Kincoragate: More Bodies

Lobster Issue 3 (1984) £££

Sir George Terry’s report on Kincora has at last been made public. But if Terry had hoped to quash further speculation he failed.(1) In a second debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Kincora there was widespread criticism of the report, particularly of Terry “stepping outside his brief” in suggesting that the matter needs no … Read more

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

Plotting for Peace and War

Lobster Issue 22 (1991) £££

Ten Days that Saved the West John Costello Bantam Press 1991 John Costello has set out to provide, in the words of the publisher’s blurb, “the first behind the scenes account of the agonizing history of 1940′. His aim is to debunk the Churchillian myth that in 1940 Britain was united in its determination to … Read more

Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy and the First World War

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Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999) £££

Philip Hoare, Duckworth Press, London, 1997, £16.99 The opening of MI5’s archives up to and including 1919 gives historians and researchers the chance to exhume the genesis of the right in British domestic politics as well as the early activities of the secret state. Despite its title (Oscar died in 1900) Hoare dips quite a … Read more

The Pinay Circle and Destabilisation in Europe

Lobster Issue 18 (1989) £££

In Lobster 17 we published two German intelligence reports on a covert propaganda group called the Pinay Circle. In this article we give background and investigate the Pinay Circle’s activities. Member of Parliament ‘G’: I don’t know if it (the Pinay Circle) has any political significance, but, in any case, it has little impact. For … 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

What Price National Security?

Lobster Issue 40 (Winter 2000/1) £££

Conference Report by Jane Affleck On November 10 2000 the Freedom Forum’s European Centre in London, in association with Article 19, Index on Censorship and Liberty, hosted a debate on National Security. (1) Three panels spoke on The Nature of National Security, British State Security in Northern Ireland, and The Internet – Circumventing Censorship? The … Read more

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