Introduction While researching the Rhodesia chapters of our book, I came across the Anglo-Rhodesian Society, and discovered that, as usual with the British right, there was no substantial account of it. Here is the result of an initial trawl. Future historians of the Conservative Party may discover that upon its heart in the 1960s “Rhodesia” … Read more
American Friends: the Anti-CND Groups Steve Dorril In a memo leaked to the Washington Post (9th May 1982) on opposition to President Reagan’s defence policy, Eugene V. Rostow, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, stated “there is participation on an increasing scale in the US of three groups whose potential impact should be … Read more
Pat Daly was the prime prosecution witness at the trial of two Irish National Liberation Army men at the Old Bailey in 1993. They were accused of conspiracy to steal explosives, conspiracy to cause explosions and possession of firearms with intent to endanger life. Daly lived in Bristol at Southmead from 1969 to 1989. Before … Read more
The Israel Lobby John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt London: Allen Lane, 2007, £25 This account of the relationship between the ‘Israel lobby’ in the US, the US state and Israel should be required reading for anyone with an interest – personal, professional or political – in the troubled affairs of the Middle East. … Read more
It is a difficult time for Britain’s security and intelligence agencies. Not only have the old certainties collapsed with the Berlin Wall, Britain’s economy is in increasingly dire shape, and current levels of government funding for the agencies can no longer be taken for granted. (1) As a result, both the major agencies, MI5 and … Read more
HP source ‘The plot against Harold Wilson’, the drama-documentary broadcast on BBC 2 on 16 March, was a strange affair. It was really little more than a World in Action half hour from the late 1970s puffed-up, complete with redundant reconstruction of Wilson and Marcia Falkender meeting BBC journalists Penrose and Courtiour (Pencourt). Is the … Read more
William Blum New York: Soft Skull Press, 2002, $15 www.softskull.com The working lives of writers, especially writers of non-fiction like Blum – or me – are rather dull. To produce Lobster and my other bits and pieces I have to stay in one place, read e-mails every day, books, newspapers, visit libraries, go to … Read more
On October 8 1998 the CIA’s Inspector General published a report on the recent CIA-cocaine controversy which – apparently – more or less copped the lot, acknowledging that the CIA had ignored drug smuggling by its Contra allies. (See for example The Independent 7 November 1998, ‘CIA turned a deliberate blind eye to Contras’ drug … Read more
JFK: The two Oswalds Anthony Frewin Those of you who missed the two articles by John Armstrong on ‘the two Oswalds’ in recent issues of Probe magazine, don’t despair: Armstrong has rewritten and considerably enlarged them as a two volume DTP work. Armstrong’s finding may be the most significant research breakthrough in years. But we’re … Read more
The Searchlight saga continued An editorial in the issue of January 1994, calls for ‘the investigation of nazi terror groups either to be put into the hands of a special police unit attached to the Police National Intelligence Bureau, or to be turned over to MI5 and MI6…. this proposal might astonish some of our … Read more
