From David Guyatt: David Hambling’s comments in Lobster 39 (Feedback) underscore the extreme difficulties involved in firstly accessing, then corroborating and, finally, reporting stories that are as obviously sensitive as Operation Black Cat and Operation Black Dog. It is easy to raise what appear to be realistic technical objections, but the Black Dog story consumed … Read more
Free Ride Department Meanwhile the Rand Corporation (that liberal think tank in Santa Monica which helps decide which Russian cities should be atom-bombed) has declared that the federal government must continue to support an obscure military satellite system known as Global Positioning Network. Much beloved by high-tech hikers and rental car enthusiasts, the GPS supposedly … Read more
The Lobster is a journal/newsletter about intelligence, parapolitics, state structures and so forth. (The scope of our interests should be obvious from this first issue.) We welcome clippings, articles, letters, reviews, on these areas. Although we will exercise editorial control over any material sent to us, nothing will be cut without prior consultation with the … Read more
Korean war biological warfare? Issue 11 of the Bulletin of Cold War International History Project contained what appears to be evidence that the allegations by North Korea and the Chinese that the US were using biological warfare during the Korean War were false – were in fact disinformation. Documents apparently from former Soviet archives seem … Read more
Iraq – fallout continues ‘Five years on from Hutton and we still haven’t been told the truth about the war based on lies’, fulminated Peter Oborne earlier this year. (1) Also less than happy was barrister Michael Shrimpton who unsuccessfully complained to Ofcom about an interview he gave for David Kelly: the conspiracy files, (2) … Read more
W. D. Rubinstein (Second edition, revised and updated) London: Social Affairs Unit, 2006, pp., £20 Did you know that, on his death in 2001, former Beatle, George Harrison, left the second largest fortune in the UK (£98,916,000)? If you like facts like this, you will enjoy this book, and you will be in good … Read more
Close Quarter Battle (CQB) training is undertaken by an unusual group calling itself the CTT or Combat Training Team. The CTT group has two centres near London where it trains people in the art of silent killing and similar accomplishments. It poses as a commercial organisation, but its two centres at Fort Pilgrim and at … Read more
Introduction In 1967 the CIA sent out to ‘Chiefs, Certain Stations and bases’ a briefing document, Dispatch Document 1035- 960, titled ‘Countering Criticism of the Warren Report’. This unintentionally very revealing and faintly comic document was reproduced in issue 2 of the now defunct newsletter, The Dorff Report in March 1990. In view of the … Read more
Dave Renton Pluto, London, 1999, £9.99 This book has been touted in some areas as a radical, new contribution to the study of fascism; and it is certainly well-packaged and cheap. To start with the good points which, although few, are important: if you want to know who the current academic theorists on modern … Read more
Rogue State: A guide to the world’s only superpower William Blum Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2000, $16.95 Globalize This! The battle against the World Trade Organization and corporate rule eds. Kevin Danaher and Roger Burbach Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2000, $15.95 I have lumped these together partly because they are both published … Read more
