'The Spy Who Came In From the Cold'

For when the vibe is moody, taut, and ruminant.

With this book, John Le Carré makes a statement about espionage and those who execute it: there are no scruples on any side, ideology is irrelevant, the ends justify the means, and there is no honor among thieves. His protagonist, Alec Leamas, is a capable spy operating out of Germany during the Cold War working one, last difficult mission for Great Britain and the West before he can retire or, “come in from the cold.”

Through Leamas, Le Carré explores what it takes to bring down a good spy: a better spy, of course, but also humanity. That is, a capacity to create connections with people beyond need or, as Leamas says, “operational convenience,” based on who you are and not what you represent. This creates trust, which outside the world of espionage is a beautiful thing and a powerful motivator, but inside the world of espionage is a dangerous vulnerability that will be exploited. Le Carré’s message throughout is clear – what a nasty business this whole spying thing is, indeed, ideology be damned. After all, how could a system that regularly eats its own for self-preservation ever bring about good?

The rejection of morality and the abandonment of humanity is the sacrifice made by those in the intelligence service. Most people will recognize the sacrifice of service as applied to the military. Military members – servicemen – are expected to die, if they must, watch others die, live under the threat of death, and, of course, kill. This is a clear sacrifice because those are horrific things, and we all know it. Intelligence requires a similar, if less visceral, sacrifice for a greater good. Le Carré tosses ideology out as a rationalization for misdeeds, neglecting the value of sacrifice. It is the type of ideology being served that gives the sacrifice – never being able to trust, always being on alert, ready to exploit the trust of others – any meaning at all. British, or Western, ideology requires the sacrifice of the willing few so that the many don’t even have to think about living that way. The Soviet, or Eastern, ideology views such sacrifice as a matter of course – all must sacrifice for the good of a faceless ‘Party.’ Although ‘The Party’ is nominally “for” the individual (as long as they are a worker, of course), they require every individual to make sacrifices for the good of the ideology. Therein is the difference. On one hand, all people are forced to sacrifice for an ideology. On the other hand, the ideology is a willing sacrifice for the benefit of people.

This doesn’t negate the exploitation, usury, and betrayal that the system of espionage breeds, which is the focus of Le Carré’s thesis. A more realistic conclusion might be that some people are not built for the sacrifice required of spies. Some are too trusting. If the “good guys” don’t exploit that trust, the “bad guys” will.

As a matter of form, this book mostly knocks it out of the park. The narrative is well-structured, with Leamas’s animosity toward the antagonist, Mundt, established early and his myth cultivated long before the reader meets him. The use of dramatic irony is tight and eminently effective. As Le Carré builds palpable tension by weaving the tales of Leamas and his lover in parallel, the discerning reader will pick up nascent breadcrumbs along the way and wait for Leamas’s proverbial train to collide with the wall in a way that’s both unexpected and inevitable. The characters, even the peripheral ones, are well-developed, which is critical as they are the ones pulling the strings of the story. The only miss, in my view, is the ham-handed way that Le Carré uses the climax to beat the reader over the head with his thesis, but this can be largely forgiven as the rest of the book is so tight and digestible.

My favorite part of the book is the absolute masterclass in operational intelligence tradecraft we get from following Leamas around -- from signaling to recruitment to asset management to maintaining cover to interrogation. While the story about the morality of intelligence, about how intelligence professionals of any stripe have more in common with each other than with the countrymen they serve, this insight into a world which seems so mysterious serves to anchor and propels the book in such a way that all the rest becomes more palatable.

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