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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a spy novel by John le Carré, first published in 1974.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the first book in a series which is referred to collectively as The Karla Trilogy. The series has been compiled in one volume as The Quest for Karla. The two succeeding novels in this somewhat loose grouping are The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People.

Contents

Plot introduction

In these novels, Le Carré sought, fictionally, to recreate from his personal experience the revelations of the 1950s and '60s that exposed many British Intelligence officers, including Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as double agents in the employ of the KGB. Philby, the aforementioned double, was at one point responsible for betraying the MI-6 employed Le Carré, along with subordinate agents, to the Soviets.

The set-up

The set-up is that George Smiley, the book's old, estranged, overweight, taciturn and sharp-minded protagonist, is called from his uneasy retirement to work an outside intelligence job for the integrity of the British Secret Intelligence Service. There is a mole still in a high-ranking position in the Service, referred to as "The Circus" for its supposed location at London's Cambridge Circus. Few people can be trusted to help, and the book fills up with the careful, gentle interrogation of those who can help to fill in the story of why Smiley was fired with so many others, and how, all of a sudden, the Circus was turned inside-out.
Cover to the TV series video
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Cover to the TV series video

Explanation of the novel's title

The novel's title is from the children's rhyme "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, richman, poorman, beggarman, thief." Some of the professions mentioned are used as code names assigned to the five mole-agent suspects: (i) current head of the Circus, Percy Alleline (Tinker), (ii) chief of London Station ie all operational matters, Bill Haydon, (Tailor),(iii) Roy Bland, head of all Warsaw pact country spying (Soldier), (iv) head of internal security, Toby Esterhase (Poorman), and (v) Smiley himself (Beggarman).

Plot summary

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Witchcraft

"Witchcraft" is the codename for the information obtained from source Merlin, supposedly comprised of a high-ranking Soviet defector named Viktorov (known as Polyakov), and a number of other, advantageously-placed disloyal Soviets. The information is very profitable, and waters the mouths of informed Englishmen and Americans alike. Witchcraft's success brings about the usurpation of the Circus authority hierarchy by second-bananas Percy Alleline, Bill Haydon, Roy Bland, and Toby Esterhase. However, Merlin is in fact orchestrated by Karla as a means towards controlling both English and U.S. Intelligence. Karla is the small, snowy-haired Soviet Intelligence half-legend antagonist who loves to pull the strings of Western nations in le Carré's novels. One choice anecdote we are given concerning him is that once, in the second world war, Karla had run a misinformation campaign so well that German artillery shelled its own troops. This is the sort of thing we are to expect of Karla's character, but on much grander scales.

Operation Testify

A major part of the background story, not revealed until late into the novel, is 'Operation Testify'. A blown one-man espionage operation near Brno, Czechoslovakia, Testify was mounted in secret by Control (the anonymous Head of British Intelligence, the name reflects that the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, S.I.S, otherwise known as M.I.6., was referred to as "C") to determine the identity of Gerald, code name for the unidentified Soviet mole in the Circus. The plan is that Jim Prideaux, a recurring character in le Carré's novels, would meet with a Czech General named Steveck in a remote cabin. There, the identity of Gerald would be revealed, sure to be one of the five highest ranking British agents next to Control, following which Prideaux would get the name back to Control by pre-arranged code: tinker, tailor, soldier, poorman, or beggerman, corresponding to Alleline, Haydon, Bland, Esterhase, and Smiley, respectively.

As secret as the mission was supposed to be, however, the Soviets lie in wait for Prideaux, who is shot in the back, interrogated, and broken, by Karla, and eventually returned to England as a living example of the failure of Control, to compound the rout of Control, where he is told by Toby Esterhase to keep quiet. The failed mission makes the news and causes a big stink, ensuring that Control is de-throned, and that those loyal to him, including Smiley, are discredited, discharged, and disavowed, along with any others who might throw any light on the failure such as Connie Sachs, the Head of Soviet Research or Sam Collins who Control had drafted in as Duty Officer on the night of the potential rendez-vous between Prideaux and Steveck.

There are three of them, and Alleline

Shortly after Operation Testify, Control, who had already been ailing from cancer, dies. Ambitious, political and not totally successful in the field, although good in India and Latin-America, and disliked and humiliated by Control who thought him a "show horse", Percy Alleline succeeds him, with Bill Haydon, Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase as his cup-bearers, i.e. his political supporters. The entire organization goes through re-organization. "Centralism" is out, "Lateralism" is in - everything operational now goes through London Station.

Witchcraft is the main bread-winner now, bringing with it all the good favor of the diplomats who fund the Circus. But it's actually a very sticky situation. Source Merlin, Polyakov, meets very often, with much reliability. To reduce the risk of his being caught, Polyakov creates the alibi of talking to a British defector. He arranges trades of information, and gives Moscow Centre some information back, to cover it up. He can meet freely with high members of the Circus, with reduced worries of being caught. The British, meanwhile, present to the Soviets that Toby Esterhase is the defector with whom Polyakov meets.

Yet the Brits seem to give out only "chicken feed," while he gives them real sensitive information. There is nothing which the Circus willingly gives Merlin which would make a free exchange worthwhile for his comrades in Russia, implying that he must be getting more out of them from another source. This is where the mole comes in -- the unknown Gerald, the real defector, is giving Russia extra information.

A year later, Ricki Tarr, a maverick and discredited Far Eastern agent, turns up in London with a story claiming that there was a mole (a deeply concealed double agent) in the (Circus (ie S.I.S/M.I.6) HQ, located at Cambridge Circus, a major intersection on the Charing Cross Road, by foot no more than 5 minutes north of Trafalgar Square). Smiley -- who finds in Tarr some confirmation of his own long-held suspicions -- is enticed out of retirement to investigate the claims; he is formally albeit tangentially backed by Sir Oliver Lacon of the Cabinet Office. Smiley is aided by Peter Guillam, a former protegé, who has, in the interim, been passed over for promotion and exiled to manage an emasculated bunch of Circus operatives, the 'Scalphunters', in Brixton.

Smiley takes an hotel room in then early 1970s downmarket London's Paddington Station environs from which the hunt for Gerald (the codename for the mole revealed by Tarr) begins.

Smiley gradually pieces together the story by analyzing files, interrogating witnesses and trawling through his own memory and those of other retired Circus personnel until he finally unmasks the mole "Gerald" at the heart of the Circus.

Characters in \"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy\"

Spoilers end here.

Television adaptation

Main title caption from 1979 TV adaptation
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Main title caption from 1979 TV adaptation

The novel was dramatized as a six-part television mini-series for the BBC in 1979, starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley and many other well-known British actors cast in key roles, notably Connie Sachs (a brilliant cameo played by Beryl Reid). The miniseries' first showing in 1979 coincided with the announcement that Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen's pictures, had also spied with Burgess et al for Moscow.

Cast

External links

 

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