Smiley did not bother to write anything down, since it was common ground between them that their conversation was being recorded anyway. The statement began with a long apologia, of which he afterwards recalled only a few sentences. “We live in an age where only fundamental issues matter . . . “The United States is no longer capable of undertaking its own revolution . . . “The political posture of the United Kingdom is without relevance or moral viability in world affairs . . .” With much of it, Smiley might, in other circumstances, have agreed; it was the tone, rather than the music, that
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