[…] 26. The same river twice John Hope had an interesting piece in Intelligence and National Security Vol. 9 No. 4 (1994), called ‘Surveillance or Collusion? Maxwell Knight, MI5 and the British Fascisti’. This bears a striking resemblance to the Knight sections of Hope’s piece in Lobster 22, ‘Fascism, the Security Service and the Curious […]
[…] started investigating the murder of his aunt, anti-nuclear activist Hilda Murrell, (11) who had incurred the unwelcome attention of Zeus Security and Sapphire Investigations (both subcontractors of MI5 and the nuclear police employing right-wing extremists and violent criminals). In my PhD thesis I also summarise the two key features of the coercive state, thus: […]
Colin Wallace On the Colin Wallace front, the big event since issue 17 has been Paul Foot’s book, Who Framed Colin Wallace? (Macmillan, 1989). With this book Paul Foot has re-researched and synthesised all the previous work and produced what is likely to remain the definitive account of Wallace’s biography, his allegations and – most […]
Lost plot After Lobster 35 I received a long letter from John Pilger, followed by a revised version of it, complaining about my review of his recent book, Hidden Agendas in 35. With the second version came a note asking me to publish his letter without comment. I replied that I was happy to publish […]
[…] This happens this is allowed to happen because there is virtually no political control over the security organisations: when they fuck-up nothing happens to them. MI5 botch a surveillance of an IRA operation and £300 million’s worth of damage is done to the City of London; and nothing happens, no heads roll. […]
[…] of the opposition. Oldfield and Thatcher became firm friends. The day after her election as Prime Minister she requested the head of MI6 and the Director of MI5, Arthur Franks and Howard Smith, to brief her on intelligence matters. The briefing “followed the same pattern as that given to her predecessor when he came […]
Web update Jane Affleck Thanks to Terry Hanstock and David Turner for contributions. Comments and details of interesting websites are welcome: my email address is 101521.3515 @compuserve.com Freedom Of Information Campaign for Freedom of Information http://www.cfoi.org.uk ‘The Campaign for Freedom of Information campaigns against unnecessary secrecy and for greater public access to official and other […]
See also: Part 1: British Fascism 1974-92 (Lobster 23) Part 2: British Fascism 1974-92 (II) (Lobster 24) Part 4: British Fascism 1983-6 (II) (Lobster 26) The 1986 National Front Split (Lobster 29) ‘Let a thousand initiatives bloom…’ While the piece in Lobster 24 was a (necessary) digression, treating of individual careers and various lurid allegations, […]
Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America James Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Yale University Press, London and Yale, 1999, £19.95 The Haunted Wood: Soviet espionage in America – the Stalin era Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev Random House, New York, 1999, $30.00 So now we know: most of what the Republican right in the US, […]
[…] Information-wise, it is almost useless, though there were one or two nice pictures. It was mostly bits and bobs of spy- or intelligenceish news, recycled from newspapers. MI5 lost laptops! Le Carre was a spy! ETA are bad! Star Wars hack Donald Rumsford has ‘vast political experience’ and his credibility is ‘sky high!’ FBI […]
