The Real Gemstone File

Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001) £££

[…] mighty screed finally ends, Roberts takes us on an even stranger interlude: ‘EDITOR’S NOTE: This is all Joanie gave us on that date. However, we had a spy hiding behind a moosehead and he tells us that the psychiatrist came back into the room and Joanie handed him the notes quoted above and the […]

Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith

Lobster Issue 17 (1988) £££

[…] and Herman Zolling (London 1972) and an interesting article by Sarah Gainham in the Spectator 9 November 1962.   Robin Ramsay adds: Gainham is a writer of spy fiction. Her 1959 The Stone Roses (Sphere paperback, London 1971), a defector story set in Prague, carries the dedication ‘This story is for Friends in Prague’. […]

Philanthropic imperialism

Lobster Issue 53 (Summer 2007) £££

Democracy building or democracy assistance, is a putative socio-economic policy solution, which, because of the extent of the political and economic forces impacting on it, has become a contemporary socio-economic problem. Democracy building’s institutional formation rests upon a reconfiguration of Cold War positions that retain, what Dr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky termed ‘such interference,’(1)so as to continue … Read more

Malcolm Kennedy: secrecy ruling

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

Abstract The Tribunal established to investigate complaints about phone-tapping and the activities of the intelligence agencies has, at its first ever public hearing, quashed rules made by the Home Secretary forcing the tribunal to hold all its hearings in secret. However, the Tribunal procedure remains too secret, and its decisions cannot be appealed. Malcolm Kennedy’s … Read more

The Open Side of Secrecy: Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee

Book cover
Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

Anthony Glees, Philip J. Davies, and John N. L. Morrison London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2006, £20, h/b   The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is a recent addition to the roster of Whitehall bodies; the motives of those who created it, as the authors show, are obscure and its role to some extent remains … Read more

Harassment by the state

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

[…] insisted I not print it. I complied and forgot about it. I recalled my afternoon in the Station Hotel reading the account in Corinne Souza’s book Baghdad’s Spy (reviewed in this issue) of the harassment her family suffered at the hands of SIS. There it was again: break-ins, pranks, things left in the house, […]

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

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] of MI5, Peter Walker, which I don’t think has appeared elsewhere in the British media: “(he) served in Ireland in the early ’80s as second-in-command to Britain’s spy chief, David Ramsen. He posed as a ‘political officer’ and was a frequent visitor to Dublin, where he became a familiar face at the Horseshoe Bar, […]

Electronic Privacy and the Encryption Debate

Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999) £££

[…] make interception more difficult; and to provide ever increasing surveillance capabilities for, in the main, the intelligence community. In Secret Power: New Zealand’s role in the International Spy Network, Nicky Hager describes the ECHELON system: ‘Designed and co-ordinated by the NSA, the ECHELON system is used to intercept ordinary e-mail, fax, telex and telephone […]

The Case Against Israel, and, The Power of Israel

Book cover
Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

The Case Against Israel Michael Neumann Oakland (US): CounterPunch, $15 Edinburgh (UK): AK Press, £10, 2005 The Power of Israel in the United States James Petras Atlanta and Black Point: Clarity Press and Fernwood Books, 2006, $16.95   In a year in which Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza were accompanied by more stories of … Read more

KAL 007 and Overhead Surveillance

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] London, 1984, p131). The most famous of these, of course, was the Gary Powers U-2 on May 1st 1960 and Khrushchev was quick to exploit the ‘ spy’ Powers, forcing Eisenhower to forswear further aerial reconnaissance over the Soviet Union at the Paris summit that year (Klass p50). The use of satellites was only […]

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