[…] the British intelligence and security services – far more interesting and surprising to me than the details of operations given here. The expression mind-boggling idiocy comes to mind. And this nonsense had the same consequences in SIS as it has elsewhere in the public sector: faced with career-breaking targets and quotas, people fake them […]
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke I.B.Tauris, London, 1992, £9.95. In his last paragraph the author concludes: ‘Books written about Nazi occultism between 1960 and 1975 were typically sensational and under-researched. A complete ignorance of the primary sources was common to most authors and inaccuracies and wild claims were repeated by each newcomer to the genre until an abundant … Read more
[…] that the authorities in Nottingham would use their own police officers to resolve what was a civil law situation, but that’s Thatcher for you.’(24) All in the mind? A series of experiments ‘tested whether lacking control increases illusory pattern perception… …as the identification of a coherent and meaningful interrelationship among a set of random […]
[…] account. Christie knew a couple of the AB people slightly, his circle butted onto theirs at a couple of places, and you can imagine how the SB/MI5 mind viewed that. Just to make sure, they planted the detonators ‘found’ in his car. It appears, indeed, that, with the exception of Christie (who was acquitted) […]
Inside Intelligence Anthony Cavendish Palu Publishing Ltd. 1987 Although many hundreds of books have been written on British Intelligence, very few have tackled post-war intelligence in any kind of depth or with any degree of reliability. By contrast, we tend to believe that we know quite a lot about the workings of the CIA. But … Read more
A. J. Davies Little Brown and Co London, 1995, £20 Davies provides in equal measure a perceptive and comprehensive account of the modern Conservative Party which, hopefully, will lead to further reappraisals of Conservative history. In contrast to, for example, Lord Blake’s standard history of the Party over much the same period, We, The Nation … Read more
Iraqi documents Iraq on the Record (<http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord>) is a searchable collection of over 200 specific misleading statements made by Bush administration officials about the threat allegedly posed by Iraq. The collection would be even larger if it also included statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. However, if a statement was ‘…an accurate reflection of … Read more
[…] Before long, Bernays was helping Israel to lobby the US military and recasting India as a worthy recipient of $1bn-worth of aid. He became the propaganda master mind in overthrowing Guatemala’s elected government on behalf of the United Fruit Company (who were worried that the country’s socialist regime would harm profits). Mind you, Bernays […]
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America Peter Dale Scott London and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, prices in the UK from £16.95 The first third of this book, 120 pages or so, is part parapolitical and part deep history of America from Nixon to Ronald Reagan’s first election … Read more
Steamshovel 11 The arrival of a new Steamshovel is an event. No matter that I am going to want to be picky about something in it, every issue contains items both substantial and intriguing – and much that would find a home nowhere else, that I can think of. (Except maybe Lobster. I wish I […]
