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 […]

Searchlight yet again

Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994) £££

[…] getting ‘beaten up and possibly hospitalised or perhaps his home is trashed. Here in Ulster the consequences can be fatal. Searchlight could be setting up people for murder.’ September’s Searchlight returned to the story. ‘When Searchlight referred to Charlie using a Catholic teacher from London to convey messages to a man called Kerr in […]

Web Update

Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997) £££

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

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

Miscellaneous: Gemstone. Workers’ Revolutionary Party, MI5 and Libya

Lobster Issue 20 (1990) £££

[…] O’Hagan, Sunday World 11 February 1990 p.19. TARA Tara: there is not the basis for peaceful co- existence — Sunday News, 24th March 1974 p7. Colin Wallace Murder suspect Army spy? Sunday World, 28 September 1980 pp.1 and 3 Harry Irwin NOW! Gregory Voysey writes: In Lobster 17 (pp14-16) you note that Now!, a […]

USA & the CIA

Book cover
Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000) £££

A Covert Life. Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster Ted Morgan New York: Random House, 1999, $29.95 Freedom’s War: The US Crusade Against the Soviet Union Scott Lucas Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999, £45 Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala 1952-54 Nick Cullather Stanford (California): Stanford University Press 1999, £8.95 … Read more

Good-bye Tony

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007) £££

Lobster’s writers say farewell (in approximately 250 words or less) In alphabetical order: Richard Alexander: Good riddance. Dan Atkinson: Prediction is a mug’s game, but here is one forecast for the early, troubled years of the next decade: Tony Blair’s ten years in power will be widely seen as a golden age of cheap consumer … Read more

Spook PR

Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

Public relations, more usually referred to these days as ‘communications’, is a method used by organisations to explain themselves or issues, or sell a product/message/strategy. To create/manipulate their audiences’ various external environments so that these can prevail, sophisticated organisations firstly recognise competitor or negative PR; secondly, they counter it. The means by which they do … Read more

The View From MI5

Lobster Issue 13 (1987) £££

Colin Wallace and ‘Clockwork Orange 2’ In 1974, while working for the British Army’s Northern Ireland psy-ops unit, Information Policy, Wallace was asked (told) by an MI5 officer to work on a psy-ops project, ‘Clockwork Orange 2’. Wallace’s job spec. for CO2 was to produce a document, a first-hand narrative, apparently written by a supporter … Read more

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