The Russia Game Again

 "Agent Running in the Field” by John leCarré / David Cornwall 2019

This is LeCarré's last book. A 'retiring' middle-class agent, Nat, with a skill in badminton, is called to head a decrepit wing of the British MI5 in London to spy on Russian agents in the city. It is Brexit / Trump time - a detail that is at the heart of the story. Nat's never shot anyone, he's a mild English patriot and his daughter is a politically-correct terror. Oddly, he is befriended by an enthusiastic young badminton player while working for the service. This young man thunders against Brexit and Trump after every game and Nat listens. He is not suspicious.

The unit – The Haven - plan to bug the enormous flat of a Russian billionaire who has contacts with the FSB. This plan is spiked because the wife of one of the MI5 higher ups does business hiding money in Nevis with this particular oligarch. The story evolves into tracking a 'high up' Russian mole inside the security services. As it turns out, it is all a mistake because the mole has discovered a U.S./British plan to sabotage the EU's economy.  It has nothing to really do with the Russians.  So the 'bad guys' turn out to be closer to home.

The real target here is not the tired 'Russian' one but the political powers-that-be in London and Washington. LeCarré is always cynical about the motives of his compatriots in MI5 – are they defending their version of bourgeois 'democracy' or actually money? In one scene they bang on at him about how the 'mole' hates Trump, Brexit, Putin and what-not, which Nat also opposes – calling these views into question as somehow 'unpatriotic.'

If you are interested in 'trade craft' the role of psychology is huge here. Every emotional and physical detail is noticed by these spies on their targets, their agents, their contacts. Clothes, body posture, words, habits, personality, jobs, family, relationships, everything. LeCarré is especially good at describing this. His Nat is expert at controlling his temper for the most part, charming and coaxing people into doing what he wants them to do. A bland, pleasant, middle-class exterior, genial, who listens, who observes. Leftists might learn something from these descriptions, as the Left is also penetrated by police types sometimes.

LeCarré shows how MI5 – and by extension other intelligence services - have a massive surveillance technique, both human and digital. In one scene 100 humans are employed to staff a restaurant, provide diners, surveill everything outside, watch a bank of monitors and mics – literally flood a space with their people. These agents are trained like actors never to break cover, to be as ordinary and convincing as can be.

Eventually, someone will start writing 'spy' stories about the Chinese, but that author has not yet appeared, as our cold war with China is somewhat new, dating back to the Obama period. LeCarré returns to his old Russian saw, but gives it a familiar twist that reveals British capitalism as the corrosive and hypocritical power that it is.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms: “A Most Wanted Man” (LeCarre); “Official Secrets,” “Citizen Four,” “The Russians Are Coming, Again...” “King of Spies,” “Gorky Park,” “The Sympathizer”(Nguyen); “CypherPunks” (Assange); “American Made.”

And I bought it in Antibes, France!

The Cultured Marxist

November 3, 2022