What was Henry Brandon? One of the most interesting secondary sources covering the struggles of the British Labour government under Harold Wilson to prevent the devaluation of sterling between 1964-66 is Henry Brandon’s In the Red, published by Andre Deutsch in 1966. It is a remarkably well-informed text and its reliability is underlined by the … Read more
Alien baloney In Nexus vol 6 no 2 is another dollop of what seems to me to be obvious disinformation about UFOs and the US government. Another batch of MJ-12 documents have surfaced in America, given to a researcher called Timothy Cooper by a (now conveniently dead) source. Nexus prints some largish chunks from them. … Read more
The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs Douglas Valentine London/New York: Verso, 2004, h/back, £20 This comes garlanded with praise from Jim Hougan and Anthony Summers. The praise is justified: this is, as Hougan says, ‘a ground-breaking work of investigative reporting’; and it is, as Summers says, ‘a … Read more
I met Paul Routledge, the biographer of Gordon Brown, a couple of years ago. ‘Does Brown understand economics?’ I asked him. ‘Well, he reads lots of big books,’ said Routledge. ‘This is not the same thing.’ Of course I asked the wrong question. What I should have asked was: does Gordon Brown understand British economic … Read more
David W. Wrone University Press of Kansas; 2003, h/b, $29.99 (UK prices vary) In the conclusion to his Pocket Essentials Who Shot JFK?, the editor of this journal asked: ‘Where are the historians?’ David Wrone is a former Professor of History at Kansas University, and so his book provides at least part of an … Read more
Albert Meltzer AK Press (PO Box 12766, Edinburgh EH8 9YE) 1996, £12.95 This is the autobiography of recently deceased veteran anarchist Meltzer, best known in this country, perhaps, for his book with Stewart Christie, The Floodgates of Anarchy, and as editor of Black Flag. Meltzer was there or thereabouts at a great many events on … Read more
House of Bush, House of Saud Craig Unger New York: Scribner, 2004, h/back, $26.00 I bought this because it was reported in the UK that the book couldn’t be published here due to our ‘stricter’ libel laws. Naturally, I wondered who among the Bushes and the Saudis might consider themselves libelled. The book is … Read more
John McMurtry London: Pluto Press, 2002, pb £15.99 I shouldn’t be reviewing this. I haven’t digested it properly and it is going to take some time to do so. But I don’t want to leave this for six months without promoting it. I used to try and preserve books in good condition, didn’t write … Read more
Mark Felt is ‘Deep Throat’. Bob Woodward says so, and his word is law in this particular arena. No matter that Woodward had a dozen sources, some of whom may have been more important than Throat himself. The point is that ‘Throat’ is anyone Woodward says he is, and he says he is Felt. In … Read more
Parish Notices Mrs Anthony Verney died in early March this year. With her husband, Anthony, she was irradiated by persons unknown, for reasons unknown, at their retirement home in Kent. She is the first UK fatality of which I am aware resulting from the new generation of electro-magnetic weaponry; and it says much about this … Read more
