Wishing and hoping I met Tony Benn only once, while researching Smear! He’s a lovely man with a big blind spot about the politics of the early 1980s in general and the Militant Tendency in particular. Here’s Benn in the course of an appreciation of Arthur Scargill on his standing down as President of … Read more
Book Reviews Gerry Healey: A Revolutionary Life Corinna Lotz and Paul Feldman Lupus Books, PO Box 942, London, SW1V 2AR, £15.00 Ken Livingstone MP was given a large chunk of a page of the Guardian (tabloid section p. 13, September 6, 1994) to write a review of this book. The bit that caught my eye … Read more
Iraqi documents Iraq on the Record (<http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord>) is a searchable collection of over 200 specific misleading statements made by Bush administration officials about the threat allegedly posed by Iraq. The collection would be even larger if it also included statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. However, if a statement was ‘…an accurate reflection of … Read more
A talk given by Robin Ramsay to Labour Party branches in late 1996This is an adaptation and massive compression of the pamphlet The Clandestine Caucus written and published by Robin Ramsay in 1996. In that the sources for most of the claims contained in this talk are to be found. Dirty tricks and covert operations … Read more
Turning up the Heat: MI5 after the Cold War Larry O’Hara Phoenix Press, London, 1994, £6 (p and p included) from BM Box 4769, London WC1N 3XX; cheques payable to Larry O’Hara. Since 1945 MI5 has had three main domestic targets: Soviet bloc espionage, the British Left and the IRA. With the Soviet target gone, … Read more
Those who remember my case will be aware that in 1992/93 I was portrayed as a major KGB spy, featuring on the front pages of several national newspapers. My name later appeared in The Mitrokhin Archive, as did Melita Norwood – the ‘Granny Spy’ – but unlike her I have been largely ignored by those … Read more
‘A Most Extraordinary Case’ Malcolm Kennedy says his telephones, post and e-mail are being interfered with. His attempts to seek answers have left him in a bureaucratic maze. Background ‘A most extraordinary case’ said Michael Mansfield QC, describing the events at Hammersmith Police Station on the night of December 23/24 1990. Two men – Patrick … 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
Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones London: Yale University Press, 2002, £22.50 Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World Percy Craddock London: John Murray, 2002, £25 Jeffreys-Jones is Professor of American History at Edinburgh University and writes on the American intelligence services. His book’s subtitle … Read more
The usual suspects Fascinating piece by Paul Webster in the Guardian (1 February, 1994) about the Dreyfus Affair. He quotes a book by the French historian Jean Doise who has examined French Army documents from the time. Doise has discovered that the affair developed because of French secret service attempts to disinform the Germans about … Read more
