[…] materialised. In 1942 Gehlen had been unable to predict the time and place of the Soviet counter-attack at Stalingrad.(5) In his new role running a major US-funded spy organisation, Gehl-en produced numerous reports claiming a Soviet invasion of the west was imminent, that the Soviets were building a fleet of flying wing jet fighters, […]
[…] campaign against Greece in the British serious papers in 1984/85. At the time the Greek government of Papandreou was trying to reduce the size of its domestic spy apparatus and that seemed the likely proximate cause. I think I was probably wrong about that. In his Eclipse (reviewed in this issue) Mark Perry reveals […]
The collapse of Polly Peck in 1990 remains perhaps the single greatest British corporate mystery of modern times.(1) How did a multi-billion pound international conglomerate, which had risen from East End obscurity to become the exemplar of eighties British Capitalism, collapse within a period of weeks? How did a favoured son of the London Stock … Read more
[…] 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’. […]
How perceptions have changed! In Leveller 51, March 1981, there was this snippet: ‘Why all the fuss about the Panorama programme on British Intelligence? Eventually there was just one cut — Gordon Winter, BOSS agent, former freelance journalist, in a pre-title sequence: “British intelligence has a saying that if there is a left-wing movement in […]
[…] 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 […]
Out there in the wonderful world of commercial science, the ability to do what mind control victims have been complaining of for nearly 20 years is coming into view. On 8 April CNN reported that a Sony scientist has a patent, first granted in 2000, on an ultrasound device which in the words of CNN’s … Read more
[…] 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, […]
[…] 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 […]
Matthew R. Simmons London: Wiley, 2005, h/b Ironic, perhaps, that I finished reviewing this book in Calgary, just south of the largest land-based oil project in the American hemisphere, the Athabasca shale tar sands oil recovery projects. Collectively these will realise investment between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the next ten years. Pipelines … Read more
