John le Carré’s southern turn: British intelligence and degenerative satire in post-Cold War Latin America and Africa

ABSTRACT

This article argues John le Carré’s post-Cold War novels set in Latin America and Africa depart from his earlier narratives by embracing southern attitudes, by discarding his ambiguity toward British intelligence and by critiquing UK foreign relations through the literary strategies of irony and satire. This is elaborated through an evaluation of The Night Manager, The Tailor of Panama and The Mission Song. These stories highlight le Carré’s satirical approach to deny legitimacy to British interventions in the post-Cold War Global South. The conclusion explains the importance of le Carré to intelligence studies and the fact-vs.-fiction debate.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. le Carré, “Will Spy Novels Come in from the Cold?”

2. Ibid.

3. Fukuyama, “The End of History?”

4. See note 1 above.

5. Westad, Global Cold War; le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; le Carré, Honourable Schoolboy; le Carré, Smiley’s People; and le Carré, Little Drummer Girl.

6. le Carré, Night Manager; le Carré, Tailor of Panama; and le Carré, Mission Song.

7. le Carré, “In Place of Nations,” 13.

8. le Carré, Constant Gardener, 173; Cooper, “Company Man”; and Tobias, “le Carré: The Constant Gardener”. See Frank, Underdevelopment of Development; Galeano, Open Veins; Fanon, Wretched of the Earth; Cockroft, ed., Allende Reader; and Nkrumah, Neocolonialism.

9. Manning, le Carré and the Cold War, 2; le Carré, Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 14. Le Carré’s italics. Le Carré’s assigning beliefs to British officials that UK covert action was merely defensive resonates with others’ conclusions in intelligence studies. See Cormac, Disrupt and Deny.

10. le Carré, Legacy of Spies, 67, 257.

11. Horn, Secret War, 89.

12. Manning, le Carré and the Cold War, 12. Manning’s italics. Palmeri, Satire in Narrative; Weisenburger, Fables of Subversion; and le Carré, quoted in Wiener, “Le Carré on the Most Immoral Premise of All.”

13. John le Carré, quoted in Ross, “A Spy’s Perspective.”

14. le Carré, Night Manager, 63.

15. le Carré, “Shame of the West.”

16. Snyder, le Carré’s Post-Cold War Fiction, 22.

17. For Iran-Contra, see Kornbluh and Byrne, eds., Iran-Contra Scandal; Walsh, Firewall; and Byrne, Iran-Contra.

18. Gasztold, “Strange Bedfellows.”

19. Barzun, “Meditations on the Literature of Spying”; Barley, Taking Sides; Aronoff, Spy Novels of le Carré; Homberger, le Carré; and le Carré, Night Manager, 435.

20. Franzen, “Anger is My Business.”

21. Greene, Our Man in Havana.

22. le Carré, Pigeon Tunnel, 197; Cormac, “Currency of Covert Action”; and McEvoy, “Before the Rubble.”

23. Weisenburger, Fables of Subversion, 3, 19.

24. le Carré, Pigeon Tunnel, 199; and le Carré, Tailor of Panama, 85.

25. le Carré, Tailor of Panama, 67. Le Carré’s choice of Japan was no accident. In the mid-1990s, a centuries-long US-Japanese conflict of politics, trade and culture was manifesting itself in renewed tensions between the two nations. See LaFeber, Clash.

26. Gray, “A Man, a Plan, a Canal,” 102; Snyder, le Carré’s Post-Cold War Fiction, 56; and le Carré, Tailor of Panama, 85.

27. Melley, Covert Sphere, 112; Kennan quoted in Melley, 124; and Snyder, le Carré’s Post-Cold War Fiction, 116.

28. le Carré, Tailor of Panama, 423, 426.

29. Weisenburger, Fables of Subversion, 261.

30. Palmeri, Satire in Narrative, 6, 8.

31. le Carré, Mission Song, 92.

32. Ibid, 70. Le Carré’s italics; Snyder, le Carré’s Post-Cold War Fiction, 95; and Hope, “Candide in Africa.”

33. le Carré, Mission Song, 313.

34. Allis, “Fall from Grace”; Schulman, “Spymaster Who Came in From the Cold”; and le Carré, Mission Song, 43.

35. See Plame Wilson, Fair Game.

36. See note 7 above.

37. For this cultural turn, see Willmetts, “Cultural Turn”; and Blistène, “Ordinary Lives.”

38. McCrisken and Moran, “Bond, Fleming and Intelligence,” 817. Also see Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat; Moran and McCrisken, “Secret life of Fleming”; and O’Keefe, One Day in August.

39. McCrisken and Moran, “Bond, Fleming and Intelligence,” 817; Dulles, Craft of Intelligence, 187; and Thomas, Very Best Men, 69, 207.

40. Smith, Unknown CIA, 3; Wark, “Struggle in the Spy House: Memoirs of US Intelligence,” in Egerton, ed., Political Memoir, 304; and Wilmmetts, “Cultural Turn,” 802.

41. Helms, Look over My Shoulder, 233; and le Carré, Pigeon Tunnel, 12. For le Carré’s career in intelligence, see Sisman, le Carré: The Biography, 186–263; and West, “Birds of a Feather.”

42. Lyall, “Spies Like Us.”

43. Denning, Cover Stories, 5, 1.

44. John Sutherland, quoted in Denning, Cover Stories, 147; and Horn, Secret War, 38.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Lockhart

JamesLockhart is Associate Professor of Defense and Security Studies at Rabdan Academy/Zayed Military University, in Abu Dhabi, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS). He earned a PhD in American foreign relations, intelligence, and world/comparative history from the University of Arizona in 2016. His research has been published in the Marine Corps University Journal, the International History Review, International Affairs, and Intelligence and National Security. His first book, Chile, the CIA and the Cold War: A Transatlantic Perspective, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2019. His current book project explores the career of Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters and southern South American military affairs and intelligence during the Cold War, from the coup in Brazil to the conflict in the Falklands.

Micah Robbins

Micah Robbins is Assistant Professor of English at the American University in Dubai. His research focuses on contemporary literature, particularly American fiction and its relationship to the culture of dissent that developed during the Cold War. He also researches and writes about transnational literature and globalization. His work has appeared in The b2o Review, Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent Since 1865 (University of Wisconsin Press), and Language and Literature in a Glocal World (Springer).