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
In 1976 Mary Ferrell discovered a curious CIA document, a telegram that had been sent from the Agency office in London to headquarters in Langley on 23 November 1963, the day after JFK was assassinated. The telegram reads as follows (blacked-out(1) matter shown by brackets, with suppositions in italic): [Paragraph deleted in its entirety] EXPRESSIONS … Read more
I invited David Turner to begin writing a regular column for Lobster. He agreed then rang to tell me his computer had been attacked by a virus and could not meet my deadline. (He is the second contributor to this issue to have been virused recently.) But I had on file this splendid polemic written … Read more
The Israel Lobby John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt London: Allen Lane, 2007, £25 This account of the relationship between the ‘Israel lobby’ in the US, the US state and Israel should be required reading for anyone with an interest – personal, professional or political – in the troubled affairs of the Middle East. … Read more
Two pieces here by Tim Pendry. The major piece is followed by an addendum, which began as the text of a letter from Pendry to Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance in response to an article of Gabb’s. Pendry copied me his letter and I saw that it would go nicely with the longer … Read more
The European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) has been in the forefront of encouraging further EU integration for over twenty years. However, many Eurorealists appear unaware of the ERT. Intended to increase awareness, this article will merely sketch the ERT and its activities. Making no claims to originality, ([1]) the article briefly examines the ERT’s … Read more
When I began studying the Kennedy assassination, back in 1983, my naivety was considerable. It would be a few years before I fully hooked into the diffuse network of assassination researchers, and my hit-and-miss efforts to locate that fraternity produced some bizarre results during the 1985-87 period. Consulting periodical directories and other sources, I collected … Read more
I was a student here (1) from 1971-74 doing a social science degree; but more importantly, between 1976 and 1982 I was on the dole much of the time and spent most of my days in the library here, educating myself in post-war history, American history, what was available then about the intelligence services – … Read more
Oleg Kalugin, Smith Gryphon, London 1994 Subtitled ‘My 32 years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West’, this is a mildly interesting read if you want to know how the crumbling Soviet empire looked to an intelligent radical inside the Soviet system. There might be some fragments of interest to those seriously interested in the … Read more
Travesty: The trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the corruption of international justice John Laughland London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press; 2007, £14.99 (UK) $24.95 (US), p/b Laughland is an interesting figure, whose writing appears in media across the ideological spectrum, from the conservative right to The Guardian and here, Pluto Press. It is thus … Read more
