A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency Richard Helms and William Hood (New York: Random House, 2003) The Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby John Prados Oxford University Press: Cary [North Carolina], 2003 The Man Who Kept the Secrets Thomas Powers (New York: Knopf: 1979) Honorable … Read more
John Pilger Vintage Books, London,1998, £8.99 pb As one of the few serious radicals in this country to whom the mass media pay any attention, Pilger is important. This is a collection of essays, a few already published but most written for this book. We are back in what is recognisably Pilgerland: the corruptions of … Read more
Robert Caro New York and London: Alfred Knopf, 2002, hb $35 (US) £35 (UK) (But in the UK only £22 from Amazon.com) This is the third volume in Caro’s biography of LBJ. The first two volumes are wonderful pieces of work, the best biographies I have read; and in many ways this is their … Read more
I sent the following by e-mail to a number of people: ‘Thus Martin Jacques in the New Statesman: ‘For the next 30 years, neoliberalism – the belief in the market rather then the state, the individual rather than the social – exercised a hegemonic influence over British politics, with the creation of New Labour signalling … Read more
by Peter Padfield Papermac, London, 1993, £12.99 There are now several versions of the Hess affair. One is the official story – a politician whose star is one the wane, attempts a spectacular comeback, fails, is locked up for forty years and finally commits suicide in despair. Another is the double theory, first outlined in … Read more
Gordon Carr Christie Books, 2003 p/b, £34 (inc. p and p) from www.Christiebooks.com This is a reprint of Carr’s 1975 book on the Angry Brigade (AB), done in an A4 format paperback, to which Stuart Christie has added dozens of photographs of the participants, the scenes of the various bombings, magazine covers and other graphic … Read more
Books St. Peter’s Banker, Michele Sindona Luigi Di Fonzo (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 1984) This is an important publication from a new Scottish publishing house, Mainstream. It runs through Sindona’s life, showing how he came to be in such a strong financial position that he could buy the Franklin National, one of the largest banks in the … Read more
Mark Curtis Zed Books, 1995, £14.95/£39.95 The opening lines of Curtis’ introduction are: ‘In attempting to understand Britain’s role in the world, two approaches are possible. In the first, one can rely on the mainstream information system, consisting primarily of media and academia, where commentators are presumed to provide analyses of current independent of the … Read more
Tons of documents and tape recordings recovered from an old manor house in Lancashire reveal the true depths of corruption in English provincial life at the end of the twentieth century. Owen Oyston was the British Labour Party’s biggest private financial contributor in the Thatcher years. The millionaire owner of radio stations and glossy magazines … Read more
Patriots not sneaks After a year of New Labour I feel beholden to write something on this subject, but what is there worth saying that isn’t blindingly and depressingly obvious and predictable? Jack Straw, who took over as Home Secretary, and thus formally as the boss of MI5, is determined to sedate any sleeping dogs … Read more
