Published: 18 December 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
" ...THE KING SUMMONED EFRAIM HALEVY. Hussein had come to trust this quiet, intelligent, bespectacled Israeli whose signature feature was the strip of hair he combed across his balding scalp, and who, having grown up in London, spoke the King’s English. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to John le Carré’s master spy, George Smiley, Halevy had an immense capacity for discretion, a rare commodity among Israelis.”
— Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel, in his 2014 book “Innocent Abroad”
John le Carré, who died at his home in London on Monday, introduced readers to George Smiley, the bespectacled, self-effacing, and rapier-sharp British overseas intelligence officer, in his novel Call for the Dead, published in 1961. At precisely that time, in the real world, Efraim Halevy, the bespectacled, self-effacing, and rapier-sharp British-born intelligence officer, was just starting his career in the Mossad.
With the death at 89 of Smiley’s creator, The Times of Israel spoke Monday with Halevy, who is 86 and thriving, to discuss any similarities between le Carré’s fictional spymaster and himself.
FULL STORY Smiley & me? No, no, no! Ex-Mossad chief on his non-link to le Carré’s antihero (Times of Israel)
Photo: Alec Guinness in the role of George Smiley (left); ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy (Acorn Media and Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
