In The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Martin Ritt's 1965 film adaptation of John Le Carre's 1963 cold war espionage novel, career British spy Alec Leamus (Richard Burton, in one of his finest roles) finally lets the blinkers fall from his eyes to see the true moral ambiguity of his lifelong profession. In response to his lover, who posits that spies should have a better sense of right and wrong, he describes his world, his profession and his colleagues, exactly as he now sees it.
"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?
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