Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

For the TV miniseries based on the novel, see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (TV miniseries). For the film based on the novel, see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film).

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
First UK edition
Author(s)	John le Carré
Cover artist	Jerry Harpur
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	George Smiley / The Quest for Karla
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Hodder & Stoughton (UK) Random House (USA)
Publication date	June 1974
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-394-49219-6 (hardback edition)
OCLC Number	867935
Dewey Decimal	823/.9/14
LC Classification	PZ4.L4526 Ti3 PR6062.E33
Preceded by	The Looking-Glass War
Followed by	The Honourable Schoolboy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 spy novel by British author John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a taciturn, middle-aged intelligence officer who has been forced into retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In keeping with le Carré's work, the narrative begins in medias res with the repatriation of a captured British spy. The background is supplied during the book through a series of flashbacks.

Chronology

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first novel of the Karla Trilogy, the second and third novels being The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley's People (1979), later published in an omnibus edition as The Quest for Karla (1982). These are the fifth, sixth, and seventh le Carré spy novels featuring George Smiley.

Title

Control, chief of the Circus, assigns the code names "Tinker", "Tailor", "Soldier", "Poor Man" and "Beggar Man" to five of the senior intelligence officers at the Circus. He suspects that one of the five, whose identity is unknown, is a Soviet mole. Control assigns these code names with the intention that, should an agent named Prideaux uncover information about the identity of the mole, Prideaux can relay it back to the Circus using an easy-to-recall codename. The names are derived from the English children's rhyme "Tinker, Tailor":

    Tinker, Tailor,
    Soldier, Sailor,
    Rich Man, Poor Man,
    Beggar Man, Thief.

The code name "Sailor" is not used as it sounds too much like "Tailor" and Control drops "Rich Man", resulting in Toby Esterhase being code-named "Poor Man". George Smiley is "Beggar Man".

Plot

In 1972, Control, the head of British Intelligence ("the Circus"), sends agent Jim Prideaux to Czechoslovakia to meet a Czech general who wishes to sell information. The operation is blown and a fleeing Prideaux is shot in the back by Soviet intelligence. Amid the international incident that follows, Control and his right-hand man George Smiley are forced into retirement. Control, already ill, dies soon afterwards.

Through a love affair in Hong Kong with Irina, the wife of a Moscow Centre intelligence officer, British agent Ricki Tarr discovers that there may be a high-ranking Soviet mole, codenamed "Gerald," within the Circus. After going into hiding to avoid Soviet agents, Tarr alerts his immediate superior, Peter Guillam, who in turn notifies Undersecretary Oliver Lacon, the Civil Service officer responsible for overseeing the Intelligence Services. Lacon enlists George Smiley, the retired former Deputy Head of the Service, to investigate. Smiley and Guillam must investigate without the knowledge of the Circus, which is headed by Sir Percy Alleline and his deputies Bill Haydon,Roy Bland, and Toby Esterhase, as any of these could be the mole. Smiley suspects that Gerald was responsible for the failure of Operation Testify, the mission where Jim Prideaux was shot in the back and tortured, (and caused the disgrace and dismissal of Control.) Prideaux, who survived and was repatriated and dismissed from the Circus, reveals to Smiley that Control suspected the mole's existence, and that the true aim of Operation Testify was to learn the mole's identity from the Czech general. Prideaux reveals that the Moscow Centre personnel who interrogated him already knew this, and it became clear to Smiley that the operation was a trap set by Moscow Centre to discredit Control and remove the threat to their mole Gerald.

Percy Alleline, who was Control's rival, has risen to head the Circus as a result of seemingly top-grade Soviet intelligence from a source code-named "Merlin". The Merlin material is handled by a secret committee, consisting of Alleline, Haydon, Bland, and Esterhase, in an operation called Witchcraft. Smiley's investigation leads him to believe that the Merlin source is false, and is being used by Moscow Centre to influence the leadership of the Circus. Cleverly, Moscow Centre has induced the Circus leadership to believe that Merlin maintains his cover in Moscow by feeding the Russians low-grade British intelligence, "chicken feed", from a false Circus mole. As a result, the leaders of the Circus suppress any rumours of a mole, protecting the actual mole; meanwhile the "chicken feed" given in return is valuable intelligence, "the Crown Jewels".

Smiley pressures Esterhase into confessing his role in feeding intelligence to "Merlin", and also into revealing the location of the safe house where Gerald and his Soviet handler meet. Tarr is dispatched to Paris to send a personal message to Alleline, who alerts the Witchcraft committee and thus forces Gerald to seek an emergency meeting with his handler at the house. Smiley and Guillam break in on the meeting, and Gerald is revealed to be Bill Haydon, a respected colleague and former friend who once had an affair with Smiley's now estranged wife, Ann. Haydon acknowledges he was recruited several decades previously by Karla, the Moscow Centre spymaster.

Percy Alleline is removed, and Smiley is appointed temporary head of Circus to deal with the fallout. Haydon is to be exchanged with the Soviet Union for several of the agents he betrayed, but, shortly before he is due to leave England, is mysteriously killed while in custody. Though his killer is not explicitly revealed, it is strongly implied to be Prideaux, his old partner, whom he betrayed in Operation Testify.

Characters

Major characters

• George Smiley. Control’s right hand man, but forced out of the Circus after Control’s retirement. Educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, from which he was recruited by Circus "talent spotter" Jebedee. Specialist in German.
• Percy Alleline. Chief of the Circus following Control's ousting. “A lowland Scot and a son of the Manse”. “A bit of an athlete". “Missed the war by a year or two". Former field agent; Control despised him. Cambridge. One of the four who ran the double agent codenamed 'Merlin'. Alleline is knighted in the course of the book in recognition of the quality of the 'Witchcraft' intelligence provided by Merlin.
• Roy Bland: Second in command to Bill Haydon of London Station. “Cockney voice.” Son of a dockworker who was “a passionate trade-unionist and a Party member". “A warm-hearted and impulsive fellow, red-haired and burly". Smiley had recruited him. Expert in Soviet satellite states. Oxford. One of the four who ran the double agent codenamed 'Merlin'.
• “Control”: Former head of the Circus; forced to retire and now dead. Before the war he was a Cambridge don.
• Toby Esterhase. “Runs between Bill Haydon and Roy Bland like a poodle". Ran the "lamplighters" (see "Jargon" below) when Control was in charge. White hair. “Dressed like a male model, but was unmistakably a fighter". “Tiny Toby spoke no known language perfectly, but he spoke them all". “Toby Esterhase would put the dogs on his own mother if it bought him a pat on the back from Alleline". Hungarian; recruited by Smiley as “a starving student in Vienna". One of the four who ran the double agent codenamed 'Merlin'.
• Peter Guillam. Currently in charge of the “scalp hunters” (see "Jargon") at the Brixton location (“they were to handle the hit-and-run jobs that were too dirty or too risky for the residents abroad . . . they weren’t gradual, and they weren’t gentle, either").
• Bill Haydon. Commander of London Station; worked with the Circus since the war. “Dashing Bill Haydon, our latter day Lawrence of Arabia". “Painter, polemicist, socialite". “Of that pre-war set that seemed to have vanished for good". Reputed to be bisexual. Father was a high-court judge. Close companion of Prideaux since university. Oxford. One of Ann Smiley’s many cousins, also her lover. One of the four who ran the double agent codenamed 'Merlin'.
• Oliver Lacon. “Of the Cabinet Office, a senior advisor to various mixed committees and a watchdog of intelligence". Recruited Smiley to find the mole. As Guillam phrased it, “Whitehall’s head prefect". Cambridge.
• Jim Prideaux (code name: Jim Ellis). Fluent Czech-speaker. Agent who was shot in Czechoslovakia on an operation code-named “Testify”, an assignment that was blown to the Soviets. Former head of the "scalp hunters". Now a schoolteacher. Close companion of Haydon. “A large fellow". Athlete; fluent in languages, raised partially abroad. Oxford.
• Connie Sachs. Former Russia analyst for the Circus, forced to retire, now runs a rooming house in Oxford. “A big woman, bigger than Smiley by a head". Alcoholic.
• Ricki Tarr. A field agent; the one who found Irina. Smiley originally gave him his job. Works for Guillam.

Minor characters

• Ben. A young man who runs the telegraph at Paris station.
• Boris. Ostensibly a Soviet trade delegate, actually a KGB agent. He was Ricki Tarr’s original target in Hong Kong. Common-law marriage to Irina.
• P. Bryant. A guard at the London station.
• Sam Collins. Former agent with the Circus, now runs a gambling house. “Probably fifty, but he still looked thirty-five". Trim, with greying hair and a black moustache.
• Camilla. Peter Guillam’s girlfriend of the moment, a flautist.
• Diana Dolphin. Works at London Station. “One of those groomed Circus brides whom no one ever marries".
• Fawn. A gunman and bodyguard working for Scalphunters.
• “Gerald". Moscow’s code name for their mole in the Circus
• Mrs. Pope Graham. Proprietor of the seedy Hotel Islay, where Smiley sets up his operational headquarters.
• Irina. a Soviet agent, attempted to defect to Ricki Tarr in Hong Kong; told him that there was a sleeper agent in the Circus.
• Ivlov (code name “Lapin”). A clerk in Soviet intelligence; was the legman for Polyakov in London. One-time lover of Irina.
• “Karla". Code name for the head of the Soviet spy agency “Moscow Center".
• Steve Mackelvore. Head of the Paris station. “A Circus elder, a squat white-haired Yorkshireman with a long record of consular appointments which in the eyes of the world had brought him no advancement".
• Roddy Martindale. A highly annoying, pompous bore, not employed by the Circus, but “haunted the fringes of the secret world". Works for the Foreign Office. “Affected buttonholes and pale suits". “Spoke in a confiding, upper-class bellow".
• Max. Foreign, speaks German and Czech; works in a garage, but formerly a part-time operative for the Circus. He was supporting Prideaux during Operation Testify. “Broad and powerful”, half a head taller than Smiley.
• Millie McCraig. A “professional evesdropper”, she runs the safe house in Camden. “A wiry Scottish widow".
• Inspector Mendel. Serves as the go-between to ferry documents from Guillam to Smiley. Control's trusted handyman. “Formerly of the Special Branch, known to both Guillam and Smiley". “Quirkish, loping tracker of a man, sharp-faced and sharp-eyed".
• Alexei Polyakov (real name" Colonel Grigory Viktorov). Soviet embassy attaché for cultural affairs in London; a KGB agent trained by Karla, provides the Witchcraft material "used" by the non-existent Agent Merlin.
• Bill Roach (nicknamed “Jumbo” by Prideaux). A schoolboy at the boarding school where the retired Prideaux lives and works as a teacher.
• Sand. Camilla’s flute instructor.
• Ann Smiley, née Lady Ann Sercombe. Smiley’s wife. Engaged in a series of affairs, most notably with Bill Haydon.
• Lauder Strickland. Controls disbursement of money at the Circus.
• Jerry Westerby. A newspaperman (sports reporter); used to do occasional courier jobs for the Circus, recruited by Bland, then worked for Toby. “He was a big man . . . had once been a wicketkeeper for a county cricket team". Provides crucial snippets of information that helps Smiley piece the puzzle together.

Jargon

The characters in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy use a great deal of jargon for matters specific to their trade, plus a few Britishisms such as mews, peach (to inform against, betray) shirty, redbrick and, D-Notice, touches of French such as thé dansant, coq au vin and German terms such as Märchen and Gemütlichkeit. Spy lingo examples are:

Term	Definition
Agent	An espionage agent or spy; a citizen who is recruited by a foreign government to spy on his own country. This term should not be confused with a member of an intelligence service who recruits spies; they are referred to as intelligence officers or more particularly case officers.
Babysitters	Bodyguards.
Circus	The in-house name for MI6, the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service), which collects foreign intelligence. "Circus" refers to the (fictional) locale of the headquarters in Cambridge Circus, London.
Coat trailing	Denotes behaviour that is deliberately provocative, of writing, speech, et cetera.
Comecon	A reference to Comecon, an economic organization under the control of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of socialist states elsewhere in the world.
Comintern	See Comintern (1919–43), a communist organization, organized in Moscow in 1919.
The Competition	MI5, the Security Service, the UK's internal counter-espionage and counter-terrorism service, which the Circus also calls "The Security Mob".
The Cousins	The CIA in particular and the U.S. intelligences services in general.
Ferrets	Technicians who find and remove hidden microphones, cameras, etc.
Honey-trap	A sexual blackmailing operation.
Housekeepers	The internal auditors and financial disciplinarians of the Circus.
Inquisitors	Interrogators who debrief Circus intelligence officers and defectors.
Janitors	The Circus headquarters operations staff, including those who watch doors and verify that people entering secure areas are authorized to do so.
Lamplighters	A section which provides surveillance and couriers.
Lotus eater	Someone who affects amnesia of past covert activities.
Mailfist job	An espionage job denoting an operation with an object of assassination.
Mole	An agent recruited long before he has access to secret material, who subsequently works his way into the target government organization. Le Carre has said this was a term actually used in the KGB; an equivalent term used in Western intelligence services was sleeper agent.
Mothers	Secretaries and trusted typists serving the senior officers of the Circus.
Nuts and Bolts	The engineering department who develop and manufacture espionage devices.
Pavement Artists	Members of surveillance teams who inconspicuously follow people in public.
Pepper Pot	Probably a reference to a tall tower room, one story higher than the rest of the building, probably at a corner; see Pepper Pot, Brighton, plus [1].
Persil	The cleanest security category available, used of questionable foreigners, "Clean as fabric washed in Persil".
Reptile fund	The source of money for covert operations, a slush fund, [2], [3].
Scalphunters	Handle assassination, blackmail, burglary, kidnap, etc.; the section was sidelined after Control's dismissal.
Shoemakers	Forgers of documents and the like.
Wranglers	Radio signal analysts and cryptographers; it derives from the term wrangler used of Cambridge University maths students.

The television adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy also uses the term "burrower" for a researcher recruited from a university, a term taken from the novel's immediate sequel The Honourable Schoolboy. Le Carre has said that most of these terms were his own invention and were not used in MI6.

Background

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is John le Carré's novelisation of his experiences of the revelations in the 1950s and the 1960s which exposed the Cambridge Five traitors, among them Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross and Kim Philby, as KGB moles in the British Intelligence services.

Karla is modelled on KGB Gen. Rem Krassilnikov, whose obituary in the New York Times newspaper reported that the CIA considered him as such. Moreover, skewing in favour of the latter, Smiley reports that Karla was trained by "Berg", Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov, an NKVD intelligence officer who defected to the West in 1938.

The character Bill Haydon is partly derived from Kim Philby, a senior SIS officer who defected to the USSR in 1963. David Cornwell (John le Carré), who worked as an intelligence officer for both MI5 and the SIS (MI6), has said that Philby betrayed his identity to the Russians, which was a factor in the 1964 termination of his intelligence career.

Connie Sachs, the Circus's principal Russia researcher, is modelled upon Millicent Bagot.

Adaptations

Television

Main article: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (TV miniseries)

In 1979 a TV adaptation of the same name was made by the BBC. It was a seven-part miniseries and was released in September of that year. The series was directed by John Irvin, produced by Jonathan Powell, and starred Alec Guinness as George Smiley.

Radio

In 1988, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a dramatisation, by Rene Basilico, of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in seven weekly half-hour episodes, produced by John Fawcett-Wilson. It is available as a BBC audiobook in CD and audio cassette formats. Notably, Bernard Hepton portrays George Smiley. Nine years earlier, he had portrayed Toby Esterhase in the television adaption.

In 2009, BBC Radio 4 also broadcast new dramatisations, by Shaun McKenna, of the eight George Smiley novels by John le Carré, featuring Simon Russell Beale as Smiley. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was broadcast as three, one-hour episodes, from Sunday 29 November to Sunday 13 December 2009 in BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial slot. The producer was Steven Canny.

Film

Main article: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson made a film adaptation in 2011 based on a screenplay by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan. The film was released in the UK and Ireland on 16 September 2011, and in the United States on 9 December 2011. It included a cameo appearance by John le Carré in the Christmas party scene as the older man in the grey suit who stands suddenly to sing the Soviet anthem. The film received numerous Academy Award nominations including a nomination for Best Actor for Gary Oldman.

References

Notes

External links

• The Museum of Broadcast Communications: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - British Miniseries
• British Film Institute Screen Online: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) at the Internet Movie Database