Wellington Pacific Review
Owen Wilkes has ceased production of Wellington Pacific Review (ISSN 0135-5619), the New Zealand newsletter on events in that part of the Pacific, but it continues under the control of Iain MacDougall. At £10/ US 14 for 10 issues, WPR should be on the list of anyone with even a passing interest in events on the so-called Pacific Rim. PO Box 9314, Wellington, New Zealand.
Lobsters
The first eight Lobsters have not been kept in print for a number of reasons. Reprinting costs for one: they were A5 format and rather poorly produced by current standards; and some of them contain material which we learned subsequently was disinformation. At some point we will produce a “Best of early Lobster …’ but in the meantime Lobster is being included in the on-going micro-fiche collection from Research Publications, “The Left in Britain,’ and the first 8 issues can be consulted there. Research Publications, PO Box 45, Reading RG1 8HF, telephone 0734 583247.
US Colonel James “Bo’ Gritz
Some readers may remember US Colonel James “Bo’ Gritz and his plans in the early 1980s to search for the US personnel believed by some on the American right to be still alive in Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos. Gritz has now turned himself into a conspiracy theorist, producing magazines, books, pamphlets, audio and video tapes from his Center for Action, Box 472, HCR 31, Sandy Valley, NEV 89019, USA. Gritz covers the spectrum fron the lunatic right — trying to show that the number 666 “makes up the framework common to all EAN, UPC, bar code marking systems’ — to information on covert operations in Central America in the 1970s in which he was involved.
Counterpoint
Once upon a time there was a magazine called Counterpoint, produced here in Canterbury, devoted to the exposure of Soviet disinformation (or alleged disinformation). Then a small article appeared in the now defunct British magazine The Digger pointing out Counterpoint‘s existence and wondering who was funding it. Now there is New Counterpoint, published not in the UK but in Washington DC, like is predecessor devoted to the exposure of Soviet disinformation, edited by — fronted by, at any rate — Stanislav Levchenko and Herbert Romerstein. New Counterpoint is very cheap — 11 issues per US 25 — so is clearly still being subsidised by somebody not a million miles away from the US Government. PO Box 23721, Washington D.C., 20026-3751, U.S.A.
New Counterpoint‘s Herbert Romerstein is the author of the following paragraph.
“Geheim works closely with a network of publications in other countries that frequently carry Soviet disinformation themes, particularly directed against the CIA. These are: Lobster in Great Britain; Intelligence Newsletter, formerly Intelligence/Parapolitics, in France; and Covert Action Information Bulletin in the United States.’ — p. 34 of Romerstein’s Soviet Agents of Influence, Centre for Intelligence Studies, Alexandria, USA, June 1991.
This was bound to happen one day, and in a sense it is rather flattering to be of such interest to the US intelligence community. The comment makes it sound as though this quartet of magazines and news letters are an active network: “Geheim works closely with…. Lobster‘. The truth is more prosaic. Lobster does exchange subscriptions with Intelligence Newsletter, Covert Action and Top Secret, and has plugged all of them in its columns over the years. I have been called once on the telephone by Olivier Schmidt in Paris and once by Michael Opperskalski from Geheim. When I remember, I send newspaper clippings to Olivier, few of which seem to be of any interest, to judge by what he prints. So close is Lobster to Covert Action that they waited until issue 33? 34? before referring to us at all.
We certainly would not print anything we knew to be Soviet propaganda; and, to our knowledge, have never done so. Indeed, we would not print anything we knew to be anybody’s propaganda. We would be fascinated to see — and would certainly print — evidence showing the clandestine sources of any of our stories.
Factsheet Five
The single most interesting catalogue of deviant, marginal, alternative and just down-right, hard-core weird magazines (“zines’) is Factsheet Five. Now up to issue 45, and with a print run of over 10,000, Factsheet Five provides a brief description, price and address of every “zine’ sent to it, regardless of content — about 2,000 each issue. (Those of an ideologically sensitive disposition be warned that there is certain to be something in every issue which will offend.) The quality of the “zines’ is extremely varied. Of the five I sent off for two turned out to be complete crap. Even so, for anyone interested in the stranger alleys of human consciousness Factsheet Five will be a blast. Factsheet Five, Mike Gunderloy, 6 Arizona Avenue, Rensselaer, NY 12144-4502 USA. 3.50 per issue (in the USA), so better add a couple of dollars if outside the US to cover postage.
RR
Open Eye
Open Eye — “a new magazine challenging media censorship’ — appeared here in the summer. The first issue included very useful pieces on the Gladio network, the CIA and drugs (the Alfred McKoy interview referred to in Lobster 21), a recent post-Gulf analysis of US foreign policy by Philip Agee etc. Extremely impressive for a first issue and, at £1.20 for 40 plus pages extremely good value. For details, see the advertisement in this issue.
Advert:
Open Eye
c/o Bookmarks, 265 Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury Park, London, N4 2DE.
A new magazine challenging media censorship
Falklands War Plot.
The untold story of the battle to find the log books of HMS Conqueror and the evidence the contained conecrning war ‘preplanning’.‘Gladio’ and NATO’s Terrorist Network.
Investigating the allegations of NATO involvement in terrorism.Gulf War Launches ‘New World’ Order’.
Ex-CIA chief agent Phillip Agee’s comprehensive analysis of American military operations.Economic League: Political Surveillance.
Including an unpublished essay by the League on the State of the Left, Anarchists and Greens.The Cancer Business.
The scandal of surpressed cures.Also: Stockwell review; “Greeens in conflict”; War & the Media/Spectacle; CoIntelPro; “Operation Censored”; Permaculture; CIA & the drug trade; Palestinian poems; Nicaragual; ‘underground’ magazines…
Issue One out Now!
A magazine of non-ideological analysis, uncensored investigative journalism, Green Issues, global politics, psychology…
Send an SAE (34p) and £1 (payable to Open Eye) to the above address. Available priced £1.20 in your local alternative bookshop, cafe, etc. Discount on 5 or more copies. Send in any of your own articles, ideas, artwork, comments, etc.