View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] it more carefully, I was struck by the omission from this account of the role played by Oleg Penkovsky, the GRU colonel who was providing SIS ( MI6) – and thus the Americans – with detailed information on Soviet nuclear weaponry. Crucially, Penkovsky told SIS how few missiles the Soviets actually had and that […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 86 (2023) FREE
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[PDF file]: […] children wept bitter tears on camera and no-one mentioned UK military aid to radical Islamists fighting Gaddafi. There are no references in the official report to SIS, MI6 or the Secret Intelligence Service.102 On the other hand, Nick Must noted that the report contains 76 references to ‘MI5’ and 213 to ‘Security Service’ – […]

Suddenly in September?

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021) FREE

[PDF file]: […] the Middle East was reflected in the contribution of Lady Manningham-Buller, the former MI5 deputy chief. She told the Lords that when she and the head of MI6 met the Bush team in Washington shortly after 9/11, ‘the decision was about al-Qaeda, its base in Afghanistan and its close relationship with the Taliban. I […]

A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont

Lobster Issue 88 (2024) FREE
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[PDF file]: […] Robin Ramsay This is only the second novel I have reviewed in Lobster.1 The cover and the author blurb tells us that author Beaumont is a ‘former MI6 operative’. ‘Operative’? Why not ‘officer’? The author tells me the word was chosen by the publisher. It is set in post–2020 UK, with a recognizable Boris […]

South of the border

Lobster Issue 82 (Winter 2021) FREE

[PDF file]: […] students.5 Among the luminaries are the Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin, who is a Senior Visiting Fellow.6 His profile is light on any detail, especially his relationship with MI6. Enter ‘Coughlin’ into the search engine on Lobster’s home page and you’ll get the fuller drift. Many of the ex-spooks are quite open about their past […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] Philip Kerr was prime minister Lloyd George’s private secretary during WW1, but not that Kerr was one of the Round Table’s leaders.) 2. The enormous British (mostly MI6) operation against the American isolationists in the early years of WW2 described by Thomas Mahl in his PhD and subsequent book, Desperate Deception (Virginia: Brassey’s, 1989) […]

Secret Justice: Public Interest Immunity Certificates (PIICs) and their use in the Asil Nadir trials

Lobster Issue 66 (Winter 2013) FREE

[PDF file]: […] defence. It was only when Geoffrey Robertson QC, counsel for Paul Henderson, against the advice of counsel for the other two defendants, brought out Henderson’s links with MI6 that the judge ordered disclosure of documents relating to the security services, having earlier, after Alan Clark’s sensational evidence, allowed only disclosure of documents relating to […]

Classified: Secrecy and the state in modern Britain by Christopher Moran

Lobster Issue 65 (Summer 2013) FREE

[PDF file]: […] subsequent modifications. Before WW2, in practice the state was willing to clobber little people – e.g. the novelist Compton MacKenzie who revealed a handful of secrets about MI6 in a book in the 1930s – but unwilling to do anything when prime minister Lloyd George took van loads of official (and thus secret) papers […]

And in 5th Place? The long march to Freeport UK

Lobster Issue 80 (Winter 2020) FREE

[PDF file]: […] – getting as far as meeting Sir John Smith MP, Chair of the Trust. (In Douglas’s account of this meeting, Smith was ‘accompanied by two operatives from MI6’). It all ended in disarray, with it being made very clear that the Douglas/Webber offer was not being entertained. Subsequent to the meeting in the presence […]

Tittle-tattle

Lobster Issue 65 (Summer 2013) FREE

[PDF file]: […] controversy in October1 9 showed Campbell among many New Labour pals. Those linked to bid backer Morgan Stanley included current Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, ex-head of MI6 John Scarlett and ex-Blair chief of staff Jonathan Powell. Portland figures in addition to Campbell and Allan were Powell’s brother Chris; Martin Sheehan, a Gordon Brown […]

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