Bye Bye, Lenin
The Cold War Passed Away 20 Years Ago. I Still Miss It.
It’s hard to describe, let alone explain, my melancholic reaction to the movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy after watching it in a sold-out theater on Saturday. Sure, the film, adapted from the classic Cold War novel by John Le Carré, captures the dread of 1970s London and the wearying ambivalence of Cold War intelligence wars. But I wasn’t expecting to emerge from the theater feeling a sense of loss.
In one scene, an analyst retired from the “Circus” (as Le Carré dubs British intelligence) looks at old photos of colleagues in …
