Reading 1001 discussion

4. Discuss the significance of Lacon's speech to Smiley (Chapter 10) which begins: "It's a little difficult to know when to trust you people and when not" and ends "Tricky one, that."

I think this speaks specifically to the morality of spying. Is the morality in the method (how you achieve the aims - being trustworthy or not) or in the ultimate aims (thus suggesting that the means or rather the morality of the means aren't important). Lacon is saying that since the government dictates policy, the intelligence agencies use whatever means to achieve those policies.