On 1 January 2005 several new laws and regulations governing access to information come into force: the Freedom of Information Act 2000, covering England, Wales and N. Ireland; the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002; new Environmental Information Regulations 2004/5; Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004; and an extension of the Data Protection Act 1998 to … Read more
Crime fighting? There must many candidates for the title ‘The most damaging thing I have read about this government’. My current candidate is a piece by Simon Jenkins, ‘A Keep Police off the Streets Strategy Unit’ (The Times 2 February 2002). After reminding the reader that in the UK the police are a local service, … Read more
Yesterday’s loony tunes become today’s reality. Here are some recent examples. Gulf war syndrome, whose existence has been denied by the Ministry of Defence for over a decade, is now being admitted. As the Telegraph’s version of the story put it: ‘Soldiers sent to the 1991 Gulf war were given a combination of vaccines that … Read more
Gecas and Special Branch A wonderful example of the reach and power of intelligence connections was provided in January. Why did the British state refuse to extradite Anton Gecas, the WW2 Lithuanian war criminal, to the Soviet Union in 1976? Turns out not only had Gecas worked for SIS at the end of WW2, he’d … Read more
The Shadow Warriors Bradley F. Smith (Andre Deutsch, London 1983) The network of close personal connections established in O.S.S. (the fore-runner of the CIA) “helped bridge some of the widest gaps in American society and could be called upon in cases of need long after the war ended. For example, when in 1964 former British … 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
Olivier Schmidt Atlanta (USA): Clarity Press, 2005, $14.95, p/b www.bookmasters.com/clarity/currenttitles.htm Here’s a new name to me, the publisher Clarity; and a familiar one, Olivier Schmidt. In the 1980s Schmidt was producing a very good newsletter in Paris, Intelligence and Parapolitics. This got expensive, professionalised and eventually went on-line for subscribers as Intelligence.(1) This is … Read more
Defector Politics: or, grooving with Mr G. The six months since the last Lobster have been the most interesting period in defector politics – the attempted political exploitation a Soviet defector – that I can remember. Oleg Gordievsky has really been having himself a time and putting himself about! Even I have a Gordievsky anecdote. … Read more
Introduction Greenwood Press in the USA have just published Anthony Frewin’s’ The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: An Annotated Film, TV and Videography, 1963-1992 (ISBN 0-313-28982-4). The book is divided into 12 chapters covering such subjects as Oswald in New Orleans, Dealey Plaza (some 40 entries, no less), Dallas post-assassination, TV programs and compilations, documentaries, … Read more
At 00:20 on Sunday 31 August 1997 a black Mercedes S280 carrying four people left the Ritz Hotel in central Paris. Shortly afterwards at 00:25 it crashed into the thirteenth pillar of the Concorde-Boulogne lane of the Pont d’Alma Tunnel in central Paris. The driver – Henri Paul – was killed instantly. The front passenger … Read more
