Maggie's Hammer

Overview

In November 1988, Hugh John Simmonds CBE, Margaret Thatcher's favorite speechwriter and the author's best friend, boss, and political mentor, turned up dead in a woodland glade, a few miles from their sleepy, suburban hometown 20 miles west of London. To learn why his best friend was murdered, Geoffrey Gilson journeyed into the dangerous world of international arms deals, covert intelligence operations, and high-level political corruption and discovered a secret that explains much of contemporary history. A quest for truth which, after 10 years of high-risk adventure coupled with painstaking research and firsthand interviews, uncovered the ugly truth that, for some 30 years, the various governments of Great Britain have loaned their country's military and intelligence services to the United States, allowing presidents from Reagan to Obama to pursue their covert foreign and military policies without the encumbrance of congressional oversight.

Reviews

"In the Eighties, Margaret Thatcher . . . attempted dramatically to rebuild British industry by rapidly expanding [UK] arms sales. In this regard, the British Conservative Party sold arms to Iraq, with help from Israel. And the Labour Party, with Robert Maxwell, sold arms to Iran. Geoff's friend, Hugh Simmonds, was one of a team who laundered the political kickbacks from such sales." —Ari Ben Menashe, author, Profits of War; former special intelligence advisor to Israeli Prime Minister

"The parade of the military-political characters from the Thatcher years, an almost palpable smell of the growing British arms industry in the period . . . kept me going . . . right to the end. The author may be correct and has uncovered a significant and hitherto unknown set of SIS [British Intelligence] ops in the Middle East in support of US policy in the 1980s." —Robin Ramsay, co-founder and editor, Lobster magazine

Author Biography

Geoffrey Gilson is a lawyer. He was active for 10 years in the British Conservative Party before pursuing a commercial career in public relations. He lives in Carrboro, North Carolina.