Our Man in Havana
Encyclopedia
Our Man In Havana is a novel by British author Graham Greene
, where he makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants.
It was adapted into a film of the same name
in 1959, directed by Carol Reed
and starring Alec Guinness
; in 1963 it was adapted into an opera by Malcolm Williamson
, to a libretto by Sidney Gilliat
, who had worked on the film. In 2007, it was adapted into a play by Clive Francis
.
in August 1941. In London, Greene had been appointed to the subsection dealing with counter-espionage in the Iberian peninsula, where he had learned about German agents in Portugal sending the Germans fictitious reports which garnered them expenses and bonuses to add to their basic salary. One of these agents was "Garbo
", a Spanish double agent in Lisbon
, who gave his German
handlers disinformation
, by pretending to control a ring of agents all over England. In fact he invented armed forces movements and operations from maps, guides and standard military references. Garbo was the main inspiration for Wormold, the protagonist of Our Man In Havana.
Remembering the German agents in Portugal, Greene wrote the first version of the story in 1946, as an outline for a film script, with the story set in Estonia
in 1938. The film was never made, and Greene soon realised that Havana – which he had visited several times in the early 1950s – would be a much better setting, and the absurdities of the cold war being more appropriate for a comedy.
during the Fulgencio Batista
regime. James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner
retailer, is approached by Hawthorne, who offers him work for the British secret service
. Wormold's wife had divorced him and now he lives with his sixteen year-old beautiful and devoutly Catholic daughter Milly. Since Wormold does not make enough money to pay Milly's extravagances, he accepts the offer. Because he has no information to send to London, Wormold fakes his reports using information found in newspapers and invents a fictitious network of agents. Some of the names in his network are those of real people (most of whom he has never met) and some are made up. At one point, he decides to make his reports "exciting" and sends to London sketches of vacuum cleaner parts, telling them that those are sketches of a secret military installation in the mountains. In London nobody except Hawthorne, who alone knows Wormold sells vacuum cleaners, doubts this report. But Hawthorne does not report his doubts for fear of losing his job. In the light of the new developments, London sends Wormold a secretary, Beatrice Severn, and a radio assistant with much spy paraphernalia.
On arriving, Beatrice tells Wormold she has orders to take over his contacts. Her first request is to contact the pilot Raúl. Under pressure, Wormold develops an elaborate plan for his fictitious agent "Raúl" which coincides with the death of a real person with the same name. A car accident is set up to frighten the real Raúl, however it kills him. From this point, Wormold's manufactured universe overlaps with reality. Together, Beatrice and Wormold try to save the real people who share names with his fictional agents. Meanwhile, London finds out that an unspecified enemy intends to poison Wormold at a trade association Luncheon where Wormold is the speaker. Wormold identifies the enemy, Carter, and spills the poisoned whisky on the floor. The chef's dog drinks it and dies.
Wormold has to get the list of all the other spies in Havana which is in the possession of Captain Segura. Segura is determined to marry Milly. Wormold gets Segura drunk in a game of draughts using miniature bottles of Scotch and Bourbon as the game pieces. Each piece taken has to be drunk at once. Segura falls asleep. Wormold takes his gun and the list. To avenge the murder of his close friend Dr Hasselbacher, Wormold kills Carter with Segura's pistol. Wormold sends the list as a microdot photograph on a postage stamp to London. But it proves a blank when processed.
Hawthorne and the secret service are then told about the deception. Beatrice learns the truth from Wormold and loves the scam and his ingenuity. They are summoned to London. The top people, rather than admit they were taken in, promote Wormold to a teaching post at headquarters and recommend him for an OBE. Beatrice is posted to Jakarta
. However the two meet in a temperance hotel and decide to marry. Milly is to go to a Swiss finishing school paid for by Wormold's scam earnings.
to be filmed in the Cuban capital, but Fidel Castro
complained that the novel did not accurately portray the brutality of the Batista
regime.
Greene commented:
Greene returned to Havana
between 1963 and 1966, but his disagreement with the regime's treatment of Catholics, intellectual
s, and homosexuals left him at odds with the government, and his work is not commemorated in Cuba.
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, where he makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants.
It was adapted into a film of the same name
Our Man in Havana (film)
Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene...
in 1959, directed by Carol Reed
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
and starring Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
; in 1963 it was adapted into an opera by Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Williamson
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson AO , CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.-Biography:...
, to a libretto by Sidney Gilliat
Sidney Gilliat
Sidney Gilliat was an English film director, producer and writer.He was born in the district of Edgeley in Stockport, Cheshire. In the 1930s he worked as a scriptwriter, most notably with Frank Launder on The Lady Vanishes for Alfred Hitchcock, and its sequel Night Train to Munich , directed by...
, who had worked on the film. In 2007, it was adapted into a play by Clive Francis
Clive Francis
-Early life:He is the son of actors Raymond Francis and Margaret Towner. He was born in Eastbourne.His father played Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart in the 1960s series No Hiding Place and his mother still acts today - most recently she played Jira, Anakin Skywalker's friend, in Star...
.
Background
Greene joined MI6Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
in August 1941. In London, Greene had been appointed to the subsection dealing with counter-espionage in the Iberian peninsula, where he had learned about German agents in Portugal sending the Germans fictitious reports which garnered them expenses and bonuses to add to their basic salary. One of these agents was "Garbo
Juan Pujol (alias Garbo)
Joan Pujol Garcia , also known as Juan Pujol García , MBE , was a double agent during the Second World War who was known by the British codename Garbo and the German codename Arabel...
", a Spanish double agent in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, who gave his German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
handlers disinformation
Disinformation
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...
, by pretending to control a ring of agents all over England. In fact he invented armed forces movements and operations from maps, guides and standard military references. Garbo was the main inspiration for Wormold, the protagonist of Our Man In Havana.
Remembering the German agents in Portugal, Greene wrote the first version of the story in 1946, as an outline for a film script, with the story set in Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
in 1938. The film was never made, and Greene soon realised that Havana – which he had visited several times in the early 1950s – would be a much better setting, and the absurdities of the cold war being more appropriate for a comedy.
Plot
The novel, a black comedy, is set in HavanaHavana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
during the Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the United States-aligned Cuban President, dictator and military leader who served as the leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution....
regime. James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner
Vacuum cleaner
A vacuum cleaner, commonly referred to as a "vacuum," is a device that uses an air pump to create a partial vacuum to suck up dust and dirt, usually from floors, and optionally from other surfaces as well. The dirt is collected by either a dustbag or a cyclone for later disposal...
retailer, is approached by Hawthorne, who offers him work for the British secret service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
. Wormold's wife had divorced him and now he lives with his sixteen year-old beautiful and devoutly Catholic daughter Milly. Since Wormold does not make enough money to pay Milly's extravagances, he accepts the offer. Because he has no information to send to London, Wormold fakes his reports using information found in newspapers and invents a fictitious network of agents. Some of the names in his network are those of real people (most of whom he has never met) and some are made up. At one point, he decides to make his reports "exciting" and sends to London sketches of vacuum cleaner parts, telling them that those are sketches of a secret military installation in the mountains. In London nobody except Hawthorne, who alone knows Wormold sells vacuum cleaners, doubts this report. But Hawthorne does not report his doubts for fear of losing his job. In the light of the new developments, London sends Wormold a secretary, Beatrice Severn, and a radio assistant with much spy paraphernalia.
On arriving, Beatrice tells Wormold she has orders to take over his contacts. Her first request is to contact the pilot Raúl. Under pressure, Wormold develops an elaborate plan for his fictitious agent "Raúl" which coincides with the death of a real person with the same name. A car accident is set up to frighten the real Raúl, however it kills him. From this point, Wormold's manufactured universe overlaps with reality. Together, Beatrice and Wormold try to save the real people who share names with his fictional agents. Meanwhile, London finds out that an unspecified enemy intends to poison Wormold at a trade association Luncheon where Wormold is the speaker. Wormold identifies the enemy, Carter, and spills the poisoned whisky on the floor. The chef's dog drinks it and dies.
Wormold has to get the list of all the other spies in Havana which is in the possession of Captain Segura. Segura is determined to marry Milly. Wormold gets Segura drunk in a game of draughts using miniature bottles of Scotch and Bourbon as the game pieces. Each piece taken has to be drunk at once. Segura falls asleep. Wormold takes his gun and the list. To avenge the murder of his close friend Dr Hasselbacher, Wormold kills Carter with Segura's pistol. Wormold sends the list as a microdot photograph on a postage stamp to London. But it proves a blank when processed.
Hawthorne and the secret service are then told about the deception. Beatrice learns the truth from Wormold and loves the scam and his ingenuity. They are summoned to London. The top people, rather than admit they were taken in, promote Wormold to a teaching post at headquarters and recommend him for an OBE. Beatrice is posted to Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
. However the two meet in a temperance hotel and decide to marry. Milly is to go to a Swiss finishing school paid for by Wormold's scam earnings.
Cuba's attitude
The revolutionary government of Cuba allowed the film version of Our Man in HavanaOur Man in Havana (film)
Our Man in Havana is a 1959 film directed and produced by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Graham Greene...
to be filmed in the Cuban capital, but Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
complained that the novel did not accurately portray the brutality of the Batista
Batista
Batista is a Spanish or Portuguese languages surname , literally meaning "baptist"...
regime.
Greene commented:
Alas, the book did me little good with the new rulers in Havana. In poking fun at the British Secret Service, I had minimized the terror of Batista's rule. I had not wanted too black a background for a light-hearted comedy, but those who suffered during the years of dictatorship could hardly be expected to appreciate that my real subject was the absurdity of the British agent and not the justice of a revolution.
Greene returned to Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
between 1963 and 1966, but his disagreement with the regime's treatment of Catholics, intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s, and homosexuals left him at odds with the government, and his work is not commemorated in Cuba.
See also
- The Tailor of PanamaThe Tailor of PanamaThe Tailor of Panama is a 2001 American film based on the 1996 spy novel of the same name by John le Carré, which was inspired by Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana...
– a 2001 film based on the novel by John le CarréJohn le CarréDavid John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
, itself inspired by Our Man in Havana.
External links
- Peter Hulme, University of Essex: Graham Greene And Cuba: Our Man in Havana? An analysis Retrieved 2011-08-31
- Savidge Reads (24 October 2010): Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene – Review by Simon Savidge Retrieved 2011-08-31
- The Stasi (29 July 2009): Book Review: Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene Retrieved 2011-08-31
- A Modest Construct (13 February 2011): Our Man in Havana – a review Retrieved 2011-08-31