Alexander Wells
The Spies of Others
'Are we really being brave when we condemn the Stasi, those long-conquered bastards, most of whom are either grey-haired or dead, their archive opened up to the public? Are we boldly facing up to a difficult truth – or are we consoling ourselves with the guilt trips of others, searching hungrily for reassurance that anything we, the Cold War’s winners, might do could never be quite so bad as what the other lot got up to?'