Canada's Spy Service Derided Over Botched Ad Hinting Agency Seeks to Recruit Double Agent

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service got a few laughs and provoked some concerned looks online after a clumsy PR-stunt with its Twitter post.

The spy agency tried to draw attention to its new job postings with a tweet, containing a line from John le Carré’s 1986 novel A Perfect Spy: “You could be the perfect spy. All you need is a cause”.

The problem is that the novel A Perfect Spy is about a British spy who becomes a double agent and spies for Czechoslovakia. Described as a “story with a morally tangled chronicle of modern espionage” by Penguin Random House publisher, the book ends up with the main character Magnus Pym shooting himself in the head after years of manipulating his appearance.

CSIS, however, rushed to explain itself, saying that the tweet was “a simple tribute to acclaimed spy novelist David Cornwell”.

​David Cornwell, better known by his pen name, John le Carré, was himself an MI6 intelligence officer before he became a novelist. He commonly explored themes of betrayal in his books, and was highly critical of the world of espionage.