Tempted To Defect Poem by gershon hepner

John Le Carré says that he
was tempted to defect, in order
to learn the things he couldn’t see
remaining right side of the border.
When Solomon succumbed to daughters
of aliens and their Scheherazads,
he did this, too, to taste the waters
provided by their foreign gods.
He was the wisest king, and we
could learn from him, without defecting,
but crossing borders, feeling free
to see a world that’s worth inspecting.

Steven McElroy writes about John Le Carré’s temptation (NYT, September 15,2008) :
John le Carré, known for Cold War espionage novels like “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, ” said he was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, according to an interview published by The Sunday Times of London. The author, whose real name is David Cornwell, worked in the early 1960s for British secret intelligence. “When you spy intensively and you get closer and closer to the border... it seems such a small step to jump... and, you know, find out the rest, ” he said, adding that he was not drawn to Communism but just wanted to know what life was like behind the Iron
Curtain.

9/15/08