The New Public Diplomacy: Soft power in international relations

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Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006) £££

Ed. Jon Melissen London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, h/b, £50.00   Just after World War 1, a group of the liberal-left in Britain began campaigning against orthodox – i.e. secret – diplomacy. It had caused the mind-bogglingly stupid carnage of World War 1, they argued, and had to go. This was the Union for Democratic Control … Read more

The Enemy Within (Whitehall)

Lobster Issue 27 (1994) £££

It is a difficult time for Britain’s security and intelligence agencies. Not only have the old certainties collapsed with the Berlin Wall, Britain’s economy is in increasingly dire shape, and current levels of government funding for the agencies can no longer be taken for granted. (1) As a result, both the major agencies, MI5 and … Read more

Spook-wise: MI6 and Clare Short

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

MI6 persuaded Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, to task them to give her early warning about coups in Africa. (Independent 23 July 2000) MI6 now have a license to roam throughout Africa. The spooks must love having Labour in office, terrified to oppose anything they ask for. Hitherto secret Whitehall committee … Read more

How many divisions does the Pope have?

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina Uki Goni London: Granta Books, 2002, £20 If there was a category of work called Detective History, Uki Goni really ought to be awarded Book of the Year. Undeterred by the shredding and incineration of key documents, rebuffs from the supporters of Peron … Read more

Shorts: James Rusbridger. Illuminati. Gordievsky. Cavendish

Lobster Issue 27 (1994) £££

The usual suspects Fascinating piece by Paul Webster in the Guardian (1 February, 1994) about the Dreyfus Affair. He quotes a book by the French historian Jean Doise who has examined French Army documents from the time. Doise has discovered that the affair developed because of French secret service attempts to disinform the Germans about … Read more

Out of the blue and into the black

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Lobster Issue 51 (Summer 2006) £££

Into the Dark Johnston Brown Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2006, £22.99, h/b   When Fred Holroyd first made his disclosures regarding the activities of SAS Captain Robert Nairac to Duncan Campbell of The New Statesman in 1984, they were credible because Holroyd was a loyal Army Intelligence Captain with absolutely no sympathies for IRA terrorism. … Read more

Brian Crozier, the Pinay Circle and James Goldsmith

Lobster Issue 17 (1988) £££

In Lobster 11 we included a little appendix on ‘the Pinay Circle’. Lobster 11 was done at full-tilt, researched, written and produced in about 4 months, and there were a number of bits and pieces we didn’t evaluate which went undigested into the appendices. One was this Pinay Circle. At the time all we had … Read more

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