Moralisten John le Carré og de bristede illusioner

John le Carré skriver i sin introduktion til bogen 'Philby. The Spy who Betrayed a Generation': “Deceit was Philby’s life work; deceit, as I understand it, his nature. ’I have come home’ he said in Moscow. Philby has no home, no woman, no faith. Behind the political label, behind the inbread upper-class arrogance, the taste for adventure, lies the self-hate of a vain misfit for whom nothing will ever be worthy of his loyalty. In the last instance, Philby is driven by the incurable drug of deceit itself. (...) It comes as no surprise that, safely arrived in the land of his dreams, the old deceiver streches out his fingers once more and steals the only thing left to steal: the wife of Donald Maclean. That is the law of the desert; and the desert is all he has.”