John le Carré
Page 79
37 Karl Miller, ‘Gothic Guesswork’, New York Review of Books, 18 July 1974.
38 Richard Locke, ‘The Spy who Spied on Spies’, New York Times, 30 June 1974.
39 Pearl K. Bell, ‘Coming in from the Cold War’, New Leader, 24 June 1974; DC to Bell, 3 July 1974.
40 ‘Hunt the Sleeper’, Times Literary Supplement, 19 July 1974.
41 H. R. F. Keating, ‘Life without Roots’, The Times, 4 July 1974.
42 [Unsigned], ‘Crime Compendium’, Spectator, 6 July 1974.
43 Timothy Mo, ‘Human Spy’, New Statesman, 12 July 1974.
44 Maurice Richardson, ‘The Spy Circus’, Observer, 30 June 1974.
45 Derek Mahon, ‘Dolls within Dolls’, Listener, 4 July 1974.
46 Edmund Crispin, ‘Moling Away’, Sunday Times, 30 June 1974.
47 Matthew Coady, ‘Our Sort’, Guardian, 4 July 1974.
17: ‘You treated your father very badly’
1 DC to Graham Greene, 7 and 12 November 1974; Greene to DC, 11 November 1974.
2 DC to Tony Cornwell, 15 May 2000.
3 Joseph Lelyveld, ‘Le Carré’s Toughest Case’, New York Times Magazine, 16 March 1986.
4 Smiley’s People, p. 275.
5 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Penguin Canada, 1991), p. 365.
6 ‘The Things a Spy Can Do’ (interview with Melvyn Bragg), Listener, 22 January 1976.
7 DC to Vivian Green, 28 September 1976.
8 I owe this point to Toby Manning, and I wish to acknowledge his help in finding these reviews.
9 H. R. F. Keating, ‘With Sweep and Vision’, The Times, 8 September 1977.
10 T. J. Binyon, ‘A Gentleman among Players’, Times Literary Supplement, 9 September 1977.
11 Thomas Hinde, ‘Spy Story Plus’, Sunday Telegraph, 18 September 1977.
12 Maurice Richardson, ‘Our Man in a Maze’, Observer, 11 September 1977.
13 Louis Finger, ‘The Manly One’, New Statesman, 23 September 1977.
14 Clancy Sigal, ‘Smiley’s Villains’, Guardian, 8 September 1977.
15 Anthony Burgess, ‘Moscow Drugs, Peking Gold’, New York Times Book Review, 25 September 1977.
16 Rudolf Walter Leonhardt, ‘Das Leben – eine Verschwörung’, Die Zeit, 23 September 1977.
17 Jürgen Busche, ‘Der Betrüger wird betrogen, Held und Feigling zerbrechen unterschiedslos’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11 October 1977.
18 Clive James, ‘Go Back to the Cold!’, New York Review of Books, 27 October 1977.
19 Alex Hamilton, ‘Top of the Pops’, Guardian, 6 October 1979.
20 DC to George Greenfield, 17 October 1977.
21 Knightley, Philby, pp. 11–12.
22 ‘In England Now’, New York Times Magazine, 23 October 1977.
23 Philip Oakes, ‘Hard Cash and Le Carré’, Sunday Times, 11 September 1977.
24 H. D. S. Greenway, ‘Travels with le Carré’, Newsweek, 10 October 1977.
25 ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ (interview with Melvyn Bragg), South Bank Show, 27 March 1983; reprinted in Matthew J. Bruccoli and Judith S. Baughman (eds), Conversations with John le Carré (University Press of Mississippi, 2004).
26 Catalogue introduction to John Miller’s ‘New Horizons’ exhibition, 1982.
27 DC to John Margetson, 17 December 1978.
28 Karel Reisz to Norman Trewin, 6 September 1974, Reisz papers KRE 1/7/2, British Film Institute.
29 ‘Master of the Spy Story: John le Carré Strikes Again’, Time, 3 October 1977. The inside story was headed ‘The Spy Who Came In for the Gold’.
30 ‘John le Carré at the NFT’ (interview with Adrian Wootton), Guardian, 5 October 2002.
31 DC to John Margetson, 5 January 1975.
32 Assistant Head of Copyright to HBCTel, 6 July 1977, R CONT 20, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham.
18: ‘Does anyone know what’s going on?’
1 Jean Seaton, Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation, 1974–1987 (Profile, 2015), p. 300. I am indebted to Professor Seaton for allowing me to read her draft of this episode.
2 In the transcript of a 2002 conversation with Piers Paul Read, who was researching the authorised biography of Alec Guinness (Simon & Schuster, 2003).
3 DC to Alec Guinness, 27 February 1978, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
4 Alec Guinness to DC, 2 March 1978.
5 DC to Alec Guinness, 3 March 1978, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
6 Seaton, Pinkoes and Traitors, p. 301.
7 DC to Alec Guinness, 8 March 1978, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
8 Preface to Alec Guinness, My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor (Hamish Hamilton, 1996).
9 Ibid.
10 ‘The Secret Life of John le Carré’ (interview with Stephen Schiff), Vanity Fair, 52 (June 1989).
11 Memo by Clyde Logan, 9 January 1978, R CONT 16, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham.
12 DC to Jonathan Powell, 28 June 1978.
13 Seaton, Pinkoes and Traitors, p. 302.
14 DC to David Goodall, 27 August 1979.
15 ‘A Secret Surface’ (interview with Tom Sutcliffe), Guardian, 8 September 1979.
16 Alec Guinness to DC, 29 September 1978.
17 DC to Alec Guinness, 28 April, 27 June and 31 August 1979, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
18 DC to Arthur Hopcraft, 31 July 1979.
19 Richard Ingrams, ‘Tinkering’, Spectator, 22 September 1979.
20 Philip Attenborough to Eric Major and others, 28 September 1979; Michael Attenborough to Philip Attenborough, 5 October 1979. I am indebted to Michael Attenborough for allowing me to see his personal records.
21 DC to Alec Guinness, undated [c. 22 October 1979], British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
22 Bill Grundy, ‘Memo to the Circus: First Class Mission’, Evening Standard (after series had finished).
23 ‘Television: Selections’, Time Out, 19–25 October 1979.
24 David Smiley to DC, 19 November 1979 and 3 December 1980; DC to David Smiley, 14 December 1979. I am indebted to David Smiley’s son Xan for supplying me with a copy of this letter.
25 Tom Shales, ‘The spies have it’, Washington Post, 29 September 1980.
26 Michael Attenborough to Eric Major and others (reporting on a telephone conversation with DC), 7 October 1980.
27 ‘Birthmarks, Chess Games & Policemen’, New Statesman, 17 March 1978.
28 T. J. Binyon, ‘In the Direction of Moscow’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 March 1978.
29 ‘Plonking Purgatory’, ‘West Wins Through’ and ‘Marginally Better’, Observer, 16 and 30 September, 7 October 1979.
30 ‘Tinker, Tailor, and the Mole who Never was’, Guardian, 7 November 1979.
31 DC to Mary-Kay Wilmers, 27 November 1979.
32 Alec Guinness to DC, 3 March 1979.
33 DC to Alec Guinness, undated [c. 22 October 1979], British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
34 DC to Buzz Berger, 29 November 1979.
35 DC to Vivian Green, 12 February 1980.
36 Michael Wood, ‘Spy Fiction, Spy Fact’, New York Times Book Review, 6 January 1980.
37 Matthew Coady, ‘Spy Story’, Guardian, 7 February 1980.
38 S. S. Prawer, ‘The Circus and its Conscience’, Times Literary Supplement, 8 February 1980.
39 C. P. Snow, ‘Estonian Connection’, Financial Times, 2 February 1980.
40 Michael Ratcliffe, ‘George’s Black Grail’, The Times, 7 February 1980; John Coleman, ‘A Crafty le Carré’, Sunday Times, 3 February 1980.
41 Rudolf Walter Leonhardt, ‘Die geheime Welt des John Le Carré’, Die Zeit, 4 April 1980.
42 DC to Al Alvarez, 15 December 1979, British Library Add MS 88602.
43 ‘Half-angels versus half-devils’, Observer, 3 February 1980.
44 Len Deighton to Al Alvarez, 11 December 1979, British Library Add MS 88602.
45 DC to Vivian Green, 12 February 1980.
46 ‘Le Carré’s Cir
cus’ (interview with Paul Vaughan), Listener, 13 September 1979.
47 Anonymous to DC, 14 September 1979; DC to John Bingham, 27 September 1979; Bingham to DC, 2 October 1979. I am grateful to Michael Jago for supplying me with copies of these letters.
48 Introduction to the paperback reissue of John Bingham’s My Name is Michael Sibley (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
49 ‘Don’t be Beastly to your Secret Service’.
50 Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley, p. 250.
51 ‘Don’t be Beastly to your Secret Service’.
52 Susan Kennaway to Adam Sisman, 18 February 2014.
53 Peter Grosvenor, ‘The Lover who Stayed out in the Cold’, Daily Express, January 1981.
54 DC to Susan Kennaway, 8 and 24 September 1979; Susan Kennaway to DC, 20 September 1979.
55 James Campbell, ‘The Novelist as Character’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 February 1981.
56 Allan Massie, ‘A History’, London Review of Books, 19 February 1981.
57 Philip Oakes, ‘Three for the Road’, Sunday Times, 25 January 1981.
58 Paul Bailey, ‘An Affair to Forget’, Observer, 25 January 1981.
59 Philippa Toomey, ‘Three Sides’, The Times, 29 January 1981.
60 Sunday Times, 26 October 1980.
61 Valerie Grove, ‘The Wife who Came in from the Cold’, Evening Standard, 27 January 1981.
62 DC to Alec Guinness, Alec Guinness to DC, both dated 29 January 1982, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
63 Nicholas Wapshott, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Novelist’, The Times, 6 September 1982.
64 ‘Le Carré interview’ (letter to the editor), The Times, 10 September 1982.
65 DC to Graham Greene, 6 September 1982; Greene to DC, 12 September 1982.
66 DC to Max Reinhardt, 26 September 1982.
67 Kim Philby to Graham Greene, 23 November 1982.
19: ‘The Love Thief’
1 DC to Vivian Green, 25 October 1982.
2 ‘The Secret Life of John le Carré’ (interview with Stephen Schiff), Vanity Fair, 52 (June 1989).
3 ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ (interview with Melvyn Bragg), South Bank Show, 27 March 1983; reprinted in Bruccoli and Baughman (eds), Conversations with John le Carré.
4 This passage is based on David’s unpublished account. A fictionalised version of this episode appeared in chapter 8 of The Secret Pilgrim.
5 Introduction to the Lamplighter edition of The Little Drummer Girl (1993).
6 ‘Memories of a Vanished Land’, Observer, 13 June 1982.
7 DC to David Goodall, 29 August 1982.
8 George Will, ‘Little Drummer Girl’, Free Lance-Star (and elsewhere), 12 May 1983.
9 Lewis Chester, ‘What Makes a Book Sell 400 Thousand before it’s Published’, Sunday Times, 20 March 1983.
10 William F. Buckley Jr, ‘Terror and a Woman’, New York Times, 13 March 1983.
11 Walter Laqueur, ‘Le Carré’s Fantasies’, Commentary, June 1983.
12 David Pryce-Jones, ‘A Demonological Fiction’, New Republic, 18 April 1983.
13 Introduction to the Lamplighter edition of The Little Drummer Girl (1993).
14 John Gross, ‘Shadow of a Terrorist’, Observer, 27 March 1983.
15 Julian Symons, ‘A Book to be Buried With’, Sunday Times, 27 March 1983.
16 Robert Nye, ‘Night Flight to Berlin’, Guardian, 31 March 1983.
17 ‘Keine spielt besser als Charlie’, Die Welt, 3 September 1983.
18 Peter Laemmle, ‘Verratene Menschlichkeit’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 September 1983.
19 ‘The Spymaster Returns’, Newsweek, 7 March 1983.
20 Hugh McIlvanney, ‘The Secret Life of John le Carré’, Observer Magazine, 6 March 1983.
21 ‘The Clandestine Muse’, originally written as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize Lecture in 1978, and published privately as the G. Harry Pouder Memorial Lecture, delivered at Johns Hopkins University on 20 May 1986.
22 David Pryce-Jones, ‘Drumming up Hatred’, Spectator, 16 April 1983.
23 Letter quoted on the website of the Thatcher Foundation.
24 ‘TV Actress is Awarded £10,000 Libel Damages’, Glasgow Herald, 19 December 1985.
25 ‘Spying on my Father’, draft notes for the Book of the Month Club edition of A Perfect Spy. The passage that follows draws extensively on these sources.
26 A Perfect Spy, pp. 461–2 and 169–70.
27 Ibid., p. 421.
28 Ibid., p. 270.
29 Ibid., pp. 121–2.
30 Ibid., p. 246.
31 ‘The Secret Life of John le Carré’ (interview with Stephen Schiff).
32 Michael Attenborough to George Greenfield, 24 May 1985.
33 Greenfield, A Smattering of Monsters, p. 79.
34 DC to Michael Attenborough, 27 May 1985.
35 Robert Gottlieb, ‘The Art of Editing’ (interview with Larissa MacFarquhar), Paris Review, 132 (Fall 1994).
36 Anthony Clare, ‘Exorcizing Father’s Ghost’, Sunday Times, 30 March 1986.
37 Anthony Burgess, ‘Defector as Hero’, Observer, 16 March 1986.
38 Blake Morrison, ‘Love and betrayal in the mist’, Times Literary Supplement, 11 April 1986.
39 Jochen Schmidt, ‘Ein teuflischer Pakt oder Verraten, was man liebt’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 January 1988.
40 Eberhard Falcke, ‘Ein Agent wird Autobiograph’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7 January 1987.
41 Frank Conroy, ‘Sins of the Father’, New York Times Book Review, 13 April 1986.
42 Morton Kamins, ‘A Perfect Spy’, Los Angeles Times, 20 April 1986.
43 Noel Annan, ‘Underground Men’, New York Review of Books, 29 May 1986.
44 A Perfect Spy, p. 15.
45 ‘The Secret Life of John le Carré’ (interview with Stephen Schiff).
46 ‘Books of the Year’, Observer, 30 November 1986.
47 Joseph Lelyveld, ‘Le Carré’s Toughest Case’, New York Times Magazine, 16 March 1986.
48 ‘Spying on My Father’ and ‘Don’t be Beastly to your Secret Service’.
49 DC to ‘Auntie Ella’, 3 May 1986.
50 ‘Spymaster holds the mirror up to his own secrets’, Sunday Times, 1 November 1987.
51 DC to Alec Guinness, 6 March 1989, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
20: Moscow Rules
1 ‘The Secret Life of John le Carré’ (interview with Stephen Schiff), Vanity Fair, 52 (June 1989).
2 Roberts, Speak Clearly into the Chandelier, p. 169.
3 Foreword to the Lamplighter edition of The Russia House (2001).
4 Alvin San off, ‘The Thawing of the Old Spymaster’, US News & World Report, 19 June 1989.
5 DC to John Margetson, 24 September 1987.
6 Tom Mathews, ‘In from the Cold’, Newsweek, 5 June 1989.
7 The Russia House, pp. 160, 78 and 89.
8 Ibid., pp. 337 and 281.
9 Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), pp. 389–90.
10 ‘Wardrobe of Disguises’, Sunday Times, 10 September 1967.
11 Craig R. Whitney, ‘Russians Warm to le Carré’, New York Times, 22 May 1989.
12 DC to Alec Guinness, 8 October 1987.
13 Lev Loseff, Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life (Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 233–4.
14 Charles Pick to DC, 11 October 1988.
15 DC to Charles Pick, 18 October 1988.
16 Charles Pick to DC, 26 October 1988; DC to Charles Pick, 28 October 1988.
17 John St John to DC, 3 November 1988; DC to John St John, 5 November 1988.
18 Charles Pick to DC, 10 November 1988.
19 St John, William Heinemann: A Century of Publishing, pp. 497–8.
20 DC to Ion Trewin, 5 January 1989.
21 Tom Mathews, ‘In from the Cold’.
22 Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, ‘Le Carré Takes Espionage into the Age of P
erestroika’, New York Times, 18 March 1989.
23 Conor Cruise O’Brien, ‘Bad News for Spies’, New York Times, 21 May 1989.
24 T. J. Binyon, ‘The Honourable, Naïve and Sentimental Publisher’, Times Literary Supplement, 4 August 1989.
25 Salman Rushdie, ‘From Russia without Love’, Observer, 2 July 1989.
26 ‘A book not worth the bloodshed’, Guardian, 15 January 1990.
27 Salman Rushdie, ‘In Good Faith’, Newsweek, 12 February 1990.
28 Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton (Random House, 2012), p. 527.
29 Jimmy Carter, ‘Rushdie’s Book is an Insult’, New York Times, 5 March 1989; John Berger, ‘Two Books and Two Notions of the Sacred’, Guardian, 29 February 1989; Hugo Young, ‘Weighing the Price of a Paperback’, Guardian, 11 January 1990; ‘Pulp book to save lives, says Dahl’, The Times, 17 February 1989.
30 Tim Rayment, ‘Rushdie’s wife says he is self-obsessed and vain’, Sunday Times, 31 March 1991.
31 Mark Lawson, ‘The Row which Came in from the Cold’, Guardian, 22 November 1997. Lawson mistakenly wrote that Rushdie’s review of The Russia House had been published in the Independent on Sunday.
32 Craig R. Whitney, ‘Russians warm to Le Carré’.
33 DC to Alec Guinness, 7 December 1989, British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
34 Michael Attenborough to Eric Major and others, 10 January 1990.
35 DC to Sir Antony Duff, 7 December 1992.
36 The Secret Pilgrim, p. 332.
37 Ibid., p. 347.
38 Alec Guinness to DC, 5 November 1982; DC to Guinness, 23 March 1983 and 7 June 1990; British Library Add MS 89015/2/7/5.
39 William Boyd, ‘Oh what a lovely Cold War’, New York Times, 6 January 1991.
40 Ian Buruma, ‘After the Fall’, New York Review of Books, 28 March 1991.
41 ‘The Unbearable Peace’, Granta, 35 (Spring 1991).
42 DC to Alec Guinness, 4 May 1989; Guinness to DC, 9 May and 30 October 1989.
43 Steve Clark, ‘Smiley defects from le Carré television film’, Sunday Times, 18 November 1990.
44 Kay Gardella, ‘A Smiley who Winks’, Daily News, 13 October 1991.
21: ‘Whatever are you going to write now?’
1 Terry Coleman, ‘Carré on Writing’, Guardian, 17 July 1993.