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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
First US edition cover
First US edition cover
AuthorJohn le Carré
LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Karla Trilogy
GenreSpy novel
PublisherRandom House (USA) & Hodder & Stoughton (UK)
Publication date
June 1974
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBNISBN 0-394-49219-6 (hardback edition) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character
Followed byThe Honourable Schoolboy 

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 three-book series informally known as The Karla Trilogy. The series has been formally compiled in one volume titled The Quest for Karla. The two succeeding novels in this loose trilogy are The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People.

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.[citation needed]

The set-up

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.

File:Tinkerlg.jpg
Cover to the TV series video

The title

The novel's title is from the children's rhyme "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief." Some of the professions mentioned are used as code names assigned to the five mole-agent suspects:

  1. Tinker: Percy Alleline - current head of the Circus
  2. Tailor: Bill Haydon - chief of London Station, ie all operational matters
  3. Soldier: Roy Bland - head of all Warsaw Pact country spying
  4. Poor Man: Toby Esterhase - head of internal security
  5. Beggar Man: George Smiley himself

Plot summary

Witchcraft

"Witchcraft" is the codename for the information obtained from source Merlin, supposedly comprising 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 greatly impresses those permitted to share its content. Witchcraft's success results in the undermining of Control (head of service) by a number of senior officers Percy Alleline, Bill Haydon, Roy Bland, and Toby Esterhase. However, Merlin is in fact orchestrated by Karla as a means towards controlling both British 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 disinformation 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, SIS, otherwise known as MI6., was referred to as "C") to determine the identity of 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 Stevcek in a remote cabin in the woods near Brno, close to the Czech-Austrian border. There, the identity 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, Poor Man, or Beggar Man, corresponding to Alleline, Haydon, Bland, Esterhase, and Smiley, respectively. Control had also explained why some of the occupations from the original rhyme were not used: Sailor sounded too much like Tailor and may be misheard if Prideaux could only squeeze out a single word, even if Prideaux had to "make it to Prague and chalk it on the Embassy door or ring the Prague resident and yell it down the phone at him". Richman seemed inappropriate (as it sounded like a name that would be used in a fraud operation), whereas the use of Poor Man for Esterhase and Beggar Man for Smiley seemed more than fitting.

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 - modelled on Millicent Bagot) and Sam Collins who Control had drafted in as Duty Officer on the night of the potential rendez-vous between Prideaux and Stevcek.

There are three of them, and Alleline

Shortly after Operation Testify, Control, who had already been suffering from heart disease, 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. The entire organization goes through re-organization. "Centralism" is out, "Lateralism" is in - everything operational now goes through London Station, headed by Bill Haydon.

Witchcraft is the main bread-winner now, bringing with it all the good favour 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.

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.

Six months after Operation Testify, 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. 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. He needs help, and asks Lacon for "Control's man, Mendel" (formerly of Special Branch) who then organized security and facilities for Smiley at the Islay Hotel.

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. "Gerald" is arrested, interrogated and when all is finished, he is to be flown to Moscow in exchange for some of his imprisoned victims, at which point Jim Prideaux appears, with revenge in mind. Smiley is temporarily appointed as acting Circus Head, and a major reshuffle of operations and personnel is to be expected.

Television adaptation

Main title caption from 1979 TV adaptation

The novel was dramatized as a seven-part television series featuring Alec Guinness as George Smiley for the BBC in 1979. It was shown in 1980 in America on PBS on their Great Performances series with introductions by Robert MacNeil to help explain the workings of the British Secret Service. Later American showings edited the seven episodes into six, and it is this format that is currently available on DVD in the US.

The opening credits have a matrioshka doll that progressively reveals one doll more irate than the next, with the final doll having no face whatsoever. This is reminiscent of Churchill's description of Russia as being "A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

The series' 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

Music - Geoffrey Burgon - 1979 Ivor Novello Award

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