Some thoughts on The Russia Report

Lobster Issue 80 (Winter 2020)

[PDF file]: Some thoughts on The Russia Report Nick Must Ahhh yes . . . the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament’s Russia Report, the cushion on which the well-upholstered posterior of Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat for more than a year. I can only assume that year was required to deliberately introduce some comedic errors, […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 91 (2025)

[PDF file]: […] organisation capable of tackling modern-day threats dies aged 63’. It included this line: ‘A lifelong Labour supporter and former Young Socialist, Ritchie saw no contradiction between his intelligence work and his egalitarian ideals.’2 A pinko spook? We have come a long way in the lifetime of this journal! *new* All our yesterdays I have […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] former BOSS agent, Gordon Winter. Interviewed by Tom Mangold, for the Panorama program in 1981 that was the first BBC TV documentary about the British security and intelligence services, Gordon Winter said: : ‘British intelligence has a saying that if there is a left-wing movement in Britain bigger than a football team our man […]

The Western Union Clandestine Committee: Britain and the ‘Gladio’ networks

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016)

[PDF file]: […] for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were instigated. One figure who played a part in the preparations for what would become the ‘Gladio’ networks was British military intelligence officer (and future Conservative MP) officer Airey Neave. From late May of 1942, Neave was an officer in the ‘escape and evasion’ department MI9 and engaged […]

A key for a Clockwork Orange

Lobster Issue 72 (Winter 2016)

[PDF file]: […] Burgess (published by Faber and Faber).2 Lewis engages in much speculation but the most substantial material concerns what Lewis was told when he made contact with an intelligence officer: ‘ “You realise,”said the spook, as we sat on a bench in Berkeley Square, opposite Maggs Bros. Ltd, by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, […]

Miscellaneous reviews

Lobster Issue 64 (Winter 2012)

[PDF file]: […] it is still possible to navigate through this foggy, booby-trapped interior landscape; but he also shows how difficult the journey becomes once the mob begins to gather. Intelligence Wars American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda Thomas Powers New York Review Books, 2002, £16.99, h/b Somewhere between an academic and a journalist, Thomas Powers […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue

[…] Young, who has been publishing information about states and especially their 10 11 12 See for example . Boss isn’t West Wing but it is pretty good. intelligence services for about 15 years.1 3 He recently published a list of putative MI6 officers1 4 and I was struck by how little it interested me. […]

The Spy Who Was Left Out in the Cold by Tim Tate

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021)

[PDF file]: […] clear lines. Thus it was with – can I say this? – the anticipation of nostalgia that I began this account of the defection of the Polish intelligence officer Michal Goleniewski to the Americans in 1961 and the subsequent ramifications. I was not disappointed. Up to the mid-1950s the US intelligence services had gathered […]

South of the border

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021)

[PDF file]: […] Islamic terrorist attacks in London. See my ‘MI5 speaks to the nation!’ in Lobster 79 at . 2 See, for instance, ‘The supposed superiority of the UK intelligence agencies is a myth’ by Mary Dejevsky for the Guardian in 2016 at or . 3 1 that he has been heavily promoting.4 This new creation […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 87 (2023)

[PDF file]: […] of Pink Floyd fame) wondering if the Hamas attack on Israel was a false flag attack.26 I confess I did initially wonder if the much vaunted Israeli intelligence services had let it happen. Surely the Palestinian populations were completely penetrated by human and electronic means? Apparently not. Back to the notion of a false […]

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