The JFK literature: some recent titles

Lobster Issue 30 (December 1995) £££

There is one book not reviewed here that should have been. The reason is it wasn’t written and, indeed, it cannot now be. I am referring to Evelyn Lincoln’s autobiography. JFK’s executive secretary passed away on 4 May 1995 in Washington and with her have gone all of the secrets she shared with JFK. She … Read more

Weird/not weird

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

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

Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, and, The Haunted Wood

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Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999) £££

Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America James Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Yale University Press, London and Yale, 1999, £19.95 The Haunted Wood: Soviet espionage in America – the Stalin era Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev Random House, New York, 1999, $30.00 So now we know: most of what the Republican right in the US, … Read more

Sources: Journals

Lobster Issue 27 (1994) £££

Official openings We don’t have a Freedom of Information Act, and are not likely to get one from any of the British political parties. Imagine a conversation in the office of the new Labour Prime Minister in a year or three: ‘FOI? Too much trouble, too much aggro with Whitehall. As if we need any … Read more

Print: Journals and book review

Lobster Issue 17 (1988) £££

Robin Ramsay Often referred to in other things is Israeli Foreign Affairs, ‘an independent monthly report on Israel’s diplomatic and military activities world-wide’. It is 8 pages A4 and though this is not a subject I am interested in, this looks very impressive and is thoroughly documented. September 1988 includes (using IFA’s headlines) Jerusalem Christian … Read more

House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

James Carroll Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 2006, $30 h/b   Juan Bosch was the president of the Dominican Republic from 1963-65. He tried to implement land reforms and was removed from office by a military coup which was then supported by the deployment of 20,000 US troops. In 1967 he published a little book called Pentagonism: … Read more

Spy Wars

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8) £££

Spy Wars: Moles, mysteries and deadly games Tennent H. Begley London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, h/b, £18.99   Begley was one of James Angleton’s allies in CIA counterintelligence and this book is the Angletonian view of the Nosenko case, one of the touchstones or causes célèbres of the CIA in the post-war … Read more

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