The CIA In a recent ‘Witness Seminar’ on the 1975 British referendum on entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), the Conservative MP, Sir Richard Body, who in 1975 was co-chair of the anti-EEC National Referendum Campaign, had this to say: ‘At the very beginning of the campaign two CIA agents came to see me … Read more
Philip Willan Constable, London, 1991, £20.00 Hats off. A British journalist, living in Italy, Willan has produced that synthesis of the Italian material on the “strategy of tension’ and related parapolitical activity which people like me, without Italian or access to the Italian press, have been waiting for. This is one of those books that … Read more
Roy Madron and John Jopling Dartington (UK): Green Books, 2003, £8.00 The authors are eco-doomsters who believe the planet is on the verge of catrastrophe. I am also at heart though not in practice a deep green, for what it’s worth, and have been since the first ‘eco-politics’ wave of the 1969-71 … Read more
Let’s start with the easiest question: what do George Robertson, Chris Smith and Marjorie ‘Mo’ Mowlam have in common? They are, of course, all strong Tony Blair supporters in the new Labour Cabinet. And what about Peter Mandelson and Elizabeth Symons? Not yet quite Cabinet members, but both are key figures in the ‘modernising project’ … Read more
Edited by Anthony Gorst, Lewis Johnman and W. Scott Lucas. Pinter/Institute of Contemporary British History London, 1991, £35 Goodness only knows what “politics and the limits of policy’ in the subtitle is supposed to mean. This is just a collection of essays on recent British history and was initially of interest because of the essay … Read more
Dick Russell Carroll and Graf, New York, 1992 This is one of the most interesting JFK assassination books to have emerged from the movie and 30th anniversary tie-in crop. Given the vast amount of attention paid to Gerald Posner’s ‘Oswald did it after all!’ apologia, Case Closed, it is unfortunate that Russell’s book still hasn’t … Read more
Europe Inc: Regional and Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power Belén Balanyá, Ann Doherty, Olivier Hoedeman, Adam Ma’anit and Erik Wessselius Pluto Press, London and Sterling (Virginia, USA) 2000, £14.99 Blowing the Whistle: one man’s fight against fraud in the European Commission Paul van Buitenen, London: Politicos, 2000, £12.99 In his memoir, In … Read more
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave London: Verso, 2003, h/b, £17 The story in brief: before and during WW2 Japan stripped the countries it occupied of its transportable wealth — gold and other precious metals, diamonds, cash, bonds and so on. As the war turned against them this was buried in various locations, many of … Read more
Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing Stephen Marshall (Guerilla News Network, $13.22. Available from <> and <amazon.co.uk>) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism Naomi Klein, (London: Allen Lane, £25.00) ‘When new (forms of capitalism) emerged in the past …they sparked a flood of analysis and debate about how such seismic shifts in the production … Read more
The parapolitical activities of Jean Violet go back to the 1930s, when Violet was supposedly involved with a violent quasi-Masonic movement going under the title of the Comite Secret pour l’Action Revolutionnaire, or CSAR. CSAR was part of a larger far-right phenomenon in pre-WW2 France, the conspiratorial members of which were referred to as Cagoulards, … Read more
