| Our Man in Havana | |
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1st edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Graham Greene |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Heinemann |
| Publication date | December 1958 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 273 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| Followed by | A Burnt-Out Case |
Our Man In Havana (1958) 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.
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Greene joined MI6 in August 1941.[1][2][3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
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.[4]
The novel, a black comedy, is set in Havana 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.
The revolutionary government of Cuba allowed the film version of Our Man in Havana 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:
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 between 1963 and 1966, but his disagreement with the regime's treatment of Catholics, intellectuals, and homosexuals left him at odds with the government, and his work is not commemorated in Cuba.[6]
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