The Open Side of Secrecy: Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

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

Gordon Winter: Inside BOSS and After

Lobster Issue 18 (1989) £££

Introduction Intelligence officers who blow the whistle get attacked by their erstwhile employers. Agee, Stockwell, Marchetti,Wallace, Holroyd, Jock Kane, Cathy Massiter – they all have variously suffered for their decision to go public. Their allegations and their characters are rubbished; operations are mounted to discredit them and disrupt their lives – and worse. Gordon Winter … Read more

Getting it right: the security agencies in modern society

Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001) £££

See note (1) Robin Ramsay The topic was suggested to me by Kevin O’Brien [of ICSA]. It wasn’t clear to me if it was simply that I was being played out a very long piece of rope with which to hang myself. At any rate, given such a wide title – and a title to … Read more

Policing the Future

Lobster Issue 14 (1987) £££

Preface This paper was written for the History Workshop 20 in Leeds, during November 1986. In the workshop which I gave, I introduced the paper by pointing out that the arguments within it were very general and the paper itself entirely polemical. I explained that each of my last three books contain detailed case histories … Read more

MacV-Sog Command History: Annexes A, N, and M (1964-66)

Lobster Issue 26 (1993) £££

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

Ronald Gray (1920-2008)

Lobster Issue 56 (Winter 2008/9) £££

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

Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International

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Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000) £££

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

Historical Notes (De Courcy, Pilcher and Hess; The 1949 sterling crisis)

Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001) £££

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

The CIA and radiation experiments on humans

Lobster Issue 32 (December 1996) £££

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

Print: Journals and book review

Lobster Issue 17 (1988) £££

Robin Ramsay Often referred to in other things is Israeli Foreign Affairs, ‘an independent monthly report on Israel’s diplomatic and military activities world-wide’. It is 8 pages A4 and though this is not a subject I am interested in, this looks very impressive and is thoroughly documented. September 1988 includes (using IFA’s headlines) Jerusalem Christian … Read more

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