In a Common Cause: the Anti-Communist Crusade in Britain 1945-60

Lobster Issue 19 (1990) £££

A small section of this appeared in Lobster 12. Although this is incomplete and under researched, we thought it worth putting out now. The origins of IRD 1947 saw the creation of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD). It is generally accepted that IRD was the brain-child of the then Labour M.P. Christopher Mayhew, … Read more

Trust no one: the secret world of Sidney Reilly

Book cover
Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

Richard B. Spence Los Angeles: Feral House, 2003 , $29.95, h/b   Boasting over 1800 footnotes and a magnificent bibliography (including texts published in Turkmenistan) this would be awarded A for Application if such a prize existed in academia. The author, Professor of History at the University of Idaho, appears to be something of an … Read more

Our Secret Servants: the Shayler affair

Lobster Issue 34 (Winter 1997) £££

Our Secret Servants: the Shayler affair Things had been going rather well for the British security and intelligence services in the 1990s. Under pressure from the Wright-Wallace-Massiter revelations of the 80s, they had conceded a notional form of parliamentary accountability with the creation of the Intelligence and Security Committee. With members who either knew nothing … Read more

Deep Black: the secrets of space espionage (Book Review) & Journals

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

DEEP BLACK: the secrets of space espionage William E. Burrows, Bantam Press, 1988 P. N. Rogers The National Reconnaissance Office is the only ‘black’ US intelligence agency remaining. Formed in 1960, the US only conceded officially that they had reconnaissance satellites twelve years later, and to this day maintain that these are the responsibility of … Read more

Malcolm Kennedy: secrecy ruling

Lobster Issue 45 (Summer 2003) £££

Abstract The Tribunal established to investigate complaints about phone-tapping and the activities of the intelligence agencies has, at its first ever public hearing, quashed rules made by the Home Secretary forcing the tribunal to hold all its hearings in secret. However, the Tribunal procedure remains too secret, and its decisions cannot be appealed. Malcolm Kennedy’s … Read more

Letters

Lobster Issue 10 (1986) £££

Letters From JIM HOUGAN, Washington, USA. (NB this letter was written between the reviews of Hougan’s book Secret Agenda which appeared in Lobsters 8 and 9) After reading No 8 I thought I’d share the following with you in re: Secret Agenda and, on another topic, Frank Terpil. Throat Secret Agenda is deliberately ambiguous on … Read more

Brief Notes on the Political Importance of Secret Societies (Part 2)

Lobster Issue 6 (1984) £££

See also Part 1 in Lobster 5 United States Anna Anderson was not the only Anastasia claimant; her chief rival in the United States was Mrs Eugenia Smith. Smith’s claims, although considered shaky by the best scholars, were powerfully supported by the testimony of one Michael M. Goleniewski, who hailed from Poland yet claimed to … Read more

Another layer of cover: Nick Cook’s ‘The Hunt for Zero Point’ examined

Lobster Issue 42 (Winter 2001/2) £££

Nick Cook is a defence journalist of high repute, having been an Aviation Editor for the authoritative Jane’s Defence Weekly for fourteen years. When he says that UFO reports conceal a new technology with the potential to change the world, a technology kept secret by the US military-industrial complex for decades, he should be worth … Read more

After Kelly: ‘After Dark’, David Kelly and lessons learned

Lobster Issue 55 (Summer 2008) £££

You might remember the red sofas, leather Chesterfields recovered in quieter fabric. You might remember that the talking didn’t end at any specific time, unique in an era when all television channels closed down at night. You might remember Oliver Reed getting drunk, although he was hardly the only disruptive guest. Reading Norman Baker’s book … Read more

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