More, please In an account of his career as a writer of spy fiction (Guardian 16 November ’89) John Le Carré referred to the hostile reaction received by his (unnamed) second book, presumably The Looking Glass War: ‘Critics and public alike rejected the novel, but this time the spies were cross. And since the British … Read more
Introduction Like most dramatic and unsettling political events, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca temporarily captured the imagination of the world’s media and political pundits. Although the initial public outrage and concern generally faded once it became clear that the Pope would survive, certain individuals and groups … Read more
Blowback: the cost and consequences of American Empire Chalmers Johnson London, Little, Brown and Company, 2000, £18.99 (hb) Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism John Cooley London, Pluto Press, London, 2000, £12.99 (pb) It has recently been revealed that the CIA inadvertently helped to create Soviet chemical and biological weapons by convincing the Soviets … Read more
A small section of this appeared in Lobster 12. Although this is incomplete and under researched, we thought it worth putting out now. The origins of IRD 1947 saw the creation of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD). It is generally accepted that IRD was the brain-child of the then Labour M.P. Christopher Mayhew, … 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
Why do they do this? In the previous issue I referred to the fictitious comments attributed by Tony Blair to a doctor in Africa. They’ve done it again. In February Blair’s spin doctor in chief, Alastair Campbell, claimed to have saved a man from being beaten by muggers, The Mail on Sunday (23 February) traced … Read more
Here is a selection of sites on the Internet that may interest Lobsterreaders. The usenet newsgroups are for discussion of issues and anyone can contribute; some of the contributions are pretty far-out, or just plain abusive, and much of the material is US-oriented. The content of newsgroups is continually changing, and the examples I have … Read more
Non-lethal weapons This is a scam, essentially. A smoke-screen of wacky bits and pieces – sticky stuff and gooey stuff and slippery stuff – conceals the real agenda, the development of various form of energy weapons. There was a big conference – billed ‘secret US only’ – in June this year, a ‘Detailed review of … Read more
The funding of Blair Sometimes chronology implies causality and sometimes not. Consider the following sequence of events: in January 1994 Tony Blair, then Shadow Home Secretary and career-long member of the Labour Friends of Israel, took a four day freebie trip to Israel, with his wife, at the expense of the Israeli government. Two months … Read more
See note (1) James ‘Bo’ Gritz, linked to the US Army Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), was detained with Lance Corp. Edward Trimmer whilst trying to enter Thailand. (Guardian 23rd September 1983) They were apparently on another mission looking for American POWs. In December, for the first time since 1975, American troops were in Laos investigating … Read more
