Brainwash: The secret history of mind control

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

Dominic Streatfeild London: Hodder and Stoughton 2006, £20, h/b   One of the gaps in the parapolitical library has been a great pull-together of the material on ‘mind control’. And Streatfield has done it, and done it rather well. He is a documentary film-maker and some of the chapters here read rather like scripts. All … Read more

MI5: New Threats for Old? Turning up the Heat: MI5 after the Cold War

Lobster Issue 28 (December 1994) £££

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

Surf’s up! Internet sites of interest

Lobster Issue 31 (June 1996) £££

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

The Iron Triangle: inside the secret world of the Carlyle Group

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Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

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

Kincoragate: More Bodies

Lobster Issue 3 (1984) £££

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

Weird/not weird

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

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

Everything You Know is Wrong: the Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

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

The Strength of the Wolf

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Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

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

The accountability of the intelligence and security services

Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6) £££

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

Acid: a new secret history of LSD

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Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002) £££

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

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