Forthcoming
Greenwood Press in Connecticut, USA, are publishing this October Anthony Frewin’s The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: An Annotated Film, TV and Videography, 1963-92. This began life as a proposed article for Lobster merely listing the more important films and videos, but it grew and grew until it became book length. Frewin contributed the essay ‘Late Breaking News on Clay Shaw’s United Kingdom Contacts’ to Lobster 20 under his ‘nom-de-guerre’ Anthony Weeks.
Price has yet to be announced but it is expected to be around $50. Lobster will be running an extract in number 26.
Greenwood Press are no strangers to the JFK case. They published Guth and Wrone’s magisterial bibliography The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Comprehensive Historical and Legal Bibliography 1963-79 (1980).
A spook joke (and a good one, at that)
Many prisoners do not fare too well in the hands of Shin Bet, an [Israeli] agency with a reputation for physically abusing suspects, especially Arabs, to obtain confessions. A joke that made the rounds told of a competition between agents from the CIA, the Soviet KGB and the Shin Bet to see who could most quickly capture a deer in the wild.
The CIA agent entered the forest and returned three days later with a deer on a leash. The KGB agent came back after two days carrying bloody pieces of a dismembered deer. The Shin Bet agent was in and out of the forest in an hour, bringing with him a rabbit that showed signs of having been beaten.
When the American and the Russian protested that the object of the exercise had been to capture a deer, the Israeli pointed at the rabbit and said, ‘The rabbit confessed. He is a deer.’
Taken from Triple Cross: Israel, the Atomic Bomb and the man who leaked the story, Louis Toscano (Robert Hale, London 1991) p. 231.
Other spook jokes would be welcomed.
Public Records Office New Openings
In January the 1962 files of the Public Records Office were opened. These included: GS Grenade, Hanratty, Police National Computer, bombing hostile tribes, exporting fissile material, and BBC defence plans, plus over 700 others. Full listings for 1993 openings £10, and £5 each year for 1989-92 from: Roger J Morgan, 15A Kensington Court Gardens, London W8 5QF.
Roger Faligot
Roger Faligot is a prolific French writer on intelligence matters best known in this country for his The Kitson Experiment (Zed/Brandon, London/Ireland 1983). He has recently published, with Remi Kauffer, Histoire mondiale de renseignement: Tome 1: 1870-1939 (ISBN 2-221-07571-4 (t-1). The French I learnt at school is far too rusty to cope with this and I have no idea how good this is. Anybody reading this with good French who would like to review this for the next issue, drop me a line.
Good old Uncle Joe
Though the world is full of lost causes, the rehabilitation of the reputation of Joseph Stalin must be up there at the top of the list of Absolutely and Completely Lost Causes. Undaunted, Karl Dallas — musician and journalist in the British folk music scene for at least the last 30 years; yes, that Karl Dallas — seems to be attempting to do just this. He has written and published an 8-page pamphlet, The Murder of Joseph Stalin which seems to me to show little. However, you can decide for yourself, for it is available from Mr Dallas at £1.00 at 5 New Toftshaw, Bradford BD4 6QN.
NameBase/SpyBase in the UK
Richard Alexandra of CGH Services who used to offer these in the UK is no longer doing so. CGH Services has ceased to trade. NameBase is at PO Box 5199, Arlington, VA 22205, USA.