Tabloids are having a great time with the arrests of 11 people allegedly linked to a Russian spy ring. "Moscow on the Hudson" screamed the N.Y. Daily News front page, and its competitor, the Post, hyped Anna Chapman, the so-called Mata Hari "with a masters in economics, an online real-estate business ... and a Victoria's Secret body." But so far, revelations about the group are pretty tepid, and their marching orders -- to learn about a wide range of topics, including nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control positions ... the last presidential election, Congress and the political parties, sound like assignments for a Political Science 101 term paper.
If that's the most danger the ring represented, I'm happy to have sultry spies skulking about again, sweducing diplomats and exchanging documents at train stations. It's great for literature. Life just hasn't been the same since the Cold War was put on defrost. The gripping spy novels of John Le Carre, including "The Honourable Schoolboy," drew their power from East-West tensions. So did the works of Graham Greene, Ken Follett and Frederick Forsyth. (Not to mention Ian Fleming and his James Bond character.)
There's plenty of tension in the world these days, but the inter-twined themes of politics, religion and race make for messier plot lines. I'm hoping the New York bust -- complete with alleged skullduggery at a Barnes & Noble -- sparks a renaissance in Spy vs. Spy thrillers.