Operation Chiffon by Peter Taylor

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] anniversary. See . 8 Personally, I adhere to the adage that in intelligence ‘there is no such thing as coincidence’ (© John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). 9 Oxford: OUP, 11 March 2021 or . 10 
 3 that collusion was involved in the attack. What other possible evidence does Taylor think should […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] would be a good cover for keeping an eye on radical students and others. I am paranoid. But am I paranoid enough? A character in a recent spy novel says: the basic truth of conspiracy? If it can be imagined, then someone’s already tried it.29 This may be an exaggeration but perhaps not that […]

Taylor Operation Chiffon

Lobster Issue

[…] Taylor is also cheap with the facts when he recounts the time that Brendan Duddy was interrogated by the IRA because they thought he was a British spy. He says: McGuinness suspected Brendan might be playing a double game as a suspected British spy. Shortly afterwards, four senior IRA men arrived at Brendan’s house, […]

Miscellaneous reviews

Lobster Issue 64 (Winter 2012)

[PDF file]: […] in the foreword, that in 1965 he was asked by a CIA officer if he would ‘volunteer’ to kill Fitzer. The CIA officer said Pitzer was a spy, a traitor. Marvin declined – but only because the CIA officer wanted it done in the US: Marvin wouldn’t kill at home, only overseas. (To my […]

Taylor Operation Chiffon

Lobster Issue

[…] Taylor is also cheap with the facts when he recounts the time that Brendan Duddy was interrogated by the IRA because they thought he was a British spy. He says: McGuinness suspected Brendan might be playing a double game as a suspected British spy. Shortly afterwards, four senior IRA men arrived at Brendan’s house, […]

On getting it wrong and getting it right: Ronald Stark, LSD and the CIA

Lobster Issue 78 (Winter 2019)

[PDF file]: […] by other historians, he eventually conceded, ‘I made some claims about facts which have turned out to be unwarranted’. Of his claim that Bruno was the embassy spy, code-named ‘Henry Fagot’, Bossy wrote, ‘I thought so at the time, but have turned out to be mistaken’. Bossy, however, had dragged a lot of fascinating […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016)

[PDF file]: […] . 49 Christopher Ketcham wrote about this in 2010 in his essay at . which was redacted by MI5 prior to publication, has been published in Counter Spy by Simon Tomlin.5 0 In that section Machon reports that a source in MI5 she calls Swallow Tail told her and her then partner David Shayler […]

Beaumont novel copy

Lobster Issue

A Spy Alone Charles Beaumont London: Canelo, 2023, £9.99 (p/b) Robin Ramsay This is only the second novel I have reviewed in Lobster.1 The cover and the author blurb tells us that author Beaumont is a ‘former MI6 operative’. ‘Operative’? Why not ‘officer’? The author tells me the word was chosen by the publisher. […]

Armed and Dangerous: the corporate origins of war with Iran

Lobster Issue 63 (Summer 2012)

[PDF file]: […] to the energy-security industry, they may also have a 18 Caryle Murphy, ‘Wikileaks Reveals Saudi Efforts to Threaten Iran’, 29 November 2010. 19 Kim Zetter, ‘NOKIA Seimens Spy Tools Aid Police Torture in Bahrain’, Wired: Threat Level, 23 August 2011; and Spencer Andrai’s Danger Room: ‘New US Commando Team Operating near Iran’, Wired, 19 […]

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