The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Encyclopedia
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), by John le Carré
, is a British Cold War spy novel
that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage
methods as being morally
inconsistent with Western democracy
and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an international best-seller. The novel was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by TIME Magazine. In 2006, Publishers Weekly
named it the “best spy novel of all-time”.
In 1965, Martin Ritt
directed the cinematic adaptation The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
, with Richard Burton
as Alec Leamas, the burnt-out protagonist.
, when a Soviet–NATO war in Europe (Germany) seemed likely. The story begins and concludes in East Germany, about a year after the completion of the Berlin Wall
.
In Call for the Dead
, Le Carré's debut novel, a key character is Hans-Dieter Mundt (nicknamed "Blondie"), an assassin of the Abteilung
, the East German Secret Service, who is working under diplomatic cover in London when uncovered by Circus agents George Smiley
and Peter Guillam
. When discovered, he escapes from England to East Germany before Smiley and Guillam can catch him. Two years later, at the time of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Mundt has risen from the field to the upper-echelon of the Abteilung, because of his successful counter-intelligence
operations against the spy networks of the British Secret Service
.
Without any agents left, the disgraced Leamas is recalled to the Circus in London by Control, chief of the Circus. There, Control asks Leamas to stay “in the cold” for one last mission: to turn (defect) and provide false information to the East German Communists that would implicate Mundt as a British double agent
— what his second-in-command, Fiedler, already suspects — to result in Mundt being executed by his own people. Control tells Leamas that Fiedler, due to his paranoia about Mundt, would be the best man to depose Mundt. George Smiley
, and his former assistant, Peter Guillam
, brief Leamas for his crucial mission; Control tells Leamas that Smiley had not returned to the Circus after the events of Call for the Dead
because of moral
qualms about unethical Circus operations.
To make the East Germans believe him ripe for defection, the Circus sacks Leamas, with a pittance of a pension
(rumored so, because of theft), and he gets a miserable job in a run-down library, and loses it for drinking while working. At the library, he meets co-worker Liz Gold, an unworldly young Jewish woman, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Britain. Despite her politics, they fall in love and develop an intimate relationship. Before taking the “final plunge” into Control’s scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears, and says good-bye to her. Leamas also tells Control to leave Liz alone; Control agrees. Then, as planned, Leamas lands in jail after he assaults a local grocer.
After jail, an East German recruiter-in-England approaches Leamas; he is taken abroad, first to the Netherlands
, then to East Germany, en route meeting higher echelons of the Abteilung
, the East German Intelligence Service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints that point to British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung, whilst pretending not to see the implications. Meanwhile, in England, George Smiley and Peter Guillam appear at Liz Gold’s apartment, claiming to be friends of Alec, and question her about him, and offer her financial help.
In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. They have many conversations in a hut in a forest clearing, where Fiedler seeks conclusive proof against Mundt and engages in ideological
and philosophic
discussions with the pragmatic
Leamas. As observed by Leamas, Fiedler seems content to live in Mundt’s shadow, but is relatively young and brilliant. To Leamas, Fiedler is sympathetic: a Jew who spent the Second World War in Canada, and a Communist
idealist who considers the morality
of his actions. In contrast, Leamas sees Mundt as a brutal, opportunist mercenary, who was a Nazi before 1945, who then joined the Communists simply because they were the new bosses, and who remained an anti-semite. Leamas believes helping Fiedler destroy Mundt is a worthy act. Meanwhile, Liz Gold is invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange.
The power struggle in the Abteilung comes into the open when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured; however, the leaders of the East German régime intervene, because Fiedler had earlier applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt on the same day that Mundt arrested Fiedler and Leamas. They are released, and Fiedler and Mundt are summoned to present their cases to a Tribunal convened in camera
, in the town of Görlitz
.
At the trial, Alec Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler matches to the movements of Mundt. Fiedler also shows that Karl Riemeck passed to Leamas information to which he had no formal access, but to which Mundt did. Fiedler also presents to the Tribunal other proofs implicating Mundt as a British double agent and explains that Mundt was captured in England, and allowed to escape only after agreeing to work as a double-agent for the British.
Mundt’s attorney calls the unsuspecting Liz Gold as a surprise witness for the defence. Although not wanting to testify against Alec Leamas, she admits that George Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her and that she had promised Leamas to not look for him when he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that the operation is now blown, Leamas offers to tell all in return for Liz’s freedom. He admits that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent, but adding that Fiedler was not a participant at which the Tribunal scoffs. In cross-examination, Fiedler asks Mundt how he knew that someone had paid off Liz’s lease, because, Fiedler insists, Liz never would have spoken about it. Mundt hesitates before answering (“a second too long, Leamas thought”), then the Tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler. Then, and only then does Leamas understand the true nature of Control and Smiley’s operation.
Liz is sent to a cell, but Mundt places her in a car with Leamas at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, where an exit route from East Berlin awaits, he explains the operation to her, including the parts of which he was unaware until the end of the trial. The fake bank account payments were real, and Hans-Dieter Mundt is a double agent reporting to George Smiley and Peter Guillam. The operation was against Fiedler, not Mundt, as Leamas was deceived to believe, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone; therefore, Control and Smiley did it for him. They placed him and her as co-workers to provide Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas, and consequently discrediting Fiedler. By falling in love, Leamas and Liz made it easy for them. Liz is horrified that British Intelligence
planned the death of Fiedler, an intelligent, considerate and thoughtful man, in order to protect the despicable Mundt. Fiedler’s fate is unrevealed, but Leamas, in answer to Liz’s question, says that he would most likely be shot.
Despite her moral
disgust, Liz accompanies Leamas to the break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall
, where they are to climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. In the concluding chapter, “In from the Cold”, after Leamas climbs to the top of the Berlin Wall and reaches down to pull Liz up, East German spotlights suddenly turn on them, and she is shot. Her fingers slip from his grasp and she falls. From the Western side of the Wall, Leamas hears a Western agent calling to him, “Jump, Alec! Jump, man!” and among other voices George Smiley's. Seeing Liz dead, Alec Leamas climbs back down the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall. The border guards then shoot him dead.
(1945–91), the psychological realism
of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) rendered it a revolutionary espionage novel
by showing that the intelligence services of both the Eastern and Western nations practiced the same expedient amorality in the name of national security. Until then, the Western public imagined their secret services as promoters of democracy
and democratic values; a view principally espoused in the popular James Bond
thriller novels — romantic high adventures about what a Secret Service should be. John le Carré
, on the other hand, shocked readers with chilling realism and detail, portraying the spy as a morally burnt-out case.
The espionage
world of Alec Leamas is exactly the opposite of the James Bond world; Bond’s brightly romanticized world features sexual adventure and heroic danger, all in a day’s work for assassin number 007 (a “scalp-hunter” in Circus jargon); whereas Leamas’s world features love as a three-dimensional, problematic, true emotion that can have disastrous consequences to those involved. Moreover, good does not always vanquish evil in Leamas's world – an existential fact problematic to some conservative critics. In the 1960s, some reviewers criticized Alec Leamas’s resultant defeatism; The Times
said, “the hero must triumph over his enemies, as surely as Jack must kill the giant in the nursery tale. If the giant kills Jack, we have missed the whole point of the story.” This observation, however, is from the Cold War perspective, wherein the West are the “Good” and the East is “Evil”, implying that the story’s ending with the British Secret Service
agent killed by East German
border guards is a victory for Evil.
Yet hints in the story — Leamas’s personal qualms about his role in the plot, and the qualms of Smiley and Fiedler about their roles — indicate a different perspective. Leamas' description of spies and the intelligence world to Liz, during their drive to the Berlin Wall
, is of a world very different from the simple romanticism of the Bond novels — one of utter disregard for human lives:
Leamas further notes that despite the moral indefensibility of the operation against Fiedler, it had to be effected; despite his revulsion, Leamas watched:
Hans-Dieter Mundt, is a true villain: a cruel man, a mercenary who enjoyed killing, and who so hated Jews, he might have ignored his British controllers, and ordered Liz Gold killed before her return West. Nevertheless, whilst driving to the Berlin Wall, Alec cynically tells Liz that Mundt’s survival was more important to British Intelligence
than either his own, Fiedler’s or that of anyone else. That Mundt arranged the killing of Liz Gold (viz. the detailed instructions to Leamas about climbing over the Wall) is clear, but why he ordered the border guards to kill her is unclear. Perhaps as a British double-agent, his continued anonymity required her death, lest she tell her fellow British Communists back home and so blow his cover.
George Smiley’s last question to Leamas (about Liz’s whereabouts) perhaps indicates that Mundt acted without Smiley’s knowledge, but that does not absolve the British of responsibility. It would be in the ruthless and secretive character of Control to decide Liz Gold’s death without implicating the British, and to conceal his hand from the scrupulous Smiley. By contrast, Leamas’s death is unplanned, and required only because he climbed back down to the East German side of the Berlin Wall; any other border guard action would have cast suspicion upon Mundt.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold misleads the reader, by changing a key plot element of its predecessor, Call for the Dead
, wherein Hans-Dieter Mundt escaped capture by Smiley and Guillam and returned to East Germany. Control reinforces that version in his opening talk with Leamas, and Leamas then tells others that story of how Mundt escaped, consistent with the version related in Call for the Dead. Like Leamas, the reader suspects neither Mundt’s capture during the events of Call for the Dead, nor that he now is a British double agent, until the concluding plot twist at the trial. The change aligns the reader’s empathy with Alec Leamas, including his shock at the falsity of Control’s official version of the events of the Call for the Dead.
In her essay Is Common Human Decency a Scarce Commodity in Popular Literature?, Margaret Compton contrasts the ending of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold with the ending of Call for the Dead: “Le Carré’s début book ends with [George] Smiley feeling deeply guilty about having killed Dieter Frey, the idealistic East German spy who had been Smiley’s agent and friend (and, in effect, his adopted son) during the Second World War. Smiley bitterly reflects that Dieter had remembered their friendship, and kept faithful to it — while he, Smiley, forgot it and gave precedence to his ruthless Cold War loyalty. Leamas, in the end of ‘Return from the Cold’ makes the diametrically opposite moral choice, renouncing his loyalty to Britain and to the Circus, and keeping faith with Liz to the bitter end, even to letting himself be killed at her side — after she had earlier kept faith with him in the court room, and let herself be disgraced as a Communist
, by openly proclaiming her love for him. A dispassionate and careful reader of Le Carré’s oeuvre can have little doubt that — though the writer clearly liked Smiley, and brought him back, again and again, until the very end of the Cold War — for the creator of both of them, Leamas’s conduct stands on a higher moral
level”.
Time magazine, while including The Spy Who Came in From the Cold in its top 100 novels list, stated the novel is “a sad, sympathetic portrait of a man who has lived by lies and subterfuge for so long, he’s forgotten how to tell the truth.”
Journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell
once remarked: "I've read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold once every five years since I was 15. I only started to understand it the third time."
award from the British Crime Writers Association for "Best Crime Novel". Two years later the US edition was awarded the Edgar Award
from the Mystery Writers of America
for "Best Mystery Novel". It was the first work to win the award for "Best Novel" from both mystery writing organizations. Screenwriters Paul Dehn
and Guy Trosper
, who adapted the book for the 1965 movie
, received an Edgar the following year for "Best Motion Picture Screenplay" for an American movie.
In 2005, the fiftieth anniversary of the Dagger Awards, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was awarded the "Dagger of Daggers," a one-time award given to the Golden Dagger winner regarded as the stand-out among all fifty winners over the history of CWA. The novel was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by TIME Magazine.
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
, is a British Cold War spy novel
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
methods as being morally
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
inconsistent with Western democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an international best-seller. The novel was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by TIME Magazine. In 2006, Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
named it the “best spy novel of all-time”.
In 1965, Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt was an American director, actor, and playwright who worked in both film and theater. He was born in New York City.-Early career and influences:...
directed the cinematic adaptation The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (film)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1965 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by John le Carré. It was adapted by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper. The film stars Richard Burton as Alec Leamas, along with Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Peter van Eyck, Sam Wanamaker, Rupert Davies and Cyril Cusack...
, with Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
as Alec Leamas, the burnt-out protagonist.
Background
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold occurs during the heightened-alert politico-military tensions that characterised the late 1950s and early 1960s of the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, when a Soviet–NATO war in Europe (Germany) seemed likely. The story begins and concludes in East Germany, about a year after the completion of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
.
In Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain...
, Le Carré's debut novel, a key character is Hans-Dieter Mundt (nicknamed "Blondie"), an assassin of the Abteilung
Abteilung
Abteilung is a German language word often used when referring to German or Swiss military formations...
, the East German Secret Service, who is working under diplomatic cover in London when uncovered by Circus agents George Smiley
George Smiley
George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
and Peter Guillam
Peter Guillam
Peter Guillam is a fictional character in John le Carré's series of espionage novels. He first appears in Call for the Dead at which time he is working for the Ministry of Defence....
. When discovered, he escapes from England to East Germany before Smiley and Guillam can catch him. Two years later, at the time of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Mundt has risen from the field to the upper-echelon of the Abteilung, because of his successful counter-intelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
operations against the spy networks of the British Secret Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
.
Plot
The West Berlin office of the British Secret Intelligence Service, (known in the Le Carre novels as the Circus), under the command of Station Head Alec Leamas, has been performing poorly. At the commencement of the novel, Karl Riemeck – his last and best double agent, a high-ranking East German political officer – is shot dead at the last moment whilst defecting to West Berlin.Without any agents left, the disgraced Leamas is recalled to the Circus in London by Control, chief of the Circus. There, Control asks Leamas to stay “in the cold” for one last mission: to turn (defect) and provide false information to the East German Communists that would implicate Mundt as a British double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
— what his second-in-command, Fiedler, already suspects — to result in Mundt being executed by his own people. Control tells Leamas that Fiedler, due to his paranoia about Mundt, would be the best man to depose Mundt. George Smiley
George Smiley
George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
, and his former assistant, Peter Guillam
Peter Guillam
Peter Guillam is a fictional character in John le Carré's series of espionage novels. He first appears in Call for the Dead at which time he is working for the Ministry of Defence....
, brief Leamas for his crucial mission; Control tells Leamas that Smiley had not returned to the Circus after the events of Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain...
because of moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
qualms about unethical Circus operations.
To make the East Germans believe him ripe for defection, the Circus sacks Leamas, with a pittance of a pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
(rumored so, because of theft), and he gets a miserable job in a run-down library, and loses it for drinking while working. At the library, he meets co-worker Liz Gold, an unworldly young Jewish woman, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Britain. Despite her politics, they fall in love and develop an intimate relationship. Before taking the “final plunge” into Control’s scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears, and says good-bye to her. Leamas also tells Control to leave Liz alone; Control agrees. Then, as planned, Leamas lands in jail after he assaults a local grocer.
After jail, an East German recruiter-in-England approaches Leamas; he is taken abroad, first to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, then to East Germany, en route meeting higher echelons of the Abteilung
Abteilung
Abteilung is a German language word often used when referring to German or Swiss military formations...
, the East German Intelligence Service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints that point to British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung, whilst pretending not to see the implications. Meanwhile, in England, George Smiley and Peter Guillam appear at Liz Gold’s apartment, claiming to be friends of Alec, and question her about him, and offer her financial help.
In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. They have many conversations in a hut in a forest clearing, where Fiedler seeks conclusive proof against Mundt and engages in ideological
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
and philosophic
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
discussions with the pragmatic
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
Leamas. As observed by Leamas, Fiedler seems content to live in Mundt’s shadow, but is relatively young and brilliant. To Leamas, Fiedler is sympathetic: a Jew who spent the Second World War in Canada, and a Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
idealist who considers the morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
of his actions. In contrast, Leamas sees Mundt as a brutal, opportunist mercenary, who was a Nazi before 1945, who then joined the Communists simply because they were the new bosses, and who remained an anti-semite. Leamas believes helping Fiedler destroy Mundt is a worthy act. Meanwhile, Liz Gold is invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange.
The power struggle in the Abteilung comes into the open when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured; however, the leaders of the East German régime intervene, because Fiedler had earlier applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt on the same day that Mundt arrested Fiedler and Leamas. They are released, and Fiedler and Mundt are summoned to present their cases to a Tribunal convened in camera
In camera
In camera is a legal term meaning "in private". It is also sometimes termed in chambers or in curia.In camera describes court cases that the public and press are not admitted to...
, in the town of Görlitz
Görlitz
Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...
.
At the trial, Alec Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler matches to the movements of Mundt. Fiedler also shows that Karl Riemeck passed to Leamas information to which he had no formal access, but to which Mundt did. Fiedler also presents to the Tribunal other proofs implicating Mundt as a British double agent and explains that Mundt was captured in England, and allowed to escape only after agreeing to work as a double-agent for the British.
Mundt’s attorney calls the unsuspecting Liz Gold as a surprise witness for the defence. Although not wanting to testify against Alec Leamas, she admits that George Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her and that she had promised Leamas to not look for him when he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that the operation is now blown, Leamas offers to tell all in return for Liz’s freedom. He admits that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent, but adding that Fiedler was not a participant at which the Tribunal scoffs. In cross-examination, Fiedler asks Mundt how he knew that someone had paid off Liz’s lease, because, Fiedler insists, Liz never would have spoken about it. Mundt hesitates before answering (“a second too long, Leamas thought”), then the Tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler. Then, and only then does Leamas understand the true nature of Control and Smiley’s operation.
Liz is sent to a cell, but Mundt places her in a car with Leamas at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, where an exit route from East Berlin awaits, he explains the operation to her, including the parts of which he was unaware until the end of the trial. The fake bank account payments were real, and Hans-Dieter Mundt is a double agent reporting to George Smiley and Peter Guillam. The operation was against Fiedler, not Mundt, as Leamas was deceived to believe, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone; therefore, Control and Smiley did it for him. They placed him and her as co-workers to provide Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas, and consequently discrediting Fiedler. By falling in love, Leamas and Liz made it easy for them. Liz is horrified that British Intelligence
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
planned the death of Fiedler, an intelligent, considerate and thoughtful man, in order to protect the despicable Mundt. Fiedler’s fate is unrevealed, but Leamas, in answer to Liz’s question, says that he would most likely be shot.
Despite her moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
disgust, Liz accompanies Leamas to the break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, where they are to climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. In the concluding chapter, “In from the Cold”, after Leamas climbs to the top of the Berlin Wall and reaches down to pull Liz up, East German spotlights suddenly turn on them, and she is shot. Her fingers slip from his grasp and she falls. From the Western side of the Wall, Leamas hears a Western agent calling to him, “Jump, Alec! Jump, man!” and among other voices George Smiley's. Seeing Liz dead, Alec Leamas climbs back down the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall. The border guards then shoot him dead.
Cultural impact
At its publication during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
(1945–91), the psychological realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) rendered it a revolutionary espionage novel
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
by showing that the intelligence services of both the Eastern and Western nations practiced the same expedient amorality in the name of national security. Until then, the Western public imagined their secret services as promoters of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and democratic values; a view principally espoused in the popular James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
thriller novels — romantic high adventures about what a Secret Service should be. John le Carré
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
, on the other hand, shocked readers with chilling realism and detail, portraying the spy as a morally burnt-out case.
The espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
world of Alec Leamas is exactly the opposite of the James Bond world; Bond’s brightly romanticized world features sexual adventure and heroic danger, all in a day’s work for assassin number 007 (a “scalp-hunter” in Circus jargon); whereas Leamas’s world features love as a three-dimensional, problematic, true emotion that can have disastrous consequences to those involved. Moreover, good does not always vanquish evil in Leamas's world – an existential fact problematic to some conservative critics. In the 1960s, some reviewers criticized Alec Leamas’s resultant defeatism; The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said, “the hero must triumph over his enemies, as surely as Jack must kill the giant in the nursery tale. If the giant kills Jack, we have missed the whole point of the story.” This observation, however, is from the Cold War perspective, wherein the West are the “Good” and the East is “Evil”, implying that the story’s ending with the British Secret Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
agent killed by East German
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
border guards is a victory for Evil.
Yet hints in the story — Leamas’s personal qualms about his role in the plot, and the qualms of Smiley and Fiedler about their roles — indicate a different perspective. Leamas' description of spies and the intelligence world to Liz, during their drive to the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, is of a world very different from the simple romanticism of the Bond novels — one of utter disregard for human lives:
“There’s only one law in this game,” Leamas retorted. “Mundt is their man; he gives them what they need. That’s easy enough to understand, isn’t it? LeninismLeninismIn Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
— the expediency of temporary alliances. What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors, too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play Cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London, balancing the rights and wrongs? I’d have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens that they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.”
Leamas further notes that despite the moral indefensibility of the operation against Fiedler, it had to be effected; despite his revulsion, Leamas watched:
People who play this game take risks. Fiedler lost and Mundt won. London won — that’s the point. It was a foul, foul operation. But it’s paid off, and that’s the only rule.
Hans-Dieter Mundt, is a true villain: a cruel man, a mercenary who enjoyed killing, and who so hated Jews, he might have ignored his British controllers, and ordered Liz Gold killed before her return West. Nevertheless, whilst driving to the Berlin Wall, Alec cynically tells Liz that Mundt’s survival was more important to British Intelligence
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
than either his own, Fiedler’s or that of anyone else. That Mundt arranged the killing of Liz Gold (viz. the detailed instructions to Leamas about climbing over the Wall) is clear, but why he ordered the border guards to kill her is unclear. Perhaps as a British double-agent, his continued anonymity required her death, lest she tell her fellow British Communists back home and so blow his cover.
George Smiley’s last question to Leamas (about Liz’s whereabouts) perhaps indicates that Mundt acted without Smiley’s knowledge, but that does not absolve the British of responsibility. It would be in the ruthless and secretive character of Control to decide Liz Gold’s death without implicating the British, and to conceal his hand from the scrupulous Smiley. By contrast, Leamas’s death is unplanned, and required only because he climbed back down to the East German side of the Berlin Wall; any other border guard action would have cast suspicion upon Mundt.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold misleads the reader, by changing a key plot element of its predecessor, Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain...
, wherein Hans-Dieter Mundt escaped capture by Smiley and Guillam and returned to East Germany. Control reinforces that version in his opening talk with Leamas, and Leamas then tells others that story of how Mundt escaped, consistent with the version related in Call for the Dead. Like Leamas, the reader suspects neither Mundt’s capture during the events of Call for the Dead, nor that he now is a British double agent, until the concluding plot twist at the trial. The change aligns the reader’s empathy with Alec Leamas, including his shock at the falsity of Control’s official version of the events of the Call for the Dead.
In her essay Is Common Human Decency a Scarce Commodity in Popular Literature?, Margaret Compton contrasts the ending of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold with the ending of Call for the Dead: “Le Carré’s début book ends with [George] Smiley feeling deeply guilty about having killed Dieter Frey, the idealistic East German spy who had been Smiley’s agent and friend (and, in effect, his adopted son) during the Second World War. Smiley bitterly reflects that Dieter had remembered their friendship, and kept faithful to it — while he, Smiley, forgot it and gave precedence to his ruthless Cold War loyalty. Leamas, in the end of ‘Return from the Cold’ makes the diametrically opposite moral choice, renouncing his loyalty to Britain and to the Circus, and keeping faith with Liz to the bitter end, even to letting himself be killed at her side — after she had earlier kept faith with him in the court room, and let herself be disgraced as a Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, by openly proclaiming her love for him. A dispassionate and careful reader of Le Carré’s oeuvre can have little doubt that — though the writer clearly liked Smiley, and brought him back, again and again, until the very end of the Cold War — for the creator of both of them, Leamas’s conduct stands on a higher moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
level”.
Time magazine, while including The Spy Who Came in From the Cold in its top 100 novels list, stated the novel is “a sad, sympathetic portrait of a man who has lived by lies and subterfuge for so long, he’s forgotten how to tell the truth.”
Journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell, CM is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. He is currently based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996...
once remarked: "I've read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold once every five years since I was 15. I only started to understand it the third time."
Characters
- Alec Leamas: A British field agent in charge of East German espionage.
- Hans-Dieter Mundt: Leader of the East German Secret Service, the Abteilung.
- Fiedler: East German spy, and Mundt's deputy.
- Liz Gold: English librarian and member of the Communist Party.
- Control: Head of British Intelligence
- George SmileyGeorge SmileyGeorge Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
: British spy, supposedly retired. - Peter GuillamPeter GuillamPeter Guillam is a fictional character in John le Carré's series of espionage novels. He first appears in Call for the Dead at which time he is working for the Ministry of Defence....
: British spy. - Karl Riemeck: East German bureaucrat turned British spy.
Awards and nominations
Le Carré's book won a 1963 Gold DaggerGold Dagger
The Gold Dagger Award was an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association for the best crime novel of the year.For its first five years, the organization's top honor was known as the Crossed Red Herring Award....
award from the British Crime Writers Association for "Best Crime Novel". Two years later the US edition was awarded the Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
from the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
for "Best Mystery Novel". It was the first work to win the award for "Best Novel" from both mystery writing organizations. Screenwriters Paul Dehn
Paul Dehn
Paul Dehn was a British screenwriter.-Biography and work:Dehn was born in 1912 in Manchester, England. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, and attended Brasenose College, Oxford...
and Guy Trosper
Guy Trosper
Guy Trosper was an American screenwriter. He came to prominence in Hollywood because of his scripts for two baseball movies: The Stratton Story in 1949, a big hit for James Stewart, and The Pride of St...
, who adapted the book for the 1965 movie
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (film)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1965 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by John le Carré. It was adapted by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper. The film stars Richard Burton as Alec Leamas, along with Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Peter van Eyck, Sam Wanamaker, Rupert Davies and Cyril Cusack...
, received an Edgar the following year for "Best Motion Picture Screenplay" for an American movie.
In 2005, the fiftieth anniversary of the Dagger Awards, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was awarded the "Dagger of Daggers," a one-time award given to the Golden Dagger winner regarded as the stand-out among all fifty winners over the history of CWA. The novel was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by TIME Magazine.