Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Bill Roach receives treatment from the medical staff at the school. They are worried about a continuing sickness. However, they are not aware that the true cause of his illness is anxiety. Roach is terrified because he saw Jim Prideaux assembling and loading a gun. 

Accompanied by Lacon, Smiley meets Minister Sercombe. The minister is another of Ann’s cousins—she believes that he is “without a single redeeming feature” (183). They meet at Mendel’s house in Mitcham to avoid being seen. Smiley tells the minister that the ongoing negotiations with the American intelligence agencies must be stopped. The attempts to add a secret annex on to Operation Witchcraft to allow the Americans access are compromised, as it would allow the Russians to deliberately feed whatever information they want to the Americans via Operation Witchcraft. The minister denies any knowledge of such negotiations. Smiley warns that the Russians “would give almost anything to the English if [they] could buy the Americans in return” (183). Smiley explains the process of providing authentic information to establish a source and then, once the source is trusted, providing incorrect or misleading information as an established trick in counter-intelligence. By trusting Operation Witchcraft, the British and the Americans would be unthinkingly trusting whatever information the Russians wanted them to have. The minister leaves, and Lacon hands Smiley a collection of documents that provide information about Prideaux. Lacon suggests that the close relationship between Prideaux and Haydon, which developed at Oxford, may have been more than just a platonic friendship. 

Smiley meets with Sam, the Circus employee who worked as the duty officer on the night of Operation Testify’s failure. He wants more information about Prideaux and the missing records from the night Prideaux was shot in Czechoslovakia. Sam recalls everything that went wrong in Czechoslovakia: Control recruited him for a special shift on a surprisingly quiet night at the Circus; at one point in the evening, however, the alarms and telephones sprang to life; the failure of Operation Testify resulted in calls from the government, the press, and the military; and the Czechoslovakian military released a statement saying that a British spy named Jim Ellis had been shot while attempting to kidnap a general near Brno. Sam knew that Jim Ellis was a fake identity used by Prideaux.

On the night of Operation Testify, Smiley believes that Haydon was with Ann. When Sam tried to contact Smiley, he telephoned Smiley’s house, where Ann was entertaining Haydon. Smiley deduces that Haydon must have had prior knowledge of the operation, because he arrived at the Circus with a full understanding of the Czechoslovakia mission, and he could not have learned about it from Ann’s brief call with Sam. When Sam suggests that Haydon might have stopped at a social club, Smiley wonders why Haydon would not have known that his good friend Prideaux had been shot. Haydon calmed the chaos until Alleline arrived at the base of operations and took over. Sam, who was fired after being caught drinking at work and who now works for a gambling firm, remembers that he did not mention Control to Alleline. 

Smiley tracks down Max, another former Circus employee who was fired in the wake of Operation Testify. Max reveals that Prideaux requested Max’s involvement in a big mission that was being directly overseen by the people at the top of Circus. To accomplish this mission, Prideaux told Max that he should take time off work and get hold of a fake Austrian identity. Max would pretend to be Austrian and Prideaux would pretend to be Czechoslovakian. Under fake identities, they would then go separately to Brno and rendezvous at a designated place. When Max finally met up with a strangely anxious Prideaux, he was told that the plan had changed. The new plan involved Max staying out of the mission and waiting for Prideaux at a rendezvous point, whereupon he would then pass a simple message back to Control. The message may even have been as simple as a single word, but Max was told not to use any of the usual Circus systems and methods of returning to Britain to pass along the message.

Max waited for Prideaux in a nearby hotel. At one point, he noticed the frenzied activity in the streets. He learned from the radio about a shooting in the forest. Max waited, following Prideaux instructions, and then returned to Britain. He denied any knowledge of the operation when asked by Circus and was fired by Esterhase. He heard rumors that Prideaux had been shot in the shoulder, interrogated in prison, and many of Max’s friends had their covers blown, presumably using information extracted from Prideaux. Smiley suggests that someone else might have betrayed the Czech agents. 

Smiley speaks to an old friend named Jerry Westerby, a former Circus employee who now works as a journalist. Westerby recalls how he travelled from Budapest to Prague in the previous year and heard a rumor about a botched intelligence operation which he then mentioned in a letter to Smiley (and is the reason they’re now meeting). Westerby’s story involves Jim Ellis, a cover name given to Jim Prideaux, and Westerby wanted to publish the story in a newspaper. Esterhase intervened and prevented any information about Jim Ellis reaching the public. Westerby then details what he heard. While in Prague, a person approached Westerby and offered to tell him the truth about Jim Ellis. The person explained that he was part of a military detail working a regular shift in the forest surrounding Brno. The military detail was stood down. According to rumors, the reason for this was because the Russians were searching for a spy from Britain who was using the name Hajek. Supposedly, Hajek had attempted to kidnap a general and the Russian had shot him while he tried to escape. The man who stopped Westerby had always wondered why they were searching for a man if he had already been shot.

Smiley asks Westerby whether the Russians entered the forest before or after the night the British spy was shot. Westerby remembers that he was told that the Russians were already in the forest before Operation Testify. Smiley realizes that the situation was a trap, with the Russians waiting for Prideaux. Westerby told this story to Esterhase, who dismissed the story as nonsense. At the same time, however, Esterhase contacted Westerby’s bosses and insisted that Westerby be disciplined if he tried to publish anything about Jim Ellis or Brno. The strangeness of the situation prompted Westerby to write to Smiley.

Smiley reads a 1937 letter written by Haydon and addressed to his former tutor, Fanshawe, who worked as a recruiter for the Circus. In the letter, Haydon recommends Prideaux for a job at the Circus. According to Haydon’s letter, he and Prideaux once met a Russian academic in a bar. They drank and talked to him throughout the night before Haydon and Prideaux eventually returned to Haydon’s room. The incident outlined in the letter seems to be the only time Prideaux ever associated or contacted Russians or communists, though the files suggest that the relationship between Haydon and Prideaux may have been romantic in some form.