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
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
[…] on 30 October 1993. Kalugin was arrested at the airport and interrogated for hours on suspicion he may have been involved in the 1979 Georgi Markov ‘umbrella murder’ in London. Although released without charge, the resulting bad publicity destroyed Kalugin’s credibility, and my lawyers decided not to call him. Kalugin’s evidence would have been […]
From David Hambling On the topic of the People Zapper (Lobster 41 p. 9), the new ‘Active Denial System’ is probably not the first microwave weapon to be deployed. There have been repeated rumours of cruise missiles with HPM (high-powered microwave) warheads being used in former Yugoslavia to knock out communications centres, though apparently the … Read more
[…] America but for readers of this journal it won’t be of much interest. Sort of Greg Palast lite; Gore Vidal without the style. The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder and the Vatican Paul L. Williams Prometheus Books, New York, 2003 h/b, $27.00 www.prometheusbooks.com A short (200 pages, large print) and sharp history of the Catholic […]
[…] of the Second World War, Smith and Kay (Putnam 1972) includes virtually all the information in Last Talons of the Eagle. See Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder – Britain, America and the Purging of Nazi Germany, a Pledge Betrayed (1981) and The Paperclip Conspiracy (1984) and Christopher Simpson, Blowback – America’s Recruitment of […]
[…] 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) […]
How often does the conspiracy buff/ parapolitics connoisseur stumble upon a new, all-colour, glossy parapolitics magazine at W. H. Smith’s at Euston Station? Not that often. When I called Private Eye to mail order a copy of Paul Foot’s fascinating report on the Lockerbie trial, I was assured that I could buy a copy at … Read more
[…] ‘lone, crazed assassin’ line is their omission of the crucial, wider issue of motive. The logical first question that should be asked, when seeking motive in a murder, is Who benefits? In JFK’s case, the answers to that question have sometimes led researchers down blind alleys. While Douglas may not ‘solve’ the assassination, his […]
With the decline of the revolutionary socialist Left the Right has turned to the anarchists for a law-and-order bogeyman – and a stick to beat the Left with. One journalist involved is Jamie Dettmer. Having worked for Tribune for a while, Dettmer migrated to the Sunday Telegraph (for whom his first article was an ‘expose’ … Read more
