His comments come in contrast to current C Richard Moore - who led tributes
The celebrated spy author Le Carré died in Cornwall on Saturday at the age of 89
Spy author John le Carré tarnished MI6 and his novels were a stain on the secret service, its former head has claimed.
Sir Richard Dearlove blasted the writer - real name David Cornwell - for successfully tarring the moral reputation of his former colleagues .
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His comments come in stark contrast to current C Richard Moore, who called him a giant of literature as he led tributes to le Carré after he died from pneumonia on Saturday aged 89.
Britain’s top spy, MI6 chief Richard Moore, has paid tribute to John le Carré, tweeting that the novelist had “left his mark on #MI6 through his evocative and brilliant novels”. Moore’s tweet, which conveyed the condolences of “all at the #RiverHouse” – the name le Carré gave the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) headquarters on the banks of the Thames, even blew le Carré’s cover, referring to the writer by his real name, David Cornwell.
Moore’s words of comfort were a far cry form the attitude of his predecessor at MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, who last year complained about the “corrosive” nature of le Carré’s novels, that he said were “exclusively about betrayal”, a criticism also levelled at his work by former SIS officer Baroness Daphne Park.
How John Le Carré changed television and paved the way for box-set culture Mark Lawson
Curiously, though, the first of these landmarks in upmarket screen drama owed its existence to the second.
In the 1970s, the BBC, during one of its periodic crises over justifying the licence fee to politicians and the media, craved a starry, classy, filmed book, and had been negotiating the rights to Waugh’s story of a Catholic aristocratic family. When, unexpectedly, the estate sold the book to Granada Television, Jonathan Powell, running BBC Drama, was asked to quickly find a replacement brainy treat. He settled on the 1974 first volume of Le Carré’s trilogy (later umbrella-titled The Quest for Karla) about the search by George Smiley, a Sherlock Holmes of the spook world, for Russian double-agents in the British secret service.
Jardineros, espías y actrices: seis películas y una serie para redescubrir los rostros de John Le Carré eldiario.es - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eldiario.es Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Author David Cornwell, known as John le Carre, dies aged 89
Cornwell drew on his experience working for the British intelligence services including MI6 during the Cold War in his writing
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Cold War espionage author David Cornwell, known by his pen name John le Carre, has died aged 89 after a battle with pneumonia.