SISies: MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations and A Life: A. J. Ayer

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Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)

[…] – on the grounds that he was such a selfish little shit, he lacked the necessary patriotic motivation (I am not making this up) to be a spy. Lawson did move into a series of increasingly expensive houses through the eighties and nineties, however. But his wife’s family are rich. Ayer’s final years were […]

Briefly: Ideas. Blitz to Blair. Covert Network. etc

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Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] of the American liberal-left who were so easily persuaded to surrender their independence and their critical judgement by the red scare of the early Cold War. I SPY: The Secret Life of a British Agent Geoffrey Elliott St Ermin’s Press/Little, Brown, London, 1998, £18.99 The agent in question was Elliott’s father, Kavan, about whom […]

Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s

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Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9)

[…] what was then called the ‘silicon chip’. And Alec Guinness kept the nation spellbound with the television version of John le Carré’s 1974 novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It depicted the tempting of senior UK espionage moguls with a one-off, spectacular solution to Secret Britain’s ills, a Soviet super-spy who would get us back […]

Ratlines: how the Vatican’s Nazi networks betrayed Western intelligence to the Soviets

Lobster Issue 22 (1991)

[…] Franciscan printing press in Rome. Both the US Counter Intelligence Corps CIC) and Britain’s military intelligence knew what was happening. Indeed, CIC agent Robert Mudd had a spy within Dragonovic’s organisation. The CIC arranged a burglary of Dragonovic’s office and photographed his records. Mudd concluded that “all this activity stems from the Vatican’. Aarons […]

Re:

Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9)

[…] spat over “turgid” writing’, The Times, 24 October 2008; Jack Lefley, ‘MOD censors its censor’s history for being boring’, The Evening Standard, 24 October 2008. Anon., ‘Former spy wins first round of “son of Spycatcher” book publication battle’, Solicitors’ Journal, 152 (29), 22 July 2008, p. 5; Anon., ‘Tribunal does not have exclusive jurisdiction’, […]

Spooks

Lobster Issue 22 (1991)

See also: Part 1: Forty Years of Legal Thuggery (Lobster 9) Part 2: British Spooks “Who’s Who” (Lobster 10) Intelligence Personnel Named in ‘Inside Intelligence’ (Lobster 15) Philby naming names (Lobster 16) First supplement to A Who’s Who of the British Secret State (Lobster 19) Below is a list of spooks, both dead and alive, … Read more

Historical Notes

Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002)

The origins of Civil Assistance? In the UK in 1974-75 a number of ‘private armies’ appeared, linked to retired senior military and intelligence figures. There were General Sir Walter Walker’s Civil Assistance, Colonel David Stirling’s GB75, and George Young’s Unison. (1) These groups formed in order to frustrate the impact of strike action in the … Read more

KO-ing the Kennedys: The Kennedys and State Secrets

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] anyone skulking in the undergrowth. The book ends on this unsatisfactory note. The Clough book, by contrast, is excellent. It provides a detailed demythologising of this particular spy case and relies on a review of all the literature in the case as well as primary research conducted by the author amongst recently released PRO […]

US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat

Lobster Issue 14 (1987)

US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat This article presents an analysis of United States involvement in the coup in Fiji. The authors support the demands made in Washington by deposed Fijian Prime Minister, Dr Bavadra, for a Congressional investigation of American involvement. Published by Wellington Confidential, PO. Box 9034, Wellington, New Zealand The one-month-old … Read more

Joseph K and the spooky launderette

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] bothered using that particular channel. To date, Stuart-Smith hasn’t upheld any complaint about MI5’s activities. See Tom Bower’s recent biography of Sir Dick White, The Perfect English Spy, Heinemann, London 1995. According to David Shayler, the current favourite to succeed Stephen Lander as head of MI5 is Ms Manningham Buller, whose father prosecuted Blake. […]

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