Suffer the innocents? The Stevens inquiry into Britain’s state assassination policy in Northern Ireland in the 1980s began in September 1989. The police officers who signed up for it didn’t think it would take long to do. ‘We thought it was going to be a fairly routine investigation. We didn’t expect to find that there … Read more
[…] trying to keep buried here, I missed them. But I’m probably suffering from Secrecy Fatigue. Ever since Peter Wright’s Spycatcher every British publisher has tried to market spy books as “the book they tried to ban’. Alas, far from running the risk of breaking the Official Secrets Act, the only risk you run reading […]
[…] a valuable source of information on US intelligence in particular, and the post-war US empire in general, with contributors such as John Kelly, former editor of Counter Spy, Ralph McGehee, Lester Coleman and David McMichael. With Covert Action Quarterly now with a much wider agenda than covert action, (1) Unclassified is now one of […]
[…] swipe at the Americans and double-entendre: ‘There are no chinks in our security’. Doubtless, had the script not been so bad, the story about the happily bungling spy could have played in Iraq as part of Britain’s ‘hearts and minds’ campaign: a sort of movie equivalent to British troops losing 9 – 3 to […]
Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin Gollancz, London 1991 Pat Nixon, wife of Richard Nixon, died in June. The obituarist in the Independent of 23 June 1993, commented that ‘she stood by him loyaly, convinced that he was the victim of an international plot involving double agents and the CIA.’ Well, something like that. Mrs Nixon’s … Read more
[…] not refer to her part in Smith’s conviction for espionage and asks: ‘How many Director-Generals of MI5 have been responsible for the conviction of a major Russian spy, who was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment at the Old Bailey?’ Smith thinks Rimington is embarrassed by her part in framing him. Something of the night…. […]
Roundtable I get regular e-mail bulletins from an organisation called the roundtable – not the Round Table but somebody? some people? – trying to document the US ruling elite by the study of its organisations. Really they should be called Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) – because it is the CFR they mostly write about; … Read more
Gary Murray Simon and Schuster, London, 1993 For twenty five years Gary Murray worked as an RAF policeman and private investigator. In the early 1970s Murray ‘unexpectedly’ (invitation?) joined the Operations Intelligence cadre of 21 SAS, and this led to close contact with people from MI6, Army SIB, the Royal Military Police and the Parachute … Read more
The Angolan hostages episode, and more … Although Unita’s capture of 16 Britons at Kafuno diamond mine in Angola received massive publicity, the intriguing titbits thrown up by the reporting were not pursued. In particular, there was the article by Stephen Glover (Daily Telegraph 16th May 1984) in which he stated that he had been … Read more
Stuart Christie Christie Books, PO Box 35, Hastings East Sussex, TN 34 2UX pb, £34 from www.christiebooks.com I really enjoyed this account of his childhood from Christie, Britain’s most famous anarchist and celebrated radical publisher. But I’m not sure how many other people would. I may have enjoyed it as much as I … Read more
