More, please In an account of his career as a writer of spy fiction (Guardian 16 November ’89) John Le Carré referred to the hostile reaction received by his (unnamed) second book, presumably The Looking Glass War: ‘Critics and public alike rejected the novel, but this time the spies were cross. And since the […]
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
[…] 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: […]
[…] 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 […]
Mike Hughes ISBN: 0 948994 06 1. Available on PC disc for £4.99, and as a hard copy plus disk for £19.99 from: 1 in 12 Publications, 21-23 Albion St, Bradford, BD1 2LY. Web: http://merlin.legend.org.uk/~brs/catalogue/cat97.html Available for download at: http://merlin.legend.org.uk/~brs/catalogue/ftpindex.html This book/disk is actually two things which do not connect up too well. The bit … Read more
[…] Secret Power (review in Lobster 32 at p. 47). See also ‘The Technology of Political Control’, Robin Ballantyne, in Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1998. A GLOBAL electronic spy network that can eavesdrop on every telephone, e-mail and telex communication around the world will be officially acknowledged for the first time in a European Commission […]
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
