Title: S1E26 Did John Le Carre Invent The Modern Spy?
Show: John Kiriakou's Dead Drop
Date: 2026-05-04
URL: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69ed338717df632b859b58f0/media.mp3
Duration: 1:14:04

---

[06:50] Sitting on the train during his long commute through London, Le Carré began to write his novels on tiny notepads. The character George Smiley appears in Le Carré's very first novel, Call for the Dead, published in 1961. Le Carré would continue adding to Smiley's story for another 58 years. The book that really put John Le Carré on the literary map was his third novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. While his first two books had gotten great reviews, the Birmingham Post said of Call for the Dead that, quote,

[07:23] one really believes in the skillfully drawn atmosphere of the service, unquote. Spy Who Came In From the Cold became a huge bestselling hit, a feature film starring Richard Burton and the best career launching pad a writer could ever ask for. But you have to remember, Le Carré did all this while still working as a spy. In 1964, after being outed by Kim Philby, Le Carré left the Secret Service. But of course, as we know, it never really left him. Le Carré must have poured a lot of reality into his writing because after he quit,

[07:55] former colleagues went after him in person, mostly for the unflinching depiction of the world they called home. In an article called Don't Be Beastly to Your Secret Service, Le Carré told about being buttonholed by a former MI6 colleague at a diplomatic function. You bastard Cornwell, fumed the former colleague. You utter bastard. Not very constructive criticism. Le Carré always felt that he had painted British intelligence as being more competent than the one he'd experienced in reality. Kim Philby, in a letter to the wife he left behind in Beirut when he defected

[08:28] to the Soviet Union, confessed to, quote, admiring the sophistication of the spy who came in from the cold after all that James Bond idiocy, unquote. That's high praise indeed. Le Carré wrote 26 novels. Among them are some of the best books about spies and spying ever written. That's because Le Carré's other strength was his ability to see his spies as people first and foremost. His heroes often did things they believed for the best of reasons, only to learn they'd been betrayed somewhere along the way, undermining the thing

[09:01] they believe, betrayal, especially where love is concerned, runs rampant in Jean Le Carré's world. It's the thing his characters can all still betray or be betrayed by love of a person or a country or an ideal. Plenty of writers write about spies, including lots of ex spies, but none of them actually impacted the business of spying. It's vocabulary, it's recruitment, even the way Jean Le Carré did. He literally introduced vocabulary to spying the way Shakespeare introduced

[09:32] new words into the English language. Before Jean Le Carré, I don't know of any intelligence officer who referred to the agents working for him as his Joe's. Le Carré invented the word lamp lighters to describe surveillance agents. Honey traps to describe using sex to compromise targets and laundry's to describe locations used as cover for a base of operations. While he didn't create the term mole to describe a deeply embedded enemy agent, he did popularize it so much that the Oxford English Dictionary says, quote,

[10:05] it is generally thought that the world of espionage adopted it from Le Carré rather than vice versa, unquote. But what is the OED know, right? Beyond just the words, John Le Carré's vision of spies and spying, his perception of this gray world and the people in it, it didn't just captivate people interested in becoming spies. It inspired us to be like it in both word and deed. At least that's the premise on the table today. Did John Le Carré invent the modern spy?

[10:36] And if he did, how in the world did he do it? To help us pick through the intel and try to discern something from these nebulous shadows, we have friends. First is Barry Eisler. You met Barry back in episode 11 of this podcast where we asked the question, have human spies become obsolete? Barry spent three covert years with the CIA's Director of Operations. He worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive. And so far has written three incredibly successful espionage thriller book series, including number one best sellers, the Detachment,

[11:07] Livy Alone, the Night Trade and the Killer Collective. You heard Glenn Carl a few episodes back talking about his experiences refusing to take part in the CIA's torture program. Glenn wrote the excellent book The Interrogators, so you know he's got the right bona fides also joining us is Alan Katz. Alan co-writes and produces Dead Drop and along with the rest of us is a huge John Le Carré fan. Gentlemen, great to have you. Thanks for joining. Absolutely. Thank you for being here. This is Alan, by the way, as the only non spy here.

[11:41] I'd like to kick this conversation off by asking before we zero in on John Le Carré. As you all went into the business you went into, were there any other writers or influences that colored in any way your view of that world and perhaps inspired you to want to be part of it? Go ahead, Glenn, you want to start? The reverse is sort of true. I think I came to appreciate and discover and read a lot of the spy espionage authors after my career had begun.

[12:15] Before I got into my career, I read a lot of books about espionage, but they were almost all nonfiction because I was trying to figure out if I wanted to do this for a career and some of those books are quite influential. And the author of one of them became the man really who got me into the agency. And I now say that he wrote the second best memoir by a CIA officer. Who was it? David Attlee Phillips wrote The Night Watch.

[12:47] It came out in the seventy four, I think. Seventy. No, that's too early. Seventy six or thereabouts. I entered and I was going through the process in the late seventies, early eighties. I met him while I was at graduate school and sort of pitched why I was the best thing ever for the agency and told him that if he was still a patriot, he should should get me in. And he he agreed. Maybe they were just desperate for personnel who knows. So it wasn't that I was inspired by spy novels.

[13:22] I have a very clear ranking and feelings and senses of the different textures of the authors. But for it wasn't fiction that drew to the agency. I read this by who came in from the cold after having been at the agency for about a year, maybe 14 months. And it was so good and so compelling that I actually I was overseas when I was reading it, I was in Kuwait, just as we were liberating the country. I took it in with me. It was the only thing that I brought in with me besides my clothes.

[13:55] It was so good and so true to life that I actually was afraid of what someone would think if I got caught with it. Oh, he must be a spy. And so I took it to the embassy and I left it there and I would only read it on my lunch hour. That's funny. You could have told millions of other people have read this book, I promise. And that's right. What about you, Barry? I read in Fleming all the Bond books when I was in high school and at Le Carré, I discovered when I was in college and then kept reading him through

[14:29] law school and I wouldn't say that spy fiction had that much to do with my at least as far as I'm aware, didn't have that much to do with my decision to join the agency. It was more that by the time I graduated from college, I got quite interested in the way the world really works. I was reading a lot. I was a psychology major and that was a default major. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I wound up going to law school like a lot of people sometimes do. A friend of mine who went to law school, one of my college classmates called it

[15:00] YEP Youth Extension Program. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I thought maybe YEP. While I was in law school, that's when I started thinking, well, well, you're back. I mean, you're really interested in the way the world really works. You're reading all these books and periodicals on that topic. And I've always been interested in what I later came to call forbidden knowledge, which is anything that John, you and I might have talked about this at some point, anything that the government wants only a select few people to be able to do or

[15:30] to know and everyone else to be prohibited from it. That kind of stuff is just always interested me. And I remember reading David Morel's book, First Blood. I think I was in college at the time and I just thought it was the coolest thing, the concept that this guy was a special forces Vietnam veteran who learned all these skills that were only supposed to be known and practiced by a small group of people in quite select place and circumstances. But then he comes back with this stuff and starts using it at home.

[16:01] And I just I always thought that stuff was great. The CIA seemed like a place where I could combine a burgeoning interest in geopolitics with an interest in what I called forbidden knowledge, what Le Carré liked to call the secret world. I went to this is way before the Internet. I don't remember how we used to do things, honestly, but I know that I was at Cornell. They had a career center and went up there to see if I could find a brochure, because I didn't know how else do you get in touch with the CIA? This is maybe 1988 or something. They had a brochure in the Cornell Career Center,

[16:32] along with the General Electric brochure and all the other places. Berkshire Hathaway, I don't know what I called an 800 number. And that's how the ball got rolling. Joe Weisberg, a former colleague of ours in the Counterterrorism Center, wrote a novel, quite a well regarded novel that didn't really sell very well. And after that one novel, he created The Americans, which became a blockbuster dramatic television series blockbuster. Yeah, I couldn't tear myself away from it. Why did the two of you decide to go into literature,

[17:07] whether fiction or nonfiction, rather than go the Hollywood route? Glenn, do you want to? Sure. Well, I think lack of discipline, lack of self-confidence and purity of character are the reasons for me. I ended up, I think relevant as I take a half step back, actually, from the question and address the path that Barry just described. But for myself, I got into the agency because I was true to myself. And I'm being both facetious and serious.

[17:37] And that means after college, like Barry, like a lot of people with liberal arts, renaissance minds, I didn't know what I really wanted to do. There was only one thing I ever truly was keen on, really driven and excited about it in a similar way to how I had felt as a kid or as a college student about playing hockey, where some activity will consume you and you lose awareness of the outside world. And you are just in a pure concentration and absorption of the universe of that activity.

[18:14] That was the foreign service. I grew up in Boston, essentially. I am, I could go on for a long time, how I truly am the quintessential, stereotypical, the quintessence of the New England yank. I grew up in Brooklyn and I went all the way across the Charles River to Harvard. I used to jog home once every six weeks with my laundry, which shows how many clothes I had or how dirty my clothes were either way. I love Boston, but even before I went to college, I always had wanted to see

[18:47] something else and I realized I always felt that the one's education, half of it was to challenge one's assumptions and what one knew. So I wanted to get out of Boston. I also had always wanted to learn a foreign language for reasons that I'll skip just to save time. And the one language, foreign language that I knew anything about was French. I had studied French and that was because in the Brookline school system at age 12, there was a choice of two languages. One was French and the other was Spanish. And my mother said, French is the language of diplomacy.

[19:18] You will speak French. That's what I studied. So where do you go if you want to learn a foreign language? The only language you know at all is French. Well, you go to France. And so I took a year off and I went to France and I loved it. So that gave me a love for things foreign. The other element in those was in my family, focusing on yourself is a sign that you are at best not a full person and probably to be a good person and a full person, you have to try to get out of yourself and devote yourself to others or to some external task or challenge.

[19:53] Public service was what my father did. And that's so I was drawn to that. He was in local politics for much of his life. So how does one combine an interest in learning a foreign language with this sense that unless I was engaged in some activity beyond trying to make money or promote myself that I was not a full person and with what had come to be this love of things foreign. Well, that's the far and serves. So I pursued that, but it's hard to get in. It's a slow process at best.

[20:23] And there were twists and turns. And I then said, well, I really have to do something that challenges me to my limits intellectually and morally. I don't want life to be easy and even physically because I was a big job. And I thought, well, I know being a spy must be crazy wild. I'll try that. But at the same time, I'm pursuing the foreign service. Like you said, Barry, you think this is 1979, 80. How do you contact people who are in this in the dark? And I figured I knew. So I went to Harvard's Career Services Center and I knew the director of it.

[20:56] She was a good friend because she was trying to help me figure out what to do with myself. And I said, Margo, how do you contact the CIA? And she went like this. I thought you were going to ask. By calling that number, Glenn. And so I went home and I called that number and that started the whole process and there are many twists and turns. But that's how I got in. And that's what motivated me to go in. And then to close this little tale, why was I true to myself and sort of foolishly

[21:29] and admirably at the same time? You may have already sensed and I'm being completely serious here, even when I'm making my my criticisms. I always have equated. It's a psychological trait of mine and in my family that what is hardest is what is best. But that's not true. What is best is what is best. But I always have equated what is hardest with what is best. And so it turned out when I was in graduate school on a Monday, the week before Thanksgiving, the Foreign Service called me and offered me a job as a political

[22:00] officer. And on Wednesday, the CIA called me and offered me a job as an operations officer. And I had to decide and I thought, well, which one is harder? And I decided that being an operations officer was harder and I'm correct. It is harder. That's why I chose. And I will tell you in confidence of a recorded conversation that I made. You know, I love much of my career, but I made the wrong decision because I am a perfect, not that it would have been the greatest diplomat in all time. But I think I am perfect for diplomacy.

[22:32] I thrilled to my cover work. And I did it really well. I came to be in some ways an excellent operations officer in some ways a competent one. In other ways, one who was pissed off that I had to do things that I had to do. That's how I got it. You know, I'll add to that like you, Glenn, I thoroughly enjoyed my cover duties at the State Department. I was an economic officer, loved every minute of it. I enjoyed the Dimarshes and the white papers and smoking cigars with

[23:04] ambassadors so and so and chewing the fat. I enjoyed it very, very much to the point where I think I was good at it. But then other Americans who worked in the embassy and didn't know I was really a CIA officer would ask behind my back, what's wrong with John? He never seems to get promoted. Everybody else is becoming a DCM or an ambassador. John's still a first secretary. And oh, it just killed me that I that I had to say, no, silly.

[23:38] That's just a cover position. And then finally, oh, boy, oh, boy, when I got to my final, my final posting, I said, look, you have to make me a minister, counselor or something, because these cover positions just are not working anymore. I believe sincerely that I'm the only CIA or intelligence officer ever. That the United States, meaning the Department of State, has allowed to represent the United States alone as the US representative

[24:10] to the United Nations National Security Council. I loved it. The State Department gave me several exceptional performance citations or whatever it was, which they withheld out of kindness because they knew that it would totally screw me in the CIA that I was doing pussy work. But that's the career that should have been. I also applied to the Foreign Service. Probably it was around the same time I applied to the agency. The agency was my preference and that job offer came quite a bit sooner.

[24:42] So I accepted it and I'd been at that. Don't remember so long ago, but at least six months, I've been at the agency for quite some time at this point when I got the acceptance letter from the Foreign Service. And I thought they took so long that I had a great moment that I'll never forget, which is I just scrawled in pen on the acceptance letter. You guys take too long, fold it up and sent it back to them. And it's wonderful. I was like, really, I'm still waiting around here later. You get get over yourselves.

[25:15] But that was my experience with the Foreign Service. I'd like to ask both of you to about the way literature is treated by senior CIA officers. I've got several friends, more than several, who did their 30 plus years, almost always in operations, and then took positions as scholars and residents at either their alma maters or at schools in the cities where they decided to retire. They were all teaching classes like espionage in Soviet literature.

[25:49] I said to this one friend, I said, come on, that's not that's not a real class. And he said, sure, it's a real class. I teach it every Tuesday and Thursday. Espionage in Soviet literature. And let me guess, everybody who signs up for that class signs up because they know you're a retiring CIA officer and they all want help getting into the CIA. And he said, well, that's kind of the idea, isn't it? But but is it or is this about literature? We're all supposed to be so well read and we're supposed to be able

[26:21] to think the big thoughts and half of us retire and write books. So is that just a novel new cover? I read a book when I was, I think, newly at the agency because like you were saying, Glenn, I read a lot of nonfiction, not that not that attracted me to the agency. But once I got the gig, I remember thinking, geez, I should really learn as much as I can. And one of the books was called Cloak and Gound by a guy named Robin Winx. And it was about the Ivy League pipeline to the agency back in the day.

[26:54] So maybe that kind of pipeline still exists. I don't really know where the agency is looking for people with some sort of liberal arts education that they can assess through former people. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you have to be. No, I was very much as I have been in every every social setting in my entire life, very much a dinosaur, the hand in the shoulder at the social club or the country club or the reunion or something.

[27:28] Talking to the son of a classmate died really before and was made illegal a few years before any of us showed up. It was the mid 70s that that was stopped because it was viewed correctly as biased towards certain socioeconomic circles. Yeah, and I could see where it would start to get. You'd get a kind of inbred understanding of the world, regardless of what you start with. It's just never going to adapt. And that's probably not a good thing for any organization.

[27:59] Yeah, that makes sense. Well, what I would say about about college, if it's being done right, which in my experience, in my opinion, it ordinarily isn't, is that what it really comes down to is a clear and accurate understanding of human nature. You can't conduct any kind of successful affairs in this world. I mean, I was going to say foreign policy, but that's way too limited a category. You can't get things that you want in this world through any form of give and take

[28:31] with other humans if you don't have that clear and accurate understanding of human nature. In that sense, I think probably there's a connection between what novelists do and what spies have to do with diplomats do. You have to start with that accurate understanding. If you don't have that, you just won't be able to do things and eventually you'll have to resort to force, which is one of the two universal languages of humanity. The other is logic, but it's just not widely spoken.

[29:03] Everybody speaks force, punishment. And if you can't, if you don't understand how the humans work in any more sophisticated way, if you're not able to put yourselves in their shoes, if you're not able to understand how culture influences what we all have in common, but ultimately we are all the same species with the same fundamental drives, if you don't have any of that, then force is going to be the only thing you've got, which fast forward to the current, I think, the current regime. Summertime and the living is easy. Am I right, John? That is one of the best parts of Summer Allen. Living really does feel easier.

[29:34] You're about to travel. Good thing you've got a couple of quints pieces going with you. They are as relaxed and comfortable as I want to feel. That's why, whether I'm traveling or staying at home, I reach for the same quints go anywhere pieces again and again. Quints focuses on well made essential. They're the t-shirt I reach for first every time. In all seriousness, I just bought another one today. They're my favorite t-shirts, too. And when the ocean breeze kicks in at night as it does here in LA, a quince lightweight cotton sweater is sublime and perfect for travel, too,

[30:07] which these days has all kinds of new challenges that impact how you pack. So versatility really matters. You got to pack smart like a spy. That's why a pair of quince's 100 percent European linen pants and a couple of linen shirts are coming with me. They're breathable and easy to throw on. Sometimes I add a t-shirt underneath for a whole other look. The summer upgrade anyone's rotation needs. Starting at just thirty four dollars. That's not a typo. No, it's not. Everything at quince is priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands.

[37:12] to the others. I had a boss who would refer to State Department people as the nerds across the river. And then when I when I did my first rotation to the State Department, sure, many of them were nerds, but I was fascinated by how deeply intellectual they were. One of the desk officers that I was working with made an offhanded comment, I wouldn't want to tilt at that one mill. I chuckled because I thought it was witty. And everybody else, all the CIA people that were being turned and looked at me like they didn't get it.

[37:44] They didn't understand why I thought that was so funny. Oh, no, I had the same. Well, we have had the same lives. We had the same lives. A different briefing again on Lebanon to my boss who didn't like me because he could tell that I thought he was a fool. He was a political appointee and he thought that Newt Gingrich was, you know, Alvin Einstein. He used to. OK, so. I was describing once again the Lebanese situation, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I said and I was not.

[38:14] I truly don't think that I was being elitist or anything like that. So essentially the problem in the Levant is the fall. And he said, Glenn, what's the Levant? Yeah. And he was he was the fucking National Intelligence Officer for terrorism. No. Oh, no. Yeah. That hurts. Yeah. It's interesting because it's that's a map issue. One of the things I did when I was in college that turned out to be quite good background for some of the standardized tests I took. When applying to the agency, I realized I knew

[38:47] almost nothing about the world. I barely been out of the country. I just didn't know anything. So I bought a globe about this big in some local store and I would just lie in bed, turning it around, saying, what's close to this? What's the capital of that? How would you sail from here to there? And then I don't know what the testimony changed over the years. But one of the tests I had to take was a 50 question test for the CIA and some of the questions were they didn't make it easy. It was multiple choice, but it wasn't like if they asked you,

[39:18] what's the capital of Australia? It's not like some of the choices were going to be Rangoon or anything like that. They'd give you a couple of Australian cities, whatever. And I got a 50 out of 50 on that test. I'm so proud of that because that was most of that was self learned. Anyway, the map is extremely important. But I came across an expression that I'm surprised I only heard recently. It was from Steve Walt, who's a professor of political science at the Kennedy School. Really interesting guy. He's great. Yeah, he's wonderful. He he said he was quoting someone else.

[39:50] I don't remember whom, but he said, if you want to understand the world, you start with a map and you wind up with Shakespeare. And and I think there's a lot to be understood that and maybe maybe some of what else our attempts to engage with the our meeting America's attempts to engage with the rest of the world. There's both a map, a map deficit, but maybe also a bit of a Shakespeare deficit too. I will second that and triple down. Oh, absolutely. I'm an ardent proponent of the liberal arts is

[40:25] what should be a required foundation for everyone, even if they want to become the next plasma researcher. Like the two of you, I was a map nut as a kid. I was a shortwave radio listener, too. In fact, I was so proud of myself. Glenn, you'll like this, then. I was so proud of myself when I was 14 years old, 1978. I joined the the American Shortwave Listeners Club. I think I paid it was a lot at the time. It was like 20 bucks a year and they would send this photocopied magazine

[40:58] every month. It turned out in October of 1978. I was one of only two people in the country that was able to log and verify Radio Ulan Bator Mongolia. I sent them. It was called a QSL sheet saying, this is what I think I heard. I think you were speaking Chinese. They corrected me and they said, we were not speaking Chinese. We were speaking Mongolian. And this was the signal strength and this was the propagation disturbance. And this was the overall the overall quality.

[41:30] And they sent me a postcard from Mongolia. And I happened to send a copy of it to the magazine and they put me on the cover of the magazine for Radio Ulan Bator Mongolia. But in my little I had a walk-in closet in my bedroom that I turned into what I called a Radio Shack. And I had the map of the world on the wall. And every time I would I would be able to log a station and get confirmation in writing, I would put a pin in the map and looking at that map every single night for years.

[42:02] It was a real foundation for me. Like Barry with his globe. I used to spin my globe around and just put my finger on it and fantasize about going on vacation wherever my finger happened to stop on the globe. And and that was really why I wanted to go to the agency. Sure, public service. My grandparents instilled this this real like necessity to go into public service. But then at the same time, for selfish reasons,

[42:33] I just wanted to see the world and I knew that I otherwise didn't have the money to do it. I wasn't in the the shortwave club. I forget the name that you gave it. I was, however, a member, a true member of the DXer Society, which is a little different. And it's it's domestic. I wasn't a ham guy. A friend of mine was in a big way. But this was sort of taken from my father. And it's listening. It's it's recording as many, not literally recording,

[43:08] noting down, keeping a ledger of all of the AM radio stations that you can you can receive from a given location. And so Boston's at a disadvantage because half of the universe is ocean. But once the sun goes down, AM radio will transmit about a thousand miles, depending on the atmosphere conditions. And there was the DXers guide to radio listening and a book that I had. I bet you I still have it in my home junk.

[43:39] And this was in the 60s. My father had done it as a boy in the in the 20s and 30s. And I did it then, but not the shortwave, although I listened to shortwave all the time. In fact, I learned to speak Spanish in part by listening to radio Moscow International in form of a comment. I listened to radio Moscow every night in Spanish so I could practice. And they are superb. So my God, oh my God, the Soviets were great. Just like you, I started with AM. My dad and I went to an auction.

[44:10] I was nine years old. And at the end of the auction, all the junk that didn't sell, they just threw into one box and my dad got it for 50 cents. It happened to have a tri-band radio in it, AM FM shortwave. We put two batteries in it and it worked. That night I turned it on and was just going through the AM dial. And like you say, as soon as the sun sets, a lot of these stations boost up to 50,000 watts. I remember WRVA in Richmond, Virginia, the 50,000

[44:41] watt voice of Virginia, they used to say. But that night I got KRL. GN and Chicago WGN flagship station WGN Chicago. Um, WoWo Radio in wherever it was, Des Moines. WoWo, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Fort Wayne, Indiana. And I got KRLD in Dallas. And I remember thinking Dallas, Texas. It's so far away. I had never been that far away from Newcastle, Pennsylvania. The next night I thought, well, if I could get Dallas, Texas on AM, what could I get on shortwave?

[45:13] Well, a couple of nights later I got, I still remember what they said. Eddo Ine and Aline Key, radio, phonia, Tillorasi, if on this is a lot of this is Greek radio and television. The voice of Greece and my grandmother cried when I played it for her. And I thought, wow, this is fun. I'm on to something here. And then even just recently, I went to Havana two years ago and a buddy of mine, who was also a he's a little bit older than I am. He was also an avid AM radio listener said, would you do me a favor?

[45:46] He said, I've never been to Cuba, but would you would you take a radio with you and tell me what you can hear on AM? I could hear everything on AM and Havana that I could hear north of Pittsburgh. Any any major league baseball game you wanted to hear any radio station pretty much from South Florida is easy, especially because it just has to cross the water. And then once the signal is boosted boosted after sunset, it's it's easy. And also there was a radio Moscow International all the time. I listen to all the time.

[46:17] All the other regular station every night was Radio Tirana, which was just wild to listen to. That was just unbelievable. And for Hoya, and for Hoya, everybody, including Mao and Stalin at the end. Yeah. Yeah, I miss radio. And yet there were so many times and I only learned what this was after joining the agency. Well, let me back up. I went to another auction with my dad and I bought an old World War Two communications device, big tubes in the back of it.

[46:52] They would give me an electric shock every time I would touch him. And I would always forget that I had to turn it off first before I touched the tube, it would shock me. But anyway, it picked up all the shortwave bands and all the military bands. And so every once in a while, I would go on to one of these obscure bands just to hear what I could hear. And once in a while, I could hear ship to shore transmissions from cruise ships. People had lost other money in the casino and the cruise ship and they needed to have more money wired, stuff like that. But every once in a while, I would hear almost always a man's voice.

[47:25] Just say things like eight, five, three. Oh, absolutely. Two, six. And I'm like, what? What is that? And it wasn't until I went to the agency that I realized it was spies reporting back probably to Moscow using their one time pads and speaking in one time code. The Russians still do it, or at least they did recently. I literally literally heard one not long ago. Still using the tournament with an online sports book.

[54:19] in the way that sometimes the car I find is, which offends me a little bit, because I find it inaccurate, not not holistic. It is correct, but but it is partial. And then contemporary a little later of the car is who was very successful and didn't but not as successful. He's not the defining author of the era of the genre is Charles McCary. And he's, if anyone, the American, the tears of all of John.

[54:53] Yeah, the John John McCurry of America. He was also a wonderful man. I knew him and he blurred my book. So he's a man of refined taste. And actually, John McCurry and I spoke a couple of times. I asked him to blur my book and he agreed. And then shortly before the time would have fixed the commitment, he called me up and withdrew his the blurb.

[55:23] And I think that's too late for that. Yeah, I should have said that. And he wouldn't give me a reason why he said I've changed my mind. That unquote. I think because he was actually quite hostile to American culture and policy, which I find, you know, that's OK. But I tried to argue with him that

[55:53] even were that the case that would should lead him to want to blur my book because my book was criticizing the things that I think that he objected to. But he didn't in any way. So to get back to the literature thing, I think he's great. I don't think he's the definitive or the necessarily the apex or the founder. LaCarré came up with George Smiley as in some ways a kind of antidote to James Bond.

[56:24] And I think the two kinds of fiction are appealing for really different, almost opposing reasons. James Bond is wishfulfillment. I think it's fair to say the books are actually more nuanced than the movies. No disrespect to the movies. I love the movies as much as anyone else does. But Bond is a wishfulfillment character for all the reasons you were just saying, Glenn and others, Smiley, not so much, except in so far as there's just an inherent fascination with what LaCarré always called the secret world. Smiley and any other character set in that world is going to have that going

[56:55] for him. But I think I think so much of this will be projection. If you love books, you'll retrofit logical sounding explanations for why you love the books, and maybe maybe some of that is is false. But what has always made me love LaCarré's books is the dimensionality of the characters, just the way he depicts some aspect of what it means to be human, what it is to be alive. What is this? What is life? What is a good life? What are mistakes? How do we live with them?

[57:26] All the things that any human has to grapple with or should grapple with. He depicted that in a heightened setting, which is the setting, the realm of espionage. That, that to me is really the reason that LaCarré is, rightly in my opinion, treated as literature, not as genre fiction. And that's a whole other question of what's what's genre. Look, I'll look since it since I raise the terms up quickly to find them as I understand them, as I see them. Genre fiction is fiction that is driven relatively more by genre elements.

[58:00] Could be action, could be espionage, could be cowboys and Indians, whatever it is. That's more central to the book. And when you start shading more and more into literature, you're getting, you're driven by the complexity of being human. You can still have cowboys and spies and everything else. But what really the heart of the books becomes the heart of the matter, becomes humanity, all the triumphs and tragedies just to be human. So I think the enduring appeal of LaCarré's books, I think, has much more to do

[58:31] with his depiction of what it's like to be a fully realized, flawed, struggling human being. And then the espionage feels real because these people feel so real. And whether you know anything firsthand of that world or not, it's going to feel real to you because the people feel so real. That's in some ways you could say the secret sauce makes it sound easy, but obviously it isn't. That's what I was exactly going to ask. Is it the development, the rich development of these characters that makes these

[59:03] books so sustainable over the course of decades? Is that what it is? Character? That's what I think. I mean, someone else would give you a different answer. But again, like with I went back to some of the Ian Fleming books. It's already been a while ago. I was asked at some point to write an introduction for that I think it was Penguin UK was reissuing the books and they asked some spy fiction authors to write intros for each of the books, which was an interesting thing for me to do because I'd at that point read those books 30 years earlier,

[59:34] something like that. So I went back and reread a few and I would say they were still fun. Some of it feels dated. I mean, in terms of like the sexism and that kind of thing, likewise, the movies and some things we've now seen like Bond ordering very specific things, brand names, that kind of thing. Ian Fleming was the first guy, I think, to do that. Instead of someone ordering a Scotch, he's going to order something like an 18 year old Highland Parker. I don't know what that's Bond is very specific, very particular about these

[1:00:05] things and people seem to like that. So some of it when you go back to it, it's like, yeah, this doesn't seem so new, but at the time it was, it still felt like wishful filming to me, which, by the way, I've got nothing against. I hope my characters are dimensional and I hope that what I do on the page will illuminate some aspect of the challenges and difficulties and the rest of being human. But but I also think there's an element of wishful filming in a guy like my character, John Reign, who's extremely adept with violence.

[1:00:37] And I think most people, if they're being honest with themselves, of course they would never use it, except in extremis. But if you really needed to take somebody out to be able to do it like that, would be that would be a pretty cool thing. And Reign can do that. So that's a wishful filming element, hopefully baked into the rest of the three dimensional stuff. I think the best literature is something you come away with and you feel like, oh, my God, these people are real. Recently, I took up for reasons that need not to tell us. I went back to Lonesome Dove and Larry Wirtry's book and also the

[1:01:09] Great American Novel. Oh, my God. And I know what makes Lonesome Dove tick is it cowboys and a cattle drive? Not really. I mean, you needed those things. Otherwise it wouldn't be Lonesome Dove. But the characters and I'm not just talking about Colin and McCray. I'm talking about Deets, all of them. He just bounces around. They feel they're so unbelievably real that you almost can't believe that he invented these people. And I don't know that much about art, but I think if there's a purpose to art, I think it's so that when you see

[1:01:44] or read or hear or whatever you experience art that someone else has created, it induces a feeling in us of like, oh, my God, that's exactly what it feels like. Then go starry night. No one's ever seen something that literally looks like that, unless he's on LSD or something. But when you see it, it feels like a thing you felt. And some other human was able to convey that and you see what or could if it's music, it'll be here, but in this case, see it and you have that feeling of, yes, like that's exactly what it feels like. And suddenly you're not alone in this world.

[1:02:17] It brings us together in this profound way. I don't think genre fiction can do that or at least not very well. Again, I read genre fiction myself in many ways. I'm not putting it down. But I think it's the characters like Smiley, who have that dimensionality, who make us feel like I know exactly how you feel I might not have been the same thing, but I know exactly how that feels. And it brings us together. May I ask you a question about that? Stephen King famously wrote on fiction 25 years.

[1:02:50] Yeah, yeah, on writing. Sorry, on writing. It's the only nonfiction book that he's ever read. And I have to say because I'm a fan, even though politically he's he's gone in directions. I wouldn't advise going in. Yeah, he did have a second on fiction. Donce Macabre, which is an examination of horror fiction, horror movies, blah, blah, blah, I read way back in the day. But on writing is the better. No, I'm glad that you steered me in the right direction there because I'm going to pick it up. I've been a longtime fan. And I read I read on writing when it first came out.

[1:03:22] I was surprised at how brutal and unforgiving he is when analyzing other people's fiction. I reread it two weeks ago. It's the 25th anniversary reprint that's just come out. And it's as brutal as I remembered it being. Now, I recently I recently got representation. And thank you very much. And my agent says fiction, fiction, fiction.

[1:03:53] I told him I'm afraid of fiction. I've never written fiction. He said, oh, you're going to write fiction. He said, you're a great storyteller. You just need to get over that that initial hump. So I reread on writing. It's at least as daunting as it was more than two weeks ago. You do the two of you struggle in that same way, especially when it comes to character development, because it seems like Le Carré didn't struggle. Even pulp authors like Vince Flynn, God rest his soul,

[1:04:26] didn't struggle. He could really come up with a character. What about the two of you? Do you struggle with character development? You know, let me just say this. Actually, the fact that you don't see someone's struggles in the final product. I don't know. Everybody has an easier or harder time. Whatever it is they do, anything with different aspects. But, you know, if you if you see ballet, if they're doing their job right, by the time you see them, they are, my God, it looks easy. They're just floating above the stage.

[1:04:59] But I'm sure that everyone who can do that struggled mightily and and different people will probably have struggled with different parts. What I would say about and this could turn it to its own topic because I love talking about craft, but but I just say this for the moment. Different people are going to be organically, inherently, instinctively good at different aspects of the craft of writing. Again, same thing with anything else in this world. Some of the authors we've been talking about and others, I'm sure

[1:05:29] characters maybe just came to them by instinct. They didn't really have to do any kind of conscious analysis of characters and respect. I mean, if you've got that Mac, that's fantastic. Other people probably approach characters with a little bit more conscious, deliberate craft structure. And and I can say I have, I think, looking back, I've been writing my first book was published in 2002. So I've been in this game for a while.

[1:06:01] And I think I have, I think looking back, I have pretty good instincts for characters. But I've gotten better by reading books like on writing and taking various courses, masterclasses and grade classes. There's Robert McKee, I recommend a whole bunch of others. There is definitely an approach you can use if you're having trouble coming up with whatever it is you need for great characters. And I'll give you just one example that I learned from through McKee.

[1:06:31] But ultimately, credit goes to Matthew Weiner, the guy who created Mad Men. What Weiner would have is writers do the exercise he would have them do. Again, like if you have great instincts, you don't need this exercise, but it couldn't hurt a few, at least to know it. He would have his writers analyze his characters based on four levels. Very briefly, public, private, secret, hidden. Public is the way people know you in public at the office, at church, whatever, like the public, you it's just what it sounds like. Private is the way your family knows you and maybe your close friends.

[1:07:05] It's a bit of a different self than the way people know you in the office. It doesn't mean they're going to be contradictory. Probably they're not, but it's just the additional aspects of you that only close people who are close to you will know. Secret level, the third level, those are the parts of you that not even the people in your private realm know, but you know those things. And then the final level is the hidden level. It doesn't matter what you call these things. But the final level is the hidden level. And these are the aspects of your being that even you don't can't won't recognize.

[1:07:39] These days, I really like thinking about even my own characters who start off seeming pretty intriguing. Thank God, otherwise, why would you want to spend a year writing about someone who didn't interest you? But still, I will go through these levels. My wife, who's also my literary agent, Laura Renner, we do this all the time and it's fun. And when I do this, I've retrofitted this with my first character, John Rain, who I started writing those books 30 years ago. The first one was published in 2002. I look back and I'm like, wow, you can really do the four level analysis

[1:08:09] with this guy. It works. It works well. And so that's what I mean, where I feel like in that area, I have pretty good instincts, but still being able to do it rigorously, consciously is helpful. Other areas I've needed to be much more conscious about learning the craft structure, for example, especially when it comes to screenwriting. That's just not something that I would say I had an intuitive feel for. If anybody's interested in some of these topics, I've got a sub-stack page. You can find a couple of articles in a video I did where I really talk a lot about craft resources, better for the resources.

[1:08:41] You can get into a lot of things that I wish I had known when I was starting out. It would have, I would have become a better writer faster if I had known these things instead of just doing it and doing it and doing it. And then at some point, patterns start to emerge from your own process. And you're like, oh, I think, and that could have been a shortcut if someone else had shown it to me, but I was too unimaginative at a younger age to really chase these sorts of how-to things down. I've read a ton of how-to books and I've done Robert McKee seminars.

[1:09:13] I've read all his books and a bunch of other books and videos and webinars, etc. Besides, I would say most of what I've experienced has been good. Some of it I don't think has been so good, but some of it will appeal to you more and some less. It doesn't matter. It's like what Bruce Lee said, absorb what is useful, discard what is not useful, make it uniquely your own, do that with everything you encounter. If it doesn't really do it for you, some thing that someone's explaining is a process thing, a craft thing. Maybe that's not the way. It just doesn't resonate with you. Don't worry about it. Find something else that does resonate with you.

[1:09:45] There's a lot of really good information out there. OK, I'm going to say one last thing and I wrap this up. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go on so long. Told you this stuff engages me. What's the word that's the opposite of being a fan? I have a strong antipathy to when people say things that are true, but they're wildly misleading. And so it's the truth of it will engage people and they'll be like, oh, yeah, that's right, but they don't. The truth obscures just how misleading it is. And one of those things for me has always been this, this this trite expression that what you can't you can't treat. You can't teach writing.

[1:10:16] You can't teach art. That's what people say. You can't teach art. And it's true. You can't teach art. Art is what your soul expresses in its unique way, whatever. But you don't need to teach art. You should. Yes, you can. You shouldn't even try. But what you can teach and absolutely you can teach it and learn it is craft and there is no art without craft. The greatest art that's ever been created is built on craft. I don't care who you're talking about. Michelangelo Shakespeare, if you know what you're looking for, I don't know much about painting, but I can tell you with Shakespeare, I can tell you on a craft level why this stuff works.

[1:10:48] It doesn't mean the man wasn't a genius, but there's craft behind the art and the expression of the genius. So anytime you hear someone say like, well, you can't can't teach art. You might not want to get into an argument, but don't let that slow you down even for a second. Craft can be learned. Of course it can. And anything that can be learned can be taught. So anyway, that's one way to become a better writer faster is to go out there and find a lot of this good stuff in the world. You know, I wish I had the guts that our former colleague, Larry Devlin, had.

[1:11:21] Larry passed away several years ago. But what he did is he wrote a book called Chief of Station Congo. We even I have it. I have it. I do too. Why don't you but I have it. Oh, you'll like it. Yeah, even the title is a security violation. That's true. That is true. And what he did is he told a story, a captivating story about his entire career in CIA operations.

[1:11:55] And he told his daughter, publish this the day after I die. And that's what she did. And they never went to the Publications Review Board. Well played. Well, I bet those secrecy agreements have been tightened up since then. Right. At least if the lawyers are worth anything. Barry Eisler and Glenn Karl, thanks again. And thanks for sitting in and talking shop today. This was a lot of fun. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen for listening. Please remember to like, rate, review and share the podcast on whatever platform

[1:12:28] you listen to us and don't forget to tell your friends. We really appreciate it. Until next time, I'm John Kiriakou. Dead Drop is written by John Kiriakou and Alan Katz. Costard and Touchstone Productions produces the podcast and John Kiriakou, Alan Katz and Nick Mechanic are its executive producers. This podcast is a cost and touchstone production.
