The British state’s failed attempt to kill off the Freedom of Information Act

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: […] problem with US FOIA.’16 The CIA Operational Files exemption to which Mr Jones is referring was created in 1984 (appropriately, some might think) and allows the Central Intelligence Agency to withhold anything it claims is ‘operational’ without even requiring the material in question to be reviewed. ‘ the CIA has stretched the definition of […]

GLADIO: NATO’s dagger at the Heart of Europe; the Pentagon-Nazi-Mafia Terror Axis by Richard Cottrell

Lobster Issue 64 (Winter 2012)

[PDF file]: […] 1974 Cottrell has added the Cecil King-Lord Mountbatten meeting of 1968. (pp. 236/7) He has Sir Maurice Oldfield, a career-long SIS officer, as ‘MI5’s director of counter- intelligence and deputy controller’. He tells us (p. 240) that Peter Wright’s book ‘gave credence to Wilson’s persistent claims that he was the target of a conspiracy […]

Apocryphylia

Lobster Issue 68 (Winter 2014)

[PDF file]: […] with spying on their own government at the request of the US and privately told Wilson – hence his actions and concern at the possibility of the intelligence services machinating to remove him from office. Basically, Harold was right, and (presumably with Heath) he remains the only UK prime minister spied on by his […]

Historical notes on the war in Ukraine

Lobster Issue 83 (Summer 2022)

[PDF file]: […] the Cold War gathered momentum. The Western allies began to work hard to loosen the Soviet grip on eastern Europe and to this end British and American intelligence now started to back the OUNUPA struggle against Moscow. They provided logistical support and more Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Ratlines: How the Vatican’s Nazi Networks […]

Cryptoscatology: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form by Robert Guffey

Lobster Issue 64 (Winter 2012)

[PDF file]: […] or false is a handicap. He tells us that H. G. Wells was a member of the Round Table and spent WW2 as the head of British intelligence. Neither claim is true; and the fact that on this he cites the late Jim Keith, one of the less reliable people in this area, for […]

Holding pattern

Lobster Issue 71 (Summer 2016)

[PDF file]: […] million blank ballot papers.2 This led almost inevitably to a rash of public 1 This may be a new name for the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit. About which see . The text of a request to the Met to explain the relationship between the two organisations is at 2 scepticism (given […]

Operation Just Causes’s Unjust Aftermath

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] the civilian government of President Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo. The CIA was said to be ‘trying to take over the drug war’ by making heavy payments to army intelligence, or G-2—the same institution that was Noriega’s stepping stone to power. The military was linked to death squads that were blamed for dozens of deaths or […]

Using the UK FOIA

Lobster Issue 74 (Winter 2017)

[PDF file]: […] This is because disclosure of the withheld information would breach the principle that the UK government does not release the names of officials from its own external intelligence agency, and by extension, those of allied intelligence services. Consequently, the 1 FCO has argued that it would seriously compromise such cooperation and thus prejudice the […]

Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn, and, This Land: The Story of a Movement

Lobster Issue 80 (Winter 2020)

[PDF file]: […] Those seeking a stronger antidote in these dark times can turn to Footnote 8 continued: However, The Washington Post will not knowingly disclose the identities of US intelligence agents, except under highly unusual circumstances which must be weighed by the senior editors.’ When I returned from the United States to work at The Guardian, […]

Political life in Britain

Lobster Issue

[…] way he has fascinating stories to tell about John Addey, James Sherwood, Joseph Godson, the Gang of Four and many more. He also had experiences of the intelligence services worth reading. This is not an academic work, though academics could learn much from it. Nor is it just a collection of anecdotes from a […]

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