Dishonor Among Spies

Title: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Rating: 4 Stars

This is one of those few times where I read an author back to back. This all started a week or so ago when I rewatched the film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy based upon the John le Carré novel. I remember that I originally watched it in the theater several years ago. At the time, it was OK, but I wasn’t that thrilled with it. Rewatching it now, I enjoyed it much more and was inspired to reread The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (which I just wrote about) and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

As I wrote in the previous post, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is one of my favorite novels, regardless of genre. Although I wouldn’t place Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in that same class, it’s still an entertaining read.

At the beginning of the novel, we learn that the previous head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (known as the Circus), a man named simply as Control, had been fired and shortly thereafter died after a convert mission that he was running off the books blew up in his face. In the resulting scandal, his right hand man, George Smiley, had also been booted. Before that mission, Control had been acting strange. Although clearly dying, he’d been pushing himself doing all kinds of research into previous busted spy rings and failed operations.

The political minister that oversees the Circus has received a disturbing report that a high ranking mole has infiltrated the Circus and is revealing all of its secrets to the Soviets. Knowing that he can’t trust anyone, he turns to the disgraced Smiley to informally investigate and report back his findings.

Smiley can only rely upon one also disgraced but still employed member of the Circus (Peter Guillam) and one former police inspector to conduct his investigation. Guillam manages to clandestinely remove some key documents from the Circus that Smiley then uses move his investigation along. Due to his long years of service, Smiley can also interview long gone former members of the Circus to get even more information.

As he does so, he discovers that he is traipsing along the same path the Control had before. He suspects that one of the four currently highest ranking members of the Circus is the mole. Not only that, but he believes that their crown jewel Soviet spy, codenamed Merlin, is actually a Soviet disinformation campaign to cover for their highly placed mole. Smiley develops a plan to both trap the mole as well as Merlin.

In the early months of this blog, I nominated Kim Philby as the person of the twentieth century (read here). While writing about his many, shall we say, sideways achievements, I did not mention that pretty clearly this novel has at least some roots in his decades serving as a double agent for the Soviets while rising through the ranks of MI6.

In this novel you see the dirty, boring, stolid work of spying. There is no James Bond in George Smiley. He’s just a plodding, patient interviewer and analyst that has a brilliantly byzantine mind that can make connections from many different seemingly unrelated threads. He’s not dashingly handsome. He’s an elderly, overweight, muddling person that looks to be just another milquetoast faceless bureaucrat. He’s not a lady killer. In fact, he’s separated from his wife after she’s had multiple affairs, including with one of his good friends at the Circus that happens to be one of his prime suspects.

If there’s a thread through The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, it’s betrayal. In the former novel, the protagonist, Leamas, learns that what he considered the most important part of his career was actually a charade and that his last mission, which he thought was to bring about the downfall of his hated East German enemy was actually a last ditch effort to prop him up. It was Smiley that spun the devious web that Leamas found himself caught up in.

This time it is Smiley who is betrayed. First of all, by his beloved wife Ann. Smiley also got caught up as collateral damage in Control’s operation, an operation designed by Merlin and the Circus traitor precisely to discredit and force Control out.

The Circus traitor (for some reason, I’m preserving the surprise even though the novel is close to fifty years old) has betrayed his country for decades. He’s betrayed Control. He’s betrayed all of his co-workers. Most personal of all, the man sent on the blown operation that ended up shot and tortured by the Soviets was a close friend, protégé, and possible lover of the traitor. This is betrayal at all levels.

How does the novel compare to the film? As I said in the first paragraph of this post, I enjoyed the film much more on a second viewing. In the film you see the problem of trying to condense a five hundred page novel into a two hour screenplay. Much nuance was lost. Although I haven’t watched it, in 1979 the BBC created a much acclaimed multi-part series of the novel. I’m guessing that having five hours to tell the story would have been a richer experience. Also, as a minor quibble, I didn’t really buy Gary Oldman as the quietly invisible Smiley. The BBC production featured Alec Guinness, who at least to my mind would seem to be a more reasonable Smiley. For those two reasons, I have to give the edge to the novel.

Over the years, I’ve read several le Carré novels. Their hallmark is a jaded, unadorned view of intelligence work. Along with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a stellar example of his output.