[…] 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). More recent practitioners range from minor characters, such as Greville Wynne and John Vassall, to major operators Blunt, Burgess, Maclean and Philby. ‘Spooks’ are […]
James Adams Hutchinson, London, 1994. I first noticed James Adams when he began running some of the MOD’s disinformation lines about Colin Wallace and Fred Holroyd in 19867. For a while I collected articles by him which seemed to show the traces of Whitehall briefings. Then I stopped: what was I going to do with … Read more
Michael Smith Gollancz, London,1996, £20 This is a curious and rather pointless book. In short chapters Smith attempts potted histories of MI5, SIS, signals and military intelligence. These are quite well done, but covering half a century in 20 pages, say, the chapters are barely more than sketches. (The Information Research Department gets a page!) … Read more
[…] unit in the Pentagon whose task has been defined by Pentagon officials as “searching for information on Iraq’s hostile intentions or links to terrorists that the nation’s spy agencies may have overlooked”. ‘ < http: //weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/ 610/op3.htm > . Essentially the same information is in Oliver Burkeman, ‘Rumsfeld picks team of experts to find […]
[…] GCSB’s Big Brothers) systematically spied on the UN. So, the answer is that spying on the UN is in America’s interests, and that the very junior NZ spy agency in the covert alliance is simply doing what it is told. Nothing has changed in 20 years, the UN is still a prime target for […]
How MI6 and the CIA were involved in the death of Princess Diana Jon King and John Beveridge New York: SPI Books, 2002, £18.95 In the five years since the Paris car crash that killed Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed, and Henri Paul, interest in Diana herself may have waned, (1) but the circumstances surrounding her … Read more
[…] It does not seem likely that this is a hitherto suppressed part of Wright’s career working for HMG, but damn, the photographs look close. I, said the spy In Gerald James’ In the Public Interest, discussed in the section on Scott in this issue in the books section, on pages 50 and 51 there […]
[…] notes and bibliography. It is hardly revisionist, though in an academic environment they obviously would appear to be. By far the most interesting selection is Andrew Lownie’s ‘Tyler Kent: isolationist or spy?’. I do not agree with all of the conclusions but Lownie proves himself to be one of the best researchers around. Stephen Dorril
[…] author, having infiltrated the CPGB at a senior level, go himself sent on a delegation to Russia in 1927 and used the opportunity to act as a spy on behalf of ‘the Chief’, who was apparently the head of a non-governmental intelligence outfit. Does anyone have any idea who ‘Vidor’ might have been? Could […]
[…] is another hackneyed phrase. It is usually used to explain why competency collapsed due to post Cold War complacency which, apparently, blunted the cutting edge of British spy work. This is another nonsense since it implies that British Cold War espionage was excellent, when this was not always the case. Back to Sir Richard: […]
