Echelon The piece below arrived, through the magic of e-mail forwarding, via the following: Jane Affleck, Terry Hanstock, and Julian Assange. The report referred to is a companion to Nicky Hager’s book Secret Power (review in Lobster 32 at p. 47). See also ‘The Technology of Political Control’, Robin Ballantyne, in Covert Action Quarterly, Spring … Read more
Dan Briody Hoboken (USA): John Wiley and Sons, 2003, £17.50 (hb) According to the Carlyle Group, once you ‘peel away the layers of factual errors and self-righteousness of The Iron Triangle, ‘… all you’re left with is baseless innuendo… [and]… this book should be exposed for what it is: a compilation of recycled conspiracy … Read more
Russ Kick (ed.) New York: the Disinformation Company, 2002, pb, $24.95. Distributed in the UK by Turnaround () £17.99 in the UK Another massive anthology from the Disinformation people. This is 11″ by 9″ – roughly A4 sized – 345 pages, weighing in at 2 lbs and 11 ounces. Picking it up probably counts … Read more
Obituaries Ace Hayes (1940-1998) by Daniel Brandt Ace R. Hayes, 58, an activist and political researcher who was well-known in the Portland, Oregon area, died on February 13, 1998 from an aneurism in the brain. Corruption and conspiracy in high places is the name of the game, but Ace was on the case. His broad … Read more
David Black London:Vision Paperbacks, 20001, £9.99 This a revised edition of the book which was reviewed in Lobster 35. I’m not sure how new it is. I no longer have the original edition but this seems pretty similar to it. What is new is some material on the activities of Steve Abrams, one of the … Read more
Sir George Terry’s report on Kincora has at last been made public. But if Terry had hoped to quash further speculation he failed.(1) In a second debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Kincora there was widespread criticism of the report, particularly of Terry “stepping outside his brief” in suggesting that the matter needs no … Read more
The view from the bridge Bilderberg and the EU The Diaries of former Liberal-Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, (volume one 1988-1997, London: Allen Lane, Penguin, 2000) is a pretty uninteresting read with a couple of striking sections. Pages 42-46 contain his account of attending a Bilderberg meeting – by far the longest and most detailed account … Read more
Richard J. Aldrich London: John Murray, 2001, £25 Another huge book, 645 pages of text and 70 pages of index, bibliographies and notes. How do you review something this size? I simply don’t know. Short of doing a London Review of Books-sized job and working through it chapter by chapter, all I can really … 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
Kimberley Cornish London: Arrow, 1999, £7.99 On p. 86 of this enthralling book Kimberley Cornish invites readers to complete the following sentence: ‘Wittgenstein was offered the Chair in Philosophy at Lenin’s university [Kazan] in 1935 because…’ What possible reason can there be except that he was serving the Soviet regime? Cornish contends that Wittgenstein recruited … Read more
