JOHN LE CARRE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R002204200008-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 18, 2007
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: January 1, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/12/18: CIA-RDP85M00364R002204200008-7
JOHN LE CARRB
His next effort recapped Spy's success:
it was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a
tersely written account of George
Smiley's hunt for a mole in the highest
levels of the Circus, a story based
loosely on Kim Philby's much-publi-
cized defection from Britain to the So-
viet Union in 1963.
. With Tinker, Tailor and Smiley,
Cornwell hit his stride. The book was
followed by a string of successes
pinned to Smiley's achievements.
There was The Honourable Schoolboy,
in which Smiley, by then chief of the
Circus, plays a behind-the-scenes role
in an Asian web of East-West intrigue.
There was Smiley'sPeople, in which the
mild-mannered secret agent finally
confronts and triumphs over his long-
standing archrival, the Soviet spymas-
ter Karla. But the creator found himself
tiring of his creation. "The very suc-
cess of Alec Guinness's [television] de-
piction of Smiley was beginning to
make him unsecret to me," says Corn-
well. "I wanted to leave myself with-
out him as a prop, and give myself the
opportunity to write about the new
generation, younger people, modern
problems."
If Cornwell seems reluctant to re-
main wedded to one character or mi-
lieu, it may be due to the disorientation
of his childhood. Born in 1931 in the
city of Poole, he hardly knew his
mother: she abandoned her husband
.and children when David was very
young. That left David and his older
brother, Tony, in the dubious care of
Ronnie Cornwell, a charming but reck-
less schemer with a penchant for lying,
a bad-luck streak, and a prison record;
he was sentenced to two years for
fraud in 1934-35, when David was
four. Ronnie packed the boys off to
boarding school while he gambled,
spent his earnings wildly, chased
women, and roamed the globe on illicit
money-making ventures. He even
made a stab at politics,,repeatedly run-
ning for a seat in Parliament as a Lib- son, Nicholas, and Cornwell also keeps
eral; he always lost and returned to his in close touch with his three sons from
life on the fringes of the law. "Almost his previous marriage. The family di-
everything he did had a conspiratorial vides its time between a rambling
side to it," says Cornwell. "There is a house in London and an imposing stone
correlation, I suppose, between the se- house in rural Cornwall, on the
cret life of my father and the secret life I southwesternmost tip of the English
entered at a formative age." coast, witha sweeping view of the sea.
At 15 Cornwell dropped out of Sher- From his vantage point in remote
bourne, the High Church school where Cornwall, the novelist views the world
he had spent most of his early years, to with detached skepticism. "I've always
study in Switzerland. He had found had a frightful contempt for the self-
Sherbourne's diet of regulations and indulgent dilemmas of affluent Western
punishment restrictive. But it was not man, compared to the experiences of
the school that drove him abroad: he real hell, of people who spent twenty
wanted to get as far as he could from years in jail for almost immaterial rea-
his father. During school vacations, his sons," he says. His less-than-flattering
father had often enticed his young son portrayal of the British secret ser-
into acting as a cover for his own devi- vice-and of the CIA-has drawn
ous schemes. Says. Cornwell: "I was strong criticism from many people in
his charming clown, the one who an- intelligence circles. ("The basic differ-
swered the phone to explain why he ence between the SIS and the CIA," he
couldn't come to a meeting or that a says wryly, "is that the CIA wants to
check was in the mail. I fronted for him own Andropov-whereas we just want
until I was fifteen years old-and then I to own his confidential typist. ") In fact,
refused." " L . Cornwell is a patriotic man who
But that was hardly the end of the strong y believes in the need for utell-
bizarre father-son relationship. Even in gencce work. "It s bad enough t'o 1`iave .
Switzerland Cornwell found himself an inefficient secret service but to
"fiddling currency" for Ronnie. After have none at all would be disasto
the publication of Spy, Cornwell used he says. "S_cret seces are te_ only
some of his-book profits to get his fa- 1gaL measure of a nation's political
ther out of trouble with the police in health."
Zurich, where he had been arrested for
failing to pay his hotel bills. Later, Com- Cornwell and his companions leave
well used his diplomatic connections to Beirut for Athens, the next stop in the
free his father from prison in Indonesia, recreation of Charlie's perilous journey.
where he had been arrested for cur- But the shadow of Beirut lingers on. At
rency trafficking. "When he died," says dinner that night in the Athens Hilton,
Cornwell, "he had an office in Jermyn the talk turns back to the wastelands that
Street, a house in Maidenhead, a third Cornwell has justseen and thePalestin-.
wife, and liabilities of more than $2 mil- ian camps that were bombed and devas-
lion." Cornwell adds ruefully: "He toted after the Israeli invasion. He says
dominated my life, and I am still unable he would like to work on a book that
to write about him." would be the antithesis of such war and
Cornwell now leads a quiet family destruction-a book on the English
life. He has been married since 1972 to countryside. Rural England, he says
Jane Eustace, a former editor who acts simply, is still the only place to live. El
'
as Cornwell
s personal secretary, man-
ager, and troubleshooter. They have a
Copyright ? 1983, by Newsweek, Inc.
Approved For Release 2007/12/18: CIA-RDP85M00364R002204200008-7