John le Carre Quotes


It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity. It brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret.


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about Iraq possessing weapons or mass destruction This is the one of the kind of statements which many felt were prevarications to justify the President’s desire to invade Iraq. See {618461} for an example of the reaction that was generated.


The American Embassy in Berlin had wiretapped the telephone and telegraph wires of the German Foreign Ministry. The man who did that was hired by Secretary of State Lansing as the first employee of the new unit.


Intelligence agents tend to prefer covert activities to the less dramatic, non-exciting, activity of gathering and analyzing intelligence. Most national intelligence services tend to enlarge their portfolio to include covert activities regardless of what the national leaders intended. Because of the secrecy, they can often get away with this.


John le Carre
John le Carre
  • Born: October 19, 1931
  • Died: December 12, 2020
  • Nationality: British, Irish
  • Profession: Writer, Author

David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré (/ləˈkæreɪ/), was an English author with Irish citizenship, best known for his espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works.