Benny Morris London: I. B Tauris, 2002, £24.50, h/b In report after report on the major media we hear about or see pictures of ‘refugee camps’ in Israel – and no-one ever explains from where the refugees came. Perhaps editors think we know already. Benny Morris is an Israeli historian who became well known … Read more
A Wapping mystery I noticed with some interest that Sunday Times editor, Andrew Neil, was described in the Guardian on May 27 as having been labour correspondent of the Economist in the 1970s. Was he, I thought, one of the correspondents recruited by MI5 in the big F branch expansion circa 1973-5? Did that explain … Read more
Where’s Ware? John Ware is one of the leading British TV journalists of our age. He has worked for World in Action and Panorama and is held in very high regard by his colleagues. Having produced a number of documentaries on the war in Northern Ireland he is now seen as an expert on the … Read more
Dr. David Kelly The death of Dr David Kelly refuses to go away. Two groups of medical experts have expressed doubts about the suicide verdict. The International Toxicology Advisory Group have queried the conclusion that Kelly swallowed at least 20 co-proxamol tablets, which contributed to his death; (1) and a group of surgeons wrote to … Read more
British Spooks “Who’s Who” part 2 Steve Dorril See also: Part 1: Forty Years of Legal Thuggery (Lobster 9) Intelligence Personnel Named in ‘Inside Intelligence’ (Lobster 15) Philby naming names (Lobster 16) First supplement to A Who’s Who of the British Secret State (Lobster 19) Spooks (Lobster 22) CABLE, ERIC GRANT CMG (1938) B 25.2.1887 … Read more
Saul Landau Counterpunch (US) and AK Press (UK), 2007, p/b, $15.00 (US) and £10 (UK) Saul Landau is one of those names on the American Left that I recognise but whose work, apart from his Assassination on Embassy Row, about the murder of Letelier 25 years ago, I don’t think I have ever read … Read more
See note(1) The Conventional Wisdom It is generally assumed that the economist J. M. Keynes was instrumental in establishing the post-war Anglo-American economic relationship. The argument is that, along with the US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Harry Dexter White, Keynes created the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now … Read more
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 … Read more
Kevin Danaher (ed.) Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, U.S., 2001, $15.95 www.commoncouragepress.com This volume contains 27 short essays by everyone from Fidel Castro (rather impressive, if he wrote it himself) through Chomsky, and Naomi Klein to Margot Smith, whose essay is titled ‘Granny Goes to Washington and Goes to Jail’. So: this runs from … Read more
Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust Ed. David Bankier New York: Enigma Books, 2006. p/b, $23 US Intelligence and the Nazis Richard Breitman et al New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p/b, £16.99 On 11 January 1943, the British intercepted ‘one of the most extraordinary messages’ of the war at Bletchley Park: it referred ‘to … Read more
