[…] 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
[…] which Haines says on page 140 that a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee told him that ‘he and the FCO believed she was an Israeli spy, but didn’t, or couldn’t, offer any evidence.’ Haines speculates that perhaps this was the source of the money which kept Lady Falkender in the style (several […]
[…] 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 […]
Nick Cook is a defence journalist of high repute, having been an Aviation Editor for the authoritative Jane’s Defence Weekly for fourteen years. When he says that UFO reports conceal a new technology with the potential to change the world, a technology kept secret by the US military-industrial complex for decades, he should be worth … Read more
[…] of commentary in the literature or on the web but the reader could do worse than go back to E. H.Cookridge’s early and flawed but detailed, Gehlen: Spy of the Century (London, 1971). Written when Gehlen was still alive and in retirement, and with that flavour of Cold War realpolitik of the day, it […]
[…] 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, […]
[…] communications advisory and agency services, mostly to non-OECD interests and NGOs. Corinne Souza is a former lobbyist, now a freelance writer. Her most recent book is Baghdad’s Spy (Mainstream, 2003). Simon Matthews is a former trade union district secretary with an MA in Modern History. Scott Newton is Senior Lecturer in Modern British and […]
