Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999)
[…] the time, Room 40 would have been established. Much more notable was Churchill’s continual interference in its running. Predictably, he was an eager victim of the ‘ spy mania’ that gripped the country on the outbreak of war in 1914, actually leading a raid, pistol in hand, on the home of an unsuspecting Tory […]
Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)
MI6 persuaded Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, to task them to give her early warning about coups in Africa. (Independent 23 July 2000) MI6 now have a license to roam throughout Africa. The spooks must love having Labour in office, terrified to oppose anything they ask for. Hitherto secret Whitehall committee … Read more
Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)
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
Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)
[…] the CIA station chief on matters of political importance. Or so they say. If the rumors are true, Ellsberg was not just a superb shadow warrior and spy; his CIA and associated Special Forces comrades also knew him as a swashbuckling swordsman who romanced many women, including the exquisite Germaine, one quarter French and […]
Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)
[…] anyone skulking in the undergrowth. The book ends on this unsatisfactory note. The Clough book, by contrast, is excellent. It provides a detailed demythologising of this particular spy case and relies on a review of all the literature in the case as well as primary research conducted by the author amongst recently released PRO […]
Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9)
[…] spat over “turgid” writing’, The Times, 24 October 2008; Jack Lefley, ‘MOD censors its censor’s history for being boring’, The Evening Standard, 24 October 2008. Anon., ‘Former spy wins first round of “son of Spycatcher” book publication battle’, Solicitors’ Journal, 152 (29), 22 July 2008, p. 5; Anon., ‘Tribunal does not have exclusive jurisdiction’, […]