Book reviews

Lobster Issue 8 (1985)

Books Alan Turing: the enigma of intelligence Andrew Hughes (Unwin 1985) If you have a chance, read Alan Turing: the enigma of intelligence by Andrew Hughes (Unwin 1985). Now in paperback, Hughes’ excellent biography rescues from near obscurity a true eccentric genius. It is of interest to us because of Turing’s essential work on the … Read more

Gordon Winter: Inside BOSS and After

Lobster Issue 18 (1989)

Introduction Intelligence officers who blow the whistle get attacked by their erstwhile employers. Agee, Stockwell, Marchetti,Wallace, Holroyd, Jock Kane, Cathy Massiter – they all have variously suffered for their decision to go public. Their allegations and their characters are rubbished; operations are mounted to discredit them and disrupt their lives – and worse. Gordon Winter … Read more

Lobbying

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007)

One of many reasons why the lobbying industry attracts opprobrium is because Britain’s political system offers only limited public sector facility to those who wish to influence it but lack the funding and/or patronage to do so. ‘The lobbyists’ did not cause the injustice. It is up to government to come up with the solutions. … Read more

St. Peter’s Banker, Michele Sindona

Lobster Issue 8 (1985)

[…] the creative accounting of their bankers, Sindona and Calvi.) The final part of the plan was for Gelli to foment the use of political violence – bombings, murder and kidnappings – and then, when he had created sufficient chaos, make use of propaganda designed to prepare Italians psychologically for the new era of Fascism. […]

The Libyans and the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher

Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999)

[…] Libyans did Lockerbie. Which tells us that the disinformation prepared by the US to show Libya guilty was sufficiently convincing to persuade a professional intelligence officer. See Hollingsworth and Fielding, Defending the Realm (reviewed below), p.147. See Peter Smith’s ‘Is Libya still the prime suspect in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher?’ in Lobster 32.

The JFK Assassination on film, televison and video

Lobster Issue 26 (1993)

[…] is the only documentary that includes footage of Oswald being driven into the Dallas PD headquarters after his arrest. The Oswald-Ruby Slaying. Three versions of the Oswald murder appear to have been filmed. These are: KRLD-TV, Dallas: b&w video. KRLD-TV, Dallas: 16min b&w. Cameraman: George Phenix. WBAP-TV, Fort Worth: 16min b&w Cameraman: J. Jamison. […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007)

[…] they are doing anything wrong or unusual. G2, 27 March, 2007. Did anyone in that press office know that the theme of the book is the meaningless murder of an Arab? Four of them were reviewed in The New York Review of Books 1 March 2007. The National Institute of Standards and Technology issued […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996)

[…] 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 […]

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate

Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

Robert Caro New York and London: Alfred Knopf, 2002, hb $35 (US) £35 (UK) (But in the UK only £22 from Amazon.com)   This is the third volume in Caro’s biography of LBJ. The first two volumes are wonderful pieces of work, the best biographies I have read; and in many ways this is their … Read more

The Enemy Within: Thatcher’s Secret War Against the Miners; GB84

Book cover
Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004)

The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners Seumas Milne London: Verso, 2004, p/back, £8 GB84 David Peace London: Faber & Faber, 2004, p/back, £12.99   On the 20th anniversary of the most significant power struggle in post war Britain, two very different books on the miners’ strike of 1984-85, read alongside each other, … Read more

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