Recalling the Cold War

War has been constant fixture throughout history, yet the Twentieth Century’s second half witnessed a unique evolution: The world’s nations aligned into two opposed ideological camps, separated by a figurative “Iron Curtain”, and calculated “stalemate” replaced vast armed conflict. Rivalry was as extreme as at any time, but nuclear arsenals and their fearsomeness constrained total military confrontations; a “Cold War” ensued.

During those decades, the Western nations, allied with the United States, promoted individual liberty and political freedom within market capitalist economies.  They saw their adversaries, the Soviet Union and its Communist allies, as aggressively expansionistic and implacably totalitarian: conspiratorial, malevolent and ruthless.  For the U.S. the Cold War continued World War II’s anti-totalitarian “crusade”.  

The Soviet Union opposed the West’s “selfishly” destructive individualism, believing that History confirmed the correctness and superiority of their secular, collectivized society. Their political economy was built upon state central planning: government controlled resources, scheduled production and forcibly subordinated personal initiative. The Soviets viewed the West as reactionary, exploitative and recklessly imperialistic.

Instead of these two camps mobilizing combat legions to grapple murderously on battlefields, the Cold War was marked by both sides’ frenetic investment in huge standing armies, costly weapons developments, subsidy of localized battles waged by proxies, symbolic acts, subversion, propaganda and disinformation campaigns.

Espionage flourished as both adversaries jockeyed to steal one another’s military secrets, glean tactical intentions and then wage campaigns to capture hearts and minds.

John le Carré and the Cold War

British writer John le Carré established his reputation during this time. His thoughtful, well crafted espionage novels are amongst the best portrayals of the Cold War era’s sensibilities. In eleven books le Carré fictionalized an intricate world of British secret agents and their handlers. His situations, characters and settings are distinguished by a gritty verisimilitude rather than glamour or spectacle.

Intelligence services gather, analyze and interpret strategic information about a nation’s enemies. In le Carré’s accounts, gentlemen “espiocrats” are drawn from Britain’s intellectual elite and housed in an Edwardian office block in Soho’s Cambridge Circus. His fictional service (known, because of its location, as “The Circus”) mirrored the actual British secret intelligence agency seated at the Broadway Buildings in St. James’.       

When the Cold War dragged on, le Carré focused on the corrosion of humanistic values in the West as their intelligence services matched the extremism of the Communist adversary and became equally ruthless in clandestine battle.  His books increasingly depicted espionage, conducted with stiflingly bureaucratic petty-mindedness, as neither alluring nor heroic but rather tawdry and banal, involving deceit, treachery, betrayal and personal devastation – very much “a necessary evil”, not some grand, noble cause. 

Le Carré’s novels attracted a huge audience but also provoked fierce criticism on both sides of the Iron Curtain:  Official Soviet literary journals and the American CIA Director harshly condemned his reproachful view of the secret global struggle.

George Smiley in John le Carré’s Secret World

Le Carré’s “secret world” is often seen through the eyes of his improbable protagonist, George Smiley.  Short, fat, bespectacled, soft-spoken and unassuming, Smiley seems a most unlikely spy.  But he has a keenly analytical mind, a prodigious memory and a lifelong dedication to his country’s intelligence service.  Either as the central figure or a peripheral presence, Smiley appears in eight of the author’s first thirteen novels; his history mirrors that of “The Circus.”  

Oxford educated and fluent in German, Smiley was recruited to the British secret service by his college tutor.  Under cover as a university lecturer he was an agent and “talent spotter” in Germany as the Nazis came to power in the 1930’s.  Posing as a Swedish armaments salesman, from 1939 until 1943 he operated behind the lines in Germany as an agent runner. Serving as a wartime “field man” he learned first hand that constant risk of discovery and fear of death spawns unrelieved anxiety and alienation.

Following a post-war stint as an Oxford don, Smiley returned to the intelligence service in the late 1940’s and over the next three decades fitfully served in a number of administrative capacities (a “desk man”).  For a time in the mid-1970’s he temporarily headed “The Circus” as its acting Chief.

Unlike many intelligence operatives, Smiley is an avowed liberal and humanist.  He believes in the western values of personal freedom and democratic government while despising the Communists’ denial of individuality and brutal repression.  Le Carré describes him as almost priest-like in his devotion to the West’s cause and his own ethics. As a recurring leitmotif throughout the novels, Smiley agonizes seeing his “faith” repeatedly compromised: the service to which he devotes his life is traitorously betrayed by a Soviet penetration agent (as was the actual British intelligence agency), then hobbled by internecine rivalry, organizational rancor and personal jealousies – “office politics” with a lethal vengeance.  Smiley is regularly exploited for his knowledge and skills then discarded because of his diffidence and inconvenient ethics. 

After his extraction from Germany in 1943 George Smiley marries a beautiful and elegantly aristocratic woman, Lady Ann Sercomb.  Their union seems unlikely from the outset, and throughout the subsequent decades of Smiley’s life, the pair divorce, reconcile, separate and reunite, then separate again.  Lady Ann jokingly calls Smiley “the toad” and maintains not only a near perpetual estrangement from him during the years, but is relentlessly – and notoriously – unfaithful as well.  Smiley’s persisting love for her seems tragically absurd – yet he cannot bring himself to fully abandon this affection.  Like so many, he remains a fool for love.

George Smiley is profoundly conflicted – professionally, personally, ethically – and most humanly flawed – a tolerant, unassertive, self-effacing cuckold – yet he frequently succeeds in his work (although unacknowledged by his superiors and emotionally dissatisfied by such “victories”).  As the antithesis of a swaggering action hero he epitomizes brain’s triumph over brawn and that of wit over technological gimmickry. His quietly befuddled humanity, cerebral prowess, deductive skill, dogged persistence, and soldierly forbearance of the lesser men to whom he reports have earned him a huge and appreciative following amongst devotees of espionage fiction.  Smiley will always be identified with the Cold War era now passed, but he remains John le Carré’s most enduringly popular creation.

Seeking George Smiley in London

Action in le Carré’s “Circus” novels spans the globe – occurring in more than twenty international locations – but a great many critical events unfold in and around London. George Smiley figures – directly or peripherally -- in many of these. Careful reading of the books will reveal most of these settings, but caution needs be exercised in actually exploring them since the author cleverly blends real places with fictional ones.  The Pavement Artist’s Field Guide identifies eleven separate walking routes drawn from “The Circus” novels. These paths will allow London visitors to explore for themselves real places which inspired the author.  They are drawn from a longer list of sites mentioned in the books.  The Guide also includes that extended roster of places and plots them on the city plan.  

Le Carré’s books have George Smiley walking ferociously in London; some of that journeying helps the character release energy and dissipate frustration, some of it is instrumental to plot.  Retracing Smiley’s movements through the city will help aspiring “pavement artists” bring the stories alive and identify with the “old spy in a hurry”.  Following his travels will help one appreciate the character’s energy and stamina as well as the great distances he covers.  A kilometer walked in London, so drenched with history, is qualitatively unique, psychologically different from the experience of covering an equivalent distance elsewhere.

Helping “Decipher” John le Carré

The Guide is also meant to aid readers who may never visit London in better understanding the “Circus” novels.  Geographic information is grouped by book and arranged sequentially; referring to the plans and photos will illuminate what is being described and where actions take place.

John le Carré at the height of his creative powers is acclaimed the premier espionage novelist in the English language and the benchmark against which other practitioners are measured.  Yet his style can vex anyone accustomed to linear plotting for the trajectory of his narratives is often oblique and indirect: he juxtaposes present and past, disconnects sequences, overlaps accounts, and mingles simultaneous occurrences. In the “Circus” books it is often George Smiley’s quiet interrogations that help reveal earlier events. A reader must reconcile what is learned auditing those inquisitions with Smiley’s own memories; comprehension evolves jaggedly.  The subtle effect -- like an actual intelligence analyst grappling to interpret welters of partial, contradictory and indistinct facts -- is not one which will appeal to every reader.  Curiosity, attention, patience and reflection are rewarded, however, and gradually one comes to appreciate le Carré’s accomplishment.  His books lend themselves to re-reading: new facets emerge with every fresh passage through the novels and the stories reverberate with heightened sensation even when one “knows” in advance the ultimate outcome. 

How The Pavement Artist's Field Guide Evolved

From an early age I developed a habit of reading books and maps together to better grasp the importance of settings.  That’s common enough with histories, but I’ve read fiction that way as well; the better to “locate” events in my mind’s eye.  With John le Carré’s “Circus” novels that’s proved invaluable.  I devoured most of them before ever visiting London and a detailed city plan was always close at hand; employing it allowed me to decipher what was described and where it occurred.  I thus learned for myself that the author wrote of real places.  I benefited from re-reading his books for I discovered many facets that had been unappreciated at first exposure; and those frequent literary re-visitations, aided with a map, forged a clear sense of the novels’ geography. 

Espionage stories typically occur behind enemy lines or in overseas locations.  Le Carré’s “Circus” novels feature many such exotic locales, but he stages nearly six dozen critical events at places in and around London.   From that roster of sites, some are too vaguely described to be precisely located, but it’s possible to plot most on a city plan.  Certain of those places are clustered and eleven distinct “walks” allow visits to many. Of those eleven routes charted to follow Smiley’s London travels all start and end at public transportation stops – tube, train or bus. 

Le Carré often pictures George Smiley trudging alone through London.  I indulged my imagination to identify with Smiley, for in following routes he walks in the novels I could mimic the old spy’s “tradecraft” and allow myself to slip into the recalled action of the books and bring them alive.  Strolling the same streets the pudgy little man walked, seeing those settings with my own eyes, formed part of a larger search for actual settings in the capitol that inspired the author.

Years ago when I first visited Britain it seemed natural to include a few of Smiley’s “haunts” on my London sight-seeing list.   I found many were near other tourist destinations which made them convenient to visit.   It’s revealing that on my initial evening in the capitol I eventually found my way to Cambridge Circus.  There, just as le Carré described it, was “The Circus” building modeled in his books: a red brick Edwardian “pile” situated in the northeast quadrant of the circle between Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road and New Compton Street.

But why, I’m frequently asked, with so much wondrous bounty to explore and savor in London would I pretend to track an imaginary character through nondescript back streets instead?  Psychologically, the solitary, personal experience of walking the routes Smiley navigated mirrors the solitary personal experience of reading and encourages even deeper reflection – always a benefit with a le Carré story.  Each step intensified a bond between me as a reader, experiencing places that figured in the novels, and the author whose words illuminated these landscapes. The experience proved more involving and fascinating than watching a movie of the books could ever have been.  This was a pleasure I believed others of the author’s fans might also enjoy and so the Guide grew from a series of solitary London rambles undertaken over the years in quest of the fictional master spy.

Le Carré’s eight “Circus” novels recount different phases of George Smiley’s long career, but the interwoven “trilogy” set in the 1970’s – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley’s People -- brings his saga to culmination.  In the last of these, a now-retired Smiley is roused after midnight to inspect a murder scene on Hampstead Heath.  That summons triggers a hectic quest that during the following 24 hours takes the old spy to places throughout London as he tries to discover why a former comrade-in-arms was assassinated during a futile attempt to contact him.  Almost all of Smiley’s “stops” are scrupulously described in the novel and can actually be visited.  An avid devotee could even match the character’s movements in “real time”, starting after midnight from his house in Chelsea’s Bywater Street, and through the succeeding day following his purposeful scurrying across the metropolis.  It is tribute to le Carré’s skill as a storyteller that a dedicated reader might be inspired to undertake just such a journey. 

Amazingly, I’ve found that knowing the outcomes in advance has never diminished enjoyment of re-reading le Carré. At their best his narratives transcend genre: they aren’t so much thrillers that depend upon suspense, but rather wonderful, often disquieting illuminations of eternal, universal truths about the heart, mind and soul, eloquent portraits of the human condition. 

Copyright 2003 WADDLING PENGUIN PRODUCTIONS (USA)