As a long time reader of le Carre, it's interesting how he is being characterised in death, everyone picking their favourite version of him and ignoring the rest. I think he grew and changed, he was complex. What he consistently dude was act as a reporter

on the privileged secret world of the British establishment. A child abandoned to public school with a conman father, he almost became a grifter, the British secret state had a use for that. He became a cold warrior, but saw through the hype, he then got rich from books/films

he used his position to document the inhumanity of statecraft and geopolitics. Then as the Berlin Wall fell he felt a bit lost, and entered rewarding new phase of detailing corporate and war on terror malfeasance. Perhaps his most radical and creative period.