Gone but not forgotten

Lobster Issue 19 (1990)

[…] of the Labour Party, a core position: can socialists be pro-nuclear? The cold-war warriors of Labour never attempted to develop a left foreign or defence policy, never mind a socialist one. Stewart remained firmly on the extreme right of the party on what were, for the Americans, key policy issues. He even went as […]

Secrecy and Power in the British State: A History of the Official Secrets Act

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Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997)

[…] that an effective analysis of the use of power “should refrain from posing the labyrinthine and unanswerable question who then has power and what has he in mind?” Instead, it is a case of studying power at the point where its intention, if it has one, is completely investigated in its real and effective […]

Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century 1947-1959

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

[…] were the other stories. Some were the horror stories with which we have become familiar: for example MK-Ultra and Ewen Cameron’s insane experiments with reprogramming the human mind which Hollings discusses. But also: by 1959 Cary Grant had taken LSD over 60 times as part of a Hollywood set who were using it with […]

Brothers

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] For the military it was straightforward: the US had the strategic nuclear advantage (the ‘missile gap’ had been forgotten) and thus could and should invade Cuba. Never mind even pretending to the world that it was a Cuban insurrection – the dumb little plan behind the Bay of Pigs invasion. As if the cover […]

Crozier country: Free Agent: the unseen war 1941-1991

Lobster Issue 26 (1993)

Brian Crozier HarperCollins, London, 1993 This is a very interesting book which greatly adds to our knowledge of the clandestine shaping of British politics in the 1970s and 80s. It is also a book which, like Chapman Pincher’s Inside Story, will repay repeated re-reading. But amidst all the new material a surprising amount of these … Read more

A Note on MRA, CIA and L. Ron. Hubbard

Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000)

A Note on MRA, CIA and L. Ron. Hubbard In response to my snippet in issue 38 (p.22) on Moral Rearmament and the CIA, Daniel Brandt (1) sent me the following from Miles Copeland’s, The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA’s Original Political Operative (London: Aurum Press, 1989, pp. 176-177). This is a nice demonstration … Read more

Bank-havens: Exposures Of The Rich

Lobster Issue 4 (1984)

As a recent TV programme (James Bellini’s ‘The Polite Conspiracy’ 4th April 1984 BBC2) made clear, the rich have devised some artful ways of avoiding tax. Of course they also have a government committed to drastically reducing their tax ‘burden’ (e.g. Nigel Lawson’s abolition of investment income surcharge, formerly payable on high unearned incomes). Naturally, … Read more

In a Common Cause: the Anti-Communist Crusade in Britain 1945-60

Lobster Issue 19 (1990)

[…] 1960pp. 485-6. The World of Learning, 1980-81 (Switzerland) p 1236 See Chapter 9, ‘Human Ecology’ in John Marks, The Search for the ‘Manchurian Candidate’: The CIA and Mind Control (Allen Lane, London 1979). In 1955 the CIA incorporated the Society for the Study of Human Ecology which was renamed the Human Ecology Fund in […]

Our Friends in the North West: The Owen Oyston Affair

Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997)

[…] Peter Blaker discuss newly-appointed Minister Robert Atkins Blaker You know that Robert’s in the government now? Murrin Yes, I did. Yes. Blaker Which is good for him. Mind, he deserves to be. Done a great job. …. I think we should keep Robert in on this, by the way. Murrin Oh everything that you’ve […]

Marching to the fault line: The 1984 miners’ strike and the death of industrial Britain

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

[…] industrial trade union, led by CPGB members and ex-members, opposing government policy, was more than enough. The nonsense – the communist conspiracy theory – in Mrs Thatcher’s mind was of no relevance to MI5. But it surely is relevant to this story. Beckett and Hencke give us an expanded take on the received version […]

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