Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State

Lobster Issue 27 (1994)

Peter Gill Frank Cass, London, 1993 Academia’s a swine. Writing an essay on International Relations (the ideological version of Foreign Office ‘realism’) for my Politics MA, I managed to smuggle in a few references to actual politics — European Nuclear Nuclear Disarmament, the SNP, and ‘independence within Europe’, that kind of thing. Flushed with success, … Read more

Western Goals (UK)

Lobster Issue 21 (1991)

Organisation, History and Politics In the early years of the Thatcher decade, the radical or ‘new’ right was generally treated as though it was a united palace guard for libertarian Conservatism. More recently it has become clearer that the radical right in Britain was, at best, an ‘anti wet’ alliance between authoritarian/ nationalist and libertarian/radical … Read more

Book Reviews

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Lobster Issue 3 (1984)

Through The Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy In An Age Of Illusions Anthony Verrier (Cape, London 1983) This will probably turn out to be an important book, maybe even a little landmark in the (scanty) literature on British foreign policy since the war. So far it has been largely ignored by the literary/political establishment, receiving … Read more

Eye Spy!

Lobster Issue 42 (Winter 2001/2)

[…] try and silence Tomlinson……’ Oh yeah? Who are these many? In what poll? What was the question? Stumbling on, this EYE avows that ‘Animal Activists Aim to Kill!’ and ‘Managing Director Brutally Attacked by Extremists!’ Unlike Covert Action Quarterly, EYE SPY! is a little short on reports of peasants brutally murdered by oil company […]

The rise and fall of the Bulgarian Connection

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Lobster Issue 13 (1987)

[…] CIA. But the CIA played a crucial role in the second conspiracy – the cover-up. To return to the ‘big three’, Henze, author of The Plot to Kill the Pope was CIA station chief in Turkey. Ledeen, of the Georgetown Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and author of Grave New World, is a […]

9/11: The new evidence

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

9/11: The new evidence Ian Henshall London: Robinson, 2007, p/b, £9.99   This is a sequel to, an updating of, Henshall’s book (co-written with Rowland Morgan) 9:11 Revealed, reviewed in Lobster 50 (p. 29). Some new bits and pieces are chewed over, some new evidence is presented, some familiar material is reworked. It is done … Read more

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996)

Who’s kidding whom? The September issue of Fortean Times carried a five page article by Robert Irving, ‘The Henry X File’, about Armen Victorian. It was a very strange article, part profile, part smear job. Armen was ‘twice reportedly seen in the back of a Soviet embassy limousine in Ottowa… rumours associated [him] with the … Read more

Jim Jones and the Conspiracists

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003)

In an article in the Journal of Popular Culture, (1) one of the editors of the Jonestown Report considers the role that conspiracy theories have played in the unfolding narrative of ‘Jonestown’. It is a worthwhile endeavour to which few scholars could bring better credentials. Rebecca Moore is a professor of religious studies at the … Read more

‘Privatising’ covert action: the case of the Unification Church

Lobster Issue 21 (1991)

‘You don’t investigate people for why they think but for what they do.’ – former Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti (1) Introduction If nothing else, the Iran-Contra scandal temporarily illuminated the extent to which ostensibly private organizations have been helping secretive elements within the American government — in this case the core of the executive branch’s … Read more

Bombing your way to the negotiating table?

Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000)

Bombing your way to the negotiating table? What follows, by ‘Owen Catchpole’, was distributed by Dr Sean Gabb on the Net in February. It has been slightly edited. In Northern Ireland, by law, compensation for damage caused by terrorist bombs always has been payable by the government. For that reason commercial insurance policies in NI … Read more

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