A great flood of books about Italian politics recently, and almost none of them willing to answer the question “Why Italy?” Why is Italy’s political culture so firmly based on conspiracy and secrecy? A part of that answer must be Italy’s role as the premier European site of the conflict between indigenous left-wing forces and … Read more
Korean war biological warfare? Issue 11 of the Bulletin of Cold War International History Project contained what appears to be evidence that the allegations by North Korea and the Chinese that the US were using biological warfare during the Korean War were false – were in fact disinformation. Documents apparently from former Soviet archives seem … Read more
1. Getting even more ugly I confess: I have given up buying Searchlight. There just isn’t anything that can be believed in it. In any case, other people send me the good bits – if ‘good’ is the right word. In June’s Searchlight this paragraph appeared; ‘Seasoned political observers in Northern Ireland say that the … Read more
Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones London: Yale University Press, 2002, £22.50 Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World Percy Craddock London: John Murray, 2002, £25 Jeffreys-Jones is Professor of American History at Edinburgh University and writes on the American intelligence services. His book’s subtitle … Read more
Miscarriage of justice campaigners say that they are being subjected to serious harassment and intimidation. At a House of Commons meeting, campaigners described their experiences. The meeting, on September 17 2003, was chaired by John McDonnell MP, and included speakers involved with high profile campaigns. Kevin McMahon, of Merseyside Against Injustice, joined the Merseyside Police … Read more
Here are a few more web sites that may be of interest. Thanks for contributions to David Guyatt, Terry Hanstock, Daniel Brandt, Chris Atton and Tony Hollick. Further contributions and comments are welcome: my e-mail is Politics and government USA DoE Office of Human Radiation Experiments http://www.ohre.doe.gov/ ‘OHRE, established in March 1994, leads the … Read more
The story of the Ulster Citizens’ Army (UCA for the rest of this essay) is a tiny fragment in the intricate history of Protestant politics in Northern Ireland in the mid 1970s – so tiny that none of the general accounts I have looked at even mention it. But the UCA lingers on: it is … Read more
On the 12th February 1967, Rosemary James of the New Orleans States-Item newspaper discovered that Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, had spent more than $8,000 on his own investigation of the assassination of John Kennedy. (The story appeared on the front page on February 20th.) Two weeks later the DA’s office announced the … Read more
Two pieces here by Tim Pendry. The major piece is followed by an addendum, which began as the text of a letter from Pendry to Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance in response to an article of Gabb’s. Pendry copied me his letter and I saw that it would go nicely with the longer … Read more
In February this year, unnoticed by the press, a funeral took place in a quiet Sussex village. In attendance were some famous names from London society of the fifties and sixties, and two men in regulation dark suits from an undisclosed department of the Security Services. They had been contacts for the deceased, Maria Novotny, … Read more
