Tim Rifat Century Books, London, 1999 £17.99 I was enormously disappointed to discover that this non-fiction book, which has printed on its cover, ‘The History and Science of Psychic Warfare and Spying’, not only lacks an index, it contains no meaningful references. Occasionally the reader comes across some scant footnotes; but the bulk of the … Read more
Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia J. K. Villiers (Croom Helm, London, 1985) An expanded Masters thesis, full of descriptions of psychological operations by the Rhodesian forces (which failed utterly: and no wonder, they were useless), and rather less about pseudo-gang activities which, like their equivalents in the British operations in Kenya, were a success – i.e. they … Read more
The articles on Blairism and contamination in Lobster 33 are tremendously useful in understanding the recent political changes in the UK, and also in understanding ‘fusion paranoia’ as a cross-contamination argument. Maybe it’s not a conspiracy, but it’s surely not a coincidence that the fusion idea was first put forth by New Yorker, a champion … Read more
There is an unmistakable thread running through America’s move eastward since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Using their vast economic clout – in the form of loans, grants and sanctions – and backed by threatening military supremacy (to say nothing of the devious use of ‘unattributable’ mercenary groups such as the MPRI), … Read more
George Gregory Korkala was the ‘soldier’ in the activities of ‘lieutenant’ Frank Terpil and ‘leader’ Edwin Wilson. Wilson and Terpil are both ex-CIA, though when their relationships with the ‘company’ ended is not known. Korkala was arrested in February 1982 at a trade fair on security devices in Madrid. Spanish police carried out the arrest … Read more
Introduction The mid 1970s was not a good time to be a social democratic ally of the United States. In Britain we had “the Wilson plots’; in Australia Gough Whitlam, Jim Cairns and the Australian Labour Party got Governor Kerr and the CIA; in Germany Willi Brandt resigned after a “security scandal’; in New Zealand … Read more
Barry Davies Bloomsbury, 1994, £14.99 The Lufthansa jet hi-jack and associated events of October 1977, of which this book purports to provide a first-hand account, have always worn a fulsome, fearful beard. This book leaves those events far from clean-shaven. What would help clear away quite a lot of the hair would be access to … Read more
A Very British Jihad: Collusion, conspiracy and cover-up in Northern Ireland Paul Larkin Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 2004, £10.99 p/back <www.btpale.com/> Larkin was an investigative journalist and producer for the BBC in Northern Ireland and this book is based round the TV programmes he made there about the paramilitaries and the British state in the … Read more
Dave Renton Pluto, London, 1999, £9.99 This book has been touted in some areas as a radical, new contribution to the study of fascism; and it is certainly well-packaged and cheap. To start with the good points which, although few, are important: if you want to know who the current academic theorists on modern … Read more
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America Peter Dale Scott London and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, prices in the UK from £16.95 The first third of this book, 120 pages or so, is part parapolitical and part deep history of America from Nixon to Ronald Reagan’s first election … Read more
