The view from the bridge. Hidden Agendas. Jack Hill. Ghandi. Sinn Fein. Oswald

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] have to pretend that everything starts with them? Milner’s Kiwi Milner In car-boot sale near Scarborough I picked up a copy of the Australian-published The Rhodes Scholar Spy by Richard Hall (Random House, Australia, 1991). It is an account of Ian Milner, a pre-WW2 New Zealand Rhodes Scholar who became a Soviet agent in […]

The Man from the FRU

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003)

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

JFK, the FBI and the Cambridge phone call

Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995)

[…] the parlance of the contemporary government information worker. This was the anonymous call received by George Wigg, the Labour MP, urging him to forget about Vassall the spy and look instead at Profumo. Wigg always claimed it was anonymous but there is good circumstantial evidence he knew the identity of the caller – John […]

PR, Iraq and ‘the allies’

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003)

[…] 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 […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

[…] 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…. […]

Two views of Dorril: MI6: Fifty years of Special Operations

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Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000)

MI6: Fifty years of Special Operations Stephen Dorril Fourth Estate, London, 2000, £25 hb   Harold Smith As I can testify from personal experience, having in 1960 been summoned to Government House in Lagos, Nigeria, to have my death sentence pronounced by the Governor General, MI6 is brutal, cruel, merciless and totally unforgiving. Dorril’s courage, … Read more

Defector Politics: or, grooving with Mr G.

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] supporting seventeen, were Bob Parry – and the aforementioned Bill Michie Les trois amis de Crozier concluded, somewhat obscurely, that, ‘None of this makes Mr Rogers a spy, or even an agent of influence. It simply serves to illustrate why agents of influence and fellow-travellers need fear as little opposition from the Security Service […]

Old spooks’ tales

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] Jews. In England we use American intelligence officers using British equipment to bug British Jews. That way each side can claim to their governments, “Oh, we don’t spy on our own citizens.” ……..by the time of the Bush administration we were collecting rosters of kids going to Jewish summer camps…..’ ‘In every war the […]

My Granny Made Me an Anarchist: The Christie File: Part 1, 1946-64

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

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

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