William Haggard

• Born: August 11, 1907
• Birthplace: Croydon, Surrey, England
• Died: October 27, 1993
• Place of death: Unknown

Types of Plot: Espionage; inverted

Principal Series: Colonel Charles Russell, 1958-1985; Paul Martiny, 1972-1974; William Wilberforce Smith, 1982-1986

Contribution

Critic D. B. Hughes rightly credits William Haggard with “the renaissance of the spy-adventure tale.” Haggard’s suspense novels, with their political focus, their sense of realpolitik, yet their preoccupation with propriety and with correct behavior, fill the gap between earlier, romantic spy stories and the more modern, psychological ones. In fact, many critics define the Haggard novel as an erudite amalgam of the romanticism of a John Buchan and the chilling Cold War cynicism of a Len Deighton or a John le Carré. His works, tinged with satire, provide so realistic a portrait of characters and milieus that they seem like novels of manners—even romans à clef. One book had to be hastily revised on the eve of publication to disguise a biting description of a well-known extreme leftist, while another went behind the scenes in Parliament during the Six-Day War. The Money Men (1981) took on the scams of Dutch banking; the Martiny books, the fiddles of bankers, doctors, nursing homes, and politicians. The Power House (1966) openly and contemptuously satirized a prime minister actually in office at the time of publication. The latter was among the first fictionalizations of the growing influence of the Arab world and of the antagonistic diplomatic atmosphere that would necessitate détente; as such it is a significant contribution to espionage fiction. Haggard was one of the very few to have ventured into the world of ministers of state; he was best at giving the reader a sense of the inherent prejudices that affect judgment: “You could never rely on parvenus,” says one character, while another thinks, “If there was one thing he loathed it was upper-crust patronage.” Haggard’s works were published in Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

Biography

William Haggard was born Richard Henry Michael Clayton on August 11, 1907, in Croydon, Surrey, England. He was educated at Lancing College, Sussex, and received a bachelor’s degree from Christ Church, Oxford University, in 1929. In 1936 he married Barbara Myfanwy Sant, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He served in the Indian Civil Service from 1931 to 1939 and eventually was appointed magistrate and sessions judge. During World War II he attended college in Quetta and was promoted to staff lieutenant in Indian Army Intelligence, at which rank he served between 1939 and 1945. In 1945 he was designated for ministry duty in Whitehall, an experience that provided the background for Colonel Charles Russell, Haggard’s major series character. On receiving his master’s degree from Oxford University in 1947, he joined the Board of Trade. In 1965 he was appointed controller of enemy property, a position he held for four years before retiring from government service and turning to a full-time writing career. “I’ve been a layabout ever since,” he said, though in fact he wrote prolifically and traveled widely in Asia, South America, and Europe, particularly Italy. Haggard was a major constituent of the N.A.L./Signet Intelligence Group and a representative author of the Detective Book Club before his death in 1993.

Analysis

A William Haggard novel is more likely to engage the English reader than the American in its portrait of the powers behind the powers, the hierarchy that remains as prime ministers and other such ephemeral authorities come and go. It is a top-level view of the behind-the-scenes machinations of national and multinational corporations and security agencies and the politics that inevitably affect them. Often these dealings involve major breakthroughs in science and industry, resulting in discoveries with potential military application.

In The High Wire (1963), for example, the plot centers on a major foreign power’s attempt to acquire, by blackmail, kidnapping, torture, or even murder, the secret of a new weapon being developed by British industry, while in The Antagonists (1964) the United States and the Soviet Union, fearful of an apocalyptic military secret, struggle either to subvert or to eliminate a world-famous scientist residing in Great Britain. The Arena (1961) depends on a foreign power’s struggle to take over a British company to have access to new British discoveries in radar, while Slow Burner (1958), Venetian Blind (1959), Yesterday’s Enemy (1976), and The Meritocrats (1985) concern a security leak of restricted nuclear information. The Unquiet Sleep (1962) concerns the damaging effects of a new drug on government personnel, and The Mischief-Makers (1982) an Arab attempt to foment a rebellion among London blacks.

In each novel, Colonel Russell or his minions in British intelligence prove to have been on top of the situation from the beginning but must proceed cautiously, according to the unspoken rules for espionage and counterespionage, judging just how far to push the other side and when to count one’s losses and yield to the inevitable. Instead of derring-do, there are quiet, understated discussions, analyses of data and potential actions of all parties, and finally active steps to resolve the issues and personalities in England’s best interest, though these steps are often thwarted by, or prove unnecessary because of, the actions of private individuals. Always the situation is politically explosive, the personalities unpredictable, and the realities far more complex than a surface analysis indicates.

Most Haggard novels depend heavily on the character of Colonel Russell, a realist who feels more comfortable with established government—communist or not—than lack of government, who recognizes the necessity of sometimes making national concessions, and who in fact has “almost lost the habit of thinking in terms of countries or nations.” At times Russell feels more respect for a competent counterpart in the Soviet hierarchy than for some of his own country’s secretaries and ministers, especially those of the far Left. The description of his ruminations on an old friend sums up his conservative values:

To the idealists in their world of shadows he was simply another fascist dictator, to the hardline communist a contemptible turncoat. Russell considered him neither of these, indeed they were birds of a similar feather. Both had spent lives on the same tightrope, on the one side the furnace of total power, on the other the bog of wishful thinking. Man was a very dangerous animal and Russell cared little who ruled him in practice. The enemy was the absence of rule. . . . All one could do was to walk one’s tightrope, balancing by the light of realpolitik.

Russell recognizes Great Britain’s declining world status and its need to depend more heavily on strong allies (calling in Americans, for example, to assure the secrecy of a British discovery). He disapproves of liberals on principle and might admire, but never trust, a card-carrying communist. He respects Israeli intelligence for walking a tightrope between political expedience and war.

Russell is a professional, scornful of amateurs for the disgusting messes they often leave and of diplomats for their affectations and incompetence. He finds the agony column of the London Times the only sane and accurate reporting. What intrigues him most from the security files are not those classified “red” (suspects by history or association) or “green” (suspects by political sympathy) but those classified “yellow” (suspects by character), for they are the least predictable and hence potentially the most dangerous. Russell is attuned to the vulnerability and corruptibility of the most polished and successful of diplomats, businesspeople, and scientists, and it is his ability to put himself in their place and anticipate their responses that makes him so effective at his job. Russell may be right wing in sympathies, but he deeply values the rights of citizens and fights to avoid invoking the Security Act, which would give him police-state powers. His response to breaches of security is to focus on human psychology and to try to outguess his opponent by placing himself in his shoes.

The Poison People

His office at the Security Executive is untidy, with silver trophies and excellent Persian rugs—items that spell “an intelligence shrewd but unfussy.” Russell is fascinated by the convolutions of other minds and other cultures (particularly the unpredictable twists of the Byzantine mind or the deep-seated wisdom of the Latin woman); he recognizes values bred in the blood that cannot be denied. In The Poison People (1978), for example, despite his distaste for a friend’s personal vendetta, he understands the man’s desire to punish the Delhi drug master whose heroin killed his son and acts decisively to aid him. Russell is worldly and frankly sexual, attracted to women of verve and independence.

The innocent and kindly are not always safe in Russell’s world and may in fact become the sacrificial lamb whose injury or death allows the enemy to be defeated. Russell may try to prevent such injury but is realistic when it happens. Nevertheless, in a typical Haggard novel, the mild-mannered, who seem incapable of tough decisions, at times prove tougher and more capable than those who judge them and dismiss them. The blackmailer reveals hidden scruples, the gentle man hidden strengths. The ruthless spy is willing to sacrifice himself for the information he wants, while the nonaggressive Jewish scientist unexpectedly sacrifices an entire company to revenge himself on an ex-Nazi industrialist. The notorious saboteur, subversionist, and assassin of The Telemann Touch (1958) proves charming, almost admirable. Moreover, both sides often prove unscrupulous, accept the maxim that “business is business,” and determine to cut their opponents’ throats, either figuratively or literally, if need be.

Haggard was careful not to name countries (he sometimes gives a fictitious name), but he makes the reader feel as if he is learning what happens behind the headlines. His treatment of people and countries centers on two key judgmental words: “civilized” and “barbarian.” His merchants, bankers, brokers, and even Indian Brahmans pride themselves on being civilized (though they are not always so), although the term “barbarian” is reserved for those who break what each “civilized” man thinks are the unspoken rules of conduct, the gentleman’s code. Barbarians may earn one’s respect with their strengths, their sense of honor, and their intelligent maneuverings, but one can never really trust or understand them, for they do not think or act within one’s own framework of values and sensibilities. Colonel Russell may admire a noble barbarian for slaying a foe, but he will disapprove of his toying with said foe. Yet just when one has decided that a Whitehall view dominates, Haggard employs these terms to make the satiric point that, given changing circumstances, the seemingly civilized may prove barbaric and vice versa. A professional assassin denigrates his employer as barbaric and the English as incomprehensible, while a hoodlum’s spokesperson proves civilized. One may, in effect, cut the throat of a client or a company while at the same time following prescribed limits or even fulfilling the obligations of courtesy. Thus it is a quiet irony, a wry sense of the sardonic, that dominates.

Related to such judgments is a class division based on taste and lack of taste. In Haggard’s novels, a character may have a hyphenated name such as William Lampe-Lister or Lionel Lowe-Anderson but remain déclassé, a mere assistant manager or assistant under secretary whose lifestyle, attire, home, and pastimes mark him as limited. Frequently, such limitations are summed up by Haggard’s descriptions of property and possessions. A man who would consider armigerous jewelry more than a little vulgar would also recognize the absurdity of adding Gothic wings to transform an “original Georgian block” into “a Puseyite nightmare, hideous to observe and impossible to live in.” Haggard approves of men strong enough to break the rules in the name of good taste, civilization, and what is right, and for him what is right involves fighting to protect property and family and to prevent financial chaos and the destruction of a way of life.

The Old Masters and Venetian Blind

A sign of Haggard’s own taste is the understatement that dominates his canon. His characters suggest rather than spell out in detail, a quality for which his most recent works have been criticized but one that betrays a sense of a way of life and a point of view vital to Haggard’s conception of being English. After a drink or two, for example, a character will “particularize rather disturbingly” his contempt for the Chancery Bench. One of the highest compliments Colonel Russell pays a foreigner is “You talk almost like an Englishman,” by which he means the person is “realistic,” his comments “understated,” his behavior “deep-down tough.” A quiet young man in The Old Masters (1973), for example, wins Russell’s respect when he prepares to fight back: “They tried to burn me. Alive, as it happened. I didn’t like that.” On the other hand, the pretentious and high-handed receive short shrift, as does the secretary in Slow Burner who eventually succumbs to drink and jealousy. Occasionally there are philosophical statements, but in the main these exist to delineate character, as in the musings of Gervas Leat, a man who gambles his life and his love in Venetian Blind:

Life was a gamble, a crazy horse race. Smart Alecs picked their bets or thought they did: the wise man knew the Form Book for a trap. There wasn’t any form. No, she was blind, the goddess, blind and uncaring. Blind were they all. Man came from he knew not where; gambled a little or was gambled with; snuffed like a candle in the night. . . . judgement was futile.

Haggard was criticized for the open carnality of his characters, yet he sensitively captures the nuances of marital accord and discord, the signs and symbols of relationships. His novels always provide a realistic portrait of the two sexes and treat men and women as equals—in foolishness and in intelligence. The female soldier assigned to protect Russell in The Old Masters is a better bodyguard than most men, capable of quick and accurate decisions, impressive physical feats, and a realistic assessment of people and situations, while the huntress in Venetian Blind handles a weapon like a pro:

Margaret broke the gun, single-handed, the butt under her armpit. The spent cartridge, as the ejector threw it, she caught with her free hand. The live she pocketed.

Involuntarily Richard made a gesture of admiration.

“What’s the matter?”

“Not many men can do that.”

William Wilberforce Smith’s wife, Amanda, has “flair, intuition, instinct,” and, not subject “to arbitrary rules of male logic, . . . [can] see through brick walls with uncanny accuracy.” Even the spoiled and unfaithful wife in Closed Circuit (1960) is sufficiently self-aware to answer hypocrisy with shocking truths. Haggard often includes in his novels a love relationship gone wrong and counters it with a love of understanding, sexual attraction, and mutual respect. On the one hand, his women may be limited by their upbringing, frustrated, superficial, and utterly destructive; on the other hand, they may be politically knowledgeable, sharply intelligent, and a real challenge to a man’s intellect and emotions. One will act on a combination of instinct and reason to save a party, a firm, or a loved one, even at heavy cost to herself, while another will exact cruel revenge on those who have injured her or her beloved. Always the relationships and the motivations are complex, and always the women prove capable. In Venetian Blind a seemingly devoted stepdaughter coldly leads her stepfather toward incest to justify murdering him as revenge for her mother’s suicide, while in The Old Masters a devoted First Lady, widowed, marries a man she despises to stabilize her nation, then personally stabs him to death in front of witnesses when she confirms his responsibility for her husband’s death. Cynthia, in The Arena, outmaneuvers her much-loved husband in her manipulation of company block votes, but in doing so she effectively outwits herself, losing her husband while helping the family win a profit.

A Haggard plot is precision-engineered, with a suspense that grows more out of character than action. Suspenseful action—such as that of a stranded cable car dominated by a killer, a carnival ride headed for murder, or a speeding car set to explode—does occur, but it is rare. The narration is third-person limited omniscient, the language sardonic and controlled. Haggard himself described his works as “novels of suspense with a background of international politics” and admits that they are not always “entirely imaginary.”

Principal Series Characters:

• Colonel Charles Russell , a very English, elegant, and urbane military intelligence officer, is a pukka sahib who, after years of dedicated service to his country, serves as head of military security. He operates at the highest levels of political diplomacy, making carefully considered decisions in times of crisis. His decisions potentially determine the fate of nations, whose representatives, legal and otherwise, he plays off against each other. His goal is to preserve British interests through diplomacy. Russell is not always directly involved in the action, particularly in those novels set after his retirement, but his subtle mind is always at work behind the scenes.
• Major Mortimer is Russell’s all-around, eminently reliable associate.
• Professor Wasserman , a brilliant, eccentric, witty, and irreverent Jewish nuclear scientist, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, fills in the gaps when Russell’s scientific knowledge is lacking and arranges a surprising revenge on the worst of his persecutors.
• Martin Dominy is a cautious and competent operative whom Russell tests out as his possible replacement.
• William Wilberforce Smith (to whom whole novels are later dedicated), a Harrow-educated black with the manners, accent, and values of an English gentleman, is recruited as an operator and finally promoted to the board from which Russell retires (Smith enjoys jazz and marijuana, but he is tough and reliable).
• Paul Martiny is a born insider, an established and landed gentleman turned “protector,” partly to rebel against the traditions that tie him and partly to expose the ineptitude of pretentious and arrogant establishmentarians. While running a three-thousand-acre farm and participating in various humanitarian organizations to assist paroled convicts, Martiny secretly acts as financial adviser and mentor to top criminals, laundering money, setting up foreign accounts, and protecting their interests in a number of ways, from making sure a stolen political document is placed in safe hands to discharging a dangerous gambling debt.

Bibliography

Adrian, Jack. “Obituary: William Haggard.” The Independent, November 2, 1993. Obituary describes the life and works of Haggard, who is described as writing intelligent, very good spy and political fiction. Notes that after communism fell out of power in the Soviet Union, Haggard lost his focus, as he was a right-leaning author.

Britton, Wesley. Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. Traces the evolution of the figure of the spy in espionage thrillers and other works of film and fiction; sheds light on Haggard’s work.

East, Andy. The Cold War File. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1983. Examines the representations of espionage in Cold War fiction and of the Cold War in espionage stories, thereby providing perspective on Haggard’s novels.

Haggard, William. Interview. Unicorn Mystery Book Club News 1, no. 9 (1948): 12. A brief interview with Haggard providing insights into his creative process.

Hepburn, Allan. Intrigue: Espionage and Culture. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. This study of British and American spy fiction begins with three general chapters on the appeal, emotional effects, and narrative codes of the genre. Helps readers understand Haggard’s works.

Hitz, Frederick P. The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Hitz, the former inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, compares fictional spies to actual intelligence agents. Although Haggard is not discussed directly, the comparisons can be made with his works.

Winks, Robin W. “Murder Without Blood: William Haggard.” The New Republic 177 (July 30, 1977): 30-33. Discussion of Haggard’s tone and style, emphasizing the representation of violence and its place in his narratives.