The paradox was compounded when an American journalist with connections told me out of the corner of his mouth that the reigning chief of my Service had advised a former director of the CIA that I had been his serving officer, and that he had told nobody but his very large retinue of best friends, and that anyone in the room who was anyone knew I was lying. Every interview I have faced in the fifty years since then seems designed to penetrate a truth that isn’t there, and perhaps that’s one reason why I have become allergic to the process.
