Hugh Wilford London: Frank Cass, 2003; £22.99, h/b This book is a striking example of how far we have come. A senior British academic writing a book with this title was inconceivable 20, even 10 years ago. But there is now a group of British academics, historians mostly, who are working on the history […]
BAP The Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines a bap as a ‘large soft bread roll’. How soft or hard the British American Project for the Successor Generation is — only time will tell. But it is certainly proving rather indigestible to the British media. By any standards a major story, Tom Easton’s piece on BAP (in … Read more
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Seattle, Washington April 25, 1972 Re: Harold Adrian Russell Philby, Also Known As “Kim” Philby The Wednesday, October 13, 1971, edition of “Kodumaa,” Number 41, (677), contained on page 3 an interview with KIM PHILBY. “Kodumaa” (Homeland) is published in Estonian by the Soviet Committee for … Read more
Introduction I began writing this in the early 1980s. If you were then reading the Guardian or the Observer, and knew a little, simple economics, it didn’t take genius to notice that while the UK’s manufacturing economy was being decimated by Conservative Party economic policy, the City of London was booming. More interestingly, and less … Read more
Portland Free Press Portland Free Press, edited by Ace R. Hayes, with the legend ‘Tell the Truth and Run’ on its masthead, contains to produce important parapolitical material. The January/February issue had an extract from the 1991 deposition of Richard Brenneke, a pilot who claims to have flown missions for the Contras (which has not […]
Intelligence and National Security Started in 1986, Intelligence and National Security is co-edited by Christopher Andrew and Michael Handel, and is the first British academic journal devoted to the area. I’ve seen 3 issues and while the standard of writing and research is extremely high from contributors like Lawrence Freedman, M.R.D.Foot and Bradley Smith, the … Read more
[…] shop staff) ‘That depends what it is. If it’s a long one, I’ll put my glasses on.’ Turner: ‘Can you put ‘To David Turner — from a spook to a subversive?²’ ‘And please can I know what’s on my file?’ Rimington (smiling like an indulgent headmistress) ‘I’m sure you haven’t got one!’ Turner: ‘I […]
Stephen Dorril Heinemann, London, 1993 It turns out that the ‘silent conspiracy’ of the title is a conspiracy which ‘has surrounded Britain’s secret state’ — a blindingly obvious tautology. Dorril has done as much as any other to lift the veil of secrecy from the British secret state, so it is somewhat disappointing to read … Read more
Robert Parry Arlington (VA): The Media Consortium, 2004; $22.95 (US); p/b Order from <www.secrecyandprivilege.com> This is the book I have enjoyed most since the last Lobster and it is one of the best books I have read on American politics and parapolitics. Robert Parry really is very good indeed: he has the serious investigative … Read more
[…] interviews he did for Radio 4 published as Muddling Through; Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Post-war Britain (Gollancz 1996), he tip-toes up to the spook problem and turns away again. Of Harold Wilson’s second term he writes: ‘There was, too, a trace of paranoia, not this time about Labour rivals but […]
