'John Le Carre'... say's it like it is!

I was just reading an article about one of my favourite authors 'John Le Carre' and thought I'd share this, the article on the BBC website is primarily about his new book coming out but there were a few quotes made by the man himself that drew my attention.

John Le Carre' real name (David John Moore Cornwell) worked for the both the MI5 and MI6 during the 50's and 60's so he's not just a fiction writer, he was working as a German-language interrogator of people who crossed the Iron Curtain to the West as well as spying upon far-left groups for information about possible Soviet agents, so the man knows his stuff concerning the espionage world, in this article he said something I guess many on ATS are already aware of but it's nice to see a prominent writer coming out with quotes like:

"The whole anti-terror threat has been terribly useful to politicians, It has been a way of manipulating us, it has been a way of giving police excessive powers, which they then misuse, I think we've got to draw back from that."

He goes on to say:

"Something much healthier has happened in our attitude towards the secret world. We no longer buy into the mystique the way we did, because of its successive failures. Iraq is a glaring example, but there have been many others."

There are many other quotes in the article from John including the state of Russian intelligence and the new government in England, I hope some of you enjoy this article as much as I did, it's refreshing to see in black and white what many of us are thinking!


Le Carre: 'The Russians are here'

John le Carré

[edit on 8-9-2010 by Majestic RNA]

reply to post by Majestic RNA

Thank you!

I also like how in the first article he says "National borders, and national legislation, are absolutely irrelevant." That's another thing I've long suspected.

I really think the solution to spies trying to overthrow a nation is and has always been individualism. The kind of society built in America before the 20th century, where people are dependent on their neighbors rather than on a vast government apparatus. When this is the case, tyranny cannot touch us because it has no way of exerting control; foreign powers cannot touch us because our society is not so dependent upon a single point of failure (the government).

Instead, in our paranoia we build this vast apparatus to "protect" us, except once the counter-intel apparatus is in place all that's necessary to establish absolute Orwellian tyranny is for the wrong people to get their hands on it. We defend ourselves against the threat of espionage-caused tyranny by building the exact structures they need to establish that tyranny.

In this vein, le Carré's quote "It has been a way of manipulating us, it has been a way of giving police excessive powers, which they then misuse" is spot-on.

I didn't know the guy used to work for British intelligence. Perhaps that explains why the only book of his I've read, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, is the best spy story I've ever read or watched.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


Hi NewlyAwakened, I'm glad you enjoyed the article, yeah the "National borders, and national legislation" quote is another one that raised an eyebrow for me also, we are so ingrained and dependant on our respective governments in this day and age, the thought to many of living a life of individualism is hard for them to grasp, le Carré's thoughts and quotes in this article say quite a lot about the current state of affairs in the World in my opinion, the Russian intelligence and crime link is also very spot on.

I have read all his books he's written so far, and like I say he's one of my favourite authors, his use of the written word is articulate and his knowledge (even if the books are fiction) of the espionage world are engrossing, try and read more if you can NewlyAwakened, his George Smiley books are a fantastic read