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
Here is a selection of sites on the Internet that may interest Lobsterreaders. The usenet newsgroups are for discussion of issues and anyone can contribute; some of the contributions are pretty far-out, or just plain abusive, and much of the material is US-oriented. The content of newsgroups is continually changing, and the examples I have … Read more
It has been claimed (in Sunday News 20th Feb. and The Phoenix, 19th Feb.1983) that at the heart of the disclosures over the Kincora scandal is an internal row in the intelligence services. A dissident faction is thought to have formed in the Secret Service. The scuffles over revelations concerning Kincora started with the writing … Read more
The assassinations of the sixties JFK Farewell America On the site of The Coalition On Political Assassinations(1) is a very interesting essay by William Turner, ‘RFK, Charles de Gaulle and the Farewell America plot’, about the events leading up to the publication of the book Farewell America about the Kennedy assassination.(2) This may be marginalia … Read more
Turning up the Heat: MI5 after the Cold War Larry O’Hara Phoenix Press, London, 1994, £6 (p and p included) from BM Box 4769, London WC1N 3XX; cheques payable to Larry O’Hara. Since 1945 MI5 has had three main domestic targets: Soviet bloc espionage, the British Left and the IRA. With the Soviet target gone, … Read more
Yesterday’s loony tunes become today’s reality. Here are some recent examples. Gulf war syndrome, whose existence has been denied by the Ministry of Defence for over a decade, is now being admitted. As the Telegraph’s version of the story put it: ‘Soldiers sent to the 1991 Gulf war were given a combination of vaccines that … Read more
Ed. Jon Melissen London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, h/b, £50.00 Just after World War 1, a group of the liberal-left in Britain began campaigning against orthodox – i.e. secret – diplomacy. It had caused the mind-bogglingly stupid carnage of World War 1, they argued, and had to go. This was the Union for Democratic Control … Read more
Accountability I will be discussing a non subject – the accountability of the intelligence services. By accountable we mean the ability to be brought to account, to be answerable for their actions, to be subject to scrutiny and ultimately to have their actions adjudicated upon in a court of law. I will be looking at … Read more
The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs Douglas Valentine London/New York: Verso, 2004, h/back, £20 This comes garlanded with praise from Jim Hougan and Anthony Summers. The praise is justified: this is, as Hougan says, ‘a ground-breaking work of investigative reporting’; and it is, as Summers says, ‘a … Read more
Tara, Colin Wallace, ‘Clockwork Orange’, Fred Holroyd and ‘the Dirty War’: a selective bibliography of Irish sources Introduction The Kincora scandal was exposed in 1980. ‘The troubles’ started in Northern Ireland over 20 years ago, resulting in the services of Colin Wallace and Fred Holroyd in their respective spheres. ‘Tara’ was originally formed in 1966. … Read more
