James McConnachie and Robin Tudge, London, New York: Rough Guide Ltd (Penguin Books), 2005, p/b £9.99 / $14.99 (US) / $22.99 (Can) This chunky paperback is intended to give readers an introduction to the world of conspiracies and the theories around them, as opposed to works which discuss conspiracy theories as a topic in … Read more
Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire Anne Norton New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004 $25/£16 What’s the Matter with America? Thomas Frank The Resistable Rise of the American Right London: Secker & Warburg, 2004, £12 Most of us in Europe find it difficult to understand what happened in America on … Read more
NFTB There is a new issue, no 6, of Larry O’Hara’s Notes from the Borderland. It is 68 pages, glossy paper, with essays on ‘journo-cops’, Paul Foot, Shayler and Machon and the Copeland bombing. In the UK this is £3.50 from BM 4769, London WC1N 3XX; a two issue sub is £7.50. Outside the UK: … Read more
Introduction by Kenn Thomas Foreword by David Hatcher Childress Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, Illinois, USA, 1996, $16.00 Also known as ‘Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal’, the so-called Torbitt Memorandum (‘Document’ here for some reason) has been floating around the JFK research world since the early 1970s. Torbitt looked quite promising initially: lots of interesting … Read more
See note 1. Introduction We were as surprised as anybody at the furore over Oliver Stone’s movie. When we published the Dean Andrews material and the analysis of the Clay Shaw U.K. contacts in Lobster 20, in November 1990, we did so in the certain knowledge that hardly anybody was still interested in the JFK … Read more
The discussion of conspiracy in the mainstream media tends towards a very specific formula. The writer first notes with shock and disappointment the growing popularity of conspiracy theories and then goes on to provide explanations for this new popularity. This explanation almost always assumes that these theories about the ‘true’ nature of social reality exist … Read more
Patriots not sneaks After a year of New Labour I feel beholden to write something on this subject, but what is there worth saying that isn’t blindingly and depressingly obvious and predictable? Jack Straw, who took over as Home Secretary, and thus formally as the boss of MI5, is determined to sedate any sleeping dogs … Read more
Peter Oborne London: The Free Press (Simon and Schuster), 2005, £7.99, p/b Before his minutely detailed account of some of New Labour’s lies Oborne gives us a potted history of lying in the past 25 years to show us how relatively truthful New Labour’s predecessors were. This old nag won’t run. For example, he … Read more
American Friends: the Anti-CND Groups Steve Dorril In a memo leaked to the Washington Post (9th May 1982) on opposition to President Reagan’s defence policy, Eugene V. Rostow, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, stated “there is participation on an increasing scale in the US of three groups whose potential impact should be … Read more
A current example of a conspiracy theory is the continuing attempt to paint Roger Hollis as a member of the so-called ‘Ring of Five’. There is, it should be said, not a shred of evidence that Hollis ever passed a single piece of information to the Soviets, nor that he had any contacts with Soviet … Read more
