A Very British Jihad: Collusion, conspiracy and cover-up in Northern Ireland Paul Larkin Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 2004, £10.99 p/back <www.btpale.com/> Larkin was an investigative journalist and producer for the BBC in Northern Ireland and this book is based round the TV programmes he made there about the paramilitaries and the British state in the … Read more
Our Secret Servants: the Shayler affair Things had been going rather well for the British security and intelligence services in the 1990s. Under pressure from the Wright-Wallace-Massiter revelations of the 80s, they had conceded a notional form of parliamentary accountability with the creation of the Intelligence and Security Committee. With members who either knew nothing … Read more
Part 1 The world of ultra-right conspiracy theory is of interest to researchers into clandestinism for 3 reasons. First, because critics of research into clandestinism frequently attempt to bracket it together with ultra-right believers in The Protocols of Zion and similar fantasies.(1); secondly because the ultra-rightists, in the last decade, have been showing an interest … Read more
Clippings The Lie Detector Story In the wake of the Prime case, US intelligence has made polygraph (lie detector) introduction into GCHQ at Cheltenham a condition of future GCHQ-NSA cooperation. “At a meeting in July with Civil Service union leaders, Sir Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, made it clear that Senior Whitehall officials were reluctant … Read more
From Edward Herman I was taken aback by the review of Russell Kick’s book, You Are Being Lied To, by Phil Edwards, in Lobster 42. It contains a venomous and completely idiotic attack on Noam Chomsky (and indirectly on me as a co-author of the propaganda model), and it has other deficiencies as well. Let … Read more
MI6 persuaded Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, to task them to give her early warning about coups in Africa. (Independent 23 July 2000) MI6 now have a license to roam throughout Africa. The spooks must love having Labour in office, terrified to oppose anything they ask for. Hitherto secret Whitehall committee … Read more
Clint Eastwood Movies Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood and to be released in Britain in December 2006, is an example of post-9-11 PR. It tells the story of the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima and has been described as the first film in which the balance of combat and public relations has … Read more
In October the US Government hired advertising doyenne Charlotte Beers as Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.(1) She intended ‘commissioning research into the Arab mentality’, confirming what we already knew: the American Government has so little respect for its many Arab/Muslim citizens, it has had to commission research into who they are. … Read more
The apparent re-election of George W. Bush as US President seems to have its roots in a mechanical failure. On 12 March 2004, a car went out of control on a busy highway and propelled itself in front of an 18-wheeler. The driver – an African-American clergyman called Athan Gibbs – was killed outright. Gibbs, … Read more
Introduction While researching the Rhodesia chapters of our book, I came across the Anglo-Rhodesian Society, and discovered that, as usual with the British right, there was no substantial account of it. Here is the result of an initial trawl. Future historians of the Conservative Party may discover that upon its heart in the 1960s “Rhodesia” … Read more
