‘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

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

How many divisions does the Pope have?

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] emerged on August 10th 1944 when, after the successful British and US landings in France (and, one should note, the collapse of the German opposition’s efforts to kill Hitler), Martin Borman convened and chaired a conference at Strassburg to supervise the mass shifting of capital overseas: ‘……so that after the defeat a strong new […]

The CIA and the Culture of Failure

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009)

John Diamond Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2008, h/b. No price is stated but it’s around $30 on-line. In The Guardian on 4 March 2009 William Dalrymple wrote: ‘Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the … Read more

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 […]

What Price National Security?

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)

[…] Young, of the cryptome site, had received telephone calls on behalf of SIS, asking him to remove the CX95 document (concerning MI6 involvement with a plot to kill Gaddafy) from his website, but refused. But should anything be published on the internet? John Young said they would publish anything on cryptome.org; but John Wadham […]

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 investigating … Read more

Ultimate Sacrifice

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Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006)

[…] attempts were serious. Both ‘plots’ were exposed by tip-offs. The authors assert that all three attempts – Dallas being the third – were the mob trying to kill JFK; that the mob created three identical plots: ambush by rifle fire during motorcades with a patsy on the scene to be given to the police. […]

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Lobster Issue 27 (1994)

Dick Russell Carroll and Graf, New York, 1992 This is one of the most interesting JFK assassination books to have emerged from the movie and 30th anniversary tie-in crop. Given the vast amount of attention paid to Gerald Posner’s ‘Oswald did it after all!’ apologia, Case Closed, it is unfortunate that Russell’s book still hasn’t … Read more

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