Paul Lashmar Sutton Publishing, Stroud (UK), 1996 £12.99 (pb) Beautifully produced, large (trade) format, with many photographs, this is the story of the US and later US-UK spy flights round – and over – the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Alternatively, it is the story of a protracted series of skirmishes between the Soviet … Read more
A history of ASIO and National Surveillance Frank Cain Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009, p/b, $39.95. ISBN 978 1 921509 322 Frank Cain was just a name to me but a little googling showed that he is Australia’s leading academic historian of intelligence and security history. This history of ASIO and its antecedents – more … Read more
Kevin Danaher (ed.) Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, U.S., 2001, $15.95 www.commoncouragepress.com This volume contains 27 short essays by everyone from Fidel Castro (rather impressive, if he wrote it himself) through Chomsky, and Naomi Klein to Margot Smith, whose essay is titled ‘Granny Goes to Washington and Goes to Jail’. So: this runs from … Read more
In the collection, Contemporary British History 1931-61, reviewed in this issue, there is an essay by Richard Aldrich of Salford University, one of the small but growing numbers of British academics trying to incorporate the activities of the intelligence and security services into post-war British history. In his essay on the Special Operations Executive (SOE) … Read more
Larry O’Hara See also: Part 1: British Fascism 1974-92 (Lobster 23) Part 2: British Fascism 1974-92 (II) (Lobster 24) Part 3: British fascism 1983-6 (Lobster 25) The 1986 National Front Split (Lobster 29) A left turn for the NF? Having described some of the multiple policy initiatives undertaken by the National Front in part 3 … Read more
Labour Party PLC David Osler Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, £15.99, 2002 Colin Challen MP Having written a history of Conservative Party funding, (1) I had been wondering when somebody would get round to doing a similar job on Labour. However, Labour Party plc is more than a simple history of party financing, it seeks to show … Read more
Did Churchill reveal the pending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to Roosevelt two weeks before it happened? Below is what purports to a transcript of a telephone conversation recorded by the Germans during World War 2. If genuine, it shows, as has been alleged in the past, that Roosevelt was indeed warned of the impending … Read more
A new royalty? A few weeks before former BBC political editor Andrew Marr received two Broadcasting Press Guild awards – one as ‘best TV performer in a non-acting role’ – his journalistic colleagues were quietly made aware of a little drama in his own life. Typical of the message from editorial lawyers circulated among Britain’s … Read more
Compiled by Jane Affleck The US GAO is the investigative arm of the US Congress, and is charged with examining all matters relating to the receipt and disbursement of public funds. It conducts audits, surveys, investigations and evaluations of federal programmes, either at its own initiative or at the request of Congressional Committees or members. … Read more
Weapons of Mass Deception: The uses of propaganda in Bush’s war on Iraq Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber London: Robinson, 2003, p/b, £6.99 Regime Unchanged: Why the war on Iraq changed nothing Milan Rai London: Pluto, 2003, p/b, £10.99 The Rampton/Stauber book appeared about 6 weeks after the attack on Iraq ended and concentrates … Read more
