John le Carre is becoming one of my favorite authors. His character George Smiley--memorably portrayed by Sir Alec Guinness in two celebrated miniseries for the BBC--is supposed to be a more realistic version of a British spy, in contrast to Ian Fleming's James Bond. Sir Oliver Lacon is an assistant to the Cabinet minister in charge of national intelligence. Lacon is the bureaucrat no one in the intelligence service likes, because his job is to keep an eye on especially domestic political implications of intelligence. He usually limits what the pros want to do, for some political consideration. He's amiable, but unprincipled, and ambitious. I think what le Carre loves to do is have his protagonists wrestle between their idealism, their patriotism, and pragmatism. Tonight, I fell asleep in Lacon's living room, so to speak. When I woke up, everyone was still in Sir Oliver's living room!
I love these Cold War stories. My sympathy for the West is undimmed, despite my ambivalence--at best--toward liberalism and capitalism. These stories are as much about people, as they are about espionage. Both Smiley and Lacon have unfaithful wives. Most of the spies carry on affairs. The adversaries, respectively, attempt to use these facts against their counterparts.
We are continually challenged to think about virtue and vice, even as citizens of nations. What would we be prepared to do, to defend our way of life? What might be done, that would fundamentally alter the national character, or that of the free West?
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