Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, LeCarre - A*

           Just over fifty years old, Tinker is one of Le Carre's finest, and likely his most famous. There is a fabulous film with Gary Oldman as Smiley, but more importantly, there is Sir Alec Guinness as Smiley in one of the greatest mini-series ever. The author is the man behind significant additions to the language of spying to wit: mole, lamplighter, honey trap, watcher, juju man and baby sitter. The Oxford English Dictionary approached him to ask if he originated the word mole to describe an embedded traitor. 

          Retired unceremoniously after an operation blows up in Czechoslovakia, George Smiley is aimlessly drifting when a higher-up at Whitehall gets in touch. The Foreign Office believes there is a mole at the top of the Circus and asks George to come back, and find the traitor. In addition to the mess in Czecho, an agent in the field provided very compelling material to the Circus that could lead to the mole, but someone in London told Moscow Centre. 

         George, with Peter Guillam as his primary aide, goes to work. As Peter is still at the Circus, he checks the logbook for the night of the Czech operation that led to the capture of Jim Prideaux, and sees that it was excised with a razor blade. Clearly, someone pretty high up fiddled with the logs. As George digs in, he focuses on Operation Witchcraft, an agent run by Percy Alleline, the new C, whose secret agent has everyone in Whitehall salivating about his product. George spots some inconsistencies  in the material, leading him to believe it might be right out of Karla's playbook.  He contacts another agent fired after he and C were sacked, and sits down with him.  The other fella had heard from a Czech that the Soviets were preparing the day before Prideaux was wounded and captured by clearing the area in the woods where Jim was going to meet the escaping Brigadier General. Percy Alleline fired the agent who had heard the story for overreacting to a rumor.  At this point, the only question is who is the traitor.

       When George finally meets with Prideaux, Jim tells him that Control said it was either Tinker - Percy Alleline, Tailor - Bill Haydon,  Soldier - Roy Bland, Poorman - Toby Esterhase, or Beggarman - George Smiley. Prideaux details in depth his capture, months of interrogation, brief chat with Karla, and return to the UK. The Service pensions him off without an explanation and not much of a good-bye. 

        Peter lures Toby to a meet at a safehouse, where to Toby's surprise, George sets out his theory about how Operation Witchcraft has been handled. It is an unparalleled lecture on spycraft - utterly brilliant. Toby provides George with the address of the safehouse where the Russian providing the Witchcraft material, Alexi Polykov, meets his handler, and George has the signal sent to Polykov for a meet. As George sits in the basement, he listens to Polykov and the mole, Bill Haydon, his oldest friend, who is extremely close to Jim Prideaux and Peter Guillam, and occasionally Ann Smiley's lover, chatting upstairs having drinks. Guillam is outside with Oliver Lacon, top Foreign Officer executive. It is over. Haydon is taken away by the Inquisitors. Polykov is detained for a while, notwithstanding his diplomatic passport, Alleline is put on leave and George is put at the top. George is called to Sarratt to chat with Bill. One night, someone evades security and Bill is found with his neck broken. George does not venture to guess.

       I do not think I read this fifty years ago, but believe I did about twenty years ago. Most of my fondness for this tale rests on Alec Guiness's remarkable George Smiley. I recently watched the movie a second time and find myself putting faces to names here. I intend to watch the mini-series again in the Fall.  I did not see the point of the endless references to Ann's infidelity, until I did some research.  Karla had told Haydon to pursue Ann and the affair is intended to show George's humanity and one weakness. I read this very slowly in order to appreciate it's detail and complexity. Much of LeCarre's genius lies in the tradecraft. But I just have to quote George coming to grips with retirement. "Out of date these days, but who wasn't? Out of date but loyal to his own time. There is nothing dishonorable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one's own generation." Gotta love that line.