Charles F. Reske Alpha Publications, Sharon Center, Ohio, USA. For Vietnam War buffs — and no particular political persuasion is necessary to be fascinated by the surreal, epic quality of that conflict — the holiest of holies is probably the Special Operations Group (SOG). One of the most shadowy organizations ever formed by the Pentagon, … Read more
In and out of focus In the springtime weeks when senior Cabinet members Charles Clarke and Patricia Hewitt found themselves in difficulties, it was reported that Philip (now Lord) Gould, the focus group guru with whom the pair worked very closely in Neil (now Lord) Kinnock’s kitchen cabinet 20 years earlier, was moving into a … Read more
Anthony Glees, Philip J. Davies, and John N. L. Morrison London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2006, £20, h/b The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is a recent addition to the roster of Whitehall bodies; the motives of those who created it, as the authors show, are obscure and its role to some extent remains … Read more
Kevin Coogan, Autonomedia, New York, 1999. $16.95 www.autonomedia.org When Francis Parker Yockey met his own personal Ernstfall with his typically vaudevillian suicide by cyanide pill, dressed only in his underpants and a pair of jack boots, it frustrated an eight year FBI manhunt for the ‘mystery man’. The impact of his gesture was no doubt … Read more
John Deutch, the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a panel member on the Interagency Group on Human Radiation Experiments, which was created on January 15 1994, under President Clinton’s order, directing government agencies to look into unethical experiments conducted during the Cold War. John Deutch was also a panel members of the … Read more
The 14th May 1988 issue of Middle East International carries an interesting article on the rise (but not yet fall) of a former high-ranking MOSSAD officer who, like Edwin Wilson, has turned his previous clandestine experience into profit through shady arms dealing. Mike Harari, leader of MOSSAD’s Munich revenge hit-squad exposed in 1973 after the … Read more
De Courcy, Pilcher and Hess Recently released material in the Public Record Office throws more light on the career of Kenneth de Courcy, and perhaps indirectly, on the Hess affair. The file in question, an MI5 document, PROKV4/58, shows that de Courcy first came to the attention of the Security Service in 1934 (without explaining … Read more
This appeared on The Konformist on 11 May.* The Waco cover-up is almost complete. A British consulting firm has just issued a report saying the federal government did not shoot any bullets into the Branch Davidian compound on the last day of the siege. The report concludes that flashes on Forward Infra Red (FLIR) tapes … Read more
Brian Crozier HarperCollins, London, 1993 This is a very interesting book which greatly adds to our knowledge of the clandestine shaping of British politics in the 1970s and 80s. It is also a book which, like Chapman Pincher’s Inside Story, will repay repeated re-reading. But amidst all the new material a surprising amount of these … Read more
Ronald Gray, founder and owner of The Hammersmith Bookshop (1948-1963) and Hammersmith Books (1963-2000) died on 30 May at the age of 87. He was a most remarkable person, with a passionate interest in everything relating to politics and to recent history. He developed the vast stock of out-of-print books in Hammersmith Books to reflect … Read more
