Brief Notes on the Political Importance of Secret Societies (Part 2)

Lobster Issue 6 (1984)

[…] Dulles, was working with McDonald, then Chief of Security for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Kimsey allegedly told McDonald at that time details of the plot to kill Kennedy. The actual assassin, Kimsey maintained, was a contract killer sometimes employed by Kimsey on behalf of the CIA. In his book Appointment in Dallas (1975), […]

The Clash of the Icons

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)

[…] with Germaine. But Ellsberg, they said, would not be kept from his lover’s embrace. Both Scotton and Conein claimed that Michael Seguin hired a Vietnamese assassin to kill Ellsberg, but they were able to intercept the assassin before he could carry out his contract. In an interview with this writer, Ellsberg admitted to having […]

‘Conspiracy Theories’ and Clandestine Politics

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] number of ‘conspiracy theorists’ have assumed that this man was signalling to the assassins, thus tying a seemingly trivial and inconsequential act into the alleged plot to kill Kennedy. It is precisely this totalistic, all-encompassing quality that distinguishes ‘conspiracy theories’ from the secret but often mundane political planning that is carried out on a […]

A (very) brief history of Christian politics in the United States

Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006)

In its own communications, evangelical Christianity exists in a delirious present but it has a rich and recoverable history. Evangelical religion can and should be explained in part in terms of the response of the millions of the faithful to the experience of modernity. But while secular intellectuals sometimes see it simply as a mechanism … Read more

Kiss me on the apocalypse!

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008)

Some reflections on the life, times and politics of Sir James Goldsmith The Clermont Set The Clermont Club was opened in 1962 by John Aspinall after the gaming laws had been liberalised by the MacMillan government.(1)During the 1950s Aspinall built up a personal fortune providing premises for exclusive gambling sessions in London, much of which … Read more

Notes From the Underground: British Fascism 1974-92

Lobster Issue 23 (1992)

Part 1, 1974-83 See also: Part 2: British Fascism 1974-92 (II) (Lobster 24) Part 3: British fascism 1983-6 (Lobster 25) Part 4: British Fascism 1983-6 (II) (Lobster 26) The 1986 National Front Split (Lobster 29) Introduction This essay does not set out to be a comprehensive history of fascism in this period but rather to … Read more

The Angry Brigade: A history of Britain’s first urban guerilla group

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003)

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

Brief Notes On The Political Importance Of Secret Societies

Lobster Issue 5 (1984)

PART 1 See also Part 2 in Lobster 6 Most Western political scientists, following in the traditions of Marx or Weber, scorn the study of secret and occult societies as irrelevant to understanding the politics of the age. In their view, politics can best be understood as the working out, in public arenas, of bureaucratic, … Read more

SISies: MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations and A Life: A. J. Ayer

Book cover
Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1)

MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations Stephen Dorril Fourth Estate, London, 2000, £25 A Life: A. J. Ayer Ben Rogers Chatto and Windus, London, 1999, £20   Many books on intelligence matters simply rehash old ‘facts’, adding a new twist to – a slightly different interpretation of – well-known, if not necessarily well-understood, events. If … Read more

West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir

Book cover
Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002)

William Blum New York: Soft Skull Press, 2002, $15 www.softskull.com   The working lives of writers, especially writers of non-fiction like Blum – or me – are rather dull. To produce Lobster and my other bits and pieces I have to stay in one place, read e-mails every day, books, newspapers, visit libraries, go to … Read more

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