Some of the spook recruitment pitches in the media of the last two years have gone out of their way to impress upon prospective candidates the family-friendly credentials of the major state spook employers.(1) But such measures, no matter how sincere and/or necessary, are for the most part aimed at a parent’s convenience – […]
An interesting piece by Mark Hollingsworth appeared in Punch of 23 May-5 June 2001, ‘Spooks in the House’, on intelligence and security personnel who become MPs. Some of the material was familiar but less well known were Raymond Fletcher, and Le Cercle. Fletcher was a Labour MP who was witch-hunted by MI5 as a KGB … Read more
[…] tourism chiefs meet in the shadow of the fifth anniversary of 11 September to discuss why the numbers of overseas tourists to the US has dropped.() British spook heritage PR As part of their PR strategy, two of Britain s spook employers are producing certain bestsellers: public sector 100th anniversary accounts of MI5 and […]
[…] new allegations, and alleged revelations about the post-war era, of any book I have read. However, many of these new claims are sourced to ‘interview with old spook’. Loftus (and co-author Mark Aarons) claim to have interviewed hundreds of elderly, unidentified, retired intelligence officers for the information in the book. Though this is deeply […]
[…] the private/public sector title ‘public relations officer’ is a historic hangover from the days these were officers in government service. The same applied to industrial relations officers. Spook recruitment website advertised in The Times career supplement, 25 October 2007 The State of the Future survey by the world federation of United Nations Associations said […]
12. Spooks – U.S. After the disastrous Iranian hostage operations, the Pentagon created a new intelligence/covert ops unit called Army Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), also known, apparently, as “the activity”. Augmenting both the CIA and the Pentagon’s own DIA, ISA existed for at least a year without Presidential/Congressional knowledge or approval. The unit is said … Read more
First supplement to A Who’s Who of the British Secret State See also: Part 1: Forty Years of Legal Thuggery (Lobster 9) Part 2: British Spooks “Who’s Who” (Lobster 10) Intelligence Personnel Named in ‘Inside Intelligence’ (Lobster 15) Philby naming names (Lobster 16) Spooks (Lobster 22) The official response to the ‘Who’s who’ Lobster special … Read more
MI6 persuaded Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, to task them to give her early warning about coups in Africa. (Independent 23 July 2000) MI6 now have a license to roam throughout Africa. The spooks must love having Labour in office, terrified to oppose anything they ask for. Hitherto secret Whitehall committee … Read more
A spook, moi? One of the formative experiences of my youth – and we’re talking early 1960s here, beatnik days, when wearing a narrow leather tie was pretty hip – was going to the Mound in Edinburgh on Sunday nights. The Mound is like Hyde Park Corner in London, a place where local by-laws […]
[…] regard for the intelligence and security services. His disparaging critics on the right, however, were almost certainly correct in claiming that he had few sources within the spook community. His The Intelligence Game (I.B.Tauris, 1991) was an amusing and witty read, but showed few signs of clandestine sources. Rusbridger would have been amused to […]
