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
Lost plot After Lobster 35 I received a long letter from John Pilger, followed by a revised version of it, complaining about my review of his recent book, Hidden Agendas in 35. With the second version came a note asking me to publish his letter without comment. I replied that I was happy to publish … Read more
Observers of the activities of the neo-nazi Combat 18 (C18), otherwise known as the National Socialist Alliance (NSA), have been treated to some bewildering documents and allegations recently. In an attempt to clarify who is saying what, and why, I will examine the origins and initial purpose of C18, the role (if any) of alleged … Read more
A current example of a conspiracy theory is the continuing attempt to paint Roger Hollis as a member of the so-called ‘Ring of Five’. There is, it should be said, not a shred of evidence that Hollis ever passed a single piece of information to the Soviets, nor that he had any contacts with Soviet … Read more
See also: Part 1 in Lobster 36 ‘Certainly I do not think that the answer to communism is a counter-faith, equally fervent, militant, etc; to begin with, nothing is less likely to create a faith, than perpetual reiteration of the fact that we are looking for one, must find one, are lost without one, etc … 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
Searchlight At the beginning of the essay on the Blairites above, I discuss the concept of political contamination, the denigration of people on the left by association – real or fictitious – with ideas or people on the right. The most enthusiastic users of the contamination device in Britain today are found in Searchlight magazine. … Read more
See note 1. Introduction We were as surprised as anybody at the furore over Oliver Stone’s movie. When we published the Dean Andrews material and the analysis of the Clay Shaw U.K. contacts in Lobster 20, in November 1990, we did so in the certain knowledge that hardly anybody was still interested in the JFK … Read more
Errors, corrections, apologies My apologies to Mr A. Baron. At the top of p. 24 of Lobster 25 I stated that Mr Baron ‘has been circulating odd bits and pieces around the British far right for quite a while now’. It would have been more accurate to write that odd bits and pieces about Mr … Read more
From April to late June 1992, I spent some three months in a Dutch refugee camp, OC Zeewolde. I had applied for political asylum. The Dutch authorities had agreed immediately, to fully process the application. I gave them no reason for my application. The Bosnian war was beginning and the Dutch reception centres for refugees … Read more
