Joseph K and the spooky launderette

Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] bothered using that particular channel. To date, Stuart-Smith hasn’t upheld any complaint about MI5’s activities. See Tom Bower’s recent biography of Sir Dick White, The Perfect English Spy, Heinemann, London 1995. According to David Shayler, the current favourite to succeed Stephen Lander as head of MI5 is Ms Manningham Buller, whose father prosecuted Blake. […]

Errors, corrections and updates

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] and told me that his divisional committee of the party had once devoted a whole meeting to discussing whether Harry Newton was or was not a police spy. The general view was, apparently, that he was so obviously one, that he couldn’t be one in fact.’ From Eric Preston: Eric Preston, mentioned in Donald […]

Twilight in the desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

Matthew R. Simmons London: Wiley, 2005, h/b   Ironic, perhaps, that I finished reviewing this book in Calgary, just south of the largest land-based oil project in the American hemisphere, the Athabasca shale tar sands oil recovery projects. Collectively these will realise investment between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the next ten years. Pipelines … Read more

US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat

Lobster Issue 14 (1987)

US involvement in the Fiji coup d’etat This article presents an analysis of United States involvement in the coup in Fiji. The authors support the demands made in Washington by deposed Fijian Prime Minister, Dr Bavadra, for a Congressional investigation of American involvement. Published by Wellington Confidential, PO. Box 9034, Wellington, New Zealand The one-month-old … Read more

Re:

Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9)

[…] spat over “turgid” writing’, The Times, 24 October 2008; Jack Lefley, ‘MOD censors its censor’s history for being boring’, The Evening Standard, 24 October 2008. Anon., ‘Former spy wins first round of “son of Spycatcher” book publication battle’, Solicitors’ Journal, 152 (29), 22 July 2008, p. 5; Anon., ‘Tribunal does not have exclusive jurisdiction’, […]

Historical Notes

Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002)

The origins of Civil Assistance? In the UK in 1974-75 a number of ‘private armies’ appeared, linked to retired senior military and intelligence figures. There were General Sir Walter Walker’s Civil Assistance, Colonel David Stirling’s GB75, and George Young’s Unison. (1) These groups formed in order to frustrate the impact of strike action in the … Read more

Two views of Dorril: MI6: Fifty years of Special Operations

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Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000)

MI6: Fifty years of Special Operations Stephen Dorril Fourth Estate, London, 2000, £25 hb   Harold Smith As I can testify from personal experience, having in 1960 been summoned to Government House in Lagos, Nigeria, to have my death sentence pronounced by the Governor General, MI6 is brutal, cruel, merciless and totally unforgiving. Dorril’s courage, … Read more

Defector Politics: or, grooving with Mr G.

Lobster Issue 29 (1995)

[…] supporting seventeen, were Bob Parry – and the aforementioned Bill Michie Les trois amis de Crozier concluded, somewhat obscurely, that, ‘None of this makes Mr Rogers a spy, or even an agent of influence. It simply serves to illustrate why agents of influence and fellow-travellers need fear as little opposition from the Security Service […]

KO-ing the Kennedys: The Kennedys and State Secrets

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Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6)

[…] anyone skulking in the undergrowth. The book ends on this unsatisfactory note. The Clough book, by contrast, is excellent. It provides a detailed demythologising of this particular spy case and relies on a review of all the literature in the case as well as primary research conducted by the author amongst recently released PRO […]

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