The spy

• Published in: The Bi-Sexuality of Daniel Defoe pp. 105 - 141
• Main Author: Abse, Leo
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2006
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Superb; Young Man; William’s Death; Naval Intelligence Division; Secretary Of State; Unresolved Oedipal Problems; Bob Singleton; Defoe’s Day; Kim Philby; Ancient Wing; Cold War Spies; Tory High Churchmen; Dilatory Manner; Expansive Economic Policy; Son’s Arrest; Pejorative Noun; Compleat English Tradesman; Great Pamphleteer; Homosexual Component; Intelligence Services; St John Philby; Positively Vetted; Short Wave Transmitter
• ISBN: 9781855754560; 1855754568
• DOI: 10.4324/9780429481192-9

There was no unanimity in place; partisan political controversy abounded. Factions representing vested interests describing themselves or being described as the Country Party, the Tories, Jacobites or Classical Republicans waged their internecine wars. Into that turmoil, with relish, Daniel Defoe plunged and already, early in 1689, he set out his stall and published his first full-length political pamphlet, Reflections, upon the Late Great Revolution. To succeed, the man who is moved to choose espionage as a career, as Defoe did, must be possessed by revenge; only the avenger, smarting under a sense of betrayal, is suitable material to qualify as spy or whistle-blower. All the symptoms that Defoe displayed in the spy syndrome which so possessed him are wearisomely familiar. After every spy scandal or intelligence failure, as in 2004, almost routinely, a Government Commission or enquiry is set up, charged with the task of finding out what went wrong and advising how future blunders may be avoided.