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
Julian Amery Pre-war model Tory social imperialist who evoked enormous affection – even idolatry – in some quarters. Recent chair of the Pinay Circle. Laudatory obituaries in the House Magazine 7 October 1996, the Spectator 7 September 1996 and The Times 4 September 1996. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Varyl Begg (Obituary, Independent, 15 July … 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
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
Britannia’s Burden: the Political Evolution of Modern Britain 1951-1990 Bernard Porter Edward Arnold, London, 1994. Bernard Porter’s latest is a Marxist text-book. However it is Marxism with a difference. There is no happy ending nor even the promise of one. The argument is serious and absorbing. It does not observe the normal conventions of blandness … Read more
Earlier articles in Lobster (issues 39, 41, 43, 45, 49) have followed Malcolm Kennedy’s case. The human rights organisation, Liberty, took his complaint about interference with his communications and other forms of surveillance and harassment, to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the body set up under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) to … Read more
DEEP BLACK: the secrets of space espionage William E. Burrows, Bantam Press, 1988 P. N. Rogers The National Reconnaissance Office is the only ‘black’ US intelligence agency remaining. Formed in 1960, the US only conceded officially that they had reconnaissance satellites twelve years later, and to this day maintain that these are the responsibility of … Read more
Searchlight At the beginning of the essay on the Blairites above, I discuss the concept of political contamination, the denigration of people on the left by association – real or fictitious – with ideas or people on the right. The most enthusiastic users of the contamination device in Britain today are found in Searchlight magazine. … 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
See also Part 1 in Lobster 5 United States Anna Anderson was not the only Anastasia claimant; her chief rival in the United States was Mrs Eugenia Smith. Smith’s claims, although considered shaky by the best scholars, were powerfully supported by the testimony of one Michael M. Goleniewski, who hailed from Poland yet claimed to … Read more
