William Blum Monroe, Maine (USA): Common Courage Press, 2005, $18.95, p/b Blum is a grey-bearded, spook-wise, American lefty who was radicalised by the Vietnam War. He wants to look the beast in the eye with as much information as possible. He isn’t concerned with theoretical questions but he knows imperialism, atrocity and bullshit when […]
[…] definitely not the invention of ‘British intelligence’. It just looks like one. His use of the term ‘British intelligence’ is revealing. Only those still ignorant of the spook dimension to recent history use that expression. Knowledge entails disaggregation. Bruce’s index includes a reference to a tiny Scottish Protestant group, the Young Cowdenbeath Volunteers, but […]
Who was who? The newly published Oxford Dictionary of National Biography not only surveys the lives of the great and the good, but also includes accounts of individuals in the murkier fields of human endeavour. Over fifty spies are listed, for example, including historical figures such as ‘Parliament Joan’ (c1600-1655?) and ‘Pickle the Spy’ (c1725-1761). … Read more
[…] now I see exactly why they wanted this bit cut: the covert role of the intelligence and security services in British politics is the big secret. The spook in politics That covert role is one of the things fleetingly glimpsed in MI5’s pamphlet The Security Service (36 pages, £4.95 from HMSO). In the page […]
Paddy the spook Since the last issue I have skimmed Paddy Ashdown’s two volumes of diaries. While dominated by his attempt to do a deal with the Blair-led Labour Party, there are some other interesting snippets; and, through Ashdown’s eyes, there is a detailed portrait of Tony Blair which suggests that Rory Bremner’s impersonation […]
[…] Campbell (ABC) trial for example. And these were mostly triggered by the fall-out from Watergate and Vietnam in the United States. The people in London who went spook hunting in 1975/6 did so because the idea had been suggested to them by the example of spook hunters in the United States, notably John Marks. […]
[…] spirit and always will be.’ Even if I knew what ‘the human spirit’ meant, this is manifestly falsified by the slaughter-strewn history of the 20th century. A spook by an other name In the New Statesman of 27 September (3) there was a very interesting account by Observer journalist David Rose of his becoming […]
Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA Jim Hougan (Random House, US 1984) Those who read Hougan’s last book Spooks will know that the arrival or a new one is something of an event. As expected, his latest has so many trails to follow, intriguing little titbits to ponder that one read is insufficient … Read more
[…] allies share all intelligence with the Soviets. (3) Back to philosophy After demobilisation, Ayer returned to academic philosophy, though he kept his hand in as a spook, working part-time for MI6 at Broadway as a political analyst. In this he was joined by Goronwy Rees, later to have his own difficulties within the […]
[…] collection of reports and essays from Intelligence, mostly of single events in the parapolitical calendar. For British readers, there are essays on the murder of junior British spook Jonathan Moyles; Dr Bull and the ‘supergun’ and Bull’s murder; framing Libya for Lockerbie; the Chinook crash which killed a large section of the British intelligence […]
