Secret History: Writing the Rise of Britain’s Intelligence Services by Simon Ball

Lobster Issue 80 (Winter 2020)

[PDF file]: SECRET HISTORY Writing the Rise of Britain’s Intelligence Services Simon Ball London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020. Around £17.00 p/b Robin Ramsay In the last 30 years or so academic writing on intelligence services in this country has gone from being a non-subject to an enormous field, far too big for any one person to […]

Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith

Lobster Issue 17 (1988)

[…] therefore, that they are fully aware of his activities. He has extensive connections with members, or more accurately, former members, of the most important western security and intelligence services, eg the Comte de Meronges, ex Director of the French SDECE. Furthermore he has a close relationship with Mr ‘Dickie’ Franks, Director of the British […]

Echelon

Lobster Issue 35 (Summer 1998)

[…] the Technologies of Political Control – was commissioned last year by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. It contains details of a network of American-controlled intelligence stations on British soil and around the world, that ‘routinely and indiscriminately’ monitor countless phone, fax and e-mail messages. It states: ‘Within Europe all e-mail telephone […]

Western Goals: LA Police Settle For $1.8 million

Lobster Issue 4 (1984)

[…] Sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for illegal surveillance of private citizens, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) settled out of court. LAPD’s Public Disorder and Intelligence Division were accused of ‘organising a massive spying operation providing right-wing organisations with a sophisticated computer and handing on extensive files on suspects.’ Here is the […]

Demos

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003)

[…] Demos brought over several free-market ideologues including Philip Bobbitt (LBJ’s nephew). He was Reagan’s legal counsel from 1980-81, on the Select Committee/cover-up on Iran/Contra and Director for Intelligence at the NSC 1997-98. Demos also advertised an April meeting with George Soros. Sir Douglas HagueInstitute for Economic Affairs (IEA) and Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) […]

Heritage of Stone; JFK and JFK

Lobster Issue 23 (1992)

[…] previously portrayed. But these are all tidbits. Marrs’ effort, which was apparently extensively dipped into by Stone, should be avoided at all costs. Its passages on British intelligence are so wide of the mark that it made me wary of everything else in the book. Finally, there is Scheim’s re-issue which looks little different […]

Book Reviews

Book cover
Lobster Issue 3 (1984)

[…] an account of a period at the beginning of the 1970s of the war in Northern Ireland, what amounts to a revisionist history in miniature of WW2 intelligence operations on the British side, and a sardonic post-script on the Falklands: “Mrs Thatcher postured absurdly in the immediate aftermath …an illusion about an independent almost […]

Kennedy assassination miscellany: Book Reviews

Lobster Issue 7 (1985)

[…] 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 intelligence man Hugh Trevor Roper had the temerity to attack the Warren Commission report in the Sunday Times, commission member Allen Dulles turned for advice on what […]

The Activity, Grenada

Lobster Issue 3 (1984)

See note (1) James ‘Bo’ Gritz, linked to the US Army Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), was detained with Lance Corp. Edward Trimmer whilst trying to enter Thailand. (Guardian 23rd September 1983) They were apparently on another mission looking for American POWs. In December, for the first time since 1975, American troops were in Laos […]

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