Richard Belfield

This is a very odd book. Is it an angry political tract masquerading as an analysis of political assassination? It certainly cannot make its mind up whether it is journalism or not. But, equally, it is not easily dismissed either.

Perhaps it is best treated as an introduction into political conspiracy and as a companion piece to Camus' 'L'Homme Revolte' updated to look retrospectively at some of the central events of the twentieth century through a conspiratorial but informed eye.

Camus was show more all ideology, text and theory but Belfield fills in the practical details of realpolitik and he can be surprisingly fair-minded - he exonerates the SAS and points out the reality of IRA intentions in the 'death on the Rock' case, as an example.

The classically liberal observer is going to have some serious difficulties with this book because Belfield does take conspiracy theory seriously but perhaps that is because the liberal intellectual is incapable of seeing what is not placed under his nose by the approved media.

I am in two minds about ‘conspiracy’ but it is foolish to believe that conspiracies do not take place and that small groups of men in politics operate in a moral climate that might otherwise be called psychopathic if this was not unfair to psychopaths.

In this book, Belfield argues well on the evidence and he gives foot notes that allow us to check most if not all statements.

At times, he does go over that fine line into unwarranted speculation but I have to say that he has changed my mind somewhat, albeit cautiously, on the death of Diana even if I still struggle with the motive. Surely the French cannot be quite that incompetent in such a consistent way!

Belfield seems to share a view that I put in ‘Lobster’ article many years ago that critical judgment in the para-political field obliges us to a probabilistic model rather than reliance only on the evidence available and on understanding the meaning of gaps and alleged coincidences.

As an Appendix, there is quite a wise ‘General Principles in Assassination Science’ (aka parapolitical investigation of state and group terror) that is worthy of further study and refinement. It is still useful to expose these sharks - it may slightly restrain their excesses.

The problem for most critics of para-politics is that every now and then evidence does emerge and we find ourselves faced with horrors – surely, Camelot was well and truly buried by the evidence of JFK’s complicity in the assassination of Diem and the revelations of the Church Committee.

JFK was really not much more than a very powerful gangster when it came to international relations and Obama’s embracing of remote drone killing as an instrument of policy shows him to be well and truly within the Imperial Democratic tradition.

To his credit, at least Obama does not pretend to be anything other than he is – a warlord – but we should be grateful for small mercies even if the admission is degrading and problematic for the liberal who would prefer such matters to remain secreted away as ‘conspiracy theory’.

But I do not want to catalogue the horrors nor imply that Belfield is wholly reliable nor that sometimes extrajudicial murder may not be reasonable (Belfield hints at this himself) nor that villainy is the prerogative of just one side in any game.

The service provided – albeit in a rather episodic way – by Belfield is to drive another nail into the coffin of the idea that any one set of State or ideologues is much better in its practices than another.

Indeed the ones who claim the highest moral ground appear to be those most inclined to high crime.

The simple brutal matter of British security stating the line across which the IRA could not cross was repugnant perhaps but it did reduce the threat of civil mayhem, with mass displacement and sectarian pogroms, to a mutual killing field of gangsters more like Sicily than Syria.

Containment slowly allowed the stick and the carrot to result eventually in the chief gang leader of one faction shaking the hand of the chief gang leader of the other – and the crisis to at least be attenuated to the point where protection money could exchange hands in the open.

The point is that morality and governance are in uneasy relationship. The governed have to believe that their governors are moral and they would prefer not to be told otherwise – it is rather like the necessity to believe in God for many people. It is an avoidance strategy.

In the best of situations, the illusion of morality becomes a reality because there is no reason for it to be otherwise but the essential a-morality of Power should never be under-estimated.

Anglican priests stayed silent on the mass bombing of German civilians because they knew what side their bread was buttered. Anti-communist intellectuals turned a blind eye to the bombing of civilians in Vietnam and leftist intellectuals to Soviet crimes.

The moralists are usually moral cowards. This book is therefore probably for only those interested in the tit-bits of Power’s behavior when faced with threat or filled with ambition. It will not interest people who do not like inconvenient truths.

It should inspire a healthy cynicism because little will change. Indeed, it is getting worse: if there is one thing the internet has demonstrated, it is that the people really are powerless and and that realpolitik no longer needs much coherent moral force to function. It is all mere cover. show less

The Assassination Business by Richard Belfield is a fascinating account of the way in which assassination (defined widely to include almost any murder not for purely private motives) has impacted the world from Julius Caesar through Thomas a'Becket and Marat to the Kennedys and WPC Yvonne Fletcher.

The author is a documentary film maker who made programmes about the death of Princess Diana and the assassination of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London.

For me, most show more interesting is the linkage form one assassination to the next as killers are in their turn killed and so on. The 'licence to kill' a la James Bond is the beginning of a vicious circle of assassination and counter assassination. It is an irony but no coincidence that John and Robert Kennedy, both enthusiasts for the assassination of, among others, Castro in Cuba and Diem in Vietnam were themselves assassinated.

The chapter on the death of Princess Diana is also revealing and, while I don't think that a conclusive case is made that she was assassinated by the secret service, there seems little doubt that the official version was a highly suspect coat of whitewash.

Well worth the read. show less

This book doesn't give itself enough credit.

There are a lot more than six unsolved ciphers in the world. That is, there are a lot more than six un-deciphered documents. On the other hand, most of those documents are encrypted using the same mechanism, it's just that the relevant key has not been found. That's the usual reason a "book" code can't be solved -- you need to own a particular book to crack it, and no one has figured out the book. But we know the cipher. That's the case with the show more Beale Cipher, for instance, mentioned in this book.

On the other hand, there is a very good chance that the Voynich Manuscript, also mentioned here, is a fake. No cipher at all; just a bunch of symbols designed to fool someone.

So, OK, the cipher count is a little dubious. It doesn't make the subject less fascinating. There are several ways to write a book about ciphers. One way stresses the actual mechanism of encryption. This sort of book is for people who have secrets to keep. Another is to devote more attention to the history of the ciphers. That sort may not be as good for keeping the National Security Administration off your back, but it makes for more interesting reading. This book is of the second sort. You'll learn some cryptography; you'll also learn about some pretty goofy people. Which can be a lot more fun than reading someone's secret orders in a battle long since settled.... show less

A decent introduction to several cipher mysteries, and a serviceable introduction to codes and codebreaking. But it reeks of adequacity. There are so many errors in the stuff I do know, that it makes me wonder about his research into the stuff I do not. And some of the quack theories he advances, that have been quite easily dismissed by others. Such as his insistence the Zodiac killer began in 1963, et cetera. His interpretation of Bacon's role in the Voynich Manuscript is hilarious. But show more worst of all is the insipidness of the writing. Take these gems: "The Scots were put back in their box by the brutal slaughter at Culloden in 1745 and then further crushed as the Duke of Cumberland and his army of psychopaths practiced savage ethnic cleansing against the Highlanders. ...making Cumberland an early prototype for Slobadan Milosevic." Really? What crap statements. And, same paragraph, "Overseas, the British military fought and defeated the French wherever they met, taking territory in Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean and Africa." Really? The British took US territory in 1745? Or at any time? Sloppy. A fun primer, but not any real meat here. show less