ‘blow’ the CPGB-KGB link. While they would get some temporary kudos for so […]

South of the border (occasional snippets from)

Lobster Issue 91 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] same as the old ‘C’ Much fanfare – huge media excitement, it seemed – at the appointment of a woman as the new Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (the ‘C’ of SIS, for the acronym enthusiasts). The whole point of this, it would seem, was to herald a gentler, more feminine touch to […]

Survival of the Richest: escape fantasies of the tech billionaires, by Douglas Rushkoff

Lobster Issue 85 (Summer 2023)

[PDF file]: […] Not so here, though various individuals are identified as the narrative proceeds. These are ultra-rich preppers – people who have considered climate change, population growth and Artificial Intelligence, and the consequences these – especially the last – may have for human existence on the planet. They also possess, in Rushkoff’s words, ‘the Mindset’. Namely, […]

The Great Awakening vs The Great Reset, by Alexander Dugin

Lobster Issue 85 (Summer 2023)

[PDF file]: […] that when a man has taken as many steps as possible to be identified as a woman, they are a woman. The famous Turing Test for artificial intelligence is probably the modern era’s best-known Nominalist concept. It isn’t concerned with whether a machine is really conscious and self-aware, only with whether it makes sense […]

The long goodbye? Taking on the consultants

Lobster Issue 90 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] project’s ‘ballooning’ costs which is due to report in winter 2024/25. The latest opportunity for consultants will be how will departments fare with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology which former PM Tony Blair has set great faith in solving no end of public sector challenges. With former Tory leader William Hague […]

The Plots Against the President, by Sally Denton

Lobster Issue 85 (Summer 2023)

[PDF file]: […] gone along with it in the first place. Nor is it any good to pin the blame solely on General MacArthur, for egging Hoover on with false intelligence about communist infiltration of the protests. Hoover had other and better sources of information available, but chose instead to rely on someone who drew out his […]

Six Moments of Crisis: inside British foreign policy by Gill Bennett

Lobster Issue 65 (Summer 2013)

[PDF file]: […] levels, and though a ceiling was imposed on the size of the embassy in 1968 the Russians had side-stepped it by filling the Soviet Trade Delegation with intelligence officers and by making use of “working wives”.’ By 1971, MI5 estimated that of the near-1,000 Soviet officials (and wives) in the UK, a quarter were […]

The Establishment And how they get away with it by Owen Jones

Lobster Issue 68 (Winter 2014)

[PDF file]: […] there are deficiencies. For someone who apparently spent two years on postgraduate study of US history, Jones is weak on tracing links with UK in matters of intelligence and Atlanticism more broadly. He mentions, for example, Anthony Crosland, but not his CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom spell. He mentions the Heritage Foundation, but not […]

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