S. Eliot Eliot’s kind of treason will not fit Kim. Some might argue that he did the wrong deed for the right reason, that he was a misguided idealist; others, again, that the deed was so wrong that no reason for it could be right. But Kim regarded himself in a different light: not as an SIS officer who treasonably handed over its secrets to a foreign power, but as someone who boldly infiltrated the British secret service because it was the target he was best equipped to penetrate. Yet he must always have been perfectly aware that in doing so he had continually to betray a trust placed in him by his country, service, friends and family, and it is clear that at least in respect of the last two the conflict distressed him. How did it happen that this man of strong loyalties, especially personal ones, was prepared to put one alien abstract loyalty above all others? No one has convincingly answered this question, nor do I pretend to be able to do so, only to offer one or two personal impressions.
