‘Rug merchants’ was the epithet former White House Chief of Staff Don Regan used to describe the Iranians who negotiated secret arms deals for nearly a year with senior officials of the Reagan Administration, including Oliver North of the National Security Council. Regan’s dismissive characterization hardly did justice to the sales skills of North’s Mideast … Read more
The Economic League Labour Research (April 1988) have produced a written version of the essential content of the two World in Action programmes on it, with current personnel and the names of some 350 British companies which have funded the EL since 1972. In line with the thesis suggested by White in his essay (see … Read more
Intelligence and National Security Started in 1986, Intelligence and National Security is co-edited by Christopher Andrew and Michael Handel, and is the first British academic journal devoted to the area. I’ve seen 3 issues and while the standard of writing and research is extremely high from contributors like Lawrence Freedman, M.R.D.Foot and Bradley Smith, the … Read more
Elite Jottings Fascinating letter in the Daily Telegraph (see 4 January and 9 January 1985) on the career of Dom Mintoff, recently retired as Prime Minister of Malta. Mintoff was a Rhodes Scholar (1939-41) and the 4 January letter informs us that “in the flush of the George Cross award (to Malta) he wanted integration … Read more
The articles on Blairism and contamination in Lobster 33 are tremendously useful in understanding the recent political changes in the UK, and also in understanding ‘fusion paranoia’ as a cross-contamination argument. Maybe it’s not a conspiracy, but it’s surely not a coincidence that the fusion idea was first put forth by New Yorker, a champion … Read more
See note(1) Very few notions generate as much intellectual resistance, hostility, and derision within academic circles as a belief in the historical importance or efficacy of political conspiracies. Even when this belief is expressed in a very cautious manner, limited to specific and restricted contexts, supported by reliable evidence, and hedged about with all sort … Read more
Rogue State: A guide to the world’s only superpower William Blum Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2000, $16.95 Globalize This! The battle against the World Trade Organization and corporate rule eds. Kevin Danaher and Roger Burbach Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2000, $15.95 I have lumped these together partly because they are both published … Read more
This continues where Lobster 14‘s reprint of the piece from Tribune stopped. It was unfortunate that the debate over the status of Colin Wallace and his allegations really got going just as Lobster 14 went to the printer. Below is what followed. 27th August 1987. Colin Wallace letter in response to the John Ware article … Read more
9/11: The new evidence Ian Henshall London: Robinson, 2007, p/b, £9.99 This is a sequel to, an updating of, Henshall’s book (co-written with Rowland Morgan) 9:11 Revealed, reviewed in Lobster 50 (p. 29). Some new bits and pieces are chewed over, some new evidence is presented, some familiar material is reworked. It is done … Read more
MI5 and the Wilson Plot The MI5 website (www.mi5.gov.uk) has a section called ‘myths and misunderstandings’, which features, among other things, ‘the Wilson Plot’. The paragraph it devotes to this episode is worth studying. It refers the reader to Spycatcher and Peter Wright’s allegation that ‘up to 30 members of the Service had plotted to … Read more
