Inside the League Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson (Dodd, Mead and Co., New York 1986) This is the only book I know on the World Anti-Communist League. Most of it is new to me but the few bits I am familiar with look accurate, and it is reasonably well documented. It is really in … Read more
Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack London: Penguin, 2004, £12.99, p/b Henry McDonald’s highly readable recent book with Jim Cusack on the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is everything that other recent offerings on the subject were not. On the one hand, it avoids the kind of borderline homo-erotic sensationalism, in which the atrocities of self-serving … Read more
Introduction The mid 1970s was not a good time to be a social democratic ally of the United States. In Britain we had “the Wilson plots’; in Australia Gough Whitlam, Jim Cairns and the Australian Labour Party got Governor Kerr and the CIA; in Germany Willi Brandt resigned after a “security scandal’; in New Zealand … Read more
Political activist Daniel Ellsberg and Professor Alfred McCoy have something special in common. Based on their actions and accomplishments of nearly thirty years ago, they have achieved the status of icons within the subculture of what passes for the New Left. Icon Ellsberg became a celebrity in 1971 after he leaked The Pentagon Papers, an … Read more
Bilderberged again Giles Radici’s Diaries 1980-2001 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004) isn’t terribly interesting but it does contain some snippets about Radici’s activities at the annual Anglo-German Konigswinter conference and one or two on his time at St Antony’s College (as a ‘parliamentary fellow’). There is also a section (pp. 336-7) on his attendance at … Read more
Miscellaneous Publications Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’, The CIA and American Democracy, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989, price not stated) is, with Blum’s The CIA: a Forgotten History, the best single volume on the CIA. Of particular interest is the author’s account of the political system’s response to the revelations of CIA archives in the … Read more
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
[…] 23 by Christina Lamb, ‘Diplomatic Correspondent’ – a title once held by Coughlin – which claimed that Saddam Hussein had sent belly dancing assassins to London to murder his opponents there. Lamb sourced this to ‘a Foreign Office official’.(4) Where are they now? Skimming through the e-newsletter NewsmakingNews of 18 September I had […]
The rise and fall of the Bulgarian Connection Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead (Sheridan Square Publications, New York, 1986) When the Turkish Grey Wolves hold rallies they howl collectively. So, at times, do journalists of the ‘free press’. In 1979 Edward Herman wrote After the Cataclysm with Noam Chomsky in which they shredded Western … Read more
Jane Affleck Here are a few more websites, focusing chiefly on the issue of electronic privacy which is currently being debated both in the U.S. and Europe. Thanks to those who have sent comments, and thanks for contributions to: Terry Hanstock, Ian Tresman and Tony Hollick. Comments and contributions are welcome: I can be contacted … Read more
