Leonid Mlechin: He created the world of secret services that fascinates us with incredible intrigues. And he himself wanted to become a defector - out of curiosity

I perfectly remember that day - the last day of my first foreign business trip exactly 40 years ago. On the spinning racks of a small book kiosk at the Tokyo airport Narita - the blue book "A spy that came from the cold." In the spring of that year, the Banner magazine published my first detective story, and I eagerly read everyone who, in blinding of young arrogance, called "colleagues in the detective workshop."

In Soviet times, only his novel “In one German town” was translated into Russian - for his anti -Nazi orientation.

And in order to get acquainted with the rest of John Le Carre, who contemptuously criticized as “evil anti-Soviet reading,” it was necessary not only to speak English, but also to be able to bring them from abroad.

I set about the novel, as soon as the plane climbed the air and headed for Moscow. The haste was dictated not by professional impatience, but by a more prosaic cause. Knowing the special craving of enlightened Soviet customs officers to literature, I assumed that the Sheremetyevsky man in a gray uniform would wish to share the joy of meeting with the sensational novel.

Turning the last page in the air - the benefit of the flight from Tokyo was long - shocked by read, I was satisfied: now on Earth they could make me part with it. Over time, I read all Le Carre. Each business trip meant a new book. I illegally imported Le Carre, while he, for a short time ahead of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, did not stop being anti -Soviet.

ABOUT

John Le Carre is a literary pseudonym. His real name is David John Moore Cornwell. In the early 60s of the last century, he served in British intelligence Mi-6. Under the diplomatic cover - the second secretary of the British Embassy in Bonn and the Consul in Hamburg - worked in West Germany.

More recently, he admitted that during the years of intelligence, he was thinking about whether to go to the Soviet side. According to Le Carre, he did not have sympathy for communism.

“There is a big difference between work to the west and work for a totalitarian state,” he said.

They were driven by curiosity: I really wanted to know how this is happening in practice and what a person who goes from one world feels into another.

- I did not have an ideological temptation. No ideological reasons. But when you work in intelligence and get closer and closer to the line, there is a feeling that here is another small step - and you will learn everything else.

He was engaged in the analysis of the situation in the Soviet block and was so carried away that he had a temptation to "cross the line and find out what was behind it." True, he did not specify whether he wanted to become a double agent and secretly work for Soviet intelligence, as some of his colleagues did, or simply fleeing the Soviet Union.

One way or another, it did not reach the case. Instead, in 1963, another British intelligence officer, Kim Filby, moved to Moscow. On this, David Cornwell’s professional career, as many other British intelligence officers whom Philby knew, ended.

It is for the better. No matter what success he would achieve in the service of Her Majesty, in literature, John Le Carre did much more.

Father fraudster, mother left

Le Carre, generally speaking, is a stranger in the company of authors of espionage novels, because he is a real writer, and the rest are more or less skilled artisans. Le Carre is not satisfied with a famously twisted plot, he draws characters, so among the detectives he is an indisputable leader. But the detective is always an artificial structure from a limited number of components, and the authors only lay out the elements of this mosaic in different ways.

Under the pen Le Carre, static in other structures come to life and seem viable. But the design itself remains artificial, and sooner or later you come across all the hard corners, groping the lower crown, beams and rafters that limit the site of more than modest sizes, on which - every time with new decorations -

Le Carre is trying to give freedom to his heroes.

I consider him an outstanding writer. But if he wrote psychological prose, then he would probably have achieved great literary successes, which, however, would be able to evaluate five to six thousand subtle connoisseurs. And millions enjoy his detectives, and I am listening to myself among them.

He created his own world of secret services, where in the center the British department, called the circus. He turned the usual hero of the spy novels inside out and came up with Smilei - an elderly, unfortunate person, physically weak and abandoned by his wife. The intellectual superman turned out to be attractive and, performed by Alek Guinness, gathered from the television screens of British all ages. Le Carre never forgot about human feelings. Love, jealousy, friendship, betrayal, fidelity - without this, the reader will forget the detective, barely reading it.

And the described Le Carre cannot be forgotten. This is a world where not enemies, but friends and loved ones, where lies turn out to be a kind of truth, but the truth is a lie, where good people serve a bad cause, and bad people, on the contrary, serve good.

How does he know all this?

His father Ronald was a professional fraudster who was planted from time to time. When Ronald got a deal, Bentley with a driver stood in front of the entrance. And when he fell into trouble, the bailiff took clothes and toys from the future writer. When the boy became a famous writer, his father also began to call himself Le Carre and demanded money from his son. After his father’s death, John Le Carre paid for his funeral, but he did not go to church or to the cemetery.

His mother met another man and left the family when the boy was only five years old. And the heroines of the early books of Le Carre are caricatured. Men as a writer were interested in, women - no: "I grew up without them, and they have always been strangers to me."

But then he married, and his look at his heroines became softer.

He was recruited when he studied. First, they instructed to look after classmates of left beliefs, and then transferred to foreign intelligence. So, Le Carre, describing intelligence and counterintelligence, is close to the truth?

Double life

Close to the truth? He just came up with everything! And we willingly believed, because, firstly, we do not know anything about it, and secondly, the invented is much more interesting than the real one.

Of course, it seems to people from the world that in the world of special services, inexhaustible deposits of extreme situations are lurking in which the writer is so profitable to put their heroes. Romantic characters from reconnaissance or counterintelligence fill the literary space, showing with all their appearance “this is the real life” and giving birth to a light complex of inferiority in us.

Those who know this world are usually silent. They say and write those who have not so much information as fantasy.

Le Carre, who promised to land secret services, deprive them of a romantic fleur, is actually more romanticizing them even more ... Le Carre writes about the tragedy of a person who finds himself in the millstones of the system. But we often catch only the intrigue, only adventure ...

We always admire the ability of the intelligence officer to live a double life. And why do not we think that the habit of bifurcation, to constant lies has a destructive effect on the human soul, killing in it some qualities that are considered necessary for human moral health?

Foreign intelligence agents become mainly because of money, or afraid of blackmail, or hoping in this way to satisfy their own vanity. How to evaluate the morality of such people? And those who buy people, or blackmail them, or promise a career in a foreign army?

Intelligence is needed, and to some extent it remains an integral element of strategic stability. Roughly speaking, this is: if I know firmly that you are not going to attack me, I can not spend extra money on the army. You can’t do without intelligence ...

And professional recruiters will seek out those who need money, or be involved in something, or dreams of becoming the Lord of the world, so that, having paid well, frightening or something promoted, get drawings, copies of secret transcripts, records of negotiations. Useful profession. But what is noble in her? In the name of what can a person do actions diverging with generally accepted moral standards? This is what John Le Carre wrote about.

In his novel, his name was "Karl"

In the literature and in the memory of readers, the image of the main opponent created by his imagination - the sophisticated and skilled master of espionage of the twentieth century, described not without terrible admiration. In the novel “A spy that came from the cold,” Le Carre described the chilling blood of East Germany, where the head of the special services is able to realize any combination. The mysterious master of espionage also arises in other novels. The author, not knowing the Russian language, called him Carla.

Researchers and fans of the work of John Le Carre have no doubt: the image of Carla, of course, is inspired by the history of the legendary chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, Colonel General Marcus Wolf.

The low and dense Karl in the novels of Le Carre outwardly does not look like a high and sports marcus Wolf. But in those years when the future writer David John Moore Cornwell still served in the British secret service, neither he, nor anyone else in the West had no idea what Marcus Wolf looks like, who led the intelligence of the GDR for more than 30 years.

He recognized his meaning. He spoke about himself without false modesty: “I headed the successfully working intelligence and was turned into a symbol. I made my way of thinking and a way of working by the property of others. ”

In the endless war of secret services, he won one victory after another.

The Ministry of State Security of the GDR occupied a whole quarter on Normanstrasse in East Berlin. In total, 16 buildings are gray. After the GDR disappeared from the political map of the world, I walked for a long time through these gray and dull buildings. Low ceilings, cheap linoleum on the floor, standard furniture from an old life. Walls of sound -absorbing material. Windows without windows. A dreary place. There were no air conditioners, so it was hot in the summer. The curtained windows did not help.

It is generally accepted that the East lost that Cold War to the West. Marcus Wolf always believed that he won his war. He said in an interview: “I can’t say that I am proud of what I did. I can't. But I do not think that I lived in vain. ”

He believed that with his help the leaders of the socialist bloc knew more about NATO and therefore were less afraid of the West, and this had great political consequences: "My intelligence helped to come to discharge."

But he could not convince society that he knew nothing about repressions and was not involved in the crimes of the regime.

John Le Carre (twice colleague of Wolf - on intelligence and the writer's workshop) harshly appreciated the one who became the prototype of the hero of his most popular spy novel:

-I think Marcus Wolf and people of his level knew better than anyone else, what regime they serve. I think they are guilty and should bear the stamp of dishonor.

The fate of Marcus Wolf is a reflection of the merciless dilemmas of the Cold War in Europe. Some admired them, others hated it. For some, he is a faithful guardian of the regime and General of State Security. For others - the hero and the intelligence genius. Not only an outstanding professional, but also a patriot and anti -fascist. And on what other side could he be-the son of a Jewish communist?

In another era, he would probably choose a different path. Could become a successful aircraft designer, as he wanted in his youth. Or a popular writer that he almost succeeded when he retired. But in this case, the world of special services, bewitching, striking us with endless combinations and incredible intrigues, would lose a person who, without exaggeration, can be called the most outstanding head of intelligence of the twentieth century.

And who would inspire John Le Carre?

The world has not become better

When perestroika began, Le Carre came to our Moscow to look with his own eyes what was happening with us, and very quickly wrote a thick “Russian house” - a novel that is an official message about the ceasefire. As a sign of reconciliation with the perestroika Soviet Union, he awarded the KGB of several compliments and described the romantic love of the Russian woman (she was played by the charming Michelle Pfeiffer) and the British publisher against the backdrop of the paintings of Moscow life we ​​knew.

For a detective in the "Russian House" there is little action. Le Carre hoped for a new Russian flavor for him. Of course, all the authors of detectives need exotic identity, which is advantageously shaken by a rapid action. But to describe the Soviet Union, tourist impressions are not enough. Those dealing with the functionaries of the Writers' Union, fronting writers and waiters of Intourist restaurants, Le Carre recklessly decided that this was enough not only to describe Moscow landscapes, but also to design several versions of the “mysterious Russian soul”.

John Le Carre decided that his heroes would no longer identify the intrigues of stimulated, cruel and skillful Russian agents.

Due to the disappearance of the enemy, Le Carre ceased his personal Cold War. Having shown political nobility, he refused to describe the fights between the special services, and it turned out to be boring.

Sunset of a spy novel?

That's not. There are illusions that no one wants to part with, because it turns out to be more expensive. What will such a detective lovers read like me?

But after the Cold War, the world did not become better.

He was especially angry about the torture that the American special services used, which, according to him, did not happen in those days when he himself was a spy: “I know what interrogation is. I conducted interrogations and I can say the following: when obtaining information under torture, you put yourself as a fool. You get information that is not true, you get the names of people that you do not need. And you miss something very important and deprive yourself of the opportunity to establish relationships with someone who can be really useful. ”

... The ironic, but dry patrician, he refused all awards and premiums. I did not want either the order or the knightly rank: “I do not want to be Sir David, Lord David. I don't want anything of this. I find it absolutely stupid. "

In recent years, he enjoyed his big family: four sons, fourteen grandchildren and three great -grandchildren.

He did not like to talk about himself.

“I am horrified by the very idea of ​​an autobiography,” he said once, “because I am already inventing the lies that I am going to tell you.”