The Men with the Guns G.F. Newman (Sphere, London 1984) I’ve got a lot of time for G.F. Newman. He’s written some of the best, sharpest, things about contemporary Britain: the Law and Order series and the Terry Sneed novels are the obvious places to start. But this – perhaps because of the shift to … Read more
[…] in a side-bar on the sixties: ‘Britain becomes a battleground for agents working for Smith and the South Africans. Harold Wilson’s Cabinet Office is infiltrated. Rhodesian agents murder one of their own operatives who has turned against them in London, and another agent is killed by British intelligence after they and Special Branch monitor […]
Covert Action CAIB trundles on. I haven’t always agreed with CAIB’s line. With others on the U.S. left, it used to seem reluctant to deal with the real nature of the Soviet Union. Having got to he point where America has become Amerika, many American radicals have been unable to acknowledge that the other Superpower … Read more
[…] Brown was too sympathetic to the plaintiffs in the case and was removed during the pre-trial proceedings. Pepper wanted permission to run forensic tests on the alleged murder weapon. (Pepper and Brown were pretty sure the gun wasn’t the one which killed King.) Because James Earl Ray had pleaded guilty, such tests had not […]
Books Secret Contenders Melvin Beck (Sheridan Square Publications, US 1984) The CIA Christmas party of 1958 found 48 year old all-American boy, Melvin Beck, getting the offer of overseas work with Clandestine Services. He “struck like a hungry bass” and landed in Havana in 1959, just as the first Russian freighter was arriving. Fairly early … Read more
[…] it? I had been active in the anti-war movement. In the days of Richard Nixon, that could spell trouble. There was the coup in Chile and the murder of Allende. After Nixon’s fall, the national security state perpetuated itself under Henry Kissinger, who stayed on under Gerald Ford as secretary of state. William Colby […]
[…] revelatory, one way or the others. (He was acquitted in 1988 of involvement in the Bologna bombing for lack of evidence, and in February this year of murder charges relating to a 1969 bombing. See Daily Telegraph 21/2/89. Ed.) For Signorelli’s early affiliations with ON, see Ferraresi p.62; for his AN backing see Flamini […]
by Peter Padfield Papermac, London, 1993, £12.99 There are now several versions of the Hess affair. One is the official story – a politician whose star is one the wane, attempts a spectacular comeback, fails, is locked up for forty years and finally commits suicide in despair. Another is the double theory, first outlined in … Read more
Timothy Evans Oxford and Providence (USA): Berghahn Books, 1996, £10, h/b Why review a book published in 1996? Well, I received this recently, assumed it was current and didn’t notice the publication date until I began to write this. In the early 1980s it began to dawn on people on the left of British politics … Read more
[…] allegedly left-wing ’17 November’ group which claims to have killed a Greek publisher. ‘November 17’ is said to have left a note at the scene of the murder “arguing that the publisher had been helping the CIA to create a climate of uncertainty in Greece.” The World Anti-Communist League The World Anti-Communist League (WACL) […]
