1
00:00:24,609 --> 00:00:29,281
Usually, I have absolutely
no idea of where to begin,
2
00:00:29,281 --> 00:00:31,908
but you gave me an idea of where to begin.
3
00:00:33,660 --> 00:00:34,869
And what was that?
4
00:00:36,580 --> 00:00:41,293
You asked me about
the nature of our relationship.
5
00:00:41,293 --> 00:00:43,879
It went further than that, I think.
It said, "Who are you?"
6
00:00:43,879 --> 00:00:46,673
Because, I've looked at much of your work.
7
00:00:46,673 --> 00:00:51,678
Sometimes, you're a spectral figure,
sometimes you're God.
8
00:00:51,678 --> 00:00:53,805
And sometimes you're present.
9
00:00:58,143 --> 00:01:03,189
I needed to know who I was talking to.
Were you my friend across the fire?
10
00:01:03,189 --> 00:01:06,109
Were you a stranger on a bus?
11
00:01:06,860 --> 00:01:08,236
Who are you?
12
00:01:09,487 --> 00:01:11,656
This is a performance art.
13
00:01:11,656 --> 00:01:18,121
You need to know whether you're performing
to a trade union, an elite audience.
14
00:01:20,123 --> 00:01:24,920
You need to know something about the
ambitions of the people you're talking to.
15
00:01:25,879 --> 00:01:28,215
And if I can't answer
that question?
16
00:01:28,215 --> 00:01:30,884
Not that I won't, but maybe I can't.
17
00:01:31,927 --> 00:01:35,805
Then we'll struggle on and find out
who you are.
18
00:01:52,322 --> 00:01:54,699
When I was first in Army Intelligence,
19
00:01:54,699 --> 00:01:58,995
I'd conducted a lot of interviews,
which were also interrogations.
20
00:01:58,995 --> 00:02:04,459
Immediately, in the relationship, there is
a dependence upon me, the interrogator.
21
00:02:05,877 --> 00:02:09,588
"Is your mother okay? Do you want me
to make a call to your home?"
22
00:02:09,588 --> 00:02:14,928
It's the bonding, real or artificial,
that opens the discussion.
23
00:02:16,096 --> 00:02:19,849
First of all, a statement that
I'm the only person you've got.
24
00:02:20,976 --> 00:02:23,311
Establishing a dependence?
25
00:02:24,187 --> 00:02:27,691
Establishing their dependence
on the interrogator, yes.
26
00:02:29,192 --> 00:02:33,196
When you want something to be expressed
that may not be true,
27
00:02:33,196 --> 00:02:36,950
and you know it's not true,
that's a beginning.
28
00:02:40,036 --> 00:02:44,207
{\an8}"There's scarcely a book of mine
that didn't have The Pigeon Tunnel
29
00:02:44,207 --> 00:02:47,836
at some time or another
as its working title."
30
00:02:52,257 --> 00:02:54,926
"Its origin is easily explained.
31
00:02:55,594 --> 00:02:58,972
I was in my mid-teens
when my father decided to take me
32
00:02:58,972 --> 00:03:02,642
on one of his gambling sprees
to Monte Carlo.
33
00:03:05,562 --> 00:03:09,024
Close by the old casino
stood the sporting club."
34
00:03:11,318 --> 00:03:14,029
"At its base lay a stretch of lawn
35
00:03:14,029 --> 00:03:16,364
and a shooting range looking out to sea."
36
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:32,881
{\an8}"Under the lawn,
ran small, parallel tunnels
37
00:03:32,881 --> 00:03:35,550
{\an8}that emerged in a row
at the sea's edge.
38
00:03:40,222 --> 00:03:44,226
Into them were inserted live pigeons...
39
00:03:44,226 --> 00:03:47,812
...that had been hatched and trapped
on the casino roof.
40
00:03:52,651 --> 00:03:56,696
Their job was to flutter their way
along the pitch-dark tunnel
41
00:03:56,696 --> 00:03:59,699
until they emerged
in the Mediterranean sky
42
00:03:59,699 --> 00:04:03,745
as targets for the well-lunched
sporting gentlemen..."
43
00:04:03,745 --> 00:04:05,038
"Halt! Halt!"
44
00:04:05,038 --> 00:04:08,291
"...who were standing in wait
with their shotguns."
45
00:04:18,175 --> 00:04:21,137
"Pigeons who were missed or merely winged
46
00:04:21,137 --> 00:04:24,975
returned to the place of their birth
on the casino roof,
47
00:04:24,975 --> 00:04:27,811
where the same traps awaited them.
48
00:04:31,106 --> 00:04:34,484
Quite why this image has haunted me
for so long
49
00:04:35,652 --> 00:04:37,571
is something the listener...
50
00:04:38,446 --> 00:04:41,741
...is perhaps better able
to judge than I am."
51
00:04:53,003 --> 00:04:57,382
The name David Cornwell is
probably unfamiliar to most of you.
52
00:04:57,382 --> 00:05:01,219
He's an expert on secrets,
a former spy himself,
53
00:05:01,219 --> 00:05:04,931
and the author of two dozen books,
virtually all of them best sellers,
54
00:05:04,931 --> 00:05:07,851
{\an8}written under the pen name
of John le Carré.
55
00:05:09,436 --> 00:05:13,231
{\an8}Cornwell has been living this
double life for more than 50 years now
56
00:05:13,231 --> 00:05:14,649
{\an8}and rarely gives interviews.
57
00:05:17,027 --> 00:05:19,487
Betrayal fascinates me.
58
00:05:20,071 --> 00:05:23,867
I've lived through a period
of endless betrayal.
59
00:05:26,286 --> 00:05:29,956
When I went into the secret world,
I served in two successive services,
60
00:05:29,956 --> 00:05:32,459
both of which were betrayed to the hilt.
61
00:05:33,376 --> 00:05:35,837
I felt betrayed as a child, if you like.
62
00:05:37,505 --> 00:05:39,925
I felt that I had betrayed people myself.
63
00:05:48,266 --> 00:05:50,018
Like many artistic people,
64
00:05:51,394 --> 00:05:57,734
I have lived from early childhood
inside an imaginative bubble.
65
00:06:00,278 --> 00:06:03,198
When I was in the secret world,
it wasn't enough for me.
66
00:06:03,198 --> 00:06:07,369
I did very little of it.
I was very junior, I wasn't told much.
67
00:06:07,369 --> 00:06:11,581
So, what I did was reinvent the secret
world and fill my own people with it.
68
00:06:13,959 --> 00:06:19,965
In many of the stories,
there are dupes and string pullers.
69
00:06:22,259 --> 00:06:26,179
Those in control
and those controlled by others.
70
00:06:29,933 --> 00:06:32,018
Well, now we're talking
about my childhood.
71
00:06:38,858 --> 00:06:41,570
My father was a confidence trickster.
72
00:06:41,570 --> 00:06:45,073
Life was a stage.
73
00:06:47,242 --> 00:06:49,202
Where pretense was everything.
74
00:06:50,537 --> 00:06:53,582
Being off stage was boring.
75
00:06:53,582 --> 00:06:56,084
And risk was attractive.
76
00:06:56,084 --> 00:07:00,422
But above all, what was attractive
was the imprint of personality.
77
00:07:02,716 --> 00:07:04,843
Of truth, we didn't speak.
78
00:07:04,843 --> 00:07:06,803
Of conviction, we didn't speak.
79
00:07:06,803 --> 00:07:09,472
So, you felt like a dupe?
80
00:07:10,807 --> 00:07:13,727
No, I joined. I joined.
81
00:07:16,104 --> 00:07:20,567
You polish your act,
learn to tell funny stories. Show off.
82
00:07:22,152 --> 00:07:25,322
You discover early that there is no center
to a human being.
83
00:07:27,949 --> 00:07:31,578
I wasn't a dupe.
I was invited to dupe other people.
84
00:07:32,704 --> 00:07:36,833
If we moved from one place to another,
didn't pay the bills.
85
00:07:36,833 --> 00:07:39,211
If we had to put the lights out
on the house
86
00:07:39,211 --> 00:07:43,548
because somebody
was after my father, Ronnie,
87
00:07:43,548 --> 00:07:47,636
that seemed at the time,
the way people lived.
88
00:07:47,636 --> 00:07:50,013
Now, these are not hard luck stories.
89
00:07:50,764 --> 00:07:53,892
Graham Greene said, and I quote him often,
90
00:07:53,892 --> 00:07:57,312
"Childhood is the credit balance
of the writer."
91
00:07:57,312 --> 00:08:01,024
It's not a lament,
it's just a self-examination.
92
00:08:08,782 --> 00:08:11,534
"I have seen the house
where I was born,
93
00:08:11,534 --> 00:08:14,788
but the house of my birth that I prefer
94
00:08:14,788 --> 00:08:18,625
is a different one
built in my imagination.
95
00:08:21,002 --> 00:08:24,756
It's red brick and clattery
and due for demolition,
96
00:08:24,756 --> 00:08:30,303
with broken windows, a 'For Sale' sign
and an old bath in the garden.
97
00:08:30,303 --> 00:08:33,765
A place for kids to hide in
rather than be born.
98
00:08:35,433 --> 00:08:39,688
But born there I was,
or so my imagination insists."
99
00:08:40,438 --> 00:08:42,606
"I was born in the attic
100
00:08:42,606 --> 00:08:44,609
among a stack of brown boxes
101
00:08:44,609 --> 00:08:48,363
that my father always carted round
with him when he was on the run."
102
00:08:52,826 --> 00:08:57,205
"My mother lies on a camp bed,
pitifully doing her best,
103
00:08:57,205 --> 00:08:59,332
whatever her best may entail."
104
00:09:13,346 --> 00:09:14,764
"So, I am born...
105
00:09:15,724 --> 00:09:18,852
...and packed up with my mother's
few possessions,
106
00:09:18,852 --> 00:09:22,105
for we have recently suffered
another bailiffs' visitation
107
00:09:22,105 --> 00:09:23,857
and are travelling light."
108
00:09:29,195 --> 00:09:31,448
"The lid of the boot is locked
from the outside."
109
00:09:34,409 --> 00:09:39,748
"I'm already on the run.
I've been on the run ever since."
110
00:10:00,185 --> 00:10:02,687
My mother disappeared
when I was five.
111
00:10:04,231 --> 00:10:06,441
I had no relationship with her at all.
112
00:10:07,943 --> 00:10:11,488
There were many substitute mothers
who passed through my father's hands.
113
00:10:11,488 --> 00:10:15,659
{\an8}One particular stepmother,
who in her own way was heroic,
114
00:10:15,659 --> 00:10:17,535
{\an8}steadied the ship for a while.
115
00:10:24,918 --> 00:10:27,337
{\an8}My mother was a mystery.
116
00:10:27,337 --> 00:10:31,049
{\an8}Because it was never properly revealed
what had happened to her.
117
00:10:31,049 --> 00:10:33,093
Was she dead, was she alive?
118
00:10:38,682 --> 00:10:41,059
Ronnie didn't like hard truths.
119
00:10:46,898 --> 00:10:49,192
I met her again at 21.
120
00:10:51,778 --> 00:10:54,739
I wrote to her brother,
he wrote back, saying,
121
00:10:54,739 --> 00:10:58,535
"Here's her address.
Never tell her that I told you."
122
00:10:59,202 --> 00:11:01,621
So, I wrote to my mother, said,
"Your brother tells me..."
123
00:11:01,621 --> 00:11:04,457
So, I felt completely unbound
by this injunction.
124
00:11:09,045 --> 00:11:13,925
Did you imagine her having regrets
about leaving you and your brother?
125
00:11:15,135 --> 00:11:19,431
Well, when I met her,
I asked how she felt about it.
126
00:11:20,307 --> 00:11:23,935
And she replied,
and it was always her reply,
127
00:11:24,895 --> 00:11:27,689
that my father had been intolerable
to live with,
128
00:11:27,689 --> 00:11:31,526
that she got sick of the trail of
mistresses he was bringing to the house.
129
00:11:31,526 --> 00:11:34,571
That there was never any money
passing through.
130
00:11:34,571 --> 00:11:37,991
And she didn't like all these crooks
coming through his life.
131
00:11:37,991 --> 00:11:42,412
She said, if she had attempted
any other measure,
132
00:11:42,412 --> 00:11:45,749
he knew so many wonderful lawyers,
which indeed he did,
133
00:11:45,749 --> 00:11:49,336
that she would never have had a chance
in the marital court.
134
00:11:49,336 --> 00:11:53,215
So, she gave up all that stuff
and thought she'd just push off.
135
00:11:59,930 --> 00:12:02,515
Do you remember the day she left?
136
00:12:02,515 --> 00:12:03,683
No.
137
00:12:06,144 --> 00:12:10,398
If you are going to leave your children,
that night,
138
00:12:11,733 --> 00:12:13,526
with your white suitcase packed,
139
00:12:15,528 --> 00:12:17,113
do you kiss them goodbye?
140
00:12:20,742 --> 00:12:24,496
Did she come into the room where we slept?
Take a last look at us?
141
00:12:31,962 --> 00:12:35,966
So, I imagine it.
I imagine that she did.
142
00:12:56,319 --> 00:12:59,573
You came into possession
of this suitcase.
143
00:12:59,573 --> 00:13:01,074
When she died,
144
00:13:01,908 --> 00:13:05,662
I spotted this beautiful white hide
suitcase from Harrods
145
00:13:05,662 --> 00:13:07,998
lined with silk inside.
146
00:13:07,998 --> 00:13:12,794
{\an8}With her initials on the outside,
"O.M.C.," Olive Moore Cornwell.
147
00:13:14,212 --> 00:13:20,176
{\an8}That must have been the suitcase
into which she packed her clothes.
148
00:13:21,636 --> 00:13:25,265
I imagined the amazing flimsies
that it would have contained.
149
00:13:27,183 --> 00:13:29,060
{\an8}And the most exquisite clothes.
150
00:13:34,691 --> 00:13:37,777
{\an8}She took it into a kind of poverty.
151
00:13:37,777 --> 00:13:40,155
She ran away with a chap who had no money.
152
00:13:40,155 --> 00:13:42,157
I imagined the suitcase being unpacked
153
00:13:42,157 --> 00:13:45,243
and the last of the luxury
gradually fading away.
154
00:13:46,453 --> 00:13:48,830
I kept the suitcase.
It's the only relic I have of her.
155
00:13:48,830 --> 00:13:51,791
Physical evidence that
that thing happened.
156
00:13:53,209 --> 00:13:57,589
What did the suitcase mean to you?
Why keep it?
157
00:13:58,381 --> 00:14:01,968
I accused it in my mind of being,
as it were, a conspirator
158
00:14:01,968 --> 00:14:05,055
in her secret departure
from the house one night.
159
00:14:07,599 --> 00:14:09,100
To me, it's historic.
160
00:14:13,396 --> 00:14:17,150
She was impenetrable emotionally.
161
00:14:17,150 --> 00:14:21,738
I never heard her
express a serious feeling.
162
00:14:21,738 --> 00:14:26,993
But when she went to nursing home
for her last year or so,
163
00:14:27,827 --> 00:14:31,456
then she created a fantasy
with the nurses.
164
00:14:31,456 --> 00:14:37,629
She had painted to the nurses
a picture of maternal loyalty to us.
165
00:14:37,629 --> 00:14:41,383
The long lives we had shared,
all the fun we'd had.
166
00:14:41,383 --> 00:14:44,511
So, she'd filled in the gap years,
if you like.
167
00:14:44,511 --> 00:14:47,305
And when I attended her dying,
168
00:14:49,391 --> 00:14:52,852
the irony of the moment was
she mistook me for my father.
169
00:14:59,651 --> 00:15:04,030
She said,
"You never brought me orchids."
170
00:15:05,907 --> 00:15:09,619
I think it was a reference
to some other amour he had.
171
00:15:10,412 --> 00:15:11,746
I will never know.
172
00:15:13,081 --> 00:15:14,666
And I said, "What color do you like?"
173
00:15:14,666 --> 00:15:17,794
She said, "I don't care. I've never
seen them. Bring me an orchid."
174
00:15:25,385 --> 00:15:29,639
{\an8}People loved Ronnie to the end
of his days, even people he'd robbed.
175
00:15:33,977 --> 00:15:37,188
{\an8}When he was on stage beguiling people,
176
00:15:37,188 --> 00:15:40,775
he absolutely believed
in what he was doing and saying.
177
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:47,198
{\an8}These spasms of immense charm
178
00:15:47,198 --> 00:15:53,622
and persuasiveness
were his moments of feeling real.
179
00:15:53,622 --> 00:15:58,793
"Son? When I'm judged,
as judged I shall surely be,
180
00:15:59,794 --> 00:16:04,758
I shall be judged on how I treated you
and your brother Tony.
181
00:16:04,758 --> 00:16:06,218
That will be God's will."
182
00:16:06,218 --> 00:16:08,803
God was a big pal of his.
183
00:16:11,014 --> 00:16:15,936
Whether he believed in God is mysterious,
but he was certain God believed in him.
184
00:16:19,648 --> 00:16:24,361
These extraordinary, ingenious,
confidence tricks
185
00:16:24,361 --> 00:16:27,530
were part of a conversation
he was having with God.
186
00:16:29,866 --> 00:16:34,704
"If I do this, can I get away with it?
If I do that, can I get away with it?"
187
00:16:34,704 --> 00:16:36,790
Bargaining with God.
188
00:16:36,790 --> 00:16:40,961
Yeah, I think more betting with God.
189
00:16:40,961 --> 00:16:44,047
"If I put this much on the table,
how about that?"
190
00:16:47,342 --> 00:16:51,721
Ronnie always, whether he had to steal
or borrow or bribe the headmaster,
191
00:16:51,721 --> 00:16:54,432
wanted me to have the posh education.
192
00:16:55,850 --> 00:17:00,438
I learned the manners and the attitudes
of a class to which I did not belong.
193
00:17:04,901 --> 00:17:08,697
I studied and I frequently felt slighted.
194
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:18,582
There were times when I hated the class
to which I had been assigned.
195
00:17:18,582 --> 00:17:20,292
I was on enemy territory.
196
00:17:20,292 --> 00:17:23,670
But I learned to dress properly.
I learned to speak properly.
197
00:17:23,670 --> 00:17:27,716
I turned myself into one of them,
but I never felt like one of them.
198
00:17:31,636 --> 00:17:34,556
{\an8}From a very early age
I was a little spy.
199
00:17:37,058 --> 00:17:40,228
Whenever Ronnie left the house,
I investigated.
200
00:17:43,148 --> 00:17:45,609
I did not know what the world held.
201
00:17:49,654 --> 00:17:54,284
When the debt collectors came in,
my toys disappeared.
202
00:17:54,284 --> 00:17:56,870
The furniture disappeared.
Women disappeared.
203
00:17:56,870 --> 00:17:58,413
{\an8}Mothers disappeared.
204
00:18:02,876 --> 00:18:04,753
When Ronnie was really frightened,
205
00:18:04,753 --> 00:18:07,047
and it was, "Black the house out,
put the lights out,
206
00:18:07,047 --> 00:18:09,090
put the cars in the back garden."
207
00:18:09,966 --> 00:18:13,720
He wasn't afraid of the law,
he was afraid of the mob.
208
00:18:15,263 --> 00:18:19,309
Jealous heart
Oh, jealous heart
209
00:18:19,309 --> 00:18:20,852
Stop beating
210
00:18:22,562 --> 00:18:28,276
Can't you see the damage
You have done...
211
00:18:29,569 --> 00:18:34,366
When he died,
he had offices in Jermyn Street.
212
00:18:35,867 --> 00:18:38,536
On the top floor lived
ladies of the night.
213
00:18:41,790 --> 00:18:45,877
Who, as he put it, were always ready
to cook some sausages for him.
214
00:18:48,713 --> 00:18:51,800
He had two Ford Zephyr cars,
215
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:56,471
a house in Henley,
a house in Tite Street, Chelsea.
216
00:18:56,471 --> 00:18:58,848
For what purpose, I know not.
217
00:18:58,848 --> 00:19:00,559
And he had these offices.
218
00:19:01,726 --> 00:19:07,941
We could not find on his person,
in the drawers of his desk,
219
00:19:07,941 --> 00:19:10,610
enough money to pay the staff
until the end of the week.
220
00:19:10,610 --> 00:19:12,279
There was no money.
221
00:19:14,239 --> 00:19:17,701
There was a horse in France
at Maisons-Laffitte,
222
00:19:17,701 --> 00:19:19,953
a couple of horses in Ireland.
223
00:19:23,123 --> 00:19:25,709
You called them,
"the never-was-ers."
224
00:19:25,709 --> 00:19:27,460
The never-was-ers.
225
00:19:30,005 --> 00:19:33,592
He had a world champion jockey,
Gordon Richards.
226
00:19:36,052 --> 00:19:41,391
When Gordon retired, he agreed
to select horses at auction for Ronnie,
227
00:19:41,391 --> 00:19:43,226
and, at some point,
he must have paid for them.
228
00:19:45,896 --> 00:19:50,483
His great joy was to appear at Ascot
and have a horse in a race.
229
00:20:00,577 --> 00:20:04,789
Ronnie clearly reached a point
where the fraternity of bookmakers
230
00:20:04,789 --> 00:20:07,500
would not have him on the course anymore,
231
00:20:07,500 --> 00:20:10,295
and they had enforcers
that made that clear.
232
00:20:12,130 --> 00:20:14,925
And you better look out
if you show up at a race course,
233
00:20:14,925 --> 00:20:16,968
and you haven't paid your debts.
234
00:20:19,930 --> 00:20:23,141
I was dispatched with a suitcase
full of money
235
00:20:25,518 --> 00:20:28,438
to distribute among the bookmakers.
236
00:20:28,438 --> 00:20:31,733
Wow! It's Rupert.
He's pulling away now!
237
00:20:33,151 --> 00:20:35,820
He had a horse named
after my half-brother,
238
00:20:35,820 --> 00:20:38,281
and it ran in the Cesarewitch.
239
00:20:48,708 --> 00:20:52,045
All of a sudden,
we had a real harvest of cash.
240
00:20:52,963 --> 00:20:54,256
Thank you, boys.
241
00:20:58,635 --> 00:21:00,679
I sat on the train with it.
242
00:21:12,732 --> 00:21:14,859
A big man came up to me.
243
00:21:24,578 --> 00:21:26,288
You're Ronnie Cornwell's son, aren't you?
244
00:21:34,963 --> 00:21:37,424
Don't do that again, sonny.
245
00:21:39,926 --> 00:21:42,137
And he just touched my nose.
246
00:21:43,972 --> 00:21:47,559
And when I got back, Ronnie was waiting.
247
00:21:54,399 --> 00:21:56,693
And he counted and counted,
248
00:21:58,028 --> 00:22:00,697
and he couldn't believe
I hadn't kept some.
249
00:22:00,697 --> 00:22:01,823
Come on, boy.
250
00:22:01,823 --> 00:22:03,491
Show me your pockets.
251
00:22:03,491 --> 00:22:05,452
Come on, show me what you've done.
252
00:22:10,540 --> 00:22:13,960
Then I think I got a fiver
at the end of it for being a good boy.
253
00:22:16,338 --> 00:22:20,884
Was this a disappointment
to your father, this lack of larceny?
254
00:22:20,884 --> 00:22:22,969
It was puzzlement that...
255
00:22:24,095 --> 00:22:26,556
"You can't be that good," he thought.
256
00:22:27,682 --> 00:22:31,061
"No one is. This isn't human nature."
257
00:22:31,061 --> 00:22:34,898
But this is such
a romantic childhood, is it not?
258
00:22:34,898 --> 00:22:37,901
Well, yes.
I really need to get that across,
259
00:22:37,901 --> 00:22:41,321
that whatever revelations
came to me later,
260
00:22:41,321 --> 00:22:47,285
and whatever deprivals I seem
to have suffered, mothers and things,
261
00:22:47,285 --> 00:22:49,204
it was terribly exciting.
262
00:22:55,585 --> 00:22:59,923
We haven't mentioned the fact
that I was destined to become a barrister.
263
00:23:00,924 --> 00:23:04,010
And my elder brother was destined
to become a solicitor.
264
00:23:06,137 --> 00:23:12,185
I was determined to go to Oxford,
and they offered me a place.
265
00:23:14,354 --> 00:23:17,148
Ronnie demanded to know
what he was paying for.
266
00:23:19,776 --> 00:23:23,738
In cowardice,
I said that I would be studying Law.
267
00:23:24,906 --> 00:23:30,996
And when he heard on the grapevine
that I was reading Modern Languages,
268
00:23:30,996 --> 00:23:36,293
he descended on my tutor and demanded
to know how the hell this had happened.
269
00:23:37,252 --> 00:23:39,170
Was it their fault or mine?
270
00:23:41,715 --> 00:23:44,718
My mentor, Vivian Green,
showed him the door.
271
00:23:52,100 --> 00:23:54,144
{\an8}So, I went on reading
Modern Languages.
272
00:23:59,149 --> 00:24:03,445
And in the middle of the second year,
he made a really dramatic bankruptcy.
273
00:24:03,445 --> 00:24:06,364
It was massive,
for a million and a quarter pounds.
274
00:24:09,576 --> 00:24:15,040
The Westminster Bank in Oxford,
then, for reasons of its own,
275
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:17,667
refused to keep my account and closed it.
276
00:24:20,420 --> 00:24:27,177
I had been very close to my girlfriend
at the time, so we decided to marry.
277
00:24:31,097 --> 00:24:35,060
{\an8}I went and taught at a low life
private prep school.
278
00:24:36,436 --> 00:24:39,314
And that was the same preparatory school
which, in my mind,
279
00:24:39,314 --> 00:24:42,525
I put at the beginning
of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
280
00:24:45,862 --> 00:24:48,406
We lived in real poverty
281
00:24:48,406 --> 00:24:51,952
with an outside loo and that stuff,
and a tin bath.
282
00:24:51,952 --> 00:24:54,746
And then, to my mind, heroically,
283
00:24:54,746 --> 00:24:58,541
Vivian Green inspired the college
to call me back.
284
00:25:01,086 --> 00:25:03,505
And they would somehow
find the money for me.
285
00:25:04,965 --> 00:25:07,801
So, we went back and they found us
a grand flat to live in.
286
00:25:07,801 --> 00:25:09,844
Life had changed completely.
287
00:25:11,012 --> 00:25:13,890
The institutional allure returned
288
00:25:13,890 --> 00:25:17,477
when Eton invited me
to come and teach the top class.
289
00:25:17,477 --> 00:25:20,772
I thought I'd be an Eton schoolmaster
for the rest of my life.
290
00:25:22,482 --> 00:25:25,068
Then, after two years,
I was fed up with it.
291
00:25:25,860 --> 00:25:29,864
And the spies lured me, and I thought
I would be a spy for the rest of my life.
292
00:25:34,536 --> 00:25:38,206
It's terribly difficult
to recruit for a secret service.
293
00:25:38,206 --> 00:25:41,710
In the end, you're looking for somebody
who's a bit bad,
294
00:25:43,795 --> 00:25:45,797
but at the same time, loyal.
295
00:25:48,842 --> 00:25:55,390
There's a type they were looking for
in my day, and I fit it perfectly.
296
00:25:58,018 --> 00:26:00,270
Separated early from the nest.
297
00:26:02,814 --> 00:26:04,190
Boarding school.
298
00:26:06,276 --> 00:26:08,486
Early independence of spirit.
299
00:26:11,072 --> 00:26:14,117
But looking for institutional embrace.
300
00:26:15,577 --> 00:26:21,291
I can see my own life still
as a succession of embraces and escapes.
301
00:26:29,758 --> 00:26:34,095
I joined one intelligence
service, went sour on it.
302
00:26:34,804 --> 00:26:37,307
{\an8}Moved to a second, went sour on it.
303
00:26:38,308 --> 00:26:44,064
I was disenchanted by the Cold War itself,
which was easy to be
304
00:26:44,064 --> 00:26:48,276
when you saw all those Nazis
wandering around in West Germany.
305
00:26:48,276 --> 00:26:51,071
And indeed in East Germany.
306
00:26:51,071 --> 00:26:52,948
What had we really fought for?
307
00:26:52,948 --> 00:26:55,325
As if the war had never happened?
308
00:26:56,409 --> 00:26:57,577
It felt like that.
309
00:26:57,577 --> 00:27:04,668
The power of enforced forgetting
was extraordinary.
310
00:27:06,753 --> 00:27:11,758
I was posted under diplomatic cover
to West Germany.
311
00:27:13,176 --> 00:27:16,012
And it was one of the great good fortunes
of my life,
312
00:27:16,012 --> 00:27:18,932
because I was there
for the erection of the Berlin Wall.
313
00:27:21,685 --> 00:27:26,773
The standoff between East and West
was exemplified in Berlin.
314
00:27:26,773 --> 00:27:30,026
Tension was constant.
It affected everybody.
315
00:27:31,736 --> 00:27:35,031
The attention
of an anxious world is focused on Berlin.
316
00:27:35,031 --> 00:27:38,410
The last great exodus of refugees
from the East is processed
317
00:27:38,410 --> 00:27:41,746
as the Communist German regime
moves to close their border.
318
00:27:41,746 --> 00:27:44,958
The flow of those seeking asylum here
on the fringe of freedom
319
00:27:44,958 --> 00:27:47,002
has reached 1,500 a day.
320
00:27:49,296 --> 00:27:53,675
I went to Berlin
and saw for myself what was going on.
321
00:27:55,719 --> 00:28:01,057
The big dramas occurred
before the wall was built.
322
00:28:01,057 --> 00:28:06,813
West German firemen were spreading
their trampolines below the building.
323
00:28:08,106 --> 00:28:10,734
People were jumping into these things.
324
00:28:18,450 --> 00:28:22,078
Sights which were heart-breaking.
325
00:28:36,134 --> 00:28:39,846
{\an8}What was your emotional response
to seeing this thing?
326
00:28:39,846 --> 00:28:46,728
A mixture of anger, disgust and empathy.
327
00:28:46,728 --> 00:28:50,065
It was for me a milestone.
328
00:28:50,065 --> 00:28:54,152
It was the impetus that produced
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
329
00:28:55,946 --> 00:28:58,782
A crucible
for your understanding of the world?
330
00:29:01,701 --> 00:29:05,664
More like confirmation
of my understanding of the world.
331
00:29:09,584 --> 00:29:15,966
This was the most obscene symbol
of the insanity of the human struggle.
332
00:29:23,473 --> 00:29:28,562
I felt that on both sides, East and West,
333
00:29:28,562 --> 00:29:32,983
were inventing the enemy that they needed.
334
00:29:34,901 --> 00:29:39,906
The seamless transition from anti-Nazism
to anti-Communism.
335
00:29:46,871 --> 00:29:48,999
I came back from Berlin.
336
00:29:48,999 --> 00:29:52,878
I knew that I wanted to write
a strong novel about the thing.
337
00:29:52,878 --> 00:29:55,589
It was summer.
I think I worked mainly in the garden.
338
00:29:56,339 --> 00:29:57,841
The kids were around.
339
00:30:00,093 --> 00:30:02,929
I would maybe start
at four or five in the morning.
340
00:30:04,055 --> 00:30:06,850
And I had this rush of blood and anger.
341
00:30:07,350 --> 00:30:12,606
Found, as it were,
a fable that served my purposes
342
00:30:12,606 --> 00:30:14,524
and that was
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
343
00:30:15,066 --> 00:30:16,943
What the hell do you think spies are?
344
00:30:16,943 --> 00:30:18,904
Moral philosophers
measuring everything they do
345
00:30:18,904 --> 00:30:21,114
against the word of God or Karl Marx?
346
00:30:21,114 --> 00:30:25,160
They're not. They're just a bunch
of seedy, squalid bastards like me.
347
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,246
Little men, drunkards, queers,
henpecked husbands,
348
00:30:28,246 --> 00:30:32,500
civil servants playing Cowboys and Indians
to brighten their rotten little lives.
349
00:30:32,500 --> 00:30:35,462
Do you think they sit like monks in a cell
balancing right against wrong?
350
00:30:35,462 --> 00:30:39,382
The author who is
the biggest sensation right now,
351
00:30:39,382 --> 00:30:42,093
his real name is David Cornwell,
352
00:30:42,093 --> 00:30:45,388
but he's much better known to us
as John le Carré.
353
00:30:46,223 --> 00:30:48,767
How many did
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold sell?
354
00:30:49,351 --> 00:30:53,605
I think in all editions, book club,
paperback, all over the world,
355
00:30:53,605 --> 00:30:57,359
they say somewhere around
twelve, fifteen million.
356
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:10,789
{\an8}I take it that the success
of Spy was a surprise.
357
00:31:13,583 --> 00:31:18,004
I think it was no surprise to me
in the sense that I felt
358
00:31:18,004 --> 00:31:20,924
that when I'd finished it,
I'd written something
359
00:31:20,924 --> 00:31:23,843
that was profoundly expressive
of my own feelings,
360
00:31:23,843 --> 00:31:25,845
and that it might have legs.
361
00:31:30,267 --> 00:31:34,604
The early rumbles from agent and publisher
suggested it really did have legs.
362
00:31:34,604 --> 00:31:37,607
You have to remember the context
in which it was published.
363
00:31:37,607 --> 00:31:40,110
We were sated with James Bond
at that time.
364
00:31:40,860 --> 00:31:44,197
{\an8}I admire your luck, Mister...
365
00:31:44,197 --> 00:31:47,784
Bond. James Bond.
366
00:31:47,784 --> 00:31:51,746
The reality that had been
offered by the news
367
00:31:51,746 --> 00:31:54,958
and by all the events
that were happening around us
368
00:31:54,958 --> 00:31:58,712
was spies as a shabby army
of lonely deciders.
369
00:31:58,712 --> 00:32:01,756
I happened to deliver the antidote.
370
00:32:01,756 --> 00:32:07,512
What was wrong about it, and I lived
with that problem still to this day,
371
00:32:07,512 --> 00:32:11,349
was that it painted the secret services
as so bloody brilliant.
372
00:32:11,349 --> 00:32:17,397
Whereas, by that time,
we were a crippled organization
373
00:32:17,397 --> 00:32:21,526
that could very well have been scrapped
to begin again.
374
00:32:27,616 --> 00:32:30,827
{\an8}"If your mission in life
is to obtain traitors,
375
00:32:30,827 --> 00:32:33,288
to win them over to your cause,
376
00:32:33,955 --> 00:32:37,792
{\an8}you can hardly complain
when one of your own
377
00:32:37,792 --> 00:32:41,171
{\an8}turns out to have been obtained
by somebody else.
378
00:32:42,088 --> 00:32:45,300
When I came to write
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,
379
00:32:45,300 --> 00:32:49,888
it was Kim Philby's murky lamp
that lit my path."
380
00:32:51,473 --> 00:32:55,644
"MI6's brilliant former head
of counterintelligence.
381
00:32:56,311 --> 00:33:01,983
Once tipped to become chief of the
service, who was also a Russian spy."
382
00:33:08,865 --> 00:33:12,953
Halfway through my tenure
in West Germany,
383
00:33:12,953 --> 00:33:15,622
Philby's defection was announced.
384
00:33:18,625 --> 00:33:25,257
His disappearance from Beirut
and his appearance on the Moscow stage.
385
00:33:27,425 --> 00:33:32,138
That was shocking to the ethic
of the secret services at that time.
386
00:33:53,326 --> 00:33:55,120
Someone is following.
387
00:34:02,961 --> 00:34:08,300
The question is whether MI5,
MI6 wanted him to go.
388
00:34:09,593 --> 00:34:14,389
Nobody wanted that exposure.
You have an extraordinary problem.
389
00:34:14,890 --> 00:34:19,978
Very substantial former spy
coming up for trial.
390
00:34:19,978 --> 00:34:24,608
It would do great national damage
and achieve very little.
391
00:34:29,988 --> 00:34:34,159
In sober reflection,
the powers that be said, "Thank God."
392
00:34:36,494 --> 00:34:39,664
"Thank God"?
So, they let him escape?
393
00:34:40,539 --> 00:34:41,791
Yeah.
394
00:34:55,764 --> 00:34:58,558
Thank you, comrade.
395
00:35:04,481 --> 00:35:08,193
Philby's defection
went straight to the heart
396
00:35:08,193 --> 00:35:10,570
of the establishment of the day.
397
00:35:13,990 --> 00:35:15,992
He was a Westminster boy.
398
00:35:17,244 --> 00:35:20,121
Part of the inner circle
of English society.
399
00:35:29,548 --> 00:35:33,134
People kind of overlooked,
on those grounds,
400
00:35:33,134 --> 00:35:37,097
the rather evident past that Philby had.
401
00:35:41,810 --> 00:35:43,770
It would not have been difficult
to establish
402
00:35:43,770 --> 00:35:47,190
that he had early associations
with Communist people.
403
00:35:47,190 --> 00:35:49,901
{\an8}He'd married a Communist woman in Vienna.
404
00:35:51,945 --> 00:35:57,325
Those things could be swept aside
because he's... he's one of us.
405
00:35:57,325 --> 00:36:00,078
So, if you'd really gone
into Philby's background,
406
00:36:00,078 --> 00:36:02,205
you would have said this chap is...
407
00:36:02,205 --> 00:36:04,958
He's a bit sniffy. We don't want that.
408
00:36:04,958 --> 00:36:07,627
But quite the contrary,
he was Mister Charm,
409
00:36:08,461 --> 00:36:10,714
and he loved to deceive.
410
00:36:17,304 --> 00:36:22,309
{\an8}"Enter now, Nicholas Elliott,
Philby's most loyal friend, confidant,
411
00:36:22,309 --> 00:36:27,355
devoted brother-in-arms in war and peace.
Child of Eton.
412
00:36:27,355 --> 00:36:32,944
Son of its former headmaster,
adventurer, alpinist and dupe."
413
00:36:34,863 --> 00:36:39,534
"Among the many extraordinary things
that Elliott had done in his life,
414
00:36:40,535 --> 00:36:45,790
and undoubtedly the most painful,
was to sit face to face in Beirut
415
00:36:45,790 --> 00:36:50,462
with his close friend, colleague
and mentor, Kim Philby,
416
00:36:50,462 --> 00:36:54,883
and hear him admit that
he had been a Soviet spy
417
00:36:54,883 --> 00:36:58,511
for all the years
that they had known each other."
418
00:37:07,229 --> 00:37:13,401
Nick Elliott told me that when he went out
to interview Philby in Beirut
419
00:37:13,401 --> 00:37:17,155
and to obtain from Philby the confession.
420
00:37:17,864 --> 00:37:22,202
He said that really,
when he wasn't playing a double game,
421
00:37:22,994 --> 00:37:25,538
that he was extremely lonely.
422
00:37:25,538 --> 00:37:28,250
He found life had gone flat for him,
423
00:37:28,250 --> 00:37:32,170
so the addiction to betrayal
was essential to him.
424
00:37:33,630 --> 00:37:38,176
And he betrayed everybody, really,
from childhood onward.
425
00:37:39,344 --> 00:37:42,889
{\an8}There's an awful lot
of misuse of the word "double agent."
426
00:37:42,889 --> 00:37:47,352
{\an8}Philby is often described in the press
as a double agent.
427
00:37:47,352 --> 00:37:49,938
In point of fact,
Philby was a straightforward,
428
00:37:49,938 --> 00:37:53,066
high-level, disreputable traitor.
429
00:37:53,066 --> 00:37:54,484
What's the difference, exactly?
430
00:37:54,484 --> 00:37:57,237
Well, I mean, he was a straightforward spy
for the Russians.
431
00:37:57,237 --> 00:37:59,948
If he'd been a double agent,
he'd have been a spy for the Russians.
432
00:37:59,948 --> 00:38:02,075
But we'd have been playing back
against the Russians.
433
00:38:03,994 --> 00:38:07,914
I knew Elliott pretty well.
And he was this tall figure.
434
00:38:08,790 --> 00:38:12,711
The hollowed-out body, waistcoats, spectacles.
435
00:38:13,670 --> 00:38:17,424
An Etonian voice,
the son of an Etonian headmaster,
436
00:38:17,424 --> 00:38:21,761
long line of Etonians behind him,
very aristocratic.
437
00:38:21,761 --> 00:38:23,680
Can you do his voice?
438
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:28,059
Yes. I said to him, "Nick,
439
00:38:29,728 --> 00:38:34,065
when you went to see Kim,
what kind of sanctions did you have?"
440
00:38:34,065 --> 00:38:36,151
"Sanctions, old boy?
What do you mean by that?"
441
00:38:36,151 --> 00:38:37,861
"How could you threaten him?
442
00:38:37,861 --> 00:38:40,530
Could you have him sandbagged
and brought back to London?"
443
00:38:40,530 --> 00:38:43,325
"Oh," he said, "my dear chap,
nobody wanted him in London."
444
00:38:43,325 --> 00:38:46,411
I said, "Well, what could you
threaten him with?
445
00:38:46,411 --> 00:38:49,998
Nick, come on, come clean." He said,
446
00:38:49,998 --> 00:38:53,418
"I told him,
if he didn't come clean,
447
00:38:53,418 --> 00:38:57,130
there wouldn't be a legation,
an embassy,
448
00:38:57,130 --> 00:39:00,175
a business, or a club
in the whole of the Middle East
449
00:39:00,175 --> 00:39:02,219
who'd have a first damn thing
to do with him."
450
00:39:02,219 --> 00:39:04,179
So, I said,
"Well, that must have frightened him."
451
00:39:04,179 --> 00:39:06,056
"It did."
452
00:39:07,307 --> 00:39:09,517
He played the English bloody fool,
453
00:39:09,517 --> 00:39:13,313
whether he was one,
as many maintain, I don't know.
454
00:39:15,023 --> 00:39:18,318
You do have that line
in what you wrote.
455
00:39:18,902 --> 00:39:22,405
{\an8}"Philby was adept at deceiving others.
456
00:39:22,405 --> 00:39:26,117
{\an8}Elliott was equally adept
at deceiving himself."
457
00:39:26,952 --> 00:39:28,245
{\an8}I'm glad I said that.
458
00:39:30,872 --> 00:39:33,124
It was always my argument
459
00:39:33,124 --> 00:39:37,671
that it was instinct rather than reason
that drove Philby to do what he did.
460
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:44,886
That thrill of stepping into the street
knowing what you know and they don't.
461
00:39:44,886 --> 00:39:50,642
It's the joy of self-imposed schizophrenia
that the secret agent loves.
462
00:39:52,561 --> 00:39:55,230
"Self-imposed schizophrenia."
463
00:39:56,815 --> 00:39:59,484
The duality all the time.
464
00:39:59,484 --> 00:40:02,279
Of being the opposite
of your outward self.
465
00:40:02,946 --> 00:40:07,534
But isn't there some joy
that you are actually making policy?
466
00:40:09,578 --> 00:40:11,997
Yes, I think the joy is voluptuous.
467
00:40:15,125 --> 00:40:17,335
A sensual journey
468
00:40:17,335 --> 00:40:22,591
of constantly challenging your luck
and surviving.
469
00:40:25,093 --> 00:40:28,388
Making a real difference too, absolutely.
470
00:40:28,388 --> 00:40:32,934
To feel you're the hub of the universe
is wonderful for the vanity.
471
00:40:32,934 --> 00:40:39,566
To be passing that, that pure gold,
to the Soviet Union, to your masters.
472
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:43,945
"Now, do you love me?
If I give you this, will you love me?"
473
00:40:45,572 --> 00:40:50,785
I can imagine that voluptuous instinct
very well.
474
00:40:50,785 --> 00:40:53,413
Not in myself, but in him.
475
00:40:55,206 --> 00:40:57,751
Mister le Carré, you've described
Kim Philby as,
476
00:40:57,751 --> 00:41:01,796
"The avenger who destroyed the citadel
from within."
477
00:41:01,796 --> 00:41:05,091
Well, I think he's one of those strange
people who was born into privilege
478
00:41:05,091 --> 00:41:08,762
and, in some way, resented the advantages
with which he was born.
479
00:41:08,762 --> 00:41:13,391
A person who, on the one hand,
felt that he was better than society
480
00:41:13,391 --> 00:41:17,354
and, on the other hand, couldn't forgive
society for putting him in that position.
481
00:41:17,354 --> 00:41:19,522
He was very much at war with himself,
I think.
482
00:41:27,322 --> 00:41:33,578
When I finally went to Moscow in 1988,
483
00:41:34,871 --> 00:41:39,960
I was at a party given
by the Union of Soviet Writers.
484
00:41:42,754 --> 00:41:45,590
There was a big man
called Genrikh Borovik.
485
00:41:46,716 --> 00:41:50,053
Borovik came up to me and said,
486
00:41:50,053 --> 00:41:56,935
"David, I would like you
to meet a very good friend of mine.
487
00:41:56,935 --> 00:41:58,853
Keen admirer from your books.
488
00:42:00,855 --> 00:42:02,065
Kim Philby."
489
00:42:02,065 --> 00:42:06,111
I replied,
sick to the heart as I felt,
490
00:42:07,279 --> 00:42:11,157
that I'm soon to have dinner
with our ambassador,
491
00:42:12,242 --> 00:42:17,789
and I can't see myself having dinner
with the Queen's representative one night,
492
00:42:17,789 --> 00:42:20,584
and dinner with the Queen's traitor
the next.
493
00:42:20,584 --> 00:42:24,504
I just thought
there is such a thing as evil.
494
00:42:27,465 --> 00:42:33,263
Somebody who had blindly served Stalin
for so long.
495
00:42:33,805 --> 00:42:38,393
{\an8}How he could go on serving
such a person, such a cause,
496
00:42:39,227 --> 00:42:41,813
{\an8}as Soviet communism, was beyond me.
497
00:42:42,647 --> 00:42:45,233
He knew better than anyone
what he was doing.
498
00:42:49,154 --> 00:42:53,658
It was the addiction, it was the fun
of betrayal that got to him.
499
00:42:53,658 --> 00:42:57,704
It was the feeling that he was playing
both ends against the middle.
500
00:42:57,704 --> 00:43:02,208
He was the center of the earth.
He was playing the world's game.
501
00:43:02,208 --> 00:43:05,128
It had precious little to do,
in the end, with ideology.
502
00:43:05,128 --> 00:43:06,755
It may have begun as ideology.
503
00:43:06,755 --> 00:43:09,382
After that, it became an addiction,
the betrayal.
504
00:43:10,008 --> 00:43:12,969
If you'd given him your cat
to look after for a couple of weeks,
505
00:43:12,969 --> 00:43:15,055
he'd have betrayed the cat somehow.
506
00:43:23,897 --> 00:43:28,026
I had some inner relationship with Philby.
507
00:43:30,070 --> 00:43:32,030
The temptation, somehow,
508
00:43:34,741 --> 00:43:38,203
to turn your back on everything
you've been taught and picked up
509
00:43:38,203 --> 00:43:39,746
and go your own route.
510
00:43:40,789 --> 00:43:43,667
I can understand
how that happened to Philby.
511
00:43:44,709 --> 00:43:47,921
And I've felt that thank God
I never went in that direction.
512
00:43:47,921 --> 00:43:52,592
But there came a point in my life where
I seemed to be offered the crossroads.
513
00:43:52,592 --> 00:43:55,595
I could have become a really bad guy.
514
00:43:55,595 --> 00:43:59,099
And mercifully, I found a home
for my larceny.
515
00:44:01,017 --> 00:44:04,563
{\an8}A writer is slightly
out of tune. He is different.
516
00:44:05,146 --> 00:44:09,442
{\an8}His methods of creation
are the methods of a lonely person
517
00:44:09,442 --> 00:44:12,362
who is borrowing, abstracting
experiences here and there,
518
00:44:12,362 --> 00:44:15,991
and putting them together
and trying to make a parcel, if you like,
519
00:44:15,991 --> 00:44:17,951
which you can then offer to the public.
520
00:44:17,951 --> 00:44:19,869
In that sense, he's an illusionist.
521
00:44:19,869 --> 00:44:22,414
And if people are constantly trying
to look up his sleeve,
522
00:44:22,414 --> 00:44:24,791
then he's going to spoil his trick.
523
00:44:27,168 --> 00:44:32,215
For me, writing is a journey
of self-discovery every time.
524
00:44:32,215 --> 00:44:35,969
How characters behave,
how they emerge, who they are,
525
00:44:35,969 --> 00:44:37,429
what appetites they have,
526
00:44:37,429 --> 00:44:40,891
they deliver themselves on the blank page
527
00:44:40,891 --> 00:44:43,518
and they tell me a little bit
about who I am.
528
00:44:46,187 --> 00:44:49,065
{\an8}In writing about George Smiley, of course,
529
00:44:49,065 --> 00:44:52,235
I'm writing about the ideal father
I never had.
530
00:44:55,822 --> 00:44:58,408
These are attempts at self-knowledge.
531
00:44:59,743 --> 00:45:03,288
Little glimpses along
the way of who one really is.
532
00:45:03,288 --> 00:45:05,373
I have never submitted to analysis.
533
00:45:05,373 --> 00:45:10,253
I feel if I knew any secrets about myself,
I'd deprive myself of writing.
534
00:45:15,675 --> 00:45:18,470
What did you learn about yourself
from Bill Haydon?
535
00:45:20,889 --> 00:45:24,559
Well, that was something
I guess I already knew.
536
00:45:24,559 --> 00:45:27,020
It was something I knew of Philby, too.
537
00:45:27,562 --> 00:45:31,441
And obviously Haydon is
to some extent modelled on Philby.
538
00:45:31,441 --> 00:45:34,444
An instinct that is latent in me,
539
00:45:34,444 --> 00:45:38,073
which I have never to my knowledge
deployed, used, fallen for,
540
00:45:38,073 --> 00:45:43,662
it's to be king of the world,
as Haydon thought he was.
541
00:45:43,662 --> 00:45:49,584
There was a time when the very pleasure
of being in the secret world
542
00:45:49,584 --> 00:45:52,462
close to what was going on,
what was really going on,
543
00:45:52,462 --> 00:45:54,965
{\an8}filled me with a sense of exultation.
544
00:45:56,967 --> 00:46:01,721
This is, in the Faustian sense, what
the world contains at its inmost point.
545
00:46:17,988 --> 00:46:21,408
"Was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält",
is the line.
546
00:46:30,333 --> 00:46:34,421
Then there's that despairing line
in The Secret Pilgrim,
547
00:46:34,421 --> 00:46:36,840
"Knowing that the inmost room..."
548
00:46:37,924 --> 00:46:39,759
"...doesn't contain anything." Yes.
549
00:46:39,759 --> 00:46:43,179
Somehow, we believe
that there is an inmost room
550
00:46:43,179 --> 00:46:45,891
where policy is being conceived.
551
00:46:45,891 --> 00:46:48,643
I think it's being played
completely ad hoc,
552
00:46:48,643 --> 00:46:51,229
from day to day, from hour to hour.
553
00:46:51,229 --> 00:46:52,814
History is chaos!
554
00:46:52,814 --> 00:46:58,904
History is chaos, and therefore
to imagine, as I might have done
555
00:46:58,904 --> 00:47:01,656
in my perpetual innocence,
556
00:47:02,407 --> 00:47:08,788
that there was some great secret
to the nature of human behavior.
557
00:47:08,788 --> 00:47:09,873
There is none.
558
00:47:17,756 --> 00:47:22,802
{\an8}"'Spying is eternal,'
Smiley announced simply.
559
00:47:25,847 --> 00:47:31,394
'There's no career on Earth more cockeyed
than the one you've picked.
560
00:47:34,564 --> 00:47:39,319
{\an8}You'll be at your most postable
while you're least experienced.
561
00:47:41,238 --> 00:47:45,242
And by the time you've learned the ropes,
no one will be able to send you anywhere
562
00:47:45,242 --> 00:47:48,245
without a trade description
round your necks.
563
00:47:54,042 --> 00:47:59,506
Old athletes know they've played their
best games when they're in their prime.
564
00:48:02,926 --> 00:48:06,012
Spies in their prime are on the shelf.
565
00:48:10,642 --> 00:48:13,687
And then, at a certain age,
566
00:48:15,939 --> 00:48:17,899
you want the answer.'
567
00:48:21,444 --> 00:48:25,198
'You want the rolled-up parchment
in the inmost room
568
00:48:26,575 --> 00:48:30,287
that tells you who runs your lives
and why.
569
00:48:39,462 --> 00:48:41,715
The trouble is, that by then,
570
00:48:41,715 --> 00:48:44,509
you're the very people who know best...
571
00:48:46,928 --> 00:48:49,973
...that the inmost room is bare.'"
572
00:48:59,983 --> 00:49:04,571
When I read it,
I took it as more deeply existential.
573
00:49:05,488 --> 00:49:10,493
Is the inmost room ourselves?
Maybe there's nothing there?
574
00:49:13,413 --> 00:49:17,500
In my case that is true, yes.
I can't speak for everybody else.
575
00:49:23,632 --> 00:49:27,427
I think we, all of us,
live partly in a clandestine situation
576
00:49:27,427 --> 00:49:32,599
in relation to our bosses, in relation
to our families, our wives, our children.
577
00:49:33,850 --> 00:49:36,853
We frequently affect attitudes
to which we subscribe,
578
00:49:36,853 --> 00:49:39,272
perhaps intellectually,
but not emotionally.
579
00:49:41,024 --> 00:49:43,401
We hardly know ourselves.
580
00:49:44,277 --> 00:49:46,863
The figure of the spy does seem to me
581
00:49:46,863 --> 00:49:50,909
to be almost infinitely capable
of exploitation,
582
00:49:50,909 --> 00:49:55,747
for purposes of articulating all sorts
of submerged things in our society.
583
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,927
The experience
that I have reading le Carré is,
584
00:50:08,927 --> 00:50:13,014
"Am I in a world of fiction?
Am I in a world of fact?
585
00:50:13,014 --> 00:50:16,268
Am I in some strange blend
of the two?"
586
00:50:21,356 --> 00:50:25,485
I really don't think any artist,
whether he's a writer,
587
00:50:25,485 --> 00:50:28,113
a painter, or anybody else,
588
00:50:28,905 --> 00:50:32,993
I don't think he has to explain his work
beyond a certain point.
589
00:50:32,993 --> 00:50:37,122
If it's raised those questions in you,
you're already having a good time.
590
00:50:37,122 --> 00:50:39,874
I have tried, over these conversations,
591
00:50:39,874 --> 00:50:44,421
to talk about the process of abstraction
from real life.
592
00:50:44,421 --> 00:50:47,007
Now, I very consciously wrote a book,
593
00:50:47,966 --> 00:50:49,509
A Perfect Spy...
594
00:50:51,469 --> 00:50:57,183
{\an8}...which gave a parallel version, if you
like, of much that had happened to me.
595
00:50:58,101 --> 00:51:02,981
For Ronnie, read Rick,
for me, read Magnus.
596
00:51:04,065 --> 00:51:07,277
I cannot define for you
597
00:51:07,277 --> 00:51:13,325
where reality goes through
the secret door into fiction.
598
00:51:15,076 --> 00:51:20,040
I would much rather go back to the notion
that I painted of,
599
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:24,002
"I live in that bubble,
and I import stuff."
600
00:51:35,347 --> 00:51:38,725
It is a kind of solitude in the sense that
601
00:51:39,434 --> 00:51:42,062
{\an8}you're not sharing your thoughts
with anyone.
602
00:51:44,064 --> 00:51:48,860
You're composing in secret
from the elements you see around you.
603
00:51:50,445 --> 00:51:56,243
A fictional entity which is rational,
which makes order out of chaos.
604
00:51:56,243 --> 00:51:58,245
I think that's such a normal process.
605
00:51:58,245 --> 00:52:00,538
If I were a painter,
I'd be feeling the same way.
606
00:52:00,538 --> 00:52:02,540
I'd be taking the light, the window
607
00:52:02,540 --> 00:52:07,546
and I would try to make an image
of how I feel now.
608
00:52:09,464 --> 00:52:13,718
I was going to ask you how
you do feel now, but that seems silly.
609
00:52:13,718 --> 00:52:15,804
Errol, I feel very comfortable.
610
00:52:15,804 --> 00:52:20,850
I enjoy very much talking about things
I haven't talked about before.
611
00:52:20,850 --> 00:52:26,314
I saw this prospect, at my great age,
as something definitive.
612
00:52:26,314 --> 00:52:30,235
I knew that I was not going to lie.
I wasn't going to fabricate.
613
00:52:30,235 --> 00:52:33,154
I'm not even interested in self-defense,
614
00:52:33,154 --> 00:52:36,449
because I really don't know
what the accusation is in the air.
615
00:52:40,662 --> 00:52:44,332
"Sir Magnus, you have in the past
betrayed me,
616
00:52:45,250 --> 00:52:48,795
but more important,
you have betrayed yourself.
617
00:52:48,795 --> 00:52:52,924
Even when you are telling the truth,
you lie.
618
00:52:52,924 --> 00:52:57,262
You have loyalty and you have affection.
619
00:52:57,262 --> 00:53:00,223
- But to what? To whom?"
- To what? To whom?
620
00:53:00,807 --> 00:53:02,392
I don't know.
621
00:53:02,392 --> 00:53:04,352
One day, maybe you will tell me.
622
00:53:06,062 --> 00:53:12,277
What I am saying, Sir Magnus,
you are a perfect spy.
623
00:53:21,536 --> 00:53:25,665
Characters don't actually work
until they've got a bit of you in them.
624
00:53:27,626 --> 00:53:29,461
They're just paper men.
625
00:53:30,921 --> 00:53:34,716
I voice my characters.
I read them to myself.
626
00:53:36,092 --> 00:53:38,595
That's terribly important, how they speak.
627
00:53:38,595 --> 00:53:43,225
After that, they kind of tell you who they
are, how they dress, how they move.
628
00:53:55,320 --> 00:54:00,742
That's the emergence of character
as you write, page after page.
629
00:54:03,787 --> 00:54:07,082
{\an8}Gradually, this fellow emerges
and is yours.
630
00:54:09,793 --> 00:54:12,504
My natural instinct
when I meet people
631
00:54:12,504 --> 00:54:15,549
is to consider the possibilities
of their characters.
632
00:54:15,549 --> 00:54:18,718
I begin to invest them with things
they probably don't possess.
633
00:54:18,718 --> 00:54:23,181
Curiously, in the end product, those
features may not be there anymore.
634
00:54:23,890 --> 00:54:26,268
But that's the beginning of the story.
635
00:54:28,812 --> 00:54:31,898
And then I discuss,
what do these people want?
636
00:54:32,899 --> 00:54:38,446
And out of discerning contrary appetites,
you get the essence of conflict.
637
00:54:39,030 --> 00:54:43,201
You've written, "The cat sat
on the mat is not a story,
638
00:54:43,201 --> 00:54:46,538
but the cat sat on the dog's mat is."
639
00:54:46,538 --> 00:54:47,622
That's right.
640
00:54:47,622 --> 00:54:50,333
And then I have
my le Carré version.
641
00:54:51,418 --> 00:54:56,089
"The cat betrayed the dog
by sitting on his mat."
642
00:54:56,089 --> 00:54:58,341
I think the cat was a double.
643
00:55:16,818 --> 00:55:20,113
{\an8}Why is betrayal
an important concept to you?
644
00:55:22,532 --> 00:55:25,535
{\an8}Well, it has
a long family background.
645
00:55:28,955 --> 00:55:33,460
Reality did not exist in my childhood,
performance did.
646
00:55:37,172 --> 00:55:42,510
I felt, observing life,
that much of what people said overtly
647
00:55:42,510 --> 00:55:44,679
was not what they thought inwardly.
648
00:55:44,679 --> 00:55:48,892
You have to remember that in each
of the secret services
649
00:55:48,892 --> 00:55:51,728
where I was ineffective but employed.
650
00:55:54,189 --> 00:55:55,941
{\an8}They were the decades of betrayal.
651
00:55:55,941 --> 00:55:58,777
{\an8}You just wondered
who was gonna pop out next.
652
00:56:02,864 --> 00:56:09,871
We received, at MI5, very strong
representations from the Americans
653
00:56:09,871 --> 00:56:13,416
to clean up our act and get rid
of the communists in our midst.
654
00:56:13,416 --> 00:56:16,586
A man appeared
655
00:56:17,087 --> 00:56:20,173
and he had some kind of authority,
which he made clear to you,
656
00:56:20,173 --> 00:56:22,759
and he would say,
"Come around, have a drink."
657
00:56:23,927 --> 00:56:27,973
And he had a most extraordinary wall
with live birds behind it.
658
00:56:28,682 --> 00:56:30,976
They silently flitted about.
659
00:56:35,689 --> 00:56:37,983
I think he was a fool, I may add.
660
00:56:37,983 --> 00:56:41,736
Must have been some kind of analyst, psychologist.
661
00:56:41,736 --> 00:56:46,116
He would question you in a sort of
fatuous schoolmasterly...
662
00:56:46,116 --> 00:56:48,076
"Getting on all right with your wife,
are you?"
663
00:56:48,076 --> 00:56:52,122
We were all being examined
as potential communist spies.
664
00:56:54,374 --> 00:56:59,838
The comedy in my case was
that I had, for MI5,
665
00:56:59,838 --> 00:57:04,676
entered the communist community
at my university at Oxford.
666
00:57:08,013 --> 00:57:11,641
I was picked up and wooed,
sat in the Soviet embassy,
667
00:57:11,641 --> 00:57:14,853
watched the Battleship Potemkin
about six times,
668
00:57:14,853 --> 00:57:17,272
was fed with vodka and then dropped.
669
00:57:17,898 --> 00:57:19,274
It's a good movie.
670
00:57:19,274 --> 00:57:22,527
It's a good movie, except
that it has no happy ending.
671
00:57:34,414 --> 00:57:39,544
Wait a second. Is the desire to
be a double agent from the very beginning?
672
00:57:40,128 --> 00:57:41,296
Yes.
673
00:57:41,296 --> 00:57:44,883
It was an extremely exciting thought
at the time.
674
00:57:44,883 --> 00:57:47,135
It's not just an agent,
it's a double a--
675
00:57:47,135 --> 00:57:49,971
It happens all the time
with every security service
676
00:57:49,971 --> 00:57:52,599
and every offensive intelligence service.
677
00:57:52,599 --> 00:57:57,103
That you put people up
alongside the recruiter,
678
00:57:57,103 --> 00:58:01,733
hope he will recruit, and then
you own the person he has recruited.
679
00:58:01,733 --> 00:58:06,488
That's, as the Germans would say, normal.
680
00:58:10,283 --> 00:58:13,119
Out of that came
the very painful relationship
681
00:58:13,119 --> 00:58:19,000
{\an8}with the secret head of
the communist group at Oxford at the time,
682
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:22,837
{\an8}a most innocent man, Stanley Mitchell.
683
00:58:25,423 --> 00:58:29,386
{\an8}We were in the same college,
he was reading Russian and German.
684
00:58:30,595 --> 00:58:32,889
He was of Russian-Jewish extraction.
685
00:58:35,141 --> 00:58:38,270
And we went on a walking holiday together
in Dorset.
686
00:58:38,270 --> 00:58:41,523
He had all the names of students
687
00:58:41,523 --> 00:58:45,694
who were members
of the Communist Party at that time.
688
00:58:46,903 --> 00:58:51,366
My job for MI5 was to identify
these people.
689
00:58:52,951 --> 00:58:57,831
And of course, it's horrific.
I was betraying Stanley.
690
00:59:02,085 --> 00:59:07,424
Although, I squirm and I'm horrified
by my behavior now,
691
00:59:07,424 --> 00:59:10,218
I still think it had to be done.
692
00:59:10,218 --> 00:59:15,015
Stanley, in later years,
made the very simple deduction
693
00:59:15,015 --> 00:59:16,933
that I was that person in his life.
694
00:59:16,933 --> 00:59:21,313
It upset him terribly.
"It was you, Judas. You swine.
695
00:59:23,023 --> 00:59:27,527
How could anybody do it?
How could anybody be as foul as you?"
696
00:59:29,446 --> 00:59:30,989
And your defense?
697
00:59:31,990 --> 00:59:35,744
Was, "Well, sorry, Stanley, but you
belong to a revolutionary movement
698
00:59:35,744 --> 00:59:38,997
which was determined
to destabilize our country.
699
00:59:38,997 --> 00:59:44,211
We were, at that time, technically at war
with the Soviet Union.
700
00:59:44,211 --> 00:59:45,962
You were on the wrong side."
701
00:59:49,341 --> 00:59:51,968
Can you be so sure
that you're on the right side
702
00:59:51,968 --> 00:59:55,805
- as opposed to the wrong side?
- Of course not. No. Of course not.
703
01:00:06,775 --> 01:00:11,279
In A Perfect Spy, why the need
to have the son kill himself?
704
01:00:14,908 --> 01:00:18,954
{\an8}Firstly, because he knew that
as a double agent, he was rumbled.
705
01:00:22,290 --> 01:00:25,168
He could have cut a deal, I suppose,
in the real world.
706
01:00:25,794 --> 01:00:28,380
I think he also found life insupportable.
707
01:00:29,965 --> 01:00:34,094
And he was ashamed
in the eyes of his child.
708
01:00:36,054 --> 01:00:38,598
Did Ronnie have a sense of shame?
709
01:00:39,391 --> 01:00:40,725
I really don't believe so.
710
01:00:40,725 --> 01:00:44,646
I've heard him do it,
kind of through the keyhole,
711
01:00:45,605 --> 01:00:47,732
to the first of my stepmothers.
712
01:00:49,109 --> 01:00:52,445
Howling he would never do something again.
713
01:00:52,946 --> 01:00:54,489
I don't know that he did shame,
714
01:00:54,489 --> 01:00:57,325
I don't know
how he could live with himself.
715
01:00:57,325 --> 01:01:01,079
Living with his fantasies,
716
01:01:01,079 --> 01:01:05,041
which didn't necessarily begin
as criminal plans
717
01:01:05,041 --> 01:01:08,336
but it was like writing a novel,
718
01:01:08,336 --> 01:01:12,549
in the sense that he would
hear the right line,
719
01:01:12,549 --> 01:01:16,219
or spot in the crowd some clue.
720
01:01:16,761 --> 01:01:19,472
And that would be the beginning of a scam.
721
01:01:25,687 --> 01:01:30,483
"I am in the city of Exeter,
walking across a patch of wasteland.
722
01:01:32,152 --> 01:01:35,238
I'm holding the hand of my mother, Olive.
723
01:01:35,947 --> 01:01:40,035
As she was wearing gloves,
there is no fleshly contact
724
01:01:40,035 --> 01:01:44,414
and indeed, so far as I recall,
there never was any.
725
01:01:47,375 --> 01:01:51,922
At the far side of the wasteland is
a grim, flat-fronted building
726
01:01:51,922 --> 01:01:55,008
with barred windows
and no light inside them."
727
01:02:01,181 --> 01:02:03,683
"And in one of these barred windows,
728
01:02:03,683 --> 01:02:08,813
looking exactly like a Monopoly convict,
stands my father.
729
01:02:09,564 --> 01:02:12,776
I wave at Ronnie high up in the wall
730
01:02:12,776 --> 01:02:15,612
and Ronnie waves the way he always waved."
731
01:02:16,363 --> 01:02:17,989
Daddy, Daddy!
732
01:02:20,325 --> 01:02:22,869
"On Olive's hand,
I march back to the car,
733
01:02:22,869 --> 01:02:24,829
feeling thoroughly pleased with myself.
734
01:02:27,290 --> 01:02:31,503
Not every small boy, after all,
has his mother to himself
735
01:02:31,503 --> 01:02:33,797
and keeps his father in a cage."
736
01:02:40,136 --> 01:02:43,431
"But according to my father,
none of this happened.
737
01:02:43,431 --> 01:02:46,309
The notion that I might have seen him
in any of his prisons
738
01:02:46,309 --> 01:02:48,520
offended him very much."
739
01:02:50,814 --> 01:02:54,192
Sheer invention
from start to finish, son.
740
01:02:54,859 --> 01:02:58,196
Anyone who knows the inside of Exeter jail
741
01:02:58,196 --> 01:03:03,076
knows perfectly well
you can't see the road from the cells.
742
01:03:07,747 --> 01:03:09,249
"And I believe him.
743
01:03:10,792 --> 01:03:12,752
I'm wrong and he was right.
744
01:03:12,752 --> 01:03:15,922
He was never at that window
and I never waved to him.
745
01:03:16,506 --> 01:03:18,967
But what's the truth? What's memory?
746
01:03:19,676 --> 01:03:21,303
We should find another name
747
01:03:21,303 --> 01:03:25,098
for the way we see past events
that are still alive in us."
748
01:03:32,105 --> 01:03:36,526
I don't think confronting you
is the right way to put it.
749
01:03:37,652 --> 01:03:41,323
But there was something
that you said that I found curious
750
01:03:42,449 --> 01:03:45,535
and worth further examination.
751
01:03:46,453 --> 01:03:50,624
Maybe this is an interrogation.
Maybe I am self-deceived.
752
01:03:52,417 --> 01:03:56,213
I can't imagine that as an interrogator
or an interviewer,
753
01:03:56,213 --> 01:03:59,132
you aren't also in part
looking for yourself.
754
01:04:00,050 --> 01:04:03,386
I don't think that we really can
penetrate people very much,
755
01:04:05,013 --> 01:04:09,100
but we can form imaginings about them
and then we relate to them.
756
01:04:16,858 --> 01:04:22,572
You hired private detectives
to investigate your father.
757
01:04:23,823 --> 01:04:28,578
One fat, one thin.
I asked my solicitor,
758
01:04:28,578 --> 01:04:30,038
"How can I get hold of these people?"
759
01:04:30,038 --> 01:04:32,707
He said, "Well, don't tell them
I told you,
760
01:04:32,707 --> 01:04:35,627
but these are about the most ruthless men
I know."
761
01:04:35,627 --> 01:04:39,256
{\an8}I hired them,
at an absurdly large sum of money.
762
01:04:42,342 --> 01:04:44,719
Really, they came on very little.
763
01:04:51,726 --> 01:04:58,525
{\an8}A much more reliable source for Ronnie's
first criminal case and imprisonment
764
01:04:58,525 --> 01:05:00,860
{\an8}is the local press of the day.
765
01:05:04,990 --> 01:05:09,202
He got, I think, a four-year sentence
for fraud at a very young age,
766
01:05:09,202 --> 01:05:11,955
but then he was taken out in mid-sentence
767
01:05:11,955 --> 01:05:15,417
and given a second sentence
with hard labor.
768
01:05:15,417 --> 01:05:17,794
I once said, "How bad was it?"
769
01:05:17,794 --> 01:05:20,046
He said, "Well, the Gypsies
were the worst."
770
01:05:20,046 --> 01:05:22,132
And he's talking about handicuffs.
771
01:05:22,883 --> 01:05:29,514
{\an8}Ronnie had a big chest. I think he was
capable of being very physical himself.
772
01:05:34,269 --> 01:05:41,192
{\an8}I was in Chicago promoting
a British week, riding on London buses,
773
01:05:41,943 --> 01:05:45,488
pretending to make phone calls
from telephone kiosks.
774
01:05:52,162 --> 01:05:55,498
The British consul-general
then handed me a telegram
775
01:05:55,498 --> 01:05:59,294
{\an8}he'd received from the embassy in Jakarta.
776
01:06:03,340 --> 01:06:08,637
Saying Ronnie was in prison, it would
take so much money to get him out.
777
01:06:08,637 --> 01:06:10,972
Would I agree to pay it?
778
01:06:14,851 --> 01:06:17,979
It wasn't an enormous sum,
but it was quite painful all the same,
779
01:06:17,979 --> 01:06:20,357
and that got him out.
780
01:06:20,357 --> 01:06:23,693
And we never talked about it
until I did much later and he said,
781
01:06:23,693 --> 01:06:26,279
"Oh, it was nothing, just currency stuff."
782
01:06:26,279 --> 01:06:29,574
We now know that he was engaged
in arms dealing
783
01:06:29,574 --> 01:06:35,121
at a time when Indonesia was
just recovering from a huge genocide.
784
01:06:40,335 --> 01:06:44,256
But then the last time, to my knowledge,
that he was in prison,
785
01:06:44,256 --> 01:06:49,010
he was in the Bezirksgefängnis,
the district prison in Zurich
786
01:06:49,010 --> 01:06:50,971
for swindling hotels.
787
01:06:50,971 --> 01:06:53,890
He was allowed a reverse charge call
to me.
788
01:06:53,890 --> 01:06:58,103
He said, "I can't do any more jail, son.
Get me out."
789
01:06:59,229 --> 01:07:00,730
And that was money again.
790
01:07:00,730 --> 01:07:04,985
I mean, it wasn't big money,
but it was extremely painful to me.
791
01:07:06,403 --> 01:07:12,450
I still have nightmare visions of this
hugely active physical man, caged.
792
01:07:14,452 --> 01:07:17,289
In the aggregate,
I don't know how much prison he did.
793
01:07:18,498 --> 01:07:21,543
Probably altogether no more
than six or seven years.
794
01:07:22,586 --> 01:07:26,214
But what effect it had on him,
I can't imagine.
795
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:38,852
By the way, Ronnie sued you!
796
01:07:40,020 --> 01:07:45,609
Yes, he did. I gave an interview
to London Weekend Television.
797
01:07:47,110 --> 01:07:51,031
I omitted to say
that I owed everything to him.
798
01:07:52,908 --> 01:07:55,327
I didn't want to give Ronnie the credit.
799
01:07:57,078 --> 01:08:00,248
Why should I find a line
that said I owed it all to my father?
800
01:08:00,248 --> 01:08:06,546
But the reality probably is,
in many ways, that I do.
801
01:08:18,433 --> 01:08:20,810
I've never felt I belonged anywhere,
802
01:08:20,810 --> 01:08:23,271
I've been very lucky in that respect.
803
01:08:23,271 --> 01:08:25,272
I've had a very rich life.
804
01:08:25,982 --> 01:08:29,527
And I've seen a lot of institutions
and a lot of things.
805
01:08:30,612 --> 01:08:33,990
I've led a lot of lives, in an odd way.
806
01:08:33,990 --> 01:08:36,534
I don't feel that I belong to any of them.
807
01:08:37,160 --> 01:08:41,748
What I am left with is
a sense of being on my own.
808
01:08:47,128 --> 01:08:49,798
Was your father tortured by the fact
809
01:08:49,798 --> 01:08:54,052
that you became rich and successful
and he did not?
810
01:08:56,346 --> 01:08:57,556
I don't know.
811
01:08:59,723 --> 01:09:05,605
The principal effect
of my success upon him
812
01:09:05,605 --> 01:09:08,316
was to create in him
a sense of entitlement.
813
01:09:08,316 --> 01:09:12,821
He bought huge quantities of my books,
usually on credit, signed them,
814
01:09:12,821 --> 01:09:15,156
"From the author's father."
815
01:09:15,156 --> 01:09:17,158
Gave them around like confetti.
816
01:09:23,080 --> 01:09:29,838
I met the hard-edge, the real edge,
I suppose, when he summoned me to Vienna.
817
01:09:33,633 --> 01:09:34,884
"Son,
818
01:09:35,927 --> 01:09:38,429
I've worked out
what your education cost me.
819
01:09:38,429 --> 01:09:41,850
And I have some idea of the kind of money
you're making."
820
01:09:43,268 --> 01:09:45,603
And then he went on to make a pitch.
821
01:09:45,603 --> 01:09:49,941
"Son, all I've ever wanted in my life
is pigs and cattle,
822
01:09:49,941 --> 01:09:52,986
and then a little piece of Dorset.
Pigs and cattle.
823
01:09:53,527 --> 01:09:57,782
Somewhere nice to live, nice lady
to live with, and I'll be all right.
824
01:09:58,742 --> 01:10:01,661
So, what I need is..."
And he named an enormous sum of money.
825
01:10:01,661 --> 01:10:05,457
"Father, I can't do that.
It makes no sense to me.
826
01:10:06,041 --> 01:10:10,420
What I will do, if that's really what
you want, with your pigs and cattle,
827
01:10:10,420 --> 01:10:13,006
is I will buy a house and own it
and put you into it.
828
01:10:13,006 --> 01:10:16,009
I will make an allowance to you
for running your farm.
829
01:10:16,009 --> 01:10:18,220
I don't trust you for one second."
830
01:10:18,220 --> 01:10:22,849
He actually had appointed me a mark.
He was going to con me.
831
01:10:23,391 --> 01:10:27,312
And I'd join the club of people
on the roadside.
832
01:10:27,312 --> 01:10:28,813
And I wasn't going to let that happen.
833
01:10:30,273 --> 01:10:33,026
We were in Sachers, in Vienna,
834
01:10:33,026 --> 01:10:36,571
the most refined, excellent restaurant
in those days.
835
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:41,076
He let out the most awful feral howl.
836
01:10:41,868 --> 01:10:46,539
And shouted, "You're paying
your own father to sit on his arse!"
837
01:10:46,539 --> 01:10:49,960
In a voice that could have been heard
across the street.
838
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:55,173
And then he emitted this howl, howl,
half rose to his feet,
839
01:10:55,173 --> 01:11:00,220
and I put my arm
round his very ample back,
840
01:11:00,220 --> 01:11:06,851
and we hobbled to the front door
of... the hotel,
841
01:11:08,270 --> 01:11:13,441
down some steps, then there was a cab and
he looked up at me in supplicant's face,
842
01:11:13,441 --> 01:11:15,819
"How am I going to pay for this cab?"
843
01:11:17,028 --> 01:11:19,447
And I gave the driver some money.
844
01:11:20,115 --> 01:11:21,741
And off he went.
845
01:11:21,741 --> 01:11:26,329
I could've accepted his pitch,
at least given him some money.
846
01:11:27,372 --> 01:11:32,210
But I was so angry that it was a pain
to pay for the cab.
847
01:11:33,003 --> 01:11:36,089
But it's a feeling of being betrayed.
848
01:11:36,715 --> 01:11:41,595
Yes, it is. There was quite a bit of that
in it. "How can you do this to me?"
849
01:11:48,101 --> 01:11:50,854
Come on, old friend. It's bedtime.
850
01:11:52,606 --> 01:11:55,442
George? You won.
851
01:11:58,945 --> 01:12:00,030
Did I?
852
01:12:02,157 --> 01:12:03,241
Yes.
853
01:12:04,868 --> 01:12:06,453
Yes, I suppose I did.
854
01:12:15,003 --> 01:12:16,630
Did you love Ronnie?
855
01:12:17,464 --> 01:12:19,174
I really don't know what love is.
856
01:12:19,174 --> 01:12:21,676
I must have loved him as a child.
857
01:12:22,177 --> 01:12:26,014
But then, the consequences of his life
became clear to me.
858
01:12:26,848 --> 01:12:31,269
Later in life, when he wanted everything
I had, like my money.
859
01:12:33,230 --> 01:12:36,900
I was able to pull out
the necessary stops.
860
01:12:36,900 --> 01:12:39,361
I could do affection with him.
861
01:12:39,361 --> 01:12:43,573
I could do indifference
and, secretly, I could do hatred.
862
01:12:43,573 --> 01:12:45,575
Those things exist, actually,
863
01:12:45,575 --> 01:12:48,203
in any father-son relationship
at different times.
864
01:12:48,203 --> 01:12:52,374
They're like seasons. I had to muster
hatred in order to escape him.
865
01:13:02,884 --> 01:13:04,928
{\an8}They had three funerals for him.
866
01:13:06,721 --> 01:13:08,306
{\an8}I went to the first one.
867
01:13:09,432 --> 01:13:12,519
{\an8}I was urged to make a speech
and declined.
868
01:13:12,519 --> 01:13:15,438
And then there was another funeral
869
01:13:15,438 --> 01:13:18,275
and then, God help us,
there was a memorial service.
870
01:13:18,275 --> 01:13:20,318
But I didn't go to either of those.
871
01:13:22,821 --> 01:13:26,950
I wanted to believe that
my feelings were dead.
872
01:13:27,951 --> 01:13:29,494
And I've never seen his grave.
873
01:13:35,500 --> 01:13:37,878
But you paid for the funerals.
874
01:13:38,962 --> 01:13:40,463
I'm sure I did, yes.
875
01:13:40,463 --> 01:13:42,841
I paid for everybody's funerals.
876
01:13:42,841 --> 01:13:45,594
I paid for my mother's funeral.
I mean, I paid for them.
877
01:13:45,594 --> 01:13:49,306
What the hell does that mean?
I'm well off, I paid.
878
01:13:51,766 --> 01:13:55,770
The most loyal of his servants,
879
01:13:55,770 --> 01:13:59,482
who had done jail for him,
was a man called Arthur Lowe.
880
01:13:59,482 --> 01:14:03,862
All these people have monosyllables
as surnames.
881
01:14:03,862 --> 01:14:05,739
There was a Mister Bent,
believe it or not.
882
01:14:07,824 --> 01:14:12,662
I went to Jermyn Street
immediately upon hearing of his death
883
01:14:12,662 --> 01:14:17,000
to see whether there was anything there
to be redeemed and to be present.
884
01:14:17,959 --> 01:14:23,465
Arthur said, "Let's all go and have a bit
of a blowout. Do us good.
885
01:14:23,465 --> 01:14:26,259
Let's go to Jules Bar across the road."
886
01:14:28,136 --> 01:14:30,847
So, about eight of us went,
and Arthur presided.
887
01:14:30,847 --> 01:14:34,559
We had champagne and oysters,
whatever the hell we wanted.
888
01:14:34,559 --> 01:14:36,978
We thought we'd cheer ourselves up.
Or Arthur did.
889
01:14:36,978 --> 01:14:42,442
Very graciously, he paid.
And it was his party, it was fine.
890
01:14:43,109 --> 01:14:47,364
{\an8}It's my party, George.
I'll get the bill when I'm ready.
891
01:14:51,117 --> 01:14:53,870
Two days later, I got the receipt
in the post.
892
01:14:53,870 --> 01:14:57,207
"Will I please adjust
as soon as possible?"
893
01:14:57,207 --> 01:14:59,292
Ronnie never had money.
894
01:14:59,292 --> 01:15:05,465
He made killings, but as soon as he made
a killing, on the sound principle,
895
01:15:05,465 --> 01:15:11,096
that expenditure always exceeds income...
it was gone again.
896
01:15:14,599 --> 01:15:18,186
He was some kind of crisis addict.
897
01:15:18,186 --> 01:15:21,356
I think he had to be living on the edge
all the time.
898
01:15:23,108 --> 01:15:25,610
And I think he certainly persuaded himself
899
01:15:25,610 --> 01:15:29,614
that this was an honorable and valuable
contribution to the community
900
01:15:29,614 --> 01:15:33,034
and they would be happy
and he would be mountainously rich.
901
01:15:33,034 --> 01:15:36,538
And mind you, he was within a whisker
of that happening.
902
01:15:40,542 --> 01:15:43,837
I'm not making a case for him,
I'm just trying to tell you
903
01:15:43,837 --> 01:15:49,509
how close he was
to being a successful man.
904
01:15:50,093 --> 01:15:53,221
And how absolutely absurd
were his fantasies.
905
01:16:04,858 --> 01:16:07,027
But the world runs on fantasy.
906
01:16:07,027 --> 01:16:12,073
I agree. The membrane between
what he does or failed to do,
907
01:16:12,073 --> 01:16:16,077
and enormously wealthy and successful
and honored people
908
01:16:16,077 --> 01:16:18,622
that membrane was very, very feeble.
909
01:16:25,045 --> 01:16:28,506
"Ronnie is dead
and I am revisiting Vienna
910
01:16:29,716 --> 01:16:31,593
in order to breathe the city air
911
01:16:31,593 --> 01:16:35,347
while I write him into
the semi-autobiographical novel
912
01:16:35,347 --> 01:16:37,515
I am at last free to ponder.
913
01:16:42,187 --> 01:16:43,730
Not the Sacher again.
914
01:16:44,272 --> 01:16:46,483
I have a dread that the waiters
will remember
915
01:16:46,483 --> 01:16:51,529
Ronnie crashing down onto the table
and me half carrying him out.
916
01:16:53,448 --> 01:16:56,117
My plane into Schwechat is delayed
917
01:16:56,117 --> 01:16:59,871
and the reception desk of the hotel
that I have chosen at random
918
01:16:59,871 --> 01:17:02,916
is in the charge
of an elderly night porter.
919
01:17:06,419 --> 01:17:10,090
He looks on silently
as I fill in the registration form.
920
01:17:11,007 --> 01:17:16,346
Then he speaks in soft,
venerable Viennese German.
921
01:17:18,390 --> 01:17:21,601
'Your father was a great man,' he says.
922
01:17:21,601 --> 01:17:24,062
'You treated him disgracefully.'"
923
01:17:28,984 --> 01:17:32,779
I keep hearing again
and again and again
924
01:17:32,779 --> 01:17:36,992
that I have not pressed you
hard enough about betrayal.
925
01:17:36,992 --> 01:17:42,038
I have failed in my interviewer's
or interrogator's job.
926
01:17:42,038 --> 01:17:48,169
Well, I feel that you got the last drop
out of the sponge on that subject.
927
01:17:48,169 --> 01:17:53,550
But I'll answer any question you wish me
to answer, as truthfully as I can.
928
01:17:53,550 --> 01:17:56,261
Do they want you
to break down and sob?
929
01:17:56,261 --> 01:18:00,181
And weep? Yeah. I can do that.
930
01:18:00,181 --> 01:18:02,225
Like I can do bird noises.
931
01:18:03,602 --> 01:18:08,481
I'm not going to talk about my sex life,
any more, I trust, than you would.
932
01:18:08,481 --> 01:18:10,942
It seems to be
an intensely private matter.
933
01:18:10,942 --> 01:18:14,988
My love life has been a very difficult
passage, as you would imagine,
934
01:18:14,988 --> 01:18:19,409
but it's resolved itself wonderfully,
and that's enough on that subject.
935
01:18:21,494 --> 01:18:24,748
So, what do people want?
936
01:18:25,624 --> 01:18:31,546
They want to think that I am duplicitous,
937
01:18:32,923 --> 01:18:34,841
false-tongued,
938
01:18:34,841 --> 01:18:39,054
that I use my charm as a wreckers' light
939
01:18:40,096 --> 01:18:42,849
and probably that I torture my children.
940
01:18:43,600 --> 01:18:46,394
They want to unmask me as something,
941
01:18:46,394 --> 01:18:50,273
but I need to know
what is behind the mask first.
942
01:18:51,441 --> 01:18:54,236
You have all I am, as far as I know.
943
01:18:59,658 --> 01:19:04,329
{\an8}In your memoir, you say none
of it's true, it's as I imagined it.
944
01:19:07,332 --> 01:19:12,879
Inside the bubble,
I am abstracting from non-fiction
945
01:19:12,879 --> 01:19:14,381
and fictionalizing it.
946
01:19:15,340 --> 01:19:20,345
I want to take tidy stories
out of the perceived reality around me.
947
01:19:23,682 --> 01:19:28,144
{\an8}But I didn't do any of that derring-do
stuff that is reported in my books.
948
01:19:30,272 --> 01:19:35,068
But why tell people that a story
is false right at the very beginning?
949
01:19:36,403 --> 01:19:39,489
If you and I had witnessed
the same car accident,
950
01:19:40,532 --> 01:19:43,326
each would have his version
of what had happened.
951
01:19:44,286 --> 01:19:45,954
So, what is truth?
952
01:19:47,372 --> 01:19:52,168
Objective truth is perceived
by some absent third party,
953
01:19:53,128 --> 01:19:56,381
but otherwise, truth is subjective.
954
01:19:58,717 --> 01:20:03,138
Who is that third party? God?
955
01:20:03,138 --> 01:20:07,601
There is some kind of factual record
which we'll never get our hands on.
956
01:20:11,605 --> 01:20:15,942
My business has been
to try to make credible fables
957
01:20:15,942 --> 01:20:21,323
out of the worlds that I visited
or visited me.
958
01:20:32,751 --> 01:20:35,795
The journey for me has been
one of the imagination.
959
01:20:37,047 --> 01:20:39,758
The imaginative refuge from reality.
960
01:20:42,594 --> 01:20:45,472
The recreation of chaos.
961
01:20:47,098 --> 01:20:51,478
Not in an orderly way, but in
a comprehensible, individualized way
962
01:20:52,938 --> 01:20:59,945
that makes people feel not à la
James Bond,
963
01:20:59,945 --> 01:21:01,446
"I wish this was me."
964
01:21:02,239 --> 01:21:07,285
But more kind of,
"Jesus, I hope this isn't me."
965
01:21:17,295 --> 01:21:20,507
"When I was a young
and carefree spy,
966
01:21:20,507 --> 01:21:25,720
it was only natural that I should believe
that the nation's hottest secrets
967
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:29,474
were housed in a chipped, green Chubbsafe
968
01:21:29,474 --> 01:21:34,187
that was tucked away at the end
of a labyrinth of dingy corridors...
969
01:21:35,772 --> 01:21:38,692
on the top floor of 54 Broadway...
970
01:21:39,985 --> 01:21:44,781
...in the private office occupied
by the Chief of the Secret Service.
971
01:21:46,700 --> 01:21:50,912
{\an8}I had heard that there existed
documents so secret
972
01:21:50,912 --> 01:21:54,624
{\an8}that they were only ever touched
by the Chief himself.
973
01:21:57,961 --> 01:22:00,297
And now the sad day is upon us
974
01:22:00,297 --> 01:22:04,676
when the final curtain
will be run down on Broadway Buildings.
975
01:22:07,304 --> 01:22:10,056
Is the Chief's safe exempt?
976
01:22:10,056 --> 01:22:14,019
Will cranes, crowbars, and silent men
convey it bodily
977
01:22:14,019 --> 01:22:17,731
to the next stage
along its life's long journey?
978
01:22:19,983 --> 01:22:24,195
It is reluctantly ruled
that the safe will be opened."
979
01:22:26,281 --> 01:22:28,533
So, who's got the bloody key?
980
01:22:28,533 --> 01:22:30,744
"Not the reigning chief, apparently.
981
01:22:31,661 --> 01:22:34,664
He has made a point
of never venturing inside the safe.
982
01:22:36,207 --> 01:22:38,501
What you don't know, you can't reveal."
983
01:22:40,253 --> 01:22:41,588
Useless!
984
01:22:42,339 --> 01:22:44,090
Send for Burglar Bill.
985
01:22:45,342 --> 01:22:48,553
"The Service has picked
a few locks in its day,
986
01:22:48,553 --> 01:22:51,306
so it looks like time to pick another."
987
01:23:18,959 --> 01:23:20,752
"The lock yields."
988
01:23:22,754 --> 01:23:25,257
"The safe is empty. Bare.
989
01:23:26,007 --> 01:23:29,886
Innocent of even the most mundane secret."
990
01:23:30,720 --> 01:23:31,846
Wait!
991
01:23:32,722 --> 01:23:37,769
Is it a decoy safe
to protect an inner sanctum?
992
01:23:42,065 --> 01:23:45,151
"The safe is gently prized from the wall.
993
01:23:47,404 --> 01:23:49,948
The Chief peers behind it.
994
01:23:52,492 --> 01:23:58,039
And extracts a very thick,
very old pair of trousers,
995
01:23:59,332 --> 01:24:01,209
with a label attached to them.
996
01:24:01,877 --> 01:24:08,508
The typed inscription declares that these
are the trousers worn by Rudolf Hess...
997
01:24:10,594 --> 01:24:14,180
...Adolf Hitler's deputy
when he flew to Scotland
998
01:24:14,180 --> 01:24:18,476
to negotiate a separate peace
with the Duke of Hamilton.
999
01:24:19,352 --> 01:24:24,691
In the mistaken belief that
the Duke shared his fascist views."
1000
01:25:01,061 --> 01:25:04,856
"Beneath the inscription
runs a handwritten scrawl."
1001
01:25:09,361 --> 01:25:11,488
"Please analyze.
1002
01:25:12,572 --> 01:25:18,662
May give an idea of the state
of the German textile industry."
1003
01:25:30,298 --> 01:25:36,096
That was a story about
men from a diminished imperial power
1004
01:25:36,096 --> 01:25:39,599
looking into a false reflection
of themselves.
1005
01:25:39,599 --> 01:25:44,437
Still guarding a great nation,
still playing the world's game.
1006
01:25:45,689 --> 01:25:51,194
And in fact, they were
a tragically reduced crowd
1007
01:25:52,279 --> 01:25:54,364
driven by their own nostalgia.
1008
01:25:55,782 --> 01:25:58,034
And when you look in the mirror?
1009
01:25:59,661 --> 01:26:01,037
Now? Today?
1010
01:26:01,663 --> 01:26:05,917
I'm much more at ease
with myself now, in age.
1011
01:26:05,917 --> 01:26:10,964
More reconciled to who I was.
And who I was not.
1012
01:26:10,964 --> 01:26:13,758
So, I'm not too unhappy
when I look in the mirror,
1013
01:26:13,758 --> 01:26:16,052
unless I've got a dreadful hangover.
1014
01:26:16,887 --> 01:26:21,516
I look at you
as an exquisite poet of self-hatred.
1015
01:26:21,516 --> 01:26:23,143
Yeah, I would go with that.
1016
01:26:24,644 --> 01:26:30,942
I think that it's only in the last few
years that I feel I've found my freedom,
1017
01:26:30,942 --> 01:26:33,987
and I love being what I am best at.
1018
01:26:33,987 --> 01:26:38,450
Not just being a writer,
that's incidental, but writing.
1019
01:26:38,450 --> 01:26:42,621
Without the creative life,
I have very little identity.
1020
01:26:42,621 --> 01:26:45,957
I'm like an actor without a part.
1021
01:26:45,957 --> 01:26:51,922
With the work, I am as near as I get
to being a happy man.
1022
01:26:52,881 --> 01:26:54,841
And I love, I love writing.
1023
01:26:55,717 --> 01:26:57,385
So, I am that animal.
1024
01:26:58,303 --> 01:27:03,850
And I dare hardly use the claim,
but I'll make it here, I'm an artist.