Some reflections on the life, times and politics of Sir James Goldsmith The Clermont Set The Clermont Club was opened in 1962 by John Aspinall after the gaming laws had been liberalised by the MacMillan government.(1)During the 1950s Aspinall built up a personal fortune providing premises for exclusive gambling sessions in London, much of which … Read more
Russ Kick (ed.), Disinformation, 2001, $19.95, ISBN 0-9664100-7-6. Available from http://store.disinfo.com. I once sat in on an interesting conversation between two well known writers on the underside of politics. At one point, one of them alluded disparagingly to one of the scruffier areas of the conspiracy fringe – UFOs, maybe. The other reacted immediately: ‘Oh, … Read more
In Lobster 14 we printed a piece on the USA’s alleged role in the first Fiji coup, originally published in Wellington Confidential. Since then, due to the ill-health of Wellington Confidential’s editor/publisher, it has been cut back and is now being sent to a very restricted list of people. Fortunately, Lobster is still on its … Read more
See also: Part 2 in Lobster 38 ‘In any event, and whatever certain people in a certain department in the CIA may have been after, as far as the work of the Congress was concerned the perceived need to be perpetually “of the Left and on the Left” led sometimes to grotesque intellectual contortions.'(1) The … Read more
Mr Tony was a spook? Issue 7 of Larry O’Hara’s Note from the Borderland ([1]) includes a section from the Anne Machon and David Shayler book, Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers (reviewed in Lobster 49), which was apparently dropped by the publisher. The key section is this, from an unnamed MI5 officer: ‘Blair was recruited [by … Read more
Robert Parry, The Media Consortium, Arlington, Virginia, USA, 1999 $19.95 (US) $25.00 (Europe) ISBN 1-893517-00-4 Another important book from Parry, author of Trick or Treason about the so-called October Surprise. Parry has two major themes here. The first is the contra-cocaine story which he tried to research as it broke in the 1980s while … Read more
Philip Agee died in January this year. Reading the obituaries I came across the allegations that he had gone to the KGB with his information about the CIA, something he had always denied. There is this section from the memoir of senior KGB officer Oleg Kalugin, The First Chief Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence … Read more
When Labour narrowly won the October 1964 election they were greeted by dismal balance of payments figures. An external deficit in the region of £800 million was forecast, twice what had been expected (although the actual figure has since been revised down to £372 million). The government attempted to manage the crisis by a package … Read more
Parish Notices Thanks to Robin Whittaker (in particular), Peter Watson, Solomon Hughes, Phil Chamberlain, Terry Hanstock, Jane Affleck, Sukarai Haruhiko, Peter Watson, David Lee, John Burnes and Harry Irwin for information, material and advice. Correction In footnote 1 on page 28 of Lobster 35 I referred to Labour MP Tony Lloyd as a ‘moderniser’. My … Read more
Conjuring Hitler: How the Western Elite Incubated Nazism – 1900-38 Guido Preparata US: University of Michigan Press, 2005; h/b, $90.00; p/b $28.95 UK: Pluto Press, 2005; h/b £60.00; p/b £17.99 I would like to introduce a recently published book that has been overlooked. Guido Preparata’s Conjuring Hitler: How the Western Elite Incubated Nazism-1900-38 reinterprets … Read more
