Unclear and Present Danger - The Russia House

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John talk the 1990 John Le Carré adaptation “The Russia House,” starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer. They discuss the social base for intelligence work during the Cold War, the period of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, the politics of nostalgia and the film’s excellent wardrobe. You can rent “The Russia House” on iTunes or on Amazon.Also, you might notice that we have a new logo. That is courtesy of the great Rachel Eck! You can find her on Instagram.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!The New York Times for December 25, 1990Wikipedia article for glasnost and perestroikaJohn D. Skrentny’s “The Minority Rights Revolution” on the impact of the Cold War on liberal reforms in the United States.

Welcome to Moscow again. If the Cold War is over, I receive the manuscript. You're going too fast. Russia has no time. What is happening? It is very dangerous for you. In the Russia House. They're watching us.

Your side and my side. He's trusted of trouble. Sean Connery, Michelle Fyfer. You are my only country now. The Russia House. Starts Friday at a theater near you. Check local listings. Welcome to Episode 9 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jabel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times Opinion Section.

I'm John Gannes. I'm a columnist for Gawker. I write a substack newsletter called Unpopular Front, and I'm working on a book about American politics in the early 90s. today we are finally talking about the russia house 1990 film directed by fred shepisi screenplayed by tom stoppard and based off of the 1989 novel of the same name by john lecarre the movie stars sean connery michel fifer roy shiter sorry who we saw in a previous film the fourth war and john mahoney and James Fox. Those are the names I recognize. There are other people as well.

You'll, there'll be a lot of actors, if and when you watch this, that you'll be like, oh, I've seen that person before, and you'll scramble to IMDB to figure out who they are. It's very much one of those, one of those movies. The movie was a critical success, but not so much a commercial one. It did fine, made its money back, but wasn't a big hit. think as time has gone on, it's been recognized more and more as sort of one of the best political thrillers of this decade, kind of, you know, end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s. And there's not much more to say about that as far as the production of the movie goes.

It was filmed substantially in the Soviet Union. That is worth saying it. It is the second major American production to have been. been filmed substantially in the Soviet Union. The first, funnily enough, is the 1989 movie Red Heat, starring Schwarzenegger and Jim Belushi and directed by Walter Hill. That is a weird movie. It doesn't really fit with the themes of this podcast, but it's something that maybe we will watch at some point in the future because it's very strange. And, yeah, weird movie they got made.

Also, Tom Stoppard, we might mention that he wrote the script. Yes, Tom Stoppard wrote the script, yeah. Before we go on to talking about the movie itself, we're going to look at the New York Times front page for the day this was released, which was the Christmas release, December 25th, 1990. And so here, over at the New York Times, are a few headlines that are, I think, somewhat related. In the top, new aspiration for Soviet, new aspiration for Soviet Jews, life in Germany, despite past, many see a refuge from attack. Apparently there was a, according to this article, a flood of Soviet Jews.

arriving in Germany around this time. Interesting. I wonder how many of them remained. Yeah. Yeah, or may have ended up in Israel or the United States, but yeah. There's a big headline here. Military leaders reported to urge a delay in attack. Iraqi diplomats fly back home for quick talks.

Most are said, I guess this is two separate stories, but. They relate to the Persian Gulf crisis that is brewing at this point. As most are said to think that assault on Iraq won't be ready until January 15th. So beginnings of the first Persian Gulf War, lots of familiar cast of players here, H.W. Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell, you know, people who will go on to. much chaos and havoc in the world. And I think any, John, anything you see here that you want to talk about? I just think it's funny that they were talking about deflation in the, in this headline.

I mean, fall in U.S. prices for first time since 1940s begins to spread. I mean, this was during a pretty bad recession that's kind of forgotten. But, you know, since we're in, you know, inflation hysteria now, it's interesting to look back and see that they were having the opposite problem. Right. There's also, I mean, there's also a note in this story about, um, uh, the problems that deflation poses for the United States, which is quote, burdened with debt. Um, it's funny to see how much debt politics have receded from view for the most part over the last few years. And we know, huge. At one point that was, that was, uh, you know, debt politics were a huge thing. There's a, there's a, there's a very

very famous clip from the 92 election when a voter asked, it's a debate and a voter asks George H.W. Bush, what does the national debt mean to him or something like that? And you can... Means to him personally or something. Yeah, mean to you personally. And it's worth watching because you can see Bush, you can see the thought developing in his head that's like, what the fuck are you talking about? And he just doesn't know to answer the question. And Clinton, of course, famously... Figured it in it.

responds with some, you know, heartfelt answer about how he feels. He figured out. He figured out that it was a proxy for concern, because it was money kind of stuff, it was a proxy for economic concerns. And he answered about, you know,

everybody's experiencing economic problems right now, which was a very smart response to it. Okay. Well, the Russia House. John, you've been excited to talk about this movie since we started this podcast.

So how about you let it, loose with your thoughts. And I always forget to do this. If you're listening and you have not seen the movie, you should watch the movie. I think it's available for rent on Amazon and iTunes. I'm not sure if it's available for streaming anywhere. I did not look. I kind of reflexively just check iTunes. But you should see the movie. It's two hours. It's a very breezy two hours. So it'll fly by very quickly. It's very enjoyable. And then once you do that, come back and listen to conversation. Okay, John, thoughts. Yeah, I think this is a pretty quality movie. I don't think this is, I mean, you know, it has a lot of the things that make John LaCara, you know, his

kind of cinematic universe and novel universe is really compelling. I mean, he's sort of the anti-James Bond. He shows the world of espionage as not being glamorous, being very bureaucratic, The people involved in it as leading, you know, difficult and often broken lives, loneliness, alcoholism, you know, these sort of alienated and atomized individuals that kind of get swept up into the, into the Cold War, you know, and even though he shows the kind of grittier or seemier side of espionage and not this kind of glamorous James. response out of it. His world is really compelling and kind of fun, fun or has a great atmosphere and you want to kind of tarry with it. And yeah, this movie sort of does all those great Licare things. I don't know if it's the best adaptation. I mean, I know it's not the best adaptation of his work, but I think it's, you know, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a pretty quality film. I would say like, um, the plot of this movie, usually like, what, what, what,

The enjoyment of John LaCarray stuff is that his plots are extremely dense and you can kind of even sort of lose the threat of them in the same way when you're reading a great, you know, hard-boiled detective novel or something like that. The atmosphere kind of counts for more than the plot. But his plots are interesting because, you know, you're kind of uncovering some conundrum of the intelligence services kind of along with the, you know, protagonists who are trying to do that. But this one kind of has a simple plot, which is that, you know, they try to get this Sean Connery's character, Barley Blair, who is a kind of bohemian publisher who lives in Lisbon and is kind of drinking his life away. And he needs to go to Russia. Michelle Pfeiffer tries to reach him with a manuscript that she says she wants to publish, but actually has some information about Russian mission. missiles and the Secret Service intercepts this and is trying to use him and her to, you know, affect this transfer of information from a Soviet source to the British Secret Service and the CIA.

And like John LaCaree over the years has grown increasingly anti-American, and this movie definitely has notes of that. And I'm just going to give it away. The upshot of the movie is that in the end, Sean Connery betrays his Secret Service handlers. He makes, is revealed to have kind of made a deal with the KGB. And he chooses love with Michelle Pfeiffer over loyalty to country. So there's a lot of themes here in LaCari's novels where he's high.

skeptical of ideology. He's highly skeptical of nationalism. He's sort of a Cold War dissident in the sense that he's not pro-Soviet in any way, but he's definitely very, has a rather jaundiced view of the Cold War as something that was, you know, very destructive, especially for individuals whose lives were kind of wrecked by it. But unlike many of his books, this has a happy ending. And, you know, usually he shows how the betrayals kind of destroy and the needs of state kind of destroyed people's lives. But in this case, the individuals are triumphant. He gives them the slip.

And they decided not like this is at the end of the Cold War. The importance and the sharpness of these things maybe is felt to be less. And basically just decided to leave him alone. He goes in Michelle Pfeiffer, you know, unite, and he gets, he pulls a fast one on the KGB and MI6, and they live happily ever after, presumably. So this is sort of La Cary's anti-ideological, anti-state philosophy, kind of coming to its most happy ending, and maybe its most sentimental ending. But yeah, Jamel, what did you think of the movie?

On the level of, you know, the film is a visual medium, I thought this was, it was a pleasure to just watch. Yeah. It looks great, actually. It's a very good looking movie. The on location filming in the Soviet Union, I thought it was just interesting to see, you know, even now you have to kind of seek out media about sort of within the Soviet Union. So seeing an American production, it's sort of. take on the visuals with the Soviet Union, which was interesting. The score is, I like the score, but it's like, it's more or less the exact kind of score

you'd expect for this movie. I think what this, I haven't, I haven't read very much La Carre, but I do think that what this captures well is kind of the, the melancholy drabness of his prose is the best way I can put it. old men should have stuck in their ways not really knowing how to move past what they've been doing

for all these years so I think I think this movie in its look in its costuming I mean Connery When you meet Connery's character, he is kind of disheveled-looking. And so many scenes involve these middle-aged and older men, kind of like smoking cigars and sipping alcohol and, like, showing their kind of,

they're showing you the great which are kind of just like going through the motions. Absolutely. And so much of this. And I thought the film did a great time of showing that and and communicating that visually. When it comes to, you know, thematic stuff, I mean, I am interested in this approach, this like late Cold War, you know, nearly post-Cold War movie that is, that is focused on. kind of the futility of all of this maneuvering and all of this secrecy. I mean, in the end, right? In the end, they're like, I don't know, the Soviets got this document that has these important

questions that reveal what the intelligence agencies do not know, but maybe they can just sell it as being a forgery to begin with. And so you're just back at square one. That's the phrase used back at square one. So it's like all of this, all these twists and turns. and anxiety and danger. It's like, you know, it's all for nothing, really. Yeah.

And I don't know. That's sort of like resigned cynicism about all of this. I find really interesting because it's, I think that in terms of these sorts of political movies, we are presently still very much in a post-9-11 era where everything matters so much, right? sort of like in the in the recent amazon jack ryan series like every single scrap of information absolutely matters the stakes are super high uh and there's it's rare that you get

these days a political movie a political thriller whose message whose message is this is all kind of just busy work for people um for busy work for states that have invested all of this money and all this time and all these resources into a game that, you know, functionally doesn't really matter. Yeah, that's, I think that's exactly right. I mean, he really shows, and this is something that goes through a lot of his books. I think it's particularly acute at this point in the Cold War, but is the futility of a lot of this stuff and the thing that it's sort of done for its own sake and its relationship to the actual needs of policy or things like that are questioned by him and he just talks about how people's

lives are destroyed or by you know these initiatives that really don't end up having much to do with anything and it's a little bit of a game I mean he also shows yeah the the melancholy aspect of it the I mean the bureaucratic drabness of it is he communicates so well i mean the book is narrated by a lawyer the kind of the general council of the of the of the british secret service so it's you know it's always in this really bureaucratic context and part of that also which he reveals is the social side of it which is you know the extension to which um the british secret services and to a lesser extent the CIA is kind of an extension of the ruling class of their nations like and um you know he shows

like the clubbiness of it all like a lot of how um the the the the contiguity between you know the official halls of government and the kind of uh private gentlemen's club a private houses uh where this all you know takes place and these people all have ties going back to oxford and Cambridge and you know and so on and so forth so he really shows the kind of class basis of this of the secret services and I think that's sort of his kind of way of making these social novels which are about about you know Britain and the world at large and not you know through through espionage but he's kind of talking about the British ruling class and it's decadence or decline or you know it's kind of tortured posting

existence, where, you know, its role in the world is diminished, its secret services are diminished, but they're kind of, you know, it's something for these fellows who went to Cambridge and Oxford and eaten, you know, and so on and so forth to do, to keep them busy in a way, as you said. So, I mean, that's all really fascinating to me as well. Can I just to interrupt real quick, please. Just on this note, I mean, this is true on the American side as well. I I was admiring Roy Scheider's costuming in the film, but his costuming is a very New England Wasp. I think that's very intentional, right? Like, he's wearing fine tweeds and shawl-collar cardigans and Oxford with sort of like high collars and long rolls, sort of like a very

ivy, traditional ivy style, which gets exactly to the social class of someone like this. Like maybe not necessarily wealthy, but like well-to-do in a wealthy. mill you and attended maybe a prep school probably Harvard or Yale or brown or Princeton and this is you know this is what a person of his class does if they don't have ambitions for business or something right yeah I mean in the book it's even more explicit he talks about the American CIA agents like going to I think it's Yale and you know and really hammers home their kind of waspy upper classness so yeah I think and you know I think and you know Nick, I mean, in the book, I don't know how much this has really emphasized the movie, but Barley Blair, Sean Connery's character is a kind of bohemian black sheep of the ruling class. He went to school with a lot of the guys, but they kind of, he's sort of living his layabout life and not, you know, integrated into the society in the same way they are or the political process they are. He's a jazz musician. He pals around with, uh, with Soviet dissidents and

artists and intellectuals. And I think that's like the kind of utopian, the kind of post historical to bring back up Fukuyama's end of history thing again, you know, like the kind of post historical utopia, which this views is like, you know, people like Barley Blair and Michelle Pfeiffer's character, Katia, these kind of like cosmopolitan, bohemian intellectual types, in the absence of the boring needs of these big ideological states will be able to live, you know, this, this existence of, you know, of pure love and, uh, personal expression not held down by these kinds of big oppressive structures. So, you know, that he's, and, uh, that I think was like something that people sort of, you know, so many of the, especially in, there were so much admiration in the

West for the dissident intellectuals of the Soviet Union and a lot of hope that, you know, like, well, these people are so pure in a way that they've, they've, you know, stayed on the left, but they are, they, they stood up to the oppression of this. People like, you know, ball club, Havel and, uh, and, and stuff like, and people like that were really highly admired, who are kind of literary, cultured, but also political dissidents. And like, that was very much. So I think this movie is sort of like, makes sense because LaCarray is a writer. He's sort of of of that class. He sort of envisions a world after the Cold War where the cosmopolitan intellectual class is freed of the being shackled to the needs of the

states of the Cold War and can unite literally Russian and British person having a love affair and so on and so forth. I mean, it's a very nice, you know, outcome, vision of, I mean, now that we're in the midst of this Ukraine crisis is going on, I mean, maybe our podcast has become strangely more relevant than we ever thought it would be. You know, it's interesting to think about this. It's kind of sentimental and hopeful, but a naive. view of the post-Cold War world, and one, you know, which is romantic, but perhaps was not

really attained. Yeah, I mean, that's what's interesting about this movie, right? There's not, this is a ostensibly political thriller, but there aren't really politics in it, right? It's not, there's that scene where the British and American intelligence officials are interrogating Blair about his past, about his beliefs and whatever. And they conclude that like this guy is basically, you know, he's on the, he's on the left because a person of his station is just going to be on the left. But he's not really, he doesn't really have any strongly

held political beliefs, ideological views. He is just kind of a, yeah, he's just kind of a layabout. And the officials themselves, they don't appear to have any real ideological views. They don't appear to have any kind of like strong politics. This is just sort of like, well, this is our job. This is what we do. And we're going to do what we do. But in terms of the world of the film, there's, you know, there's no one, you don't meet anyone who's like committed to the Soviet system. You don't meet anyone who's like, you know,

the capitalist West is, is, uh, what's important. Um, it's all on the level of, I mean, the movie even says this. I mean, uh, what does, what does Sean Connery say towards the end? He, you know, he explains it's not, it's not ideology, it's honor that this is, the, the currency of the realm here isn't so much what you believe, but like, What commitments are you willing to follow through on? And this, this, this, this, this vision of a almost like, you know, in the, in the, it's like, the cold war at this point in this movie is sort of drained of politics. Like, suppose the assumption is that like once it's all over, then, yeah, like, the world will become. less rigidly political because, you know, it will have exhausted itself. We know, of course,

that, like, the very opposite happens. That's sort of the end of the Cold War unleashes a bunch of political disputes that have been suppressed by the necessities of the two states involved. But I think you're right to say that Lakari here has sort of a naive view of what the what what would happen in the absence of um of that kind of conflict yeah i mean for all of its cynicism and world weariness it still holds on to that kind of um you know romanticized vision of the post-cold war world i mean there's that scene where he's drinking with the with the uh russian intelligentsia and he kind of outlines his post-political vision or utopia without states and so on and so forth.

I think it's like, what do I want to say about this? Okay, you know, I think this is LaCari's perspective, good and bad, is that he really focuses on the individual and their place in these structures and what these structures do to them. And he's a real believer that, you know, or a real questioner of the worthwhileness of these things and because of the destructive impact they have on people's lives.

But at the same time, he's a real, very strongly focuses on interpersonal relationships, romance, and affairs and betrayals are a big part of his book. Love betrayed

because of the needs of spying you know, is something that he returns to a lot. I think he felt personally betrayed because he, you know, there was a famous, I think his cover was blown when he was an agent because of, you know, the Cambridge Five. And I think he actually knew and was close to one or more of them. And I think he felt a real, you know, a real personal sense of betrayal or at least captures the personal sense of betrayal when he writes about traitors in the Secret Services.

And the tragedy of that and the way that's experienced by individuals who were sold out by people who they thought they were friends. And that's his focus rather than the country being sold out. It's like the actual comrades in these organizations and their feelings of being wronged by people they thought were friends that they had since they went back to school because of you know, the social basis of all of this. In this movie, there is no, the betrayal, you know, in his previous works, I've hinted at, betrayal happens of individuals for the system.

And this, he betrays the system in order to pursue his individual goals and their individual goals, which is to, you know, continue this love affair. And so in the way, this novel at the end of the Cold War is that the individual is victorious, this kind of bohemian layabout intellectual type is ultimately overcomes the structures of the state, is not crushed by them, gets the last laugh. again, you know, obviously L'Carray's own perspective as a writer must be lurking there somewhere. But yeah, so these, the other movies I think are, and books are kind of more interesting because of their tragic dimension where he shows how these divided loyalties work and how and the cause. they have for people's lives. I mean, it's relief that, you know, after the tension of the movie, it's sort of like, all right, you know, the people, you know, kind of get away with it and are able to reunite. It has a happy ending. But, I mean, not to say that I need a movie to have a sad

ending to be serious, but this is a kind of comedy in the sense that it has a happy ending and a comic ending. And not the tragic conflicts between personal loyalties and loyalties to systems that his other books deal with, and I think are a little bit stronger than this one. But, yeah, I mean, not to say that it's not a compelling film, but I just don't know that I think in the absence of, I mean, he's written books since the Cold War, which are good, but I think that the Cold War sort of provided. the necessary context for the type of human tragedies that he wants to tell and as it's lifting

that sort of that tension gets um that tension you know is absent yeah i mean i when the movie ended and it ends on basically a freeze frame of of connery and michel fifer who we haven't we haven't spoken much about michel fifer uh yet but she's great in this movie uh michel Fyfer has a killer run in the late 80s, early 90s, married to the mob, a Jonathan Demi film. I think just after this, very soon is Batman Returns, where she is incredible as Catwoman. And in between, she just gives a ton of really great performances. I think Michelle Fyfer is a tremendously underrated actress, and she has a ton of range. and I thought she was really great, really great in this.

But the movie ends on this freeze frame and you write into this, it's kind of like genuinely, unambiguously happy ending. And I mean, it was, I should have agreed with it because it was to me a bit of a, a bit of a false note, but sort of the vibe of the movie was that this would all end in a disappointing way for everyone involved. And so, well, it was nice to see Connery, you know, reunite with his love. It did seem very, very much like it, like almost a fantasy of the kind of world Le Carre would like to see. Yeah, I mean, I think it's.

It's the, you know, this was made during Glasnos and Perestroika and probably represents, we've talked a little bit about the hopes of that era, you know, where people thought, look, maybe the Gorbachev will usher in a social democracy into Russia and, you know, actually fulfill the promise of the Soviet experiment and so on and so. I mean, like, you know, there's a, there's an, there's an Obama version of, of Gorbachev or something. that. I mean, we should talk more about Glass-Noss and Parishroika, because they are, I think, they are, they are pretty critical context for not just this movie, but kind of this genre of movies in this period, this kind of hopefulness about the end of this conflict and the future of U.S. Soviet relations, because at this point, the collapse of the Soviet Union is not yet, you know, in hindsight we see that it's building, but at the time, I don't think it was necessarily a common belief. that the Soviet Union would be gone in just a couple years. No, no, but, you know, I think, you know, Glasnos and Parastroica's failure and it's leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union really soured the Russian elite and the Russian people to a certain extent

on democratization as a process and explains a great deal of why, why we're in the situations we're in right now, regards to Putin. I think that the sense of the leadership is that Gorbachev kind of loosen control when things fell apart. And that, I think, has permanently or in the short term kind of tutored the leadership of the Russian state. as a successor to the Soviet Union as avoiding those kinds of openness and, you know,

efforts to democratize and just viewing them as preludes to, you know, collapse and disaster because that's how Russians, you know, especially Putin views the collapse of the Soviet, you know, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which is a very strange ideology insofar is an ideology that it's kind of traditionalist and not left wing and conservative and you know Russian nationalist but it views the Soviet unions collapse as a real disaster as a national disaster and not as you know a liberating moment where finally this horrible system is over it's a real humiliation and a you know some a lesson to be learned in history which the lesson is

don't you know loosen your grip basically um so it's really unfortunate that uh that that's the legacy of glasnosed and perestroika and was you know in a way i know this is a sort of a car let's imagine for a moment that the soviet union still exists and um it is kind of a loosely federated, you know, left-leaning republic that has some kind of, you know, democracy that's, but has constitutional requirements for, you know, socialism in some ways, you know, I think the way Gorbachev was kind of aiming things. I mean, in some ways, would that not be a better world, are all these nationalisms that got, I mean, you know, this counterfactual may have just been impossible, but all the nationalisms and, you know, that have been unleashed by

the end of the Soviet Union have not been so wonderful. And the Russian, I mean, I don't know that it's a more repressive state, but it's certainly still a repressive state. It's run quite literally now by the remnants of the secret services of the old state. And I think it's interesting to think about what, you know, the Soviet millennium would have looked like. I mean, I'm not obviously going to defend the Soviet Union. It was a repressive society. It was a society that did not properly provide for its people in the end.

And, you know, I don't think it really deserved to keep on going based on its failures. But I don't know that the successors have really, you know, been an improvement. I mean, I know it's hard to think they have. I mean, we're in the midst of this, you know, pretty frightening crisis right now. um because of the outcome of that and uh yeah so that's just my thoughts on on the end of the Soviet Union yeah i mean it it is interesting to think you know if perestroika if class just was this openness to to new ideas and to a bit a bit more um a bit more you know freedom of association and freedom of discourse within the soviet system and perestroika was kind of the you know the

introduction of market reforms and stuff that might get the Soviet economy stimulated and become a little more dynamic. It is interesting to think what the world looks like if those ended up succeeding. The nationalism is such a powerful force that I have, my hunch is that a dissolution was going to come. that something was going to open the space for it. But I think you're right to suggest that the successor state to the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, in a lot of ways, has many, many of the defects and many of the vices of the old Soviet system. and very few, if any, of whatever you might be able to say were the virtues of it. Well, it has no ideals behind it.

Right. There is at least, I mean, I think by the end of the Cold War, very few people actually believed in the Soviet ideal. But, I mean, you know, like, it represented a new start of society, a different ideological alternative. And what is Russia now represent? It doesn't represent any of those things. It represents it, you know, insofar as it has a new start. anything except protecting its own interests, you know, and the interest of its oligarchy is a very traditionalist and backwards and, you know, trying to protect the old order of patriarchy

and so on its, and property and the family in its most repressive form. So, yeah, it's a real bummer that the, you know, that the end of the Cold War instead of being replaced with the global following of democracy has been kind of, you know, been these. these these petty strong men and they've come here i mean yeah i was just about to say yeah they they they in a way you know um our society has come to mirror you know and we thought oh well now the whole world will start to mirror the united states right uh they'll gradually turn into liberal democracies i mean our societies are mirroring these states as much as that we they are us um you know, obviously we have a long history of authoritarian politics in this country, but, you know,

these were regional movements that were kind of, you know, made possible by the federal system of the United States. And it wasn't, I mean, absent from national politics, but these kinds of but now we're seeing you know the attempt to have these sort of petty strong man politics on a national scale i mean this is and yeah this is my i mean this is my whole uh view that the cold war the cold war serves to the cold war serves to the cold war served to structure national uh political conflict in two directions suppressing the left, certainly, but also restraining the worst impulses of the American right and conservative movement and providing momentum for the kind of like broad change, right? So this is at this point,

I wouldn't say it's not cliche. I don't think it's like terribly common argument outside the academy, but it's very well-worn argument among historians that the civil rights movement gets purchased in Washington in part because of Cold War competition, that the reason you have have these conservative cold warriors supporting civil rights reforms is this recognition that the United States cannot present itself as some exemplar of freedom when this substantial portion of its population lives basically under one-party authoritarian rule in a large swath of the country. So the fact that the fact that the Soviet Union represented an actual rival set of ideals in addition to like a rival geopolitical

power provides some of the fuel for the liberal reforms of the post-World War II 20th century. And it's with the end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet threat that all of this kind of unravel somewhat that like it's taken times. certainly, but the recognition that the space for ideological entrepreneurship is much greater in the wake of the Cold War than it was beforehand. And so there are opportunities to forge forward with different kinds of politics that might not have been seen as being in the national interest under the conditions of the Cold War.

So like, there's not to say there's a straight line from, you know, glass-daza-perestroika to the conservative movement basically getting ready to completely gut the Voting Rights Act. But I don't think that the mainstreaming of a kind of politics that would support a full-on end of like federal defense of voting rights, I don't think that kind of politics has much. space to operate under the conditions of the Cold War, right? Like, to use a concrete example, Ronald Reagan, who did not like the civil rights movement, did not like Martin Luther King Jr., was very much sort of not just like, you know, criticizing, but like an open opponent of kind of the ideological underpinnings of the So right to have been signed the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday into law, right? And didn't do it because he necessarily thought Martin Luther King Jr. was someone worth honoring.

But because that, that was politically advantageous, both domestically and internationally, for the United States to do. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think that, you know, well, I mean, some people explicitly, like, some of the people that I studied like the paleo-conservatives basically were like okay we got rid of communism now it's time to they literally said now it's time to end american democracy like we we got rid of the first enemy and now the second enemy using the using american democracy we ended communism now

we must end american democracy basically so yeah i mean the the lack of an articulated world that has democracy and communism as these rivals that has sort of allowed the slack that that that you know we see we see these kind of politics I mean this is also on the other side this is why such some people on the left are so skeptical of the kind of anti-authoritarian anti-fascist tradition on the liberal left and the left is because they associated with Cold War consensus. But, I mean, if the Cold War consensus included those things, I don't think that's necessarily,

that's maybe one of the more positive things about it. I mean, you know, as you're saying, like, what are you going to say, well, the civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, are tainted with the stink of the Cold War. I mean, that's absurd, like, to say, like, oh, well, Cold War liberalism or the, or anything that came from the Cold War structuring of American politics is, is corrupt and tainted. I mean, the Cold War, the other problem, but the, the, the dark side of the Cold War was McCarthyism and its destruction of the American left and liberalism and conservatism as you mentioned kind of has to take up these progressive in so far as

it's fighting the Cold War has to kind of take up these progressive things but the actual infrastructure of an American left is sort of gutted and all we have is liberalism in a sense and that's definitely a condition you know we see the return of a left somewhat but you know that is definitely a result of the Cold War a bad result of the Cold War I think it's interesting Le Carre to just bring it back to the movie in the books a little bit. You know, Le Carre's vision of the Cold War and American one are very different because, you know, Britain's role is subordinate to the United States. And I think that's something that his character isn't to a certain extent he really resents.

I don't think Le Carre is a nostalgic for British imperialism. In fact, quite the opposite. I think, you know, he's an anti-imperialist and he's, you know, that's part of his anti-Cold War and anti-American politics. but I think that there is an inescapable feeling of inferiority that the in the Cold War Britain's former you know spot as the as the superpower is the you know one of the great powers the world has been has been shot you know overshadowed and I think that's really lurks through a lot of Le Carre's thought and is the result of the you know is the is the roots of the melancholy and the feeling of futility of a lot of the things.

It's like, what are we even really doing? What does Britain mean as a society anymore? What is Britain doing? And we're sort of going through a similar thing in the United States or these post more cold movies. Like, in a way, the Cold War was the post-Cold War moment for Britain in the sense that its empire had gone. And its sense of itself and its direction in the world was really compromised and

diminished. In La Care's Cold War is the Cold War of a satellite. I mean, not, Britain wasn't quite a satellite in the same way that the satellites were, you know, of the Soviet Union, but like it is not the leader of the world, of the free world as a kind of old-fashioned throwback of it in a way and sort of doing what it had done in the 19th century and it being an ill fit for the 20th century, this kind of old gentleman spy, not using technology. so much as these, you know, human sources and these complicated relationships and, you know, the whole aristocratic world behind that and so on and so forth. So I think it's like in a weird way, John LaCarrie, I mean, this book is hopefulness notwithstanding. John LaCarray's Cold War

books sort of give us a vision of what post-Cold War America kind of can seem like something times with its directionlessness, its feeling of futility. I think this doesn't, we have a little bit more political chaos at the moment, but I don't know, yeah, something about the busy work, the uncertainty of what our real role in the world is, is something that, you know, his society was already experiencing during the Cold War. Right. And we didn't really have that problem yet. Right.

No, we leave this period feeling high, high, no, on top of the world, that our purpose is, is simply that we are the singular global superpower, but that sense of possibility doesn't last very long. I mean, it's interesting to think that this observation about Britain kind of being adrift. I mean, I think that still very much characterizes British politics, sort of like a search for some sort of national meaning. You know, what else was Brexit? Brexit was like pure imperial nostalgia, right? Sort of like we can we can imagine. ourselves as self-sufficient as not needing Europe. And we can take this concrete step to make that real.

And right, like the constituency or the constituency for Brexit in the UK were, right, these older voters with memories of, you know, at least a tail end of Imperial Britain and a desire to kind of like return to at least what that felt like. Yeah, I mean. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, go on. So I'm just thinking through the politics of nostalgia here because obviously, right, like the, you know, the Trump campaign was very much.

In addition to so many other things, the Trump campaign was politics of nostalgia, make America great again. You know, we don't win anymore. was his refrain during that 2016 campaign. And at the same time that Trump campaign, or I think represented the ways in which the, the boundaries of American politics had expanded quite a bit in the 26 years, 25 years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it also, I think, in its own way,

represented nostalgia for the period of the Cold War, for the period of American dominance and American preeminence, where there weren't complicated questions. I mean, there were complicated questions of, like, how the U.S. should wield this power, but they were, I think, for many people, less complicated and less. you know less uh um yeah less complicated than they might be might be now might be today uh in that yeah there was a yeah go ahead go ahead there's a great there's a great moment in tinker taylor soldier spy you know another lecara where um he's where george smiley who's retired kind of come back to fix the british secret service and find the mole is talking to an old head of research there

Connie Sacks, who also got pushed out of the Secret Services, and she's looking at old photos of them in their military uniforms from World War II, and she said, like, this was a, like, a better time, and he goes, it was the war, Connie, and she said it was a real war, and Britain could, I mean, English men could feel proud of themselves. And I think that that, the underhandedness, the formlessness, the shadowiness of espionage already is a kind of like a fading of the structure and purpose of the war. I think this is like a big part of American politics too. It's like as we get further and further from the war, things become a little and the structure

that that provided. And I've said this before on the podcast as the Cold War is kind of the continuation of World War II by other means. You know, it's our politics are becoming more and more confused. The guardrails are more and more confused. So, you know, I think during the Cold War, a figure like Trump would just trigger too many memories of the 30s, the war years, fascism. And just been, you know, we had a stronger. elite that just, you know, was disciplined by the Cold War and, you know, was politically more adroit and would have been able to fend off this sort of thing. Like they were, like

we just don't have, like we were talking a little bit more of the podcast. We just don't have the kind of, you know, political leadership, um, trained in war and politics to fend off something like Trump that's just like knows their business. Um, and And, you know, I think that that loss of that loss of structure, both in terms of ideology and just the practice of politics is a big part of where we're at. And, you know, it hasn't created this world of human possibility and, you know, just everyone pursuing their this this utopian post history where everyone just pursues their individual interests and loves and hobbies and art and so on and so forth and culture um it's created a very

confusing situation uh and and and yeah and then nostalgia for for the the for the for the verities of um you know it's it's funny because even reagan was a politics of nostalgia because he he even though he was a conservative. He embodied the popular front years of FDR and Golden Age of Hollywood and the New Deal. Like he was a figure of that consensus. He had been a New Deal Democrat. And it was already, and he was sort of a distorted, flipped over desire for the, for, for FDR again. And that sort of the decaying, the half-life of the mid-century

consensus is sort of what we're, and you know, it was traumatic, but it was also kind of reassuring and we're living more and more through the, you know, first the war ends. At least the United States has the Cold War. The United States is the biggest power in the world

after the war. Now we, you know, we have industrial competitors. All the factories had been bombed everywhere else. We didn't really have industrial competitors. So, yeah, I don't, I think in a way, we're more in John LaCarray's world now than we were during the Cold War, is my takeaway from thinking about this film and the rest of his works. I think that's right.

I think, I think, I think that's right. I think that's apparent in the, contemporary political situations, both the U.S. and the UK, in the, in the, the, the, the pining for mid-century consensus that doesn't just shape the political class, the current governing class, who are mostly made up of people who would have been in their kind of young adulthood or prime during the middle and tail end of that period. But also the, the, the, the national media still very much pines for this. this older era of consensus of of something like unity um well i mean look at russia gate from

one i've said this before one perspective was a real cold war nostalgia fest right yeah uh and there is there is a you know i i hate this framing i don't hate this framing i don't i don't agree with this framing with this analysis is the framing of decadence my colleague roused out there i don't agree with that framing necessarily but i think that i think there's an insight there which is that so much of the country's governing elite is inward looking it's inward looking and back in backwards looking sort of like looking to the past looking to um you know a lost golden age of compromise or bipartitanship or consensus and sort of like unwilling to try to forge ahead

with something new. And I think that to the extent that the political right has, or at least appears to have the energy and initiative, I think it's because the political right has, like, isn't very nostalgic. Like, not really. Like, the political right wants to reshape, like fundamentally reshape American society

in a way that would like, be a break with the past. And I think I think there's something to that in terms of the, again, of the energy it can provide for political movement versus, you know, at least the center left, the mainstream center left, which to me feels adrift for lack of purpose. Yeah. I mean, they were, yeah, I don't know what,

what the answer to that is. I think that that's true that the that the right can sort of view has a vision for the United States, which is just not a pleasant one from my perspective. No, it's very bad. It's a bad, it's a bad vision for the United States, but it's kind of a clear one. I mean, it's a return. I mean, it's not nostalgic, but it's reactionary in the sense, you know, like a re-entrench certain relationships, you know, the white man on top.

and, you know, with all, basically, you know, obviously with cutouts for people who are willing to cooperate in various ways. But, you know, that's a simplistic and a goal, which is probably not attainable and full, but gives its movement, you know, a direction. but yeah, I think that it's very, it really is incumbent upon, you know, the intellectuals of the left to try to envision what, you know, American society should look like if we are, if we're really leading it. Um, and, you know, not to engage in just backward looking, you know, well, I mean, like, I engage in this too. And I think, yeah, so do I. Yeah, like, you know, a celebration of the New Deal and the civil rights movement and, you know, these triumphant parts of progressive history of the United States.

Um, but, you know, yeah, there needs to be some future direction too and not, um, you know, this or the kind of. the kind of apolitical um not cynicism but but uh you know just throwing your hands up about politics that you know maybe the russia house kind of represents in a certain in a certain light and being like well just you know pursue you know tend to your garden and don't worry about these big systems and structures because they don't care about individuals anyway, and they're just out to crush you. We're reaching the hour mark, which is usually about the time we end our discussions here. So, John, before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts on the Russia House?

I can say real quickly that it is, I think it is a movie worth watching and worth sort of just like pondering on about its, about its skepticism. for the security state and for big ideological conflict. I think that's a useful perspective to have, even if I'm not necessarily sure it's the right one. Yeah, I think it's a good movie. I mean, it's just, as you said, the visual stuff of it and the USSR kind of just makes it worth it. The atmosphere is good.

And, I mean, I'm a big fan of Lakari's work in general. And I think, like, these are, you know, kind of a cut above your usual spy thriller focuses, on you know the intellect more than action and yeah I think that if you're in the mood for that kind of movie this is a good place that's earned that is our show if you are not a subscriber please subscribe we are available on iTunes Spotify Stitcher Radio and Google Podcast and wherever else podcasts are found if you subscribe please leave a rating and review we appreciate it it really does help people find the show you could reach

But you can reach out to both of us on Twitter. I'm at Jay Bowie. John, you are. I'm at Lionel underscore trolling. Episodes come out every other Friday. So we will see you in two weeks with a little film called Going Under. 1921. We've entered a new year, 91.

This one's directed by Mark Travis, an American submarine racist to get a nuclear weapon for a Russian submarine. I think it's kind of a... Yes, a... Summary movie. Yeah, a submarine movie. I think it's kind of... It's a comedy and a reverent take

on this stuff. Stars Bill Pullman, Ned Beatty, Robert Vaughn, Wendy Shaw. A bunch of people will be watching that and talking about it in two weeks. If you pay attention to, you know,

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