 McEwan had long wanted to write a novel about the 1970s , a formative period in his life he refers to as " the time of my life . " For the United Kingdom it was a turbulent period , with striking miners , energy crisis , escalation of the conflict over Northern Ireland , repeated states of emergency and several shifts of government . It was also the period of the Cold War , when Western governments were trying to win the war of ideas against a highly radicalised intelligentsia . Operation Sweet Tooth is entirely fictional , but the story is inspired by the actual scandal affecting the conservative literary magazine Encounter , which in 1967 was revealed to have received covert funding from the CIA . McEwan uses this back @-@ story to explore the relationship between artist and government , and the need for literature to remain independent . According to McEwan , the problem was not the anti @-@ Communist crusade itself , but the secrecy with which it was conducted . " All that 's really required is that anything the state does in relation to the arts is laid on the table where we can see it . " 
