It is Tuesday October 25th 2011 and I am at my home on the hill overlooking the entrance to Tyne river at South Shields having enjoying a weekend with spies past and present, fact and fictional.
Spying, the obtaining of information by covert means, is an essential part of national security and intelligence gathering and the more politically and militarily powerful a nation, the greater its need for an effective and ongoing intelligence gathering system which must also include a watch on those within the state who could threaten its stability and security as well as from enemies and potential enemies without.
Having a democratic government with priority given to the Rule of Law are complications because totalitarian regimes and dictatorships have the advantage in not needing to have concerns about whether what they do will be challenged while the regimes remain in control. For democratic nations those who manage security have to live in a moral no man’s land, while the operators live with the possibility of being disowned and imprisoned if things go wrong at home in addition to the dangers when working overseas.
Moral ambiguity is at the heart of the writing of David John Moore Cornwell (John Le Carré), and Graham Greene and behind Callan of the 1960’s 70’s with Edward Woodward and Spooks which came to an end for good on Sunday and which I reported at length yesterday evening. While Ian Fleming, like Cornwell was employed by the national security services for a time, his books and particularly his films have little or no moral uncertainty and bear little relationship to reality.
The highest compliment which can be paid to Cornwall comes in the documentary biographic interview which accompanies the two DVD disc seven episode BBC TV production of the first of the Smiley Karla trilogy which arrived the weekend and which I marvelled at its brilliance throughout Saturday, ending well after midnight. A former East German Soviet counterpart praised the authenticity of his descriptions, and that in relation to the classic work which made him internationally famous:-The Spy who came in from Cold, he was able to communicate the conflict then going on in East Germany between those responsible for internal security and those engaged in covert operations abroad.
The inclusion of the biographical interview changed my planned piece of writing which was to have been restricted to Tinker Tailor and Spooks into something wider. I had already planned to continue with my reading of Le Carré, first with the Mission Song which I acquired sometime ago but have not complete despite the central character having a father who was a Catholic Priest until his death. I then planned to read the other novel in my possession The Russia House, made into a cinema film with Sean Connery and released in 1990 which I have ordered today on DVD together with The Spy who came in from the Cold, The Deadly Affair. The Looking Glass War, the Tailor of Panama, the Constant Gardener and Smiley’s people because my home video version is so poor and all for a total of under £30.
The first impact of the experiencing the BBC production was to confirm why I disagreed with the critics that the recent cinema production is a great film worthy of awards although I accept that the acting is good but not in the same class as that of Sir Alec Guiness and the rest of the team, many of whom also played the same roles in the TV production of the third and concluding volume, Smiley’s People, where I have also reread the book and watched the video, as well as reading the second book, the Honourable Schoolboy, which has not been made into a film or TV series, but is included in the BBC production, the Complete Smiley and which is available in audio disks covering the eight works that feature him to greater or lesser extent. I will leave an attempt overview all three books and the two BBC serials the Karla trilogy until listening to the radio serials.
The second impact yesterday’s experience is to also reread the novels of Graham Green, or at least the ten volumes I posses before embarking upon the planned reread the Strangers and Brothers series of CP Snow of which I posses eight of the ten volumes, and the Anthony Powell’s twelve book series, A Dance to the music of time of where I have nine books, having lost one compendium of three books on one of my UK travels.
These four writers cover what I now describe as my once hoped for life which arose from the experience of studying and living in Oxfordshire during five of six years it was 1960’s although it was the life of an Oxford Don for which I hankered rather that of the spy for although I possessed many of the characteristics defined as essential by Cornwell, several were beyond me: the ability to use violence, to lie and to speak in other tongues.
There have been two instances in my life when I speculated if my potential to work for an Intelligence service was being assessed. I was twenty and in the midst of my work for international peace by non violent action when a stranger called at the family home one evening without prior contact and referred to my having attended a closed meeting of a notorious Trotskyite organisation. My instinct at the time was that the organisation which would had no previous knowledge of me had called to assess my suitability for further involvement and we entered into passionate arguments about Christianity and non violence with the consequence he departed and there was no further contact. But later I wondered if I had misread the situation. The second instance was some three decades later when I received a letter with a telephone number to ring if I wanted to earn several times my then substantial employment income. I did not immediately respond and later when I did I was advised that the contact was in Africa and would be so for several months but if I was interested arrangements would be made and a date, time and location at a hotel was arranged but I decided against going because the aspect which had been disclosed was travel to Eastern European countries and this was only with a couple of years of the Berlin Wall be taken down and had implications which I decide not to test out. Again there were other possibilities which I had learned to always consider and not settle on one without proofs acceptable to me.
I believe I have seen the Cornwell documentary before as I also believe the play about life with his father, or at least extracts of it, although it appeared fresh because of the more penetrating lens of life which I seem to have acquired over the past years of concentrated self analysis, looking backwards, together with a sharpened critical examination of the works of those I admire and who have contributed so much to making me the person I have become.
The documentary begins with the observation that while the confidence trickster, gambler and actor play roles similar to the security and intelligent agent they can also switch into their other selves other whereas the agent has always to be their working selves which over time impacts on their inner perception as well as their outer face to others.
He described his father as a confidence trickster and racketeer always on the run from creditors and getting his son to lie about his whereabouts and passing on message which were known to be untrue when they were made. His mother disappeared when he was five and from the Wikipedia Biography there is no reference to what happened to her which suggests, given his onetime profession that either she had disappeared from the records and never made contact when he became famous, or he did undertake a search and has kept secret what was discovered. With the Spy being the master of half truths and disinformation one has to judge what he said about himself and his life with caution. It is consistent with the personality and checkable that his father attempted to become a professional politician, was adopted as a candidate and fought a General Election, echoing one of the Yes Prime Minister episodes in using the same speech adapted for each occasion.
His father had also talked his way out of the accusation of having been to prison at one election meeting and then pretended to his son that the office had been a minor of borrowing from post petty cash when in fact he found out later his father had been sent to prison four years. The consequence of his background is that Cornwell became secretive as a way of coping with his family situation, something which I know from my own childhood only too well as well as creating a distinctive inner life, becoming a keen watcher and observer and feeling separate and different from the rest of society.
As a reaction to the High church Christianity of Sherbourne School and the rackety criminality of his father he fled to Berne to a German speaking school in Switzerland which is itself an extraordinary development which I parallel my entering the world of traditional jazz and Soho life at the age of sixteen from my independent Catholic School and church middle class and claustrophobic suburban world. With the consequence that while he returned to England and a patriot he had always felt distant from it.
His story is that to keep in contact with England and its language he attended a small C of E chapel which was used by staff at the British Embassy and where the church goers invited him to their homes and this led to being recruited to undertake small delivery and collection jobs within Switzerland as a kind of courier. Although not precise for obvious reasons it appears that he was recruited when undertaking National Service although I am unsure if her did this before or after he went up to Oxford. He got into to Oxford via his former Master at Sherbourne and by the time he was subsequently recruited by MI5 he had married and his wife had to be interviewed and advised of her future conduct and what marriage to a Spook was going to be like. He had been an informant while at Oxford writing and associating with the left wing on the look out for the attempt of the Soviet Union to subvert knew undergraduates in the 50’s as they had successfully in the 30’s. His wife said that she was aware he had run informants who she thought were mainly trade unionist that had been or were communists but become disillusioned with what happened in 1956 and the uprisings.
He had started to write on the hour long train journey from where they lived into London which means that he did so via first class travel as it would have been impossible to do so on the commuter trains from my experience travelling for thirty five to forty minutes into Victoria Station between 1955 to 1957, unless one had a table and space. At one level I am full admiration that he was able to switch attention from his paid work to writing fiction in such conditions, but then of course the gulf between his work and his writing was not as wide as he pretended to the media until long after he had left the service.
When their second son was born he suddenly announced to his wife that he had moved from MI5 to 6 which he passed off saying that it would mean living and travelling abroad and great fun. He had gone into deep cover which meant his role was not disclosed even when placed in the country of ally.
The most revealing comment made about his writing of the Spy Who Came in from the Cold that it was evident from the papers which came across his desk how close the world was coming to another World War and he had written the book to make the point: A plague upon both houses. It is at this point the former Counter Intelligence chief from East Germany said he had obtained a copy of the book and was astonished at the depiction of the contradictions between the two leading characters from national security and counter intelligence in the books and he had always wanted to ask Cornwell if he had received intelligence about the actual situation inside the Ministry of state security or has guessed correctly. He said that the methods of interrogation were the same worldwide and that they would have a file of detailed background information and you would have someone who understood the individual and their motives while the other was hard and that in GDR physical methods was not allowed so they used psychological and these were akin to a form torture and were painful.
The Spy was published in the autumn of 63 just about when Kennedy was assassinated and by January 64 he had Life Magazine putting him on the front cover. Things hoted up so quickly that his office politely asked him to leave. His had a worm’s eye view of the secret world which he developed when he left the Service in his early thirties and which became a metaphor for the human condition.
He had not been in the spy world long before George Blake was unmasked and then in Bonn for a few months when Philby was found out and the shock was not which operations had been blown, but these were Gentlemen, men like us! He could not accept the duality of the life Philby had led recruiting and training people to go to Albania, saying it would be dangerous but was in the cause of a free Albania and then giving the information to the Russians so the agents would be picked up in arrival and executed dying horrible deaths under torture. Philby knew about what was happening in the Soviets and their planned genocide of the middle class. The East German said he had great admiration for Philby because he acted from belief rather than for money, sex or because of blackmail. A former KGB agent compared Philby to Cornwell and Sir Alec Guiness and said they were alike as men of intelligence and Gentlemen. Enough to make one still believe in revolution if it were not a Gentleman I would still be.
Now it is time to concentrate on the BBC TV production of the book and which brought out all the characterization, the nuances and tensions which the film failed to do. The start is brilliant with a shot of Cambridge Circus with four of the top men assembling for a conference and Control (Alexander Knox) saying- Let’s begin and then moving the titles with the Russian egg figurines.
At his home Control explains to Jim the mission called Testify with Mendel, the former Policeman, acting as guard (babysitter) outside from a telephone box. The reason for the mission is that the potential convert says he has Treasure in exchange for his escape to the West, the name the Mole- code name Gerald that he learned when working in Moscow Centre. Control names the top group involved which Jim can scarcely believe: Percy Alleline his Director of Operations as Tinker, Bill Haydon the Director of Personnel with access to who is where is assigned Tailor, Roy Bland, the Director of Iron Curtain networks is Soldier, Toby Esterhase the Head of the Lamplighters (Surveillance and Couriers) is Poor Man and his “devoted” deputy Smiley Beggar Man.
The difference between the BBC production and the film is summed up in these opening moments as in the production we get to know the immediate inner reflections and personalities of the main characters as well as the nature of the activity. Control has the files and the pictures of his immediate subordinates pinned to a notice board which fits into his academic systematic approach and not the gimmicky attaching of small photos to chess pieces which is not his style however clever an idea.
The contrast between the way the BBC production portrays what then happens to Jim compared to that in the film is another example when one works and the other does not. The production communicates what travelling to a Soviet country was like at the time and the caution which spies had to take. In this instance Jim changes top clothes with his taxi driver escort and sends him forward to meet the General and triggers the trap prepared for him. He tries to back the car out of the forest but the extent of gun fire is such that he is unable to retreat before getting out of the vehicle before it blows up and then we know he is either shot, captured tortured or dead? The scene in the film is too staged glossy and has Karla, the Russian head of special counter Intelligence with the lighter borrowed from George Smiley at their only meeting in India before Karla became the powerful and dangerous man of the day.
I also liked the full meeting and meal between George and Roddy Martindale of the Foreign Office, a life long professional contact, which is designed to bring the audience up to date with the new set up at the Circus with Alleline in charge instead of George because of the Jim Prideaux Scandal and following the death of Control. Roddy suggests Control is still alive, in South Africa, but George knows better, he knew Control was dying over those last months when he became a recluse from the rest of team as he worked to find out the Mole at his table and he had died from premature old age provoked by the death of Jim and the failure of the mission.
Roddy says Alleline is not up to the speaking of his manner with contempt from having known Alleline and George throughout their time in the Civil Service which has irony because it is evident that that George has as much contempt for Roddy as he has for Alleline. Roddy continues in his usual manner disregarding the response of the other person, suggesting Bill Haydon is bisexual having had a relationship with Jim Prideaux and taunting George about Bill’s relationship with wife Ann and her promiscuity. The laid back show no reaction George explodes calling Roddy a pompous fool, although what Roddy says is all true.
The meeting and meal highlights main failure of the film because unless you have read the books or seen the BBC production most of what happens and why remains a mystery. Ok you grasp the essentials that there is a Mole and George who was sacked is temporarily employed to find out in secret that it is and does so at the end. The ensemble acting in the film is good but I was left greatly disappointed. That is enough of the film which will not be allowed to spoil the satisfaction with the BBC serial and which as with all great works of art can be experienced time and time again gaining new insights.
Before the encounter with Roddy (Nigel Stock) George had seen Peter Guillam outside the bookshop and immediate knew he was wanted and escapes via the rear entrance of the store only to find Peter waiting for him at home having made his way in without a key but leaves his gloves at the entrance so George will know it is a friend. Peter (Michael Jayston) has been sent to escort George to the home of Oliver Lacon played by Anthony Bate. Peter has been outposted to Brixton in charge of the Scalphunters (the licence to work outside the law) which on the journey leads Smiley to make observations about Bill Hayden and which in turn Peter explains the changes to the new set up with the regions, each having a JuJu man controller, abolished, and everything coming directly to London Station and Bill Haydon with Brand his number two and Esterhase their Gofer. The object of the change is to make them more secure to which George responds, a very good idea.
Then there is an exchange which sets the tone of the language and issues of the series beyond the scene setting explanations of the first episode. Peter asks why George, on your last day did you choose me to tell me you had been sacked and then go out and get drunk? The reply provokes Peter to remind George what he said when worse for drink later that night and Peter had asked why George had been sacked. George in his endearing way who always answers a question with a question says: reason as logic? Reason as motive? Reason as a way of life? George had continued “they do not have to give me reasons I can make my own reasons.” This exchange arises after George had asked why Peter had been sent because his answer would give a George a clue about why he had been summoned. It is also the important link which takes Peter into the Honourable School and again as a key character in Smiley’s People.
Ricky Tarr (Hywell Bennett) is at the home of the Cabinet Office secretary responsibility for Circus operations and coordination with the then separate Foreign and Colonial offices, the Ministry of defence and the Treasury. In the background is hard man Babysitter Fawn who is also someone like Lacon who is involved throughout the trilogy. George establishes that Ricki is on the wanted listed and absent without leave. Is presence has been kept secret from the rest of the Circus. George has therefore worked out the reason fro his summons. Why despite protestations that he had retired and established a new and satisfying life, is that George is a man with unfinished business and does not hesitate to give up his immediate existence for the opportunity to finish. He is a classic traditional Chairman leader with completer finisher secondary qualities. As a Creative Shaper leader it was my uncommon completer finisher obsession which so interested Henley and which were to prove my salvation but also my cross.
Rick then begins his tale with the day he was sent to Lisbon, and the start of events which will change all their lives.
Spying, the obtaining of information by covert means, is an essential part of national security and intelligence gathering and the more politically and militarily powerful a nation, the greater its need for an effective and ongoing intelligence gathering system which must also include a watch on those within the state who could threaten its stability and security as well as from enemies and potential enemies without.
Having a democratic government with priority given to the Rule of Law are complications because totalitarian regimes and dictatorships have the advantage in not needing to have concerns about whether what they do will be challenged while the regimes remain in control. For democratic nations those who manage security have to live in a moral no man’s land, while the operators live with the possibility of being disowned and imprisoned if things go wrong at home in addition to the dangers when working overseas.
Moral ambiguity is at the heart of the writing of David John Moore Cornwell (John Le Carré), and Graham Greene and behind Callan of the 1960’s 70’s with Edward Woodward and Spooks which came to an end for good on Sunday and which I reported at length yesterday evening. While Ian Fleming, like Cornwell was employed by the national security services for a time, his books and particularly his films have little or no moral uncertainty and bear little relationship to reality.
The highest compliment which can be paid to Cornwall comes in the documentary biographic interview which accompanies the two DVD disc seven episode BBC TV production of the first of the Smiley Karla trilogy which arrived the weekend and which I marvelled at its brilliance throughout Saturday, ending well after midnight. A former East German Soviet counterpart praised the authenticity of his descriptions, and that in relation to the classic work which made him internationally famous:-The Spy who came in from Cold, he was able to communicate the conflict then going on in East Germany between those responsible for internal security and those engaged in covert operations abroad.
The inclusion of the biographical interview changed my planned piece of writing which was to have been restricted to Tinker Tailor and Spooks into something wider. I had already planned to continue with my reading of Le Carré, first with the Mission Song which I acquired sometime ago but have not complete despite the central character having a father who was a Catholic Priest until his death. I then planned to read the other novel in my possession The Russia House, made into a cinema film with Sean Connery and released in 1990 which I have ordered today on DVD together with The Spy who came in from the Cold, The Deadly Affair. The Looking Glass War, the Tailor of Panama, the Constant Gardener and Smiley’s people because my home video version is so poor and all for a total of under £30.
The first impact of the experiencing the BBC production was to confirm why I disagreed with the critics that the recent cinema production is a great film worthy of awards although I accept that the acting is good but not in the same class as that of Sir Alec Guiness and the rest of the team, many of whom also played the same roles in the TV production of the third and concluding volume, Smiley’s People, where I have also reread the book and watched the video, as well as reading the second book, the Honourable Schoolboy, which has not been made into a film or TV series, but is included in the BBC production, the Complete Smiley and which is available in audio disks covering the eight works that feature him to greater or lesser extent. I will leave an attempt overview all three books and the two BBC serials the Karla trilogy until listening to the radio serials.
The second impact yesterday’s experience is to also reread the novels of Graham Green, or at least the ten volumes I posses before embarking upon the planned reread the Strangers and Brothers series of CP Snow of which I posses eight of the ten volumes, and the Anthony Powell’s twelve book series, A Dance to the music of time of where I have nine books, having lost one compendium of three books on one of my UK travels.
These four writers cover what I now describe as my once hoped for life which arose from the experience of studying and living in Oxfordshire during five of six years it was 1960’s although it was the life of an Oxford Don for which I hankered rather that of the spy for although I possessed many of the characteristics defined as essential by Cornwell, several were beyond me: the ability to use violence, to lie and to speak in other tongues.
There have been two instances in my life when I speculated if my potential to work for an Intelligence service was being assessed. I was twenty and in the midst of my work for international peace by non violent action when a stranger called at the family home one evening without prior contact and referred to my having attended a closed meeting of a notorious Trotskyite organisation. My instinct at the time was that the organisation which would had no previous knowledge of me had called to assess my suitability for further involvement and we entered into passionate arguments about Christianity and non violence with the consequence he departed and there was no further contact. But later I wondered if I had misread the situation. The second instance was some three decades later when I received a letter with a telephone number to ring if I wanted to earn several times my then substantial employment income. I did not immediately respond and later when I did I was advised that the contact was in Africa and would be so for several months but if I was interested arrangements would be made and a date, time and location at a hotel was arranged but I decided against going because the aspect which had been disclosed was travel to Eastern European countries and this was only with a couple of years of the Berlin Wall be taken down and had implications which I decide not to test out. Again there were other possibilities which I had learned to always consider and not settle on one without proofs acceptable to me.
I believe I have seen the Cornwell documentary before as I also believe the play about life with his father, or at least extracts of it, although it appeared fresh because of the more penetrating lens of life which I seem to have acquired over the past years of concentrated self analysis, looking backwards, together with a sharpened critical examination of the works of those I admire and who have contributed so much to making me the person I have become.
The documentary begins with the observation that while the confidence trickster, gambler and actor play roles similar to the security and intelligent agent they can also switch into their other selves other whereas the agent has always to be their working selves which over time impacts on their inner perception as well as their outer face to others.
He described his father as a confidence trickster and racketeer always on the run from creditors and getting his son to lie about his whereabouts and passing on message which were known to be untrue when they were made. His mother disappeared when he was five and from the Wikipedia Biography there is no reference to what happened to her which suggests, given his onetime profession that either she had disappeared from the records and never made contact when he became famous, or he did undertake a search and has kept secret what was discovered. With the Spy being the master of half truths and disinformation one has to judge what he said about himself and his life with caution. It is consistent with the personality and checkable that his father attempted to become a professional politician, was adopted as a candidate and fought a General Election, echoing one of the Yes Prime Minister episodes in using the same speech adapted for each occasion.
His father had also talked his way out of the accusation of having been to prison at one election meeting and then pretended to his son that the office had been a minor of borrowing from post petty cash when in fact he found out later his father had been sent to prison four years. The consequence of his background is that Cornwell became secretive as a way of coping with his family situation, something which I know from my own childhood only too well as well as creating a distinctive inner life, becoming a keen watcher and observer and feeling separate and different from the rest of society.
As a reaction to the High church Christianity of Sherbourne School and the rackety criminality of his father he fled to Berne to a German speaking school in Switzerland which is itself an extraordinary development which I parallel my entering the world of traditional jazz and Soho life at the age of sixteen from my independent Catholic School and church middle class and claustrophobic suburban world. With the consequence that while he returned to England and a patriot he had always felt distant from it.
His story is that to keep in contact with England and its language he attended a small C of E chapel which was used by staff at the British Embassy and where the church goers invited him to their homes and this led to being recruited to undertake small delivery and collection jobs within Switzerland as a kind of courier. Although not precise for obvious reasons it appears that he was recruited when undertaking National Service although I am unsure if her did this before or after he went up to Oxford. He got into to Oxford via his former Master at Sherbourne and by the time he was subsequently recruited by MI5 he had married and his wife had to be interviewed and advised of her future conduct and what marriage to a Spook was going to be like. He had been an informant while at Oxford writing and associating with the left wing on the look out for the attempt of the Soviet Union to subvert knew undergraduates in the 50’s as they had successfully in the 30’s. His wife said that she was aware he had run informants who she thought were mainly trade unionist that had been or were communists but become disillusioned with what happened in 1956 and the uprisings.
He had started to write on the hour long train journey from where they lived into London which means that he did so via first class travel as it would have been impossible to do so on the commuter trains from my experience travelling for thirty five to forty minutes into Victoria Station between 1955 to 1957, unless one had a table and space. At one level I am full admiration that he was able to switch attention from his paid work to writing fiction in such conditions, but then of course the gulf between his work and his writing was not as wide as he pretended to the media until long after he had left the service.
When their second son was born he suddenly announced to his wife that he had moved from MI5 to 6 which he passed off saying that it would mean living and travelling abroad and great fun. He had gone into deep cover which meant his role was not disclosed even when placed in the country of ally.
The most revealing comment made about his writing of the Spy Who Came in from the Cold that it was evident from the papers which came across his desk how close the world was coming to another World War and he had written the book to make the point: A plague upon both houses. It is at this point the former Counter Intelligence chief from East Germany said he had obtained a copy of the book and was astonished at the depiction of the contradictions between the two leading characters from national security and counter intelligence in the books and he had always wanted to ask Cornwell if he had received intelligence about the actual situation inside the Ministry of state security or has guessed correctly. He said that the methods of interrogation were the same worldwide and that they would have a file of detailed background information and you would have someone who understood the individual and their motives while the other was hard and that in GDR physical methods was not allowed so they used psychological and these were akin to a form torture and were painful.
The Spy was published in the autumn of 63 just about when Kennedy was assassinated and by January 64 he had Life Magazine putting him on the front cover. Things hoted up so quickly that his office politely asked him to leave. His had a worm’s eye view of the secret world which he developed when he left the Service in his early thirties and which became a metaphor for the human condition.
He had not been in the spy world long before George Blake was unmasked and then in Bonn for a few months when Philby was found out and the shock was not which operations had been blown, but these were Gentlemen, men like us! He could not accept the duality of the life Philby had led recruiting and training people to go to Albania, saying it would be dangerous but was in the cause of a free Albania and then giving the information to the Russians so the agents would be picked up in arrival and executed dying horrible deaths under torture. Philby knew about what was happening in the Soviets and their planned genocide of the middle class. The East German said he had great admiration for Philby because he acted from belief rather than for money, sex or because of blackmail. A former KGB agent compared Philby to Cornwell and Sir Alec Guiness and said they were alike as men of intelligence and Gentlemen. Enough to make one still believe in revolution if it were not a Gentleman I would still be.
Now it is time to concentrate on the BBC TV production of the book and which brought out all the characterization, the nuances and tensions which the film failed to do. The start is brilliant with a shot of Cambridge Circus with four of the top men assembling for a conference and Control (Alexander Knox) saying- Let’s begin and then moving the titles with the Russian egg figurines.
At his home Control explains to Jim the mission called Testify with Mendel, the former Policeman, acting as guard (babysitter) outside from a telephone box. The reason for the mission is that the potential convert says he has Treasure in exchange for his escape to the West, the name the Mole- code name Gerald that he learned when working in Moscow Centre. Control names the top group involved which Jim can scarcely believe: Percy Alleline his Director of Operations as Tinker, Bill Haydon the Director of Personnel with access to who is where is assigned Tailor, Roy Bland, the Director of Iron Curtain networks is Soldier, Toby Esterhase the Head of the Lamplighters (Surveillance and Couriers) is Poor Man and his “devoted” deputy Smiley Beggar Man.
The difference between the BBC production and the film is summed up in these opening moments as in the production we get to know the immediate inner reflections and personalities of the main characters as well as the nature of the activity. Control has the files and the pictures of his immediate subordinates pinned to a notice board which fits into his academic systematic approach and not the gimmicky attaching of small photos to chess pieces which is not his style however clever an idea.
The contrast between the way the BBC production portrays what then happens to Jim compared to that in the film is another example when one works and the other does not. The production communicates what travelling to a Soviet country was like at the time and the caution which spies had to take. In this instance Jim changes top clothes with his taxi driver escort and sends him forward to meet the General and triggers the trap prepared for him. He tries to back the car out of the forest but the extent of gun fire is such that he is unable to retreat before getting out of the vehicle before it blows up and then we know he is either shot, captured tortured or dead? The scene in the film is too staged glossy and has Karla, the Russian head of special counter Intelligence with the lighter borrowed from George Smiley at their only meeting in India before Karla became the powerful and dangerous man of the day.
I also liked the full meeting and meal between George and Roddy Martindale of the Foreign Office, a life long professional contact, which is designed to bring the audience up to date with the new set up at the Circus with Alleline in charge instead of George because of the Jim Prideaux Scandal and following the death of Control. Roddy suggests Control is still alive, in South Africa, but George knows better, he knew Control was dying over those last months when he became a recluse from the rest of team as he worked to find out the Mole at his table and he had died from premature old age provoked by the death of Jim and the failure of the mission.
Roddy says Alleline is not up to the speaking of his manner with contempt from having known Alleline and George throughout their time in the Civil Service which has irony because it is evident that that George has as much contempt for Roddy as he has for Alleline. Roddy continues in his usual manner disregarding the response of the other person, suggesting Bill Haydon is bisexual having had a relationship with Jim Prideaux and taunting George about Bill’s relationship with wife Ann and her promiscuity. The laid back show no reaction George explodes calling Roddy a pompous fool, although what Roddy says is all true.
The meeting and meal highlights main failure of the film because unless you have read the books or seen the BBC production most of what happens and why remains a mystery. Ok you grasp the essentials that there is a Mole and George who was sacked is temporarily employed to find out in secret that it is and does so at the end. The ensemble acting in the film is good but I was left greatly disappointed. That is enough of the film which will not be allowed to spoil the satisfaction with the BBC serial and which as with all great works of art can be experienced time and time again gaining new insights.
Before the encounter with Roddy (Nigel Stock) George had seen Peter Guillam outside the bookshop and immediate knew he was wanted and escapes via the rear entrance of the store only to find Peter waiting for him at home having made his way in without a key but leaves his gloves at the entrance so George will know it is a friend. Peter (Michael Jayston) has been sent to escort George to the home of Oliver Lacon played by Anthony Bate. Peter has been outposted to Brixton in charge of the Scalphunters (the licence to work outside the law) which on the journey leads Smiley to make observations about Bill Hayden and which in turn Peter explains the changes to the new set up with the regions, each having a JuJu man controller, abolished, and everything coming directly to London Station and Bill Haydon with Brand his number two and Esterhase their Gofer. The object of the change is to make them more secure to which George responds, a very good idea.
Then there is an exchange which sets the tone of the language and issues of the series beyond the scene setting explanations of the first episode. Peter asks why George, on your last day did you choose me to tell me you had been sacked and then go out and get drunk? The reply provokes Peter to remind George what he said when worse for drink later that night and Peter had asked why George had been sacked. George in his endearing way who always answers a question with a question says: reason as logic? Reason as motive? Reason as a way of life? George had continued “they do not have to give me reasons I can make my own reasons.” This exchange arises after George had asked why Peter had been sent because his answer would give a George a clue about why he had been summoned. It is also the important link which takes Peter into the Honourable School and again as a key character in Smiley’s People.
Ricky Tarr (Hywell Bennett) is at the home of the Cabinet Office secretary responsibility for Circus operations and coordination with the then separate Foreign and Colonial offices, the Ministry of defence and the Treasury. In the background is hard man Babysitter Fawn who is also someone like Lacon who is involved throughout the trilogy. George establishes that Ricki is on the wanted listed and absent without leave. Is presence has been kept secret from the rest of the Circus. George has therefore worked out the reason fro his summons. Why despite protestations that he had retired and established a new and satisfying life, is that George is a man with unfinished business and does not hesitate to give up his immediate existence for the opportunity to finish. He is a classic traditional Chairman leader with completer finisher secondary qualities. As a Creative Shaper leader it was my uncommon completer finisher obsession which so interested Henley and which were to prove my salvation but also my cross.
Rick then begins his tale with the day he was sent to Lisbon, and the start of events which will change all their lives.
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