John Le Carre: I Almost Defected To Soviet Union

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."

A phone call and an e-mail left with Le Carre's agent in London seeking comment on the interview were not immediately returned.

Le Carre _ whose real name is David Cornwell _ has firsthand experience with defection and betrayal. He began working for British intelligence in 1949, being posted to Bonn and Hamburg in what was then West Germany, but the Times said his career was derailed by British defector Kim Philby.

Cornwell drew on his real-life experience for a series of best-selling novels, making his name with the publication of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" in 1963.

That book and others received critical acclaim for their exploration of the moral ambiguities of the Cold War. Many were made into movies: "The Constant Gardener," starring Ralph Fiennes, was the latest to receive big screen treatment.

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.

Le Carre accused him of deliberately offending Muslims, and the bad feeling led to a very public spat carried in the pages of The Guardian newspaper.

"It just seemed to me unreasonable to expect Islam to suddenly reach the same stage of development as our own religions. But perhaps I was wrong," Le Carre was quoted as saying. "If so, I was wrong for the right reasons."

Comments

[Anastasia]

03:24 PM on 09/16/2008

Le Carre's criticism of Rushdie is mystifying. The last thing an artist should do, is tailor their work in order to prop up worn out dogma. If it weren't for artists and scientists pushing the envelope, we'd be stuck in the middle ages.

Maybe Galileo should have know better too but aren't we glad he didn't?

[rwe]

04:34 PM on 09/15/2008

We are still waiting for all those who promised to leave in 2000 and 2004 ...

[HeevenSteven]

10:35 AM on 09/15/2008

"It just seemed to me unreasonable to expect Islam to suddenly reach the same stage of development as our own religions. "

Yeah, because out religions are so much more sophisticated. lol. It wasn't our religions that developed, it was our political systems, and the western citizen's view of the role religion should play in them.

[QueenOfViolets]

05:06 PM on 09/15/2008

But your statement doesn't make sense. Separation of church and state is a relatively new thing in Western society. Our political systems did quite a bit of maturing side by side WITH Western religion before the church was finally out of the business of running the state..

Two things stopped the witch hunts, for example -- one a secular political development and one a shift in Western theology.

The change in secular politics came when the political system decided that physically measurable "facts" were crucial for making decisions, especially decisions about guilt or innocence in court proceedings.

In the shift towards a fact-based government, the secular court system stopped recognizing the kind of "specular" or supernatural evidence that was previously considered acceptable grounds for a witchcraft conviction.

A shift in theology came about at the same time. During the witch hunts, God was seen as an endangered being -- not all-loving and all-powerful, but capable of being threatened by humans acting in concert with Satan.

Preachers who were appalled by the witch hunts began to preach sermons that described a loving, all-powerful God whose power was too immense and immeasurable to be threatened by witches or the occult.

It was the combination of the secular political change and a major shift in theology that matured Western society out of the practice of executing people for witchcraft.

The political system and the religion changed together.

I believe change will happen in that fashion in the Muslim world too.

[HeevenSteven]

07:36 AM on 09/16/2008

You just made my point. The reformation went hand in hand with the enlightenment, but the basic religious tenets of Christianity, Jesus death & resurrection, the trinity, etc aren't any more sophisticated. In fact some, like Karen Armstrong, argue that literal belief--the obsession with belief in things--is a modern phenomenon (since 17th century).

[ully]

10:09 AM on 09/15/2008

Its mean Sarah palin right! mc cain is correct,just be tough to them!!

[donjoe4]

09:46 AM on 09/15/2008

He's old and confused...lol

[jukesgrrl]

02:55 PM on 09/15/2008

Please let us know the titles of the books you've written.