Seriously, while I haven't said it all before, I've said a LOT
on the subject of SB before in hard-copy forums. Since the list
doesn't seem to be overrun with 100K of traffic per day yet (we
should live so long), I thought I'd slowly reprint my old letters
to Pat Nussman's defunct apa "A Sense of Occasion" to see if
they provide a jumping off point for discussion.
Two notes: 1) It had a cutesy title because that's the custom with
the apa format in science fiction and media fandom. 2) I'm
starting with the second issue because the first one was devoted
merely to bibliographic information on Ian Mackintosh, which I've
already pillaged for the draft FAQ.
-Micky
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DECLASSIFIED FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION #2
April 10, 1990
Micky DuPree
My initial response to "The Sandbaggers" was not quite the same as
Judith's, Pat's, nor, I suspect, Caryn's. I've always felt that
intelligence was a very positive factor in national security, because I
felt that increasing your knowledge about your enemies decreases the
chance of war.
I've been wrestling with situational ethics all my life and have
always been on the lookout for self-directed fictitious characters who
made no-win decisions, so the "dangerous" aspect to Neil Burnside's
behavior was something I more or less took as a given. As the show
progressed, what I really wanted to know was, since he maintained that
the ends justified the means, did he have the judgmental ability to
achieve his ends? After all, if you are going to violate one principle
for the sake of a higher principle, you had better be able to deliver
positive results, or else you will have done more harm than good. Good
intentions aren't enough. And the other major question was, where did
Burnside draw the line? Everyone has to draw the line somewhere whether
he likes it or not because no one is omniscient or omnipotent.
My impression of Burnside was that his professional judgment as an
intelligence officer was frequently excellent, but his political and
military judgment wasn't as good, and he was taking larger and larger
risks as time went on. While I thought that overall he had been a force
for good up until the end, by the time he was trying to disrupt the SALT
talks he had become more of a liability than an asset to the cause he
purported to serve.
Maybe if there had been a fourth series Burnside could have gained a
little wisdom, learned to accept and work within his limitations. Pat
thinks so. I'd LIKE to think so, but I didn't see any real indications
of it. Of course, the last episode seemed to have been cobbled together
out of what material they had when the music stopped. As I've remarked
to Pat, there were some things about "Opposite Numbers" that didn't
quite gel, and that was probably due to the fact that Ian Mackintosh
didn't get to do a final rewrite. Most notably, the motivations of the
Russians at the SALT talks were haphazardly portrayed. Burnside was so
convinced that they wanted to use SALT to hoodwink the West that he
would've sacrificed everything to torpedo the talks. Wellingham was so
convinced that the West was scoring big at the table that he insisted
the Russians were desperate for an excuse to get out. Obviously the
Russians weren't so against SALT that they refused to attend the talks
at all. But they did try to hit the defector Filatov at the end. So
which was it? Did the Russians want in or out? Possibly both Burnside
and Wellingham were right. No one contests that the Soviets had a
history of cheating on treaties. But I think that Wellingham was
correct to deny Burnside's contention that there was therefore no value
whatsoever in diplomacy and treaties. The question from the viewers'
point of view: what exactly did Mackintosh intend by "Opposite Numbers"
(assuming that what we saw was what he intended)? I confess I'm not
sure. Sometimes I think that Mackintosh himself had to have been a more
subtle political thinker than his protagonist Burnside. But other times
I get the feeling that Burnside spoke for him completely.
Is Willie Caine alive? I say yes, but I'm hopelessly biased by the
fact that Ray Lonnen was signed to do a fourth series before Mackintosh
went missing. (But he was only signed for flashback and dream
sequences, nyah ha ha!) (Joke alert.)
\JUDITH\ Actually, the only thing I DIDN'T get from the portrayal of
Burnside was a sense of him using toothpaste or shampoo. We seldom saw
him having any truck with the details of everyday life. We never saw
him come dripping out of the shower to answer the phone. We never saw
him with a five-o'clock shadow even after all-night sessions in the Ops
Room. We never saw him getting or even needing a haircut. We never
even saw what his bedroom looked like. It wouldn't have taken but a
minute of footage to show Burnside waking up in a cold sweat from his
nightmares, rather than have him tell us about it later. I can only
recall one instance when he wasn't wearing a crisp banker's suit, or at
least the vest. While the dialogue sometimes told us about his
weaknesses, ironically the settings and visual portrayal only reinforced
the "man of steel" image he tried to convey to his coworkers.
\PAT\ I'm playing devil's advocate by speaking up for Donald
Lancaster's "Sandbaggers: Think of a Number," but it wasn't unheard of
for Wellingham to not appear in an occasional episode of the series as
well. Specifically, if he didn't appear in a scene with Burnside, he
wouldn't appear at all, but would only be spoken of by the other
characters.
I would have said that Lancaster used Jeff Ross more as a plot
device than as a place holder. Ross was used as the mysterious fairy
godmother with the answer (and the helicopter) to lift Burnside out of
his troubles. I did find that objectionable from a plot standpoint, and
I found the utter lack of feeling for the relationship between Burnside
and Ross objectionable. But I did like the "Paul Revere" solution, even
though I'm in complete agreement with you that Burnside should have
easily been smart enough to hit on the solution himself much earlier in
the book.
I can't come to a definitive opinion about Lancaster's
characterization of Willie Caine, because while Caine had enormous
personal loyalty to Burnside, we've never seen him put in a position
where he might actually believe that the good of the Service conflicted
with the good of Burnside.
I had less trouble with the characterization of Peele, because if
there was one thing that Lancaster got right, it was that Peele would
not make any waves that would threaten his career, even if his personal
fastidiousness got ruffled in the process.
As to whether Burnside lied and double-dealt, yes he did. And I
thought it was fairly obvious that he had been doing it all along. The
only problem was that a lot of his maverick behavior occurred off-screen
in the early episodes: sending Landy on an unauthorized mission into (I
think) Iran in the second episode, and of course, sending Landy on an
unauthorized mission into the USSR in the third episode and then having
him shot, also without authorization.
Was Burnside more "even" during the Laura episodes? Do you mean
more "even" than he was before? Or more "even" than he was after? I
don't think he was more "even" than before. Just easier to get along
with on a social basis. As to whether he was more "even" during than he
was after, I think so, but I'd also say that he compartmentalized his
personal and professional lives extraordinarily well, so while I think
Laura's death devastated his personal life, I think that it had about
the same effect on his professional conduct (considerable, but not a
quantum leap) as the death of any other Sandbagger. The frustration and
dogged determination he showed in the second series seemed to me to be a
cumulative thing stemming from the fact that he kept losing Sandbaggers,
so I think that the loss of Tom Elliott had almost the same impact on
Burnside's professional demeanor as the loss of Laura Dickens.
Peele was the only one to ever say that Burnside had "returned" to
lying and double-dealing. I question whether Peele ever knew half of
what Burnside was up to. When Neil asked Sir Geoffrey to sign the
document in "Special Relationship," adding that he was in love with
Laura Dickens, Sir Geoffrey told him, "I think you're lying, Neil ...
the way you've always lied, cheated, double-dealt to get your own way."
Sir Geoffrey said Neil had ALWAYS lied and double-dealt, and I'd wager
Sir Geoffrey knew and understood Neil far better than Matthew Peele did.
As to threatening to resign, I think it was one of Burnside's
favorite ploys for trying to get what he wanted. I think the fact that
circumstances were getting tighter was what was forcing him to play that
trump more often in the second series. But he also threatened to resign
all the way back in ep.5, before he was even romantically involved with
Laura (it was when Peele told him he'd have to accept cutbacks in
Sandbagger travel allowances). I think threatening to resign was part
of his normal insubordinate manner with his superiors when a crunch was
on.
"Whom does the Director of Operations supervise?" At first I
thought that that highly peculiar scene you mentioned in "A Question of
Loyalty" was a case of Peele speaking to "C" while looking at Burnside
at the same time for his reaction. But I went back and checked another
mention of a replacement Number Two in "A Feasible Solution." It wasn't
explicit, but it carried the same implication that Burnside was
responsible for finding a replacement Number Two for the Nicosian
station. I used to think that the Valletta Number Two Len Shepherd came
to Burnside on the quiet in "To Hell with Justice" strictly out of a
sense of personal regard, but now I'm wondering. Still, it's a bizarre
sort of horizontal hierarchy if the station Number Two's report to
D.Ops. while the heads of station report to someone else, for it's quite
obvious that the station heads don't report to D.Ops. or there'd never
be all that feuding over who's in charge in a foreign theater, the
station head or the Sandbagger on a mission. But maybe it's more of a
matter of personnel procurement. Maybe D.Ops. finds new Number Two's,
but after they've been installed they report to the station heads, who
report to somebody else entirely.
I think the favorable portrayal of intelligence work in general and
of the CIA in particular on SB was indicative of creator Ian
Mackintosh's own hawkish nature, and not of a general sympathy towards
intelligence work on the part of the British public. I've seen some
British dramas that were extremely scathing towards intelligence work in
general ("Star Cops" was only the latest of many) and towards the CIA in
particular.
I think that spy novelist and former SIS officer John le Carre's
work has an ultimately more realistic feel to it than "The Sandbaggers"
does, but it's not a point-for-point sense of realism that I watch SB
for. SB is more visceral than the le Carre works, and it frames ethical
questions better.
Nevertheless, I recommend certain le Carre works very highly, and
they will be particularly enlightening to those for whom SB was their
first introduction to sober espionage fiction. The BBC adaptations of
both le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and his "Smiley's
People," are exceptionally good, particularly the former, and the book
versions of both are topnotch, too. Both the book version and the
Richard Burton movie version of le Carre's landmark "The Spy Who Came in
from the Cold" are excellent. (N.B. It's worthwhile to take le Carre's
works in chronological order, since there's an overall sense of evolving
continuity.)
Because of the somewhat militaristic tone of SB (most prominently in
the fact that Burnside, Caine, and Wallace were all former military,
whereas I believe the bulk of SIS recruiting is done at universities),
I've developed a hypothesis that Ian Mackintosh was not ex-SIS as many
have speculated, but was actually an ex-member of the Defence
Intelligence Staff, probably representing Naval Intelligence. That he
was in the Royal Navy is a matter of public record.
I agree with Pat that intelligence agencies in general and the CIA
in particular are often saddled with being the instrument of confused
foreign policy and misguided political masters. An interesting problem
in the accountability of intelligence agencies is that they often
justify expedient means by saying that espionage should be considered as
a kind of warfare, and all warfare is based on heavily codified
situational ethics by today's values. But American military
jurisprudence (perhaps in the wake of the war crimes trials of the 20th
century, but I'm not sure) has developed the concept of the illegal
order: the immoral act that no commander has the right to order
committed. Not only may a soldier disobey an illegal order, but he is
legally obligated to disobey it. To my knowledge, there has been no
similar codification of right and wrong for intelligence work, no
clarification of highest duty, no drawing of lines whatsoever. The CIA
is obligated by the chain of command to follow the orders of the
president, but if things ever come to light and Congress doesn't like
what it sees, the Agency could catch hell for it.
In a sense, we know what led to Willie Caine becoming a Sandbagger:
he was seconded from the paratroopers. Then the question becomes what
led Caine to join the "paras" in the first place? Hints that the
characters dropped as well as my grasp of British dialects say that
Caine had a somewhat more working-class background than Burnside, who in
turn was less well-bred than his masters on the "sixth floor." Maybe
the paras looked like a good career for a capable lad with few other
opportunities. And once SIS got a hold of Caine one thing led to
another.
I do agree that an important part of Caine's dramatic function was
to serve as both a sounding board for Burnside (once Laura was gone,
Willie and Jeff were the only people Neil confided in), and also
occasionally to voice an opposing view to Burnside. (I guess in that
respect he was a true Greek chorus, doing both the strophe and the
antistrophe.) Somebody (might have been Plato) once said that
philosophy is best presented as a dialogue.
If Wallace or any other Sandbagger refused to go along with
Burnside's schemes, my guess would be that Burnside would tell them to
transfer out of his directorate. As to whether Wallace would ever
actually refuse to obey an order, I think it would depend on just how
off the wall the orders became. But I also think that of Caine. I
don't think Caine was blindly loyal to Burnside.
Jeff and Neil after "All in a Good Cause": Once there's been that
kind of falling out between friends, I don't think that they ever return
completely to the relationship they once had. A kind of reservation or
even wariness persists. But I think it's obvious that Neil and Jeff had
at least "kissed and made up" by "Opposite Numbers." To whom else would
Neil have made that nauseating speech about, "I stand up when they play
the national anthem. I like girls who have long hair and wear dresses"?
\MICHAEL\ I found myself agreeing with you that because of the way
Burnside invested so much of himself in SIS, that for him to care about
SIS also meant that he cared about himself. But the terminology of
self-interest has always clashed in a confusing way with the terminology
of altruism. Most philosophies expounding a principle of self-interest
contain the implicit assumption that people not only work in their own
self-interests, but work in their own self-interests at the expense of
others. In this mind-set, the concept of altruism is assumed to be a
conditioned response imposed on the individual by others for the selfish
interest of the others.
In point of fact, however, a small percentage of the population gets
intrinsic pleasure from helping others, with no desire of external
reward for the act nor fear of punishment should they fail to behave
"correctly." Researchers in New York have discovered altruistic
behavior in a small percentage of children so young (less than two
years) that they are not believed to have formed a concept of expecting
a reward from complete strangers yet. There may be a genetic basis for
altruism.
As such, the fact that Burnside got satisfaction (well, tried to)
from his devotion to the service of his country doesn't negate the fact
that he was utterly devoted to his country and SIS. (After all, if you
really and truly hate doing the right thing, then why the hell are you
doing it? Probably because someone has threatened you with punishment
if you don't, which doesn't apply in Burnside's case.) If the welfare
of SIS was directly linked to Burnside's sense of what was right in the
world, then the question of whether he cared more for himself or for SIS
becomes confused. You couldn't help SIS without helping Burnside, and
you couldn't hurt SIS without hurting Burnside. For the altruist,
altruism IS selfish.
But that SIS might have allowed him to hide from things he had
trouble dealing with sounds likely as well. He obviously had trouble
relating to people on a personal level. He seemed to buy into the
traditionalist upbringing that says that real men don't show gentle
feelings or admit to vulnerability. So filling up all the nooks and
crannies of his life with work would keep him from having to go home and
deal with his wife, or later from having to go home and stare at the
walls. But I wouldn't say that his devotion to his work was therefore
just an emotional crutch. I think his desire to make the world a better
place was sincere and independent of the fact that his personal life was
a mess.
Re Willie's dislike for guns. I hardly think that it was because he
secretly liked them. A man who gets physically ill after gunfire
doesn't look like he's getting off on it to me. In "A Feasible
Solution" he told "Jill Ferris" there was no danger of him ever getting
to like the violence, and it didn't sound like a hollow pronouncement to
me.
\CARYN\ I never got the impression that Burnside was bluffing when he
threatened to resign. I did think that there were only two instances
when he thought he might have to go through with it, though: "A Question
of Loyalty" and "Operation Kingmaker." In "A Question of Loyalty,"
Karen Milner asked him if he would really follow through on the
resignation threat he had made if events went against him, and he said
he would have to. Maybe it's just me, but I believed him.
Hoping this finds you well,
Micky