Sallie Pisani, University of Edinburgh Press, 1992 (UK) University Press of Kansas, 1991 (USA) No price stated Pisani lays out her thesis on pp. 7/8. ‘My claim is that the emphasis on paramilitary operations in the literature has led to a distorted picture of covert operations in this seminal period. In fact, a recreation of … Read more
What was Henry Brandon? One of the most interesting secondary sources covering the struggles of the British Labour government under Harold Wilson to prevent the devaluation of sterling between 1964-66 is Henry Brandon’s In the Red, published by Andre Deutsch in 1966. It is a remarkably well-informed text and its reliability is underlined by the … Read more
This is the text of a letter The Guardian declined to print It was sent from Fred Holroyd on May 13th 1987 Dear sir, It comes as no surprise that Mrs Thatcher over reacted to the media attempting to discover the real facts of the Gibraltar shootings. Her attitude is vulnerable to close scrutiny, especially … Read more
Dr. David Kelly The death of Dr David Kelly refuses to go away. Two groups of medical experts have expressed doubts about the suicide verdict. The International Toxicology Advisory Group have queried the conclusion that Kelly swallowed at least 20 co-proxamol tablets, which contributed to his death; (1) and a group of surgeons wrote to … Read more
From Mark Hollingsworth As the journalist, along with Nick Fielding, who first reported David Shayler’s revelations about MI5 in the Mail on Sunday in 1997, I would like to set the record straight on your piece in Lobster 36 (‘Peter’s Friends’?) I have remained close to David Shayler and Annie Machon, his girlfriend and also … Read more
All four of Tony Blair’s new political appointees at the Ministry of Defence are part of Labour’s Atlanticist network. Three of them, George Robertson, Lord John Gilbert and John Speller, are members of two interrelated bodies, the Atlantic Council and its labour movement wing, the Trades Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding (TUCETU). The … Read more
Greg Bishop London/New York: Paraview, 2005, $14 (US), p/b In Lobster 40 I presented a summary of this story. This book-length version adds much detail but nothing substantially different from that summary. Bennewitz was an electronics manufacturer in New Mexico, who lived a few yards from the boundary fence of the Kirtland Airforce Base, … Read more
Diana – the saga goes on and on..… Almost ten years after the fatal crash and the Diana industry still trundles along. In addition to her birthday concert(1) we are promised a slew of books(2)and a plethora of films and documentaries.(3) The main event, though, is sure to be the long-delayed but much anticipated inquest, … Read more
In October the US Government hired advertising doyenne Charlotte Beers as Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.(1) She intended ‘commissioning research into the Arab mentality’, confirming what we already knew: the American Government has so little respect for its many Arab/Muslim citizens, it has had to commission research into who they are. … Read more
As the election for the new Pope began a fascinating US radio interview with a former senior CIA official was broadcast in which the name Michael Ledeen (See Lobsters 31, 45, 47) came up in connection with the forged Niger uranium documents cited by both the US and UK governments in the build-up to the … Read more
