Mr Tony was a spook? Issue 7 of Larry O’Hara’s Note from the Borderland ([1]) includes a section from the Anne Machon and David Shayler book, Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers (reviewed in Lobster 49), which was apparently dropped by the publisher. The key section is this, from an unnamed MI5 officer: ‘Blair was recruited [by … Read more
The rise and fall of the Bulgarian Connection Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead (Sheridan Square Publications, New York, 1986) When the Turkish Grey Wolves hold rallies they howl collectively. So, at times, do journalists of the ‘free press’. In 1979 Edward Herman wrote After the Cataclysm with Noam Chomsky in which they shredded Western … Read more
Dangerous Liaison Between EU Institutions and Industry This is the first publication of Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), an Amsterdam-based foundation which will ‘monitor and report on the activities of European corporations and their lobby groups’. Very nicely produced and illustrated, this is 72 A-4 pages and costs £5.00 in the U.K. and US $10.00 in … Read more
Weird Web Professor Peter Dale Scott reported the following in March. ‘Four times today I have tried to go to www.counterpunch.org. And four times Netscape was unable to find it. This happens frequently on my computer to websites which share my opinions, or to which I am hotlinked. And when I searched for ‘Alex Cockburn’ … Read more
Miscellaneous Publications Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’, The CIA and American Democracy, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989, price not stated) is, with Blum’s The CIA: a Forgotten History, the best single volume on the CIA. Of particular interest is the author’s account of the political system’s response to the revelations of CIA archives in the … Read more
Robert Parry, The Media Consortium, Arlington, Virginia, USA, 1999 $19.95 (US) $25.00 (Europe) ISBN 1-893517-00-4 Another important book from Parry, author of Trick or Treason about the so-called October Surprise. Parry has two major themes here. The first is the contra-cocaine story which he tried to research as it broke in the 1980s while … Read more
1. Getting even more ugly I confess: I have given up buying Searchlight. There just isn’t anything that can be believed in it. In any case, other people send me the good bits – if ‘good’ is the right word. In June’s Searchlight this paragraph appeared; ‘Seasoned political observers in Northern Ireland say that the … Read more
‘A Most Extraordinary Case’ Malcolm Kennedy says his telephones, post and e-mail are being interfered with. His attempts to seek answers have left him in a bureaucratic maze. Background ‘A most extraordinary case’ said Michael Mansfield QC, describing the events at Hammersmith Police Station on the night of December 23/24 1990. Two men – Patrick … Read more
Stakeknife: Britain’s Secret Agents in Ireland Martin Ingram and Greg Harkin Dublin: The O’Brien Press: 2004, £8.99, p/back Mad Dog: The rise and fall of Johnny Adair and ‘C Company’ David Lister and Hugh Jordan Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2003, £15.99, h/back Stakeknife is a former member’s account of some of the operations of the … Read more
In October the US Government hired advertising doyenne Charlotte Beers as Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.(1) She intended ‘commissioning research into the Arab mentality’, confirming what we already knew: the American Government has so little respect for its many Arab/Muslim citizens, it has had to commission research into who they are. … Read more
