PROFILE 0 The Ambiguities Of John Le Carre An incredibly deft and subtle novelist whose real name is David Cornwell, the author uses espionage as a metaphor for life. ELSA A. SOLENDER Special to The Jewish News George Will called him a conduit of the anti-Israeli propaganda grinder. Arabs berated him as a Zionist agent. The Soviet Gazette branded him a red- toothed agent of imperialism. The British press accused him of subverting traditional values. Author of the bestselling spy thrillers A Perfect Spy, The Spy Who Came in From The Cold, The Looking Glass War, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and — of most interest to Jews — The Little Drummer Girl, David Cornwell, a/k/a John Le Carre, revels in am- biguity. He likes to quote F. Scott Fitz- gerald: "The trick is to hold opposing opin- ions and still function." In a recent chat, the novelist — hand- some in middle age, with white hair, ruddy complexion, bright brown eyes, im- peccable British tailoring and an Ox- bridge accent — proved himself comforta- ble in his fictional ambivalence but un- equivocal in his personal loyalties: Our side is much better," he answered without an instant of hesitation when asked whether he extends his "looking glass war" image of the East/West espionage establishments to the Eastern and West- ern bloc styles of government and ways of life. Even so, espionage works as a metaphor for life in Le Carre's work. His unsettled and unsettling heroes and heroines ex- amine the complex tangle of international politics and intelligence-gathering in the troubling light of public and private morality. The focus is on predicaments, not solutions. Nowhere is this trait more apparent than in The Little Drummer Girl, Le Carre's novel of the Middle East, which was made into a film starring Diane Keaton. The pro- tagonist, Charlie, is an actress of radical 34 Friday, July 4, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS political bent and unstable emotions. Israeli intelligence recruits her for an anti- terrorist scheme, but she wavers in her loyalties, alternating between Israeli and Palestinian lovers and camps. The novel enraged critics on both sides of the Israeli- Arab conflict (some of whom may not have read it carefully). Israeli President Chaim Herzog, however, said that Le Carre "got it about right." Le Carre confesses that his sympathies "went back and forth between the two sides" as he researched The Little Drum- mer Girl. This was partly because he was projecting himself into the mind of his heroine, whom he describes as "a very im- pressionable woman." In establishing a credible point of view for her, he says he "found it necessary to tilt with each wind." But he was personally affected as well by his personal contacts with individual peo- ple, particularly young people, on both sides of the Arab Israeli struggle. Le Carre admires Israel as an open, democratic society, but believes Israelis need to recognize that there have been "fearful casualties" in the making of "their great experiment." His compassion was aroused during his time in Israel by Israeli kids in the northern settlements who lived under the threat of kathusa rockets fired in on them by Palestinians from Lebanon. Some of them saw their friends blown up by such barrages. But he also hated seeing Arab kids of 18 or 19 "dragged into terror groups" because they saw it as "the only way" to salvage their national and family honor. Of the Pal- estinians generally, Le Carre said, "you cannot forget that in moral terms, they Author John Le Carre: his focus is on predicaments, not solutions.