WI: John le Carré as a Soviet spy?

[Hendryk]

Jogn le Carré once mused that his upbringing shared certain traits with that of Kim Philby, namely an authoritarian father, a weak mother, and a latent hatred for British society, and that if, in his early adult years, someone had approached him and offered him to spy for the Soviets, he would have been tempted to accept.

How damaging would it have been for British intelligence if that had come to pass and le Carré had become a Soviet mole?

 

[Thande]

Although I didn't know he had actually said that, I certainly got the impression on reading A Perfect Spy (which is semi-autobiographical) that he was in that mindset.

A lot would depend on if we are talking instead of or as well as the existing traitors. Besides the actual impact on intelligence, I'm thinking of the impact on (later) popular views of the intelligence services. Le Carré (or Cornwell rather) did not have the traditional privileged Oxbridge background we associate with the Cambridge spies, so it might alter public perceptions of where the Soviets were getting agents from. For example, the thing about the KGB allegedly trying to recruit David Cameron was virtually held up as 'well that proves he's posh then' in some papers when it came up.

 

[Hendryk]

I found it in Conversations with John Le Carré: