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Espionage writer, former British spy John Le Carre nearly defected to Soviet Union
Fox ^ | 9/14/08 | AP

Posted on 09/14/2008 11:52:43 AM PDT by workerbee

LONDON — British espionage writer John Le Carre said he was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union when he worked for British intelligence agency MI6, according to an interview published Sunday.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 76-year-old novelist was quoted as saying he was curious about what was on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

"I wasn't tempted ideologically," he was quoted as saying. "But when you spy intensively and you get closer and closer to the border ... it seems such a small step to jump ... and you know, find out the rest."

**SNIP**

Le Carre is also known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. foreign policy. In an open letter to U.S. voters in 2004 he called the invasion of Iraq a "hare-brained adventure" and called on Americans to boot Bush from office.

But he had semi-conciliatory words for Salman Rushdie, the Booker Prize-winning novelist with whom he has feuded.

Le Carre refused to support Rushdie when the Iranian government issued a fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill him because "The Satanic Verses" allegedly insulted Islam.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Society
KEYWORDS: espionage; johnlecarre; sovietunion
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1 posted on 09/14/2008 11:52:43 AM PDT by workerbee
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To: workerbee

Another Liberal Hypocrit.

They benefit enormously from capitalism, live in free societies, then have the fantasy of “If I were to control the world, ...” And always advocate “share the wealth” and trust horrid Communist dictatorships like Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, VietNam, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. They don’t realy like our EuroSocialist friends because they haven’t gone all the way.

I will never read another on his novels again. Which is OK by me -— he is boring.


2 posted on 09/14/2008 11:58:50 AM PDT by whitedog57
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To: workerbee
John Le Carre said he was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union when he worked for British intelligence agency MI6... Le Carre is also known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. foreign policy... he called the invasion of Iraq a "hare-brained adventure" and called on Americans to boot Bush from office.... Le Carre refused to support Rushdie when the Iranian government issued a fatwa... ordering Muslims to kill him... "I was wrong for the right reasons."

The literary genius turns out to be a dimwit.

3 posted on 09/14/2008 11:59:05 AM PDT by marron
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To: workerbee

Another Liberal Hypocrit.

They benefit enormously from capitalism, live in free societies, then have the fantasy of “If I were to control the world, ...” And always advocate “share the wealth” and trust horrid Communist dictatorships like Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, VietNam, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. They don’t realy like our EuroSocialist friends because they haven’t gone all the way.

I will never read another on his novels again. Which is OK by me -— he is boring.


4 posted on 09/14/2008 11:59:20 AM PDT by whitedog57
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To: workerbee
I'm not surprised
5 posted on 09/14/2008 12:03:08 PM PDT by usshadley (Ever heard of The Church of the Immaculate 1st Trimester..me neither)
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To: whitedog57

I tried to read one of Le Carre’s books and found it to be one boring book. Never picked up another one since.


6 posted on 09/14/2008 12:27:28 PM PDT by Buddygirl
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To: workerbee
LeCarre originally wrote to debunk the way espionage was portrayed in the Ian Fleming novels.

His early works were exceptional, and IMHO the best of his work was the (blushes, polishes spectacles with end of necktie) George Smiley series which began with "A Murder of Quality" and ended with "Smiley's People".

From there it was all downhill, IMHO.

7 posted on 09/14/2008 12:31:33 PM PDT by George Smiley (Palin is the real deal.)
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To: whitedog57

Ian Fleming was much more fun. The James Bond novels while full of fantasy and fluff will survive better than Le Carre which are full of pretension and will date badly. You tended to be just depressed once you closed a Le Carre book. Sort of like how you are in a communist country so he was correct...he was almost there.


8 posted on 09/14/2008 12:38:01 PM PDT by xp38
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To: George Smiley
I agree. I start reading something like The Spy who Came in from the Cold or The Looking-Glass War and the next thing I know it's 3:30 am and I'm trying to finish it in one sitting.
9 posted on 09/14/2008 12:44:52 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

And Operation Prime Time made an excellent mini-series of “Smiley’s People” with Alec Guiness playing Smiley.

LeCarre stated in an interview that he couldn’t write about Smiley for several years after that because every time he thought of Smiley, he saw Guiness in his mind’s eye.


10 posted on 09/14/2008 12:55:35 PM PDT by Yanni.Znaio (On the Palin smears: "Let he who is without stones cast the first sin.")
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To: 1rudeboy

Done the same thing myself.

But not for a number of years with a LeCarre novel, unfortunately.

Start reading the later stuff and get bored out of my skull.

He wrote better before he started trying to inject his own personal politics into his books.


11 posted on 09/14/2008 1:01:12 PM PDT by George Smiley (Palin is the real deal.)
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To: George Smiley
The later stuff, like The Constant Gardener, is nearly unreadable in my opinion.

I won't go as far as to say that Le Carre has gotten formulaic (like Clancy), but he's gotten close.

12 posted on 09/14/2008 1:08:08 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: workerbee

I’ll go against popular opinion here — I thought he was a decent writer. Sometimes uneven, but still worth a read. Also like the fact he’s getting cranky in his old age.


13 posted on 09/14/2008 1:25:19 PM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: workerbee

“John LeCarre said he was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union when he worked for British intelligence...”

That revelation comes as no surprise here. Wouldn’t it be kind of funny if it turned out that his stint in British intelligence was, while unknown to him, carefully orchestrated and manipulated by British intelligence to maximize his propensity for betrayal. :)


14 posted on 09/14/2008 1:30:02 PM PDT by Continental Soldier
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To: workerbee

"A terrible novel" -- it says so right on the cover.

Apparently the "revolutionary portrayal" of "amoral Western agents and the moral equivalence of the East and the West" [Wikipedia] was evident in his first spy novel.

Did the later ones add anything -- or were they just reworkings of the same material?

And what did LeCarré have left to write about when the Cold War ended?

15 posted on 09/14/2008 1:36:12 PM PDT by x
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To: x

Apparently the “revolutionary portrayal” of “amoral Western agents and the moral equivalence of the East and the West” [Wikipedia] was evident in his first spy novel.


The key word is “amoral” as opposed to “immoral.”


Did the later ones add anything — or were they just reworkings of the same material?


Many of the novels re-work the same theme: a couple in love crushed by larger forces. The good guys win, but they are not “happy endings.”

And what did LeCarré have left to write about when the Cold War ended?


Transnactional criminals (The Night Manager) and corporate misdeeds (The Constant Gardener).


16 posted on 09/14/2008 1:47:36 PM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: George Smiley

"Yes, well you'd say that wouldn'tya Gov? But its workin' class blokes like meself what made the dirty work so's sods like you can get the claps back 'ome, what?
Livin' in yur detached with the garden, drivin' the Bentley while I'm in a walk-up cookin on a gas....more the pity I mess a T-103 and eve an i undotted or a T uncrossed.
Now about my rise to C-3 and the extra 300 quid a year...?"

;)
17 posted on 09/14/2008 8:57:20 PM PDT by Tainan (Talk is cheap. Silence is golden. All I got is brass...lotsa brass.)
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To: 1rudeboy
Exactly what I said in Post #9.
18 posted on 09/14/2008 10:02:03 PM PDT by George Smiley (Palin is the real deal.)
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; george76; ...
Le Carre is also known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. foreign policy. In an open letter to U.S. voters in 2004 he called the invasion of Iraq a "hare-brained adventure" and called on Americans to boot Bush from office... Le Carre refused to support Rushdie when the Iranian government issued a fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill him because "The Satanic Verses" allegedly insulted Isla

19 posted on 09/14/2008 11:27:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: x

“And what did LeCarré have left to write about when the Cold War ended?”

In Place of Nations
by John le Carre
The Nation magazine, April 9, 2001

“...But the multinational pharmaceutical world, once I entered it, got me by the throat and wouldn’t let me go. Big Pharma, as it is known, offered everything: the hopes and dreams we have of it; its vast, partly realized potential for good; and its pitch-dark underside, sustained by huge wealth, pathological secrecy, corruption and greed.
I learned, for instance, of how Big Pharma in the United States had persuaded the State Department to threaten poor countries’ governments with trade sanctions in order to prevent them from making their own cheap forms of the patented lifesaving drugs that could ease the agony of 35 million men, women and children in the Third World who are HIV-positive, 80 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In pharma jargon, these patent-free copycat drugs are called generic. Big Pharma likes to trash them, insisting they are unsafe and carelessly administered. Practice shows that they are neither. They simply save the same lives that Big Pharma could save, but at a fraction of the cost........”

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/InPlace_Nations.html


20 posted on 09/16/2008 7:05:25 PM PDT by Justice Department
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