Following the initial investigation by the West Mercia Police, there have been over a dozen reviews of this extraordinary case. Reviewers include Robert Green, (1) Tam Dalyell MP, (2) Graham Smith,(3) World in Action,(4) BBC Crimewatch,(5) John Osborne,(6) Amanda Mitchison, (7) Bob Parker (8); and more recently, David Cole and Peter Acland, (9) Nick Davies,(10) … Read more
A. Some two months ago, the Guardian revealed that the British Government was considering the introduction of a bill under which it would become illegal to claim that any individual is an officer or agent of either the Security Service (MI5) or of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). It was also made known that the … Read more
Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices For info/help with this issue, thanks to the usual suspects, especially Jane Affleck; and also to Paul Stott. Among the contributors to this issue Jonathan Bloch is co-author of British Intelligence and Covert Action and Global Intelligence and the World’s Secret Intelligence Services Today. … Read more
Alien baloney In Nexus vol 6 no 2 is another dollop of what seems to me to be obvious disinformation about UFOs and the US government. Another batch of MJ-12 documents have surfaced in America, given to a researcher called Timothy Cooper by a (now conveniently dead) source. Nexus prints some largish chunks from them. … Read more
Dangerous Liaison Between EU Institutions and Industry This is the first publication of Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), an Amsterdam-based foundation which will ‘monitor and report on the activities of European corporations and their lobby groups’. Very nicely produced and illustrated, this is 72 A-4 pages and costs £5.00 in the U.K. and US $10.00 in … Read more
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
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
Nicholas Bethell’s memoir Spies and Other Secrets (Viking, London, 1994) includes a curious section in which Bethell describes how in 1970, after he had been involved in the first publication of Solzhenitzen’s Cancer Ward in the West, he was attacked by a curious alliance of the left, Private Eye, and various people in and close … Read more
A Hack’s Progress Phillip Knightley Jonathan Cape, 1997, £17.99 This is a highly enjoyable and very well written memoir by one of our senior investigative journalists. As a young-Aussie-leaves-home-and-sees-the-world tale this is nearly as entertaining as the celebrated Clive James version (and with fewer forced jokes). Any journalist’s memoirs are welcome: it’s always interesting to … Read more
De Courcy, Pilcher and Hess Recently released material in the Public Record Office throws more light on the career of Kenneth de Courcy, and perhaps indirectly, on the Hess affair. The file in question, an MI5 document, PROKV4/58, shows that de Courcy first came to the attention of the Security Service in 1934 (without explaining … Read more
