Bill...........................my uncle..........who owned a printing press.......his family........my step father Richard worked for Kirby litho.........printing...........something u see in The Master....................dolls........Russian dolls............Kirby Litho...which was on Eads road in Arlington...............printed The Doll Reader...........began by my grandfather........
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1974 spy novel by British author John le Carré. It follows the endeavors of taciturn, aging spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. Since the time of its publication, the novel has received critical acclaim for its complex social commentary and lack of sensationalism, and remains a staple of the spy fiction genre.[2][3]
When Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy came out in 1974, revelations exposing the presence of Soviet double agents in Britain were still fresh in public memory. Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross, and Kim Philby, later known as the Cambridge Five, had been exposed as KGB
moles. The five had risen to very senior positions in branches of the
British government. The book, based on the premise of uncovering a
Soviet double agent in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), offers a
novelisation of this period.[4]
It is also set against the larger theme of the decline of British
influence on the world stage after the Second World War, with the USA
and the USSR emerging as the dominant superpowers leading into the
period of the Cold War.[4]
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It has been suggested that Moscow Centre be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2019.
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First UK edition
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| Author | John le Carré |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jerry Harpur[1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | George Smiley / The Quest for Karla |
| Genre | Spy novel |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton (UK) Random House (USA) |
Publication date
| June 1974 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-394-49219-6 |
| OCLC | 867935 |
| 823/.9/14 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.L4526 Ti3 PR6062.E33 |
| Followed by | The Honourable Schoolboy |
Contents
Background
David Cornwell, who wrote under the pseudonym John le Carré, worked as an intelligence officer for MI5 and MI6 (SIS) in the 1950s and early 1960s.[5] Senior SIS officer Kim Philby's defection to the USSR in 1963, and the consequent compromising of British agents, was a factor in the 1964 termination of Cornwell's intelligence career.[6][7] In the novel, the character of Bill Haydon, with his easy charm and strong social connections, bears a close resemblance to Philby.[5]
Series
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was followed by The Honourable Schoolboy in 1977 and Smiley's People in 1979. The three novels together make up the "Karla Trilogy", named after Smiley's long-time opponent Karla, the head of Soviet foreign intelligence. These were later published as an omnibus edition titled Smiley Versus Karla in 1982.These are the fifth, sixth, and seventh le Carré spy novels featuring George Smiley (The first four being: Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and The Looking Glass War). Two of the characters, Peter Guillam and Inspector Mendel, first appeared in le Carré's first book, Call for the Dead (1961).
Plot
It is 1973, the height of the Cold War. George Smiley, former senior official of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (known as "the Circus" because its London office is at Cambridge Circus), has been living in unhappy retirement for a year after an operation in Czechoslovakia, codenamed Testify, ended in disaster with the capture and torture of agent Jim Prideaux. The failure resulted in the dismissals of Smiley and his superior, Control, the head of the Circus.Smiley is unexpectedly approached by Peter Guillam, his former protege at the Circus, and Under-Secretary Oliver Lacon, the Civil Service officer responsible for overseeing the Circus. At Lacon's home they meet with Ricki Tarr, a Circus agent who had been missing for months and had been declared persona non grata upon suspicion of having defected to Moscow. Tarr tells them of the existence of a Soviet mole at the highest level of the Circus. The mole is codenamed Gerald and is handled by Moscow Centre's agent, Polyakov, stationed at the Soviet embassy in London. Tarr tells them that when he obtained this information from a female Russian diplomat visiting Hong Kong and informed London, the woman was forcibly returned to Moscow. Tarr, realising someone in London had betrayed him, went on the run, eventually coming out to contact his former boss Guillam, the only person in the Circus he could trust.
Since Control died shortly after his forced retirement, Guillam and Smiley are the only former top operatives still alive who are above suspicion. The fact that they have been demoted and dismissed, respectively, as a result of Operation Testify is virtual proof that neither of them is a double agent.
Smiley accepts Lacon's request to begin his investigation in absolute secrecy. He soon focuses on the details of the Circus's best source of intelligence on the Soviet Union, codenamed Merlin. Merlin had been developed and vigorously sponsored, under an operation codenamed Witchcraft, by four ambitious senior Circus men, led by Percy Alleline. Alleline had subsequently been made the head of the Circus following Control's ousting after Testify. Smiley believes the mole Gerald must be one of these four: Alleline himself, Roy Bland, Toby Esterhase, or Bill Haydon. By examining classified documents surreptitiously provided by Lacon and Guillam, Smiley discovers that the operation has a secret London end: a safe house where Alleline and his inner circle personally collect information from a Merlin emissary posted in London under diplomatic cover. Eventually, Smiley realises that the emissary must be Polyakov himself, and that the actual flow of information goes the other way, with Gerald passing actual British secrets ("gold dust") while receiving fake and worthless Soviet material ("chicken feed").
Smiley suspects a link between Merlin and the botched Operation Testify. He tracks down Prideaux and other participants in the operation, whose details Control had hidden from him at the time. Control had independently concluded the existence of a mole and mounted Testify to learn his identity from an aspiring defector in Czech intelligence who claimed to be privy to the information. Polyakov and Karla, Moscow Centre's spymaster, were both present at Prideaux's interrogation which focused exclusively on the extent and status of Control's investigations. The Czech defector was a plant, contrived by Karla to engineer Control's supplantation through Testify's failure, and thus protect the mole.
Esterhase, upon arriving to a meeting called by Guillam under a false pretext, is quickly detained. Smiley states that he is aware that Esterhase has been posing as a Russian mole, with Polyakov as his handler, ostensibly in order to provide cover for Merlin's emissary Polyakov. Smiley compels Esterhase into revealing the location of the safe house, through making him realise that not only is there a real Soviet mole embedded in the SIS, but also that Polyakov has not been "turned" to work in British interest pretending to run the "mole" Esterhase, and in fact remains Karla's agent. Tarr is sent to Paris where he passes a coded message to Alleline about "information crucial to the well-being of the Service". This triggers an emergency meeting between Gerald and Polyakov at the safe house where Smiley and Guillam are lying in wait. Haydon is revealed to be the mole.
Haydon's interrogation reveals that he had been recruited several decades ago by Karla and became a full-fledged Soviet spy partly for political reasons, partly in frustration at Britain's rapidly declining influence on the world stage. He is expected to be exchanged with the Soviet Union for several of the agents he betrayed, but is killed shortly before he is due to leave England. Although the identity of his killer is not explicitly revealed, it is strongly implied to be Prideaux. Smiley is appointed temporary head of the Circus to deal with the fallout.
Title
Control, chief of the Circus, suspects one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus to be a long-standing Soviet mole and assigns code names with the intention that should his agent Jim Prideaux uncover information about the identity of the mole, Prideaux can relay it back to the Circus using a simple, easy-to-recall codename. The names are derived from the English children's rhyme "Tinker, Tailor":Alleline was "Tinker", Haydon was "Tailor", Bland was "Soldier", Toby Esterhase was "Poor Man", and George Smiley was "Beggarman" ("sailor" was not used due to its similar sound to "tailor".)Tinker, tailor,
soldier, sailor,
rich man, poor man,
beggarman, thief.
Characters
- George Smiley: Educated at Oxford, he was a senior officer in the Circus, before being eased out upon Operation Testify's failure. He is called upon to investigate the presence of a Soviet mole in the Circus.
- Percy Alleline: Chief of the Circus following Control's ousting. Alleline spent his early career in South America, northern Africa and India. He is seen to be vain and overambitious, and is despised by Control. Alleline is knighted in the course of the book in recognition of the quality of the intelligence provided by the source codenamed Merlin.
- Roy Bland: Second in command to Bill Haydon of London Station. Recruited by Smiley at Oxford, he was the top specialist in Soviet satellite states and spent several years under cover as a left-wing academic in the Balkans before being instated in the Circus.
- Control: Former head of the Circus and now dead. Before the war he was a Cambridge don.
- Toby Esterhase: He is the head of the lamplighters, the section of the Circus responsible for surveillance and wiretapping. Hungarian by birth, Esterhase is an anglophile with pretensions of being a British gentleman. He was recruited by Smiley as "a starving student in Vienna".
- Peter Guillam: He is the head of the scalphunters, the section of the Circus used in operations that require physical action and/or violence, and is based out of Brixton. Son of a French businessman and an Englishwoman, he is a longtime associate of Smiley.
- Bill Haydon: Commander of London Station, he has worked with the Circus since the war. A polymath, he was recruited at Oxford where he was a close companion of Prideaux. One of Ann Smiley's cousins, he has an affair with her, and this knowledge subsequently becomes widely known. One of the four who ran the double agent codenamed Merlin.
- Oliver Lacon: A Permanent Secretary in Great Britain's Cabinet Office. Civilian overseer of the Circus. (A former Cambridge rowing blue.)
- Mendel: Retired former Inspector in the Special Branch, he assists Smiley during his investigation. Frequently a go between for Smiley and other members helping him investigate.
- Jim Prideaux: His Circus codename was Jim Ellis. Raised abroad partially, he is first identified as a prospective recruit by fellow student Bill Haydon at Oxford. He was shot in Czechoslovakia during the collapse of Operation Testify. Former head of the scalphunters. Now teaches at a boys' prep school.
- Connie Sachs: Former Russia analyst for the Circus, she is forced to retire, and now runs a rooming house in Oxford. Alcoholic, but with an excellent memory. She is said to have been modelled upon Milicent Bagot.
- Miles Sercombe: The Government Minister to whom Lacon and the Circus are responsible. A distant cousin of Smiley's wife, he plays a peripheral role in Smiley's investigation. Not highly regarded.
- Ricki Tarr: A field agent who supplies information that indicates that there is most likely a Soviet mole in the Circus. He was trained by Smiley. Works for Guillam as one of the scalphunters.
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