Re:

Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

Iraqi documents Iraq on the Record (<http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord>) is a searchable collection of over 200 specific misleading statements made by Bush administration officials about the threat allegedly posed by Iraq. The collection would be even larger if it also included statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. However, if a statement was ‘…an accurate reflection of … Read more

…MI5 goes on forever

Lobster Issue 26 (1993) £££

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 […]

Elvis has left the building: Political Perspectives on the Fall of Polly Peck

Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001) £££

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

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 […]

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, […]

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…. […]

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

Book cover
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

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 […]

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 […]

How many divisions does the Pope have?

Book cover
Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

[…] 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, […]

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