John le Carré and Graham Greene, British writers of spy fiction, stand at the pinnacle of the genre. Yet both are much more than narrow specialists in the crafting of espionage adventure tales; they have used the subject of lèse-majesté as a venue for exploring the large and important issue of politics and morality. In his excellent book, The Spy Novels of John le Carré, political scientist Myron J. Aronoff, a professor of political science and anthropology at Rutgers University and the author of several studies on Israeli culture and politics, provides an exhaustive analysis of le Carré's spy novels. For anyone even remotely interested in questions of espionage, Aronoff provides an enjoyable, thoughtful inquiry into a host of issues that arise when secret agencies operate within the framework of democratic societies.

IS EXTREMISM IN THE DEFENSE OF LIBERTY A VIRTUE?

Dr. Aronoff, whose erudition and felicity are evident in every chapter, is particularly interested in mining le Carré's novels for insights on a vexing conundrum central not only to the work of this famous British author but to the entire raison d'être of intelligence organizations in open societies, namely: in the defense of democratic ideals and institutions, to what extreme should secret agencies be allowed to operate? Le Carré's stories exhibit a fear of secret power and probe the dark side of government in search of ethical boundaries which might help determine which contexts, if any, justify extreme operations. In so doing, Aronoff emphasizes, the novelist “contributes to civic education and to the development of a more morally informed citizenry.”

“We must beware of the enemies we choose, because we will become more like them,” a Harvard University theologian once observed to me during the Cold War. In the ideological conflict with Communism, the clandestine methods used by the open societies—assassination plots, political bribery, the mining of harbors, massive propaganda programs, and attempts to topple even democratic regimes—were sometimes indistinguishable from the methods employed by the closed societies being opposed.

During the Iran-Contra affair, Republican Party officials in the Reagan White House believed that a “higher” law of defeating the Marxist regime in Nicaragua required them to put aside democracy and the written law. Since legislators on Capitol Hill decided to block funding (through the successive Boland amendments) for the paramilitary activities wanted by the Reagan administration to defeat the Marxist regime, the White House elected to bypass Congress and secretly raised the monies, mostly from outside sources within the right-wing community of the United States and rich foreign potentates. These “patriots” placed the Constitution on hold and went underground to thwart the will of a majority in both the House and the Senate. They “wrapped themselves in the flag and go around spitting on the Constitution,” concluded Senator Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire, a leading Republican investigator on the committee probing the affair.

The administration chose not to exercise a presidential veto over the despised Boland amendments, which would have been the proper constitutional remedy; rather they took the easier road—avoiding the risks of open debate and a possible veto override—by creating a new, hidden organization called “The Enterprise.” This group would serve, according to Lt. Col. Oliver L. North (one of the conspirators), as an “off-the-shelf, self-sustaining, stand-alone” secret government led by the staff of the National Security Council and accountable to no elected official. The President and the Vice President were protected by the doctrine of plausible denial—or, in fact, claimed in the subsequent investigation not to have known of the Enterprise and its activities.

Although the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and British intelligence were almost always more honorable than their Communist counterparts, and surely their objectives were more noble, the occasional overlap in modus operandi between Western and Communist spy establishments (illustrated by the assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro and others during the Kennedy years and the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan years) is disquieting. This decay of integrity within the Western intelligence services is a dominant theme in le Carré's work and draws Aronoff's close attention. Certainly anyone who recalls Operation CHAOS (the CIA's involvement in domestic spying against Vietnam War protesters) or Operation COINTELPRO (the Federal Bureau of Investigation's unsavory efforts to harass civil rights and anti-war activists) will understand the dangers of breaching the ethical and legal limits meant to restrain secret power in the United States.

BALANCING THE VALUES OF SECURITY AND LIBERTY

Le Carré's characters, especially the tenacious counterintelligence officer George Smiley, try to cope with the dilemma of balancing liberal idealism and realpolitik. As Professor Aronoff reminds us, Smiley and other leading dramatis personae in le Carré's novels are constantly searching—with a strong sense of skepticism—for the proper balance between the competing loyalties of idealism and realism. The moral choices in these novels can be profound. In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), for instance, the British are willing to betray entire networks of agents to protect a key agent in place. In A Perfect Spy (1986), the British are more worried about maintaining good relations with the CIA than with saving the lives of agents revealed by one of their own turncoats.

Aronoff believes that le Carré's fiction displays a profound disillusionment with intelligence services. Having served in MI5 and MI6 for a period (1959-1966), le Carré apparently found that many officers in the British service lacked integrity. His novels are infused with a sense of ambivalence toward the secret world. Spying can be morally justifiable since it may save lives. (What if the United States had known about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance?) Yet, le Carré portrays the dark arts as often useless and pernicious.

Aronoff's painstaking research is filled with references to other writers who have interviewed le Carré (Aronoff's own request was denied) and analyzed his work. In one telling session with Godfrey Hodgson (cited by Aronoff on page 90), le Carré said: “Those of us who are on nodding terms with these outfits have learned, very seriously, to wonder whether they're any bloody good at all. But if they are good, if they're going to stand up and be counted against the KGB, which without doubt is a ruthless, messy, vile, and very effective organization, are we going to feel safe with them?” This paradox haunts le Carré's literary corpus, just as it concerns anyone who has thought about the difficult balance between security and liberty.

AN EXISTENTIAL PARADOX

Of special interest is Chapter 8 on “Fiction and the Real World of Espionage.” Here Professor Aronoff reveals an impressive understanding of the non-fiction literature on intelligence, and skillfully contrasts this reality with le Carré's fictional accounts. Aronoff argues that in the real world more openness and a greater skepticism about the effectiveness of extreme intelligence operations would be healthy for the United States—a message that suffuses le Carré's books. Aronoff, though, is willing to embrace at least one extreme intelligence option presently prohibited by executive order in the United States: the assassination of foreign leaders. “An argument could be made,” he opines, “that it would have been more humane (in terms of loss of life), not to mention more cost effective, to assassinate the Iraqi dictator than to have launched Operation Desert Storm” (p. 193).

At the heart of le Carré's novels, then, lies a necessity that is also a paradox. Democracies are forced to live with ambiguity as they attempt to balance ethical and political imperatives. Open societies and their intelligence services have to cope with a hostile world in which other nations may be guided by less enlightened norms. “We must live in the world we find, not the one we wish,” President George Bush frequently noted. This can lead to the adoption of otherwise “repugnant” intelligence methods, as forewarned by the top-secret Doolittle report to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the early stages of the Cold War (1954).

Yet, at the same time, open societies long to protect their integrity and commitment to fair play and other humane values.

“We are not the KGB.” Under Secretary of State George Ball often insisted during the Cold War. “When we mine harbors in Nicaragua, we fuzz the difference between ourselves and the Soviet Union,” he said in a 1984 interview. “We act out of character, which no great power can do without diminishing itself . . . . When we yield to what is, in my judgment, a childish temptation to fight the Russians on their own terms and in their own gutter, we make a major mistake and throw away one of our great assets.” And therein lies the conflict in values that beguiles le Carré and troubles the intelligence services of democratic nations.

RUSHING TO LE CARRÉ

Beyond his trenchant critique of the le Carré novels, Myron Aronoff offers insights into the novelist's life, including his turbulent relationship with his father. He also serves up a wonderful set of supplementary materials. The book's appendix presents a fulsome description of every important character in le Carré's novels; the notes are rich and comprehensive (though with a few errors here and there in titles). Provided, too, is a curriculum vitae for all of le Carré's work (fiction and non-fiction), arranged by year of publication, along with a citation list of all the key interviews that have been carried out with the novelist. Finally, Professor Aronoff has complied a useful bibliography of contemporary works on intelligence fiction and non-fiction.

No connoisseur of intelligence can consider the bookshelf in the study complete without this outstanding volume. There is one hazard, though: Aronoff's enthusiasm for his subject may encourage his readers to drop everything and rush out to purchase le Carré's latest novel.

Loch K. Johnson is Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and author of the forthcoming Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs (New York: New York University Press, 2000).