Parapolitical bits and pieces

Lobster Issue 7 (1985) £££

[…] its entirety … (they) present recent Soviet missile deployments in Poland, Czechoslovakia and the GDR as legitimately defensive ” etc. A large (two page) piece on the murder of Hilda Murrell (the anti-nuclear campaigner) in New Statesman (9 November 1984), laying out all the oddities in the case. Tam Dalyell’s repeated claims that this […]

Stakeknife and Mad Dog

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Lobster Issue 47 (Summer 2004) £££

[…] politicians claimed that the FRU was directed at loyalist and republican para-militaries, this is simply untrue ….the FRU was prevented by RUC Special Branch from infiltrating loyalist murder gangs.’ (p. 32) (1) The exception to this was ex-Army Brian Nelson, the ‘intelligence officer’ of the UDA, who directed the UDA’s killing of republicans for […]

Deep Black: the secrets of space espionage (Book Review) & Journals

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] came into its own. Opperskalski’s article goes into depth, naming names on all sides, promising much for his forthcoming book on the subject with Kunhanandan Nair, CIA: Murder Club. But the real gem in this issue of Geheim is the publication of lengthy extracts from two internal Verfassungsschutz (MI5) documents, detailing which categories of […]

Churchill and Secret Service

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Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999) £££

[…] Reilly and T. E. Lawrence through to Fitzroy Maclean and Orde Wingate, Churchill enjoyed the company of such men, listening to their stories of secret operations, of murder and mayhem, and narrow escapes. Certainly this reflected a romantic streak in his intellectual make-up, but it also represented a belief that sometimes the security of […]

Some examples of corporate, cultural and state PR

Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

[…] 27 August 2006). See also Terry Hanstock’s Re: in this issue – ed. Note: ‘unwelcome’ public sector histories are always of interest. For example, in his book Murder in Samarkand, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray writes: ‘I returned to London for a conference. At a meeting with Linda Duffield, Director of Wider […]

The American Papers: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh documents

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Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002) £££

ed. Roedad Khan Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1999 Faisal A. Qureshi This book caused quite a stir when published in Pakistan due to the government’s reluctance to declassify its own documentation for this period. The editor deserves credit for going to the US and utilising the FOIA to put together and index various documents, such … Read more

Secrets and Lies

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009) £££

Secrets and Lies: A history of CIA mind control and germ warfare Gordon Thomas JR Books (www.jrbooks.com) 2007, h/b, £20   Gordon Thomas has written a number of books on the intelligence services and this has a glossy cover, voluminous appendices and some admiring quotes. But it adds little to what we already know about … Read more

Kennedy assassination miscellany: Book Reviews

Lobster Issue 7 (1985) £££

[…] it seems an employee of Collins Radio, who had a security clearance, was parked in the car park where Oswald allegedly dropped a jacket shortly after the murder of Officer Tippit. (This is in a volume of the House Select Committee on Assassinations but I don’t have the reference at hand. If someone can […]

Inside the UDA

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Lobster Issue 47 (Summer 2004) £££

Colin Crawford. London: Pluto Press, 2003, £14.99, p/back   When World-in-Action and Tribune journalist David Boulton published his excellent book, The UVF, 1966-73, (Torc Books, 1974) he bemoaned a near absence of valuable books and journal articles on Loyalism. In contrast to their Republican counterparts, Loyalists do not have a substantive support base overseas; nor … Read more

French vendetta: from Rainbow Warrior to the Iranian hostages deal

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] Lebanese contacts to the Interior Ministry’s DST, kept silent about Mazurier’s role and about their direct contacts with Abdallah lieutenant Jacqueline Esber. (Esber is suspected of the murder of Yacov Basimantov, 2nd Secretary for political affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Paris, in April 1982). The DGSE also withheld information confirming Abdallah’s key role […]

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