William Massie With Chapman Pincher retired from the Express group of newspapers, somebody had to take up his position as the spooks’ number one outlet. That person appears to be one William Massie. His name has appeared on some interesting material recently: viz: 14th February 1988, front page story in the Sunday Express based on … Read more
A man with Friends The Third Secret: the CIA, Solidarity and the KGB’s plot to kill the Pope Nigel West HarperCollins, London, 2000, £19.99 Let’s dispose of the ‘Third Secret’ nonsense. West claims that Pope John – the Polish Pope – was told the ‘third secret’ of the Fatima revelations; and that this ‘third secret’ … Read more
Tony Blair will be remembered not just for the slaughter in Iraq, and the subsequent collapse of Labour in Scotland in face of a resurgent SNP, but as the Labour leader who could have forged common links across Europe but chose to side with one of the continent’s most despised figures. Charles Clarke, one of … Read more
Frances Stoner Saunders Granta, London, 1999, £20 There isn’t much worth saying about this book that hasn’t been said in the many reviews it has had since it appeared in July.(1) This is a big book, 425 pages of text, another 80 plus of notes, bibliography, index. It is well written, witty – a major … Read more
Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire Anne Norton New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004 $25/£16 What’s the Matter with America? Thomas Frank The Resistable Rise of the American Right London: Secker & Warburg, 2004, £12 Most of us in Europe find it difficult to understand what happened in America on … Read more
Responsibilities, old boy The Big Breach Richard Tomlinson Cutting Edge, Edinburgh, 2000, £9.99 I found it hard to ‘see’ this because so much of its contents have been published in the media. There have been some changes – names altered – since the newspaper versions; and I am told that the original hardback version … Read more
Harold Weisberg Harold Weisberg died at his home in Frederick, Maryland, on 21 February from a kidney ailment at the age of 88. He was one of the first generation of Warren Report critics along with Vincent Salandria, Ray Marcus, Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher and others. He was a tireless critic of the Report and … Read more
One Boggis-Rolfe or two? Philby: The Hidden Years Morris Riley Janus Publishing, London, 1999, £9.95 pb There are almost as many Philbys as there are readers. His current reputation is as thin as the biographies are fat. Is there room on the shelf for yet another Philby book? Perhaps for a slim one. Amidst legal … Read more
Turning up the Heat: MI5 after the Cold War Larry O’Hara Phoenix Press, London, 1994, £6 (p and p included) from BM Box 4769, London WC1N 3XX; cheques payable to Larry O’Hara. Since 1945 MI5 has had three main domestic targets: Soviet bloc espionage, the British Left and the IRA. With the Soviet target gone, … Read more
This may be a bit of a long-winded note but I think it is on an important topic and may have some things of interest for Lobster readers. Because of the nature of the subject it will have to rely, at least in part, on unattributable sources, but I’ll reference it as much as possible. … Read more
