The Labour Party, War and International Relations, 1945-2006 Mark Phythian London: Routledge, 2007, £19.99, p/b Reviewed by: Bernard Porter The title of this book is slightly misleading – at any rate, it misled me. I was expecting a broader treatment of Labour’s debates over issues of war and foreign relations, which would have included colonial … Read more
Colin Wallace On the Colin Wallace front, the big event since issue 17 has been Paul Foot’s book, Who Framed Colin Wallace? (Macmillan, 1989). With this book Paul Foot has re-researched and synthesised all the previous work and produced what is likely to remain the definitive account of Wallace’s biography, his allegations and – most … Read more
The Robert Henderson/Tony Blair story. Having failed to persuade any section of the British political class then in power to do anything about a wrong he had suffered at the hands of the media, Robert Henderson wrote letters to the then Leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair – 13 letters in all. This is Henderson’s … Read more
Books International networks of banks and industry M. Fennema (Martinus Nijhoff, PO Box 2501, CN The Hague, Netherlands: Distribution in Europe by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, PO Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Distribution for US and Canada by Kluwer Boston Inc. 190 Old Derby St., Higham, MA 02043, USA).1982 Very little academic work … Read more
When I began studying the Kennedy assassination, back in 1983, my naivety was considerable. It would be a few years before I fully hooked into the diffuse network of assassination researchers, and my hit-and-miss efforts to locate that fraternity produced some bizarre results during the 1985-87 period. Consulting periodical directories and other sources, I collected … Read more
Hernando Calvo Ospina Translated by Stephen Wilkinson and Alasdair Holden London and Sterling,VA.: Pluto Press, 2002, pb, £10.99 This is the first book to document the on-going attempt by the Bacardi company to both help overthrow the Fidelista Cuban Government and sabotage the commercial interests of competing, Cuban-sourced, rum companies. It also documents the … Read more
Wellington Pacific Review Owen Wilkes has ceased production of Wellington Pacific Review (ISSN 0135-5619), the New Zealand newsletter on events in that part of the Pacific, but it continues under the control of Iain MacDougall. At £10/ US 14 for 10 issues, WPR should be on the list of anyone with even a passing interest … Read more
Gordon Winter In Lobster 18, dated October 1989, under the headline: ‘Inside BOSS and After‘, you wrote the following: ‘Gordon Winter is an Englishman who was recruited by BOSS. His 1981 book Inside BOSS, was the first (and only) inside account of South Africa’s intelligence agency. We still think this is one of the most … Read more
Travesty: The trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the corruption of international justice John Laughland London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press; 2007, £14.99 (UK) $24.95 (US), p/b Laughland is an interesting figure, whose writing appears in media across the ideological spectrum, from the conservative right to The Guardian and here, Pluto Press. It is thus … Read more
The Christic Institute’s allegations that there has been a ‘secret team’ of CIA and ex CIA personnel operating since the early 1960s right through to the present day have had a surprising amount of publicity in Britain considering that this is the kind of conspiracy theorising which is normally anathema to our straight media. It … Read more
