[…] ‘have organised a “genuine” right-wing bombing at Bologna station in order to reinforce the idea that the Itavia disaster was caused by a bomb rather than a missile, and thus strengthen the alibi of whichever NATO air force had been responsible for the disaster’ (p. 170). Evidence since his book was published has tended […]
From David Guyatt: David Hambling’s comments in Lobster 39 (Feedback) underscore the extreme difficulties involved in firstly accessing, then corroborating and, finally, reporting stories that are as obviously sensitive as Operation Black Cat and Operation Black Dog. It is easy to raise what appear to be realistic technical objections, but the Black Dog story consumed … Read more
One of many reasons why the lobbying industry attracts opprobrium is because Britain’s political system offers only limited public sector facility to those who wish to influence it but lack the funding and/or patronage to do so. ‘The lobbyists’ did not cause the injustice. It is up to government to come up with the solutions. … Read more
[…] in September 1963 which seemed designed to present Oswald as a potential defector to Cuba. My own theory on the assassination is as follows. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy brothers had angered the anti-Castro crusaders in the intelligence community by banning covert activity against Cuba from American soil. The solution to this […]
Ken Silverstein Verso, London (£19.00) and New York ($25.00), 2000 Ken Silverstein is co-editor of CounterPunch, a very good radical – left radical – newsletter in Washington (http://www. counterpunch.org/). This book is a group of essays centred round a central theme rather than an attempt to encompass the whole area of the relationship between the … Read more
[…] revealing insights into the twists and turns of strategy and diplomacy within the western alliance. Examples are his articles on the 1962 cancellation of the US Skybolt missile which was supposed to become the centrepiece of the UK nuclear deterrent, or In the Red’s analysis of sterling’s problems, or Anatomy of Error (1969), which […]
Introduction There are a couple of interesting chapters in Chapman Pincher’s recent The Truth About Dirty Tricks, (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1991), especially the one about Harold Wilson’s ‘spymaster’, the late George Wigg; but, despite the usual shower of interesting fragments, mostly it is junk. Pincher’s primary strategy is clear enough. During the mid 1970s bureaucratic … Read more
James Carroll Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 2006, $30 h/b Juan Bosch was the president of the Dominican Republic from 1963-65. He tried to implement land reforms and was removed from office by a military coup which was then supported by the deployment of 20,000 US troops. In 1967 he published a little book called Pentagonism: … Read more
[…] ‘Several sources have indicated that the Soviet activities around Greenham Common are a ‘near perfect’ example of Soviet preparations to deal with the GLCM (Ground Launched Cruise Missile) threat.’ Etc., etc. The story was absolute junk: no information, no sources; classic disinformation. Nonetheless, perhaps because of Jane’s general reputation, (and perhaps because Jane’s article […]
[…] produced, the full value of the survey was appreciated, as the comparisons showed up the new plants, installations and railway spurs of the Soviet nuclear weapons and missile effort. Young left Vienna in 1949 with the sense of a job well done – not the least of which had been welding into a competent […]
