Last year, in the search for independent corroboration of some of Colin Wallace’s story, I talked to a number of ‘Irish hands’, journalists who had been in Northern Ireland while Wallace was working there. One was Kevin Dowling, the Sunday Mirror correspondent there from 1970-74. Dowling was reluctant to talk much about that period of … Read more
William Blum New York: Soft Skull Press, 2002, $15 www.softskull.com The working lives of writers, especially writers of non-fiction like Blum – or me – are rather dull. To produce Lobster and my other bits and pieces I have to stay in one place, read e-mails every day, books, newspapers, visit libraries, go to … Read more
The real story of the Budget is not to be found in the striking figures concerning the government’s borrowing requirement. These figures are symptomatic of a much deeper crisis which is rooted in Britain’s economic history over a 30 year period. The fundamental problem facing the UK is the shrinkage of the manufacturing sector. This … Read more
Who’s kidding whom? The September issue of Fortean Times carried a five page article by Robert Irving, ‘The Henry X File’, about Armen Victorian. It was a very strange article, part profile, part smear job. Armen was ‘twice reportedly seen in the back of a Soviet embassy limousine in Ottowa… rumours associated [him] with the … Read more
MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations Stephen Dorril Fourth Estate, London, 2000, £25 A Life: A. J. Ayer Ben Rogers Chatto and Windus, London, 1999, £20 Many books on intelligence matters simply rehash old ‘facts’, adding a new twist to – a slightly different interpretation of – well-known, if not necessarily well-understood, events. If … Read more
We know that torture is going on in secret and not so secret prisons. We know thanks to the excellent research done by <www.cageprisoners.com> that elements of the British government, be they MI5, MI6 or diplomats from the FCO, have been involved. Yet we seem unable to stop it. Civic society raises its voices in … Read more
During the 1967 Six Day War the Israeli air force attacked a US sigint ship, Liberty, which was monitoring the radio traffic of the war. The official story, that it was an unfortunate mistake in the ‘fog of war’, began to come apart after an article, ‘Mayday! Mayday! The attack on the USS Liberty’, by … Read more
Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices Thanks to the usual suspects for information, especially Jane Affleck and Robert Henderson for the continuous stream of articles; and to Phil Chamberlain who spotted Norman Baker’s House of Commons adjournment debate on MI6. The content of a number of the articles and reviews … Read more
Tom Bower London: Fourth Estate, 2001, £6.99 After tackling the Paperclip Conspiracy, Klaus Barbie, Nazi medical experiments, looted cash from holocaust victims in Swiss banks and various tycoons (Rowland, Maxwell, Fayed) the latest target for a thorough Tom Bower investigation is Sir Richard Branson, though this is a tale on a smaller scale than … Read more
the first book from the KGB archives John Costello and Oleg Tsarev Century, London, 1993 Yet another reheat of the interminable stew of Philby, Burgess, Blunt, Maclean et al, this time spiced up with material from the KGB archives. Yes, the KGB archives. Five years ago, unimaginable. Today… today it certainly makes a striking contrast … Read more
