Notes

Introduction

1. Quoted in Tim Weiner (1994: 4E).

2. See Philip Knightly (1986).

3. Bar-Joseph (1995:7-8) has an interesting interpretation of this case.

4. This is not a conventional work of literary criticism, for I am neither a literary critic nor a professor of literature. My mentor, Max Gluckman (1964), warned scholars who cross the boundaries of their academic disciplines to be wary of the limits of their professional naïveté. Many would say that such a notion no longer holds in an age when the distinction between genres such as the humanities and the social sciences, have become blurred, as Clifford Geertz (1980) observed. Nevertheless, in my opinion, Gluckman had a point.

5. He made an almost identical statement to Robert McNeill (1989): "I think this is more a metaphor and I tried to use the secret world to describe the overt world, if you will." Pearl K. Bell (1974:15) opposes this approach: "To distort his admittedly unconventional view of British Intelligence, seeing in it a symbolic representation of Larger Issues; to draw high-toned moral profundity from the exhausted seediness of Alec Leamas, the spy who came in from the cold, is to misrepresent and distort le Carré’s extraordinary achievements as an original and mesmerising writer working within the strict boundaries of a difficult genre."

6. Lars Ole Sauerberg (1984: 65) suggests that "Le Carré’s work may be read as a gradual approach to moral allegory: the removal of the political issues from a concrete to a spiritual dimension in which Smiley and his adversaries represent fundamental forces in the human mind."

7. Unless otherwise indicated, emphasis in quoted material appears in the original throughout this book.

8. Postmodern deconstruction, new historicism, "queer theory," and feminist readings of texts (not to mention various Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches) tend to focus on power and politics. These days, anthropologists and even a few political scientists analyze the "poetry of politics" (McWilliams, 1995). Many of the younger generation of anthropologists writing in this mode tend to take their inspiration from poststructuralism, which made its first major inroads in the American academy through the analysis of literature. Most political scientists who study literature are political theorists (i.e., political philosophers). I am an anthropologist but neither a postmodernist nor poststructuralist. I am also a political scientist but not a political theorist. I share with these scholars, however, a rejection of the excesses of a rigid scientism that insists on conformity to the standards set by the physical sciences. I especially share with the theorists a concern for the "moral dimension of politics." See Catherine Zuckert (1995:189-90).

9. For example, John G. Cawelti and Bruce A. Rosenberg expertly trace the development of The Spy Story (1987) from James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy (1821) to our times. They convincingly argue that "John le Carré, more than any other practitioner, has transformed the secret agent adventure story created by earlier writers . . . into a distinctive genre of its own." They, and others whose work I cite, are concerned with such issues as the evolution of the genre, the structure of the spy novel, and the literary influences on le Carré. In my study, however, such issues are of peripheral interest. Style is important to my analysis only when it expresses underlying political sentiments and ideas.

10. See, for example, Geertz (1973:193-233), Ricoeur (1986), and Aronoff (1989: xiii-xxviii) for more inclusive treatments of ideology.

11. I use the term myth in the neutral, anthropological--and not the pejorative, everyday--sense of the term. For an interesting and unconventional analysis of the role of myth, particularly the Cold War and the new world order, and of le Carré's contributions to our understanding of these phenomena, see John S. Nelson (1994). Nelson is particularly interested in the contributions that spy stories can make to theories of international politics.

12. The only spy novel Howe mentions in his major work is Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907), which Howe (1992:94) says "is a work of enormous possibilities, far from fully realized but realized just enough to enable us to see how Conrad thwarts and denies his own gifts." Perhaps this is the reason Howe also ignored the work of Graham Greene.

13. Tom Maddox (1986:159) asserts that "like Dickens, he [le Carré] has transformed a popular form into high art." Eric Homberger (1986:103-4) suggests that le Carré's use of the spy formula is a pretext "for profound and fully serious investigations of the central issues of our time." Homberger (1986:104) concludes that le Carré's novels constitute "an ethics of the way we live now." Cawelti and Rosenberg (1987:179) assert: "The spy story is as le Carré sees it, a statement about the inescapable dilemma of the mid-twentieth century."

14. Ty Burr (1998: AR9) quotes Orwell ("Why I Write") who says he spent his career trying "to make political writing an art."

15. In fact, le Carré (1968) had explored this theme in an earlier short story, "What Ritual Is Being Observed Tonight?," a Daumier-like satirical caricature of academics (among other things).

16. Tony Barley (1986), Eric Homberger (1986), and LynnDianne Beene (1992) are exceptions upon whose insights on this subject I build. Neither ideology nor politics appear in the indexes of the others’ works--including that of John L. Cobbs (1998), which was not available until after this work was completed and in production for publication.

17. W. Carey McWilliams (in a personal communication) points out the similarity with Thucydides. See Clifford Orwin (1994).

18. I realize this interpretation conflicts with others. Not being an expert on Plato, I merely point out the appropriateness of this reading of Plato’s literary technique for an understanding of le Carré’s.

19. Wilson Carey McWilliams (1995:175-212). Tracing liberal ideology from Hobbes, Locke, and Kant, he suggests liberalism’s lodestar is liberty, and the other two pillars on which it rests are secularism and free exchange. Both temperaments and doctrines fall within my broader definition of ideology, although it is useful to make the analytical distinction between the two, particularly when discussing the tension between them.

20. Although Homberger (1986:79) mentions Smiley’s political temperament, he neither defines nor develops the notion. Because he is a literary critic, one would not have expected him to do so. Homberger (1986:80) states: "It is Smiley, the moral centre of gravity of le Carré’s imagination, who humanizes the vast machinery of plot."

21. In chapter 1 I elaborate this point. Homberger (1986:77) says: "I don’t think he [le Carré] is really interested in political ideas, at least not in the fashion of Koestler for whom the human (let us say the Forsterian) dimension was weaker than the ideological contention." That le Carré attacks rigid ideological doctrines and more ambiguously expresses his politics through actions rather than words does not mean that he is disinterested in political ideas.

22.This is what Barley (1986:1) calls the "many John le Carrés" or the "many faces and voices" that compete with one another in his fiction.

23. Cawelti and Rosenberg (1987:185) point out that "le Carré is too good an artist to state explicit philosophic principles without qualifying ironies."

24. "It is the absence on the author's part of a clear, coherent political position, complete with its implied programme, recommendations and solutions, which induces him to adopt a method of political presentation that dramatizes ambivalence as problematic. Le Carré's political method acts not to transmit authoritative opinion but to play out as sharply as possible the conflict between antagonistic positions."

25. Green (1988:26).

26. Personal communication from David Cornwell, November 11, 1996. My evaluations of le Carré’s empathetic treatment of his Jewish characters were written before the publication of a review of The Tailor of Panama in the New York Times by Norman Rush (1996:11). Rush claimed that the main character, Pendel, is "yet another literary avatar of Judas." Le Carré’s (1996:4.22) reply to this charge makes clear how much he identifies personally with Pendel. Garson (1987:79) also notes the author’s "great sympathy for the Jews." In an interview with Douglas Davis (1997:19), le Carré discusses in depth his feelings toward Jews and Israel.

27. Pym feels responsible for Lippsie's suicide and for his mother's mental illness (see chapter 16 of the novel, 423). One of Pym's women says, "He never loved a woman in his life. We were enemy, all of us" (7:181). Pym’s thoughts are: "You women want nothing but to drag us down" (11:298); the narrator comments, "Women are abhorrent to him" (11:299).

28. See, for example, his essay "Spying on My Father" (1986). He explains why he could get closer to the truth of his relationship with his father through fiction rather than through autobiography.

29. Lelyveld (1986:91).

30. Various reports have identified his involvement in espionage. Alexis Gelber and Edward Behr (1983:43) cite a retired British intelligence source who claims that he was recruited as early as age 17, when he spent a year at the University of Berne. They quote Cornwell’s cryptic remark, "I have nosed around in the secret world. But it was a long, long while ago." Hugh McIlvanney (1983:18) also dates his "apprenticeship in intelligence work" to his year at the University of Berne, claiming that le Carré "said as much" during his interview. In his essay "Don't Be Beastly to Your Secret Service" (1986:41-42), le Carré says: "Of my nearly 50 years' relationship with British Intelligence more than 40 have been vicarious." Le Carré told Walter Isaacson and James Kelly (1993:33) that during his years in the Foreign Service, he was working for the secret intelligence service: "I was recruited almost when I was still in diapers into that world. My really formative years . . .were all taken over by the secret world . . . I entered it in the spirit of John Buchan and left it in the spirit of Kafka." McIlvanney (1983:18) confirms, "It was when he joined the Foreign Service . . . that the heavy connection with espionage was established." James Burridge (1992:15), in a journal published by the CIA, states "He was a case officer in the 1950s and 1960s."

31. Vivian Green (1988:37), his senior tutor at Oxford, rather elliptically seems to confirm his involvement in internal security while at Oxford and, after graduation, his consideration for security clearance abroad.

32. Anthony Masters (1987:229) confirms that "David Cornwell joined MI5, in the late fifties." Masters (1987:237) corroborates Cornwell's recruitment by Maxwell Knight, the veteran head of MI5's countersubversion department. Cornwell had illustrated Knight's book, Talking Birds, which was published in 1961. Masters (1987:240) also confirms that "in 1960, David Cornwell left MI5 for MI6. A front cover was established for him, first as a second secretary at the British embassy in Bonn, and later consul in Hamburg. Before leaving for Germany, former intelligence sources relate, Cornwell was put through an intensive course at an Intelligence training camp in England."

33. Access to Cornwell's records, which I requested under the Freedom of Information Act, was denied under exemptions (b)(1), "applies to material which is properly classified pursuant to an Executive order in the interest of national defense or foreign policy"; and (b)(3), "applies to the Director's statutory obligations to protect from disclosure intelligence sources and methods, as well as the organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries or numbers of personnel employed by the agency." Letter dated April 28, 1997, from Lee S. Strickland, information and privacy coordinator of the CIA (emphasis added). Although my appeal for reconsideration was granted, the denial of access was upheld. In the political notes section of the International Herald Tribune, May 15, 1997, 3, it was reported that "the government--except the CIA--spent $5.23 billion on classification last year." When Representative David Skaggs (D-Colo.) asked the head of administrative services at the CIA how much the agency spent on classification, he was told the information is classified.

34. Cawelti and Rosenberg (1987:183).

35. Barley (1986:25).

36. Thomas Powers (1995) reviews four books on the Ames case. David Wise (1995) receives the most favorable review. The other books mentioned in this essay are Tim Weiner, David Johnston, and Neil A. Lewis (1995), Peter Maas (1995), and James Adams (1995).

37. I am grateful to my colleague Carey McWilliams, who raised this point in a personal communication.

38. My general theoretical orientation is phenomenological. I view the nature of cultural perceptions of reality and of social and political institutions as an ongoing dialectical process of social construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. My formulation of this approach builds upon the work of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality (1966). My primary analytic approach is hermeneutic, based on the interpretation of the humanly created collective cultural meanings that, however tenuously, explain and give meaning to the social world. (See Geertz, 1973, 1983, and 1995). I define these meanings as ideological when they provide legitimacy for the allocation of scarce resources (particularly status and power) in the polity. In this context I use a broad notion of ideology in contrast with the narrower one more commonly employed.

39. Lewis (1985:24) observed, "The moral problem of how far you can go to preserve a society without destroying the very values you are trying to defend pervades le Carré's fiction."

40. A $347 million, million-square-foot new headquarters (one fifth the size of the Pentagon) for the top-secret U.S. National Reconnaissance Office was kept secret from congressional oversight committees by being buried in the agency's secret annual budget (reputed to be approximately $6 billion).

41. Cawelti and Rosenberg (1987:224-28) give a valuable list of bibliographies, research guides, histories of espionage, scholarly studies of espionage organizations and practices, and works dealing with major spies and episodes of espionage.

42. For example, events in Israel over the past few years have eroded the cloud of secrecy surrounding Israel's intelligence services and have also led to more critical questions regarding their activities. See Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman (1990), and Ian Black and Benny Morris (1991). The most recent annotated bibliography is Frank A. Clements (1995). For an interesting comparative analysis, see Uri Bar-Joseph (1995).