[…] for this sensitive mission, there was only one crew-member, the pilot. This makes sense in terms of secrecy, a consideration that would have been paramount in the mind of the CIA planners. Because of this necessary limitation, is it not possible that the aircraft was adapted to carry its munitions on wing pylons that, […]
[…] 1953. This is Fisk’s observation on that 1997 meeting at Woodhouse’s retirement home in Oxford: ‘The coup against Mossadeq, the return of the Shah, was, in Woodhouse’s mind, a holding operation, a postponement of history. There was also the little matter of the AIOC, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company – later British Petroleum – which […]
[…] of “Bishop”. “Bishop” was the only name to which she responded, and it stirred in her the memory of another name. “Bishop” is firmly linked in Fabiola’s mind with a second person – “Prewett”. For her, the two names are so definitely associated that at first she had difficulty remembering which was which. Fabiola […]
[…] sweep him bodily to the window and throw him out head first.’ The inquest verdicts in such cases were invariably ‘accidental death’ or ‘suicide while of unsound mind’. (p. 187). He decided against on this occasion, but hints very strongly that Todd’s fatal fall from a window during the Lancaster House talks in London […]
[…] behind US foreign policy…..was the defence of democracy’, is a joke. Or a lie. The ‘essential idea’ was to defend US economic and geopolitical interests and never mind how much (non-white) blood was spilt. It gets worse. I always look at the assassination of John Kennedy as a touchstone for academics writing about America […]
Introduction In 1967 the CIA sent out to ‘Chiefs, Certain Stations and bases’ a briefing document, Dispatch Document 1035- 960, titled ‘Countering Criticism of the Warren Report’. This unintentionally very revealing and faintly comic document was reproduced in issue 2 of the now defunct newsletter, The Dorff Report in March 1990. In view of the … Read more
Who was who? The newly published Oxford Dictionary of National Biography not only surveys the lives of the great and the good, but also includes accounts of individuals in the murkier fields of human endeavour. Over fifty spies are listed, for example, including historical figures such as ‘Parliament Joan’ (c1600-1655?) and ‘Pickle the Spy’ (c1725-1761). … Read more
[…] Talb. After lengthy sessions with CIA personnel, the Maltese shopkeeper who had previously recognised a photograph of Talb – a 35 year-old Palestinian – apparently changed his mind and fingered a Libyan airline official in his fifties. This identification, along with allegations – later disproved – that a Swiss-made timing device for the Lockerbie […]
[…] it is reasonable to assume that the “safe on Sakhalin” message was a deliberate lie. It was a lie with far-reaching effects. Firstly, it set the world’s mind at rest about 007. At the time of the broadcast 007 was several hours late at Seoul – clearly a news story in the making. Moreover, […]
Introduction Despite their reputation for ’empiricism’, British academics have tended to treat political power by means of abstract concepts rather than empirical information about the actions of determinate individuals and groups (e.g. Giddens, 1984, 1985; Scott, 1986). After a brief efflorescence of empirical studies of the so-called ‘Establishment’ in the early 1960s, sociologists in Britain … Read more
