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The Circus
In General
- Incompetence, Inc.: The Circus in Tinker Tailor is an institution in decline due to the actions of The Mole in subverting it, but the narrative makes it clear that he was only able to get so far because of the complacency, laziness, and greed endemic in its membership. It's telling that Karla's ultimate aim isn't to gain control of the Circus for its own sake, but to use it as a conduit to siphon prized American intelligence. The damage inflicted by the Haydon debacle forces the Circus to be rebuilt almost entirely from scratch in the later books.
George Smiley ("Beggarman")
Played by: Alec Guinness (miniseries), Gary Oldman (film)
Senior officer of The Circus who is eased out following the failure of Operation Testify. He is called out of retirement to investigate a mole within the intelligence services and, later, to take down Karla.- Achilles' Heel: His love for his wife, which Karla and Haydon try to exploit, although Smiley is eventually able to overcome this.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: George Smiley is described in Call for the Dead as short, plump, and always wearing ill-fitting clothes so he resembles a "shrunken toad". Neither of his onscreen portrayals capture this.
- Ambiguous Situation: Beyond a brief introductory paragraph in the first book, virtually nothing is known of Smiley's childhood, family, or wartime service. We'll get occasional hints as to his past that are so few and far between they can be jarring and ask more questions than they answer, such as a line in Smiley's People that he spent part of his childhood in Germany's Black Forest.
- Badass Bookworm: Has an interest in German poetry.
- Badass Bureaucrat: In the office, Smiley is typically a quiet, meek figure, whose demeanor belies the many, many successful operations that he has run. In Tinker Tailor he was the one called in to hunt down The Mole. In Honorable Schoolboy he was responsible for largely rebuilding the Circus from the ground up. In Smiley's People he's spending his retirement working on a monograph but is again called out of retirement because his agents know that there is no one as good as him.
- Beneath the Mask: Smiley appears to be a slightly myopic, helpless, and generally tragic old man who is genuinely sick of all the betrayals and lies that constitute his profession and that has wrecked his personal life. Only occasionally do we see why he's still in the Circus: he is brilliant and very, very good at what he does, i.e., the betrayals and lies that constitute his profession.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Turns out to be willing to be just as brutal and cruel as any other spy, despite his unassuming, quiet nature. Lampshaded by one review of the series in The Guardian:He never raises his voice - and barely even raises an eyebrow. He looks like a lovely old teddy bear and says and does little to show that he isn't a kind and gentle soul. Except… except somehow, he bristles with menace. In spite of his manners, and charm and the fact that he is apparently on our side, he is terrifying. And Guinness portrays all that with little more than a few small eye-motions behind those heavy plastic glasses.
- Big "NO!": A very uncharacteristic one in Smiley's People, when Connie Sachs mentions that many people in the Circus thought that he and Karla weren't that different.
- Cassandra Truth: Smiley's warning of there being a mole was ignored, as it was assumed that he was trying to save Control from being fired.
- Establishing Character Moment: Early in the film, Smiley is riding in a car with the others, who all try ineffectively to swat a bee, while Smiley simply watches its movement and winds down the window at exactly the right time to allow it to escape. This foreshadows his technique of finding the mole not with brute force, but through clever entrapment.
- Fatal Flaw: His continued devotion to his unfaithful wife, no matter how badly or how flagrantly she mistreats him.
- Mandatory Unretirement: Smiley just can't stay retired. Call for the Dead, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People all have him pulled back into the Circus after an attempt at retirement. (And A Murder of Quality has him investigate a murder during one of those periods as a favour to an old friend.)
- Manly Tears: Smiley in The Honourable Schoolboy, after two informants are killed during a rescue attempt.
- The Masochism Tango: Smiley's relationship with his wife, which persists despite her chronic inability to remain faithful to him. He finally puts an end to it in Smiley's People, although without explicitly asking for a divorce.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Smiley is an experienced but cynical spy. Despite the moral complications and issues of his work, idealistic but also fully aware of the greyness of his environment.
- "Not So Different" Remark: His realization that he and Karla share quite a bit in common causes Smiley to retire for good at the end of Smiley's People.
- Running Gag: His inability to talk his way out of a dinner invitation. The food is inevitably terrible and he doesn't get a decent feed in any of the books until his send off in The Secret Pilgrim.
- The Short Guy with Glasses: Short, chubby, bespectacled, soft-spoken, and arguably the greatest case-officer to ever work for British Intelligence.
- The Stoic: The most stoic of the characters, ironically.
- Take a Third Option: In Smiley's People, Smiley has already used both of his usual two detailed false-identity passports in the names of Barraclough and Standfast recently. What does he do for the journey home to cover his tracks? Use his own passport and travel under the name of George Smiley.
- To Know Him, I Must Become Him: His arc in Smiley's People.
- Tranquil Fury: Particularly in the film. Smiley's tone is all politeness and deference as he explains to the Minister how he has unwittingly assisted The Mole in turning the Circus into a de facto arm of Russian intelligence, and ruined the careers of Smiley's mentor and Smiley himself:Smiley: The man Alleline and the others meet... You believe his role is to bring information from Witchcraft to you. His real role is to receive information from the mole to take back to Karla.
Minister: That's... that's not possible.
Smiley: Made possible. By you. When he steals our secrets he does it under the very nose of the Circus, in the house which you persuaded the treasury to pay for. I'm sure you'll be able to take full credit for that.
Minister: Witchcraft's intelligence is genuine! It's been gold!
Smiley: Just enough glitter amongst the chickenfeed. Control didn't believe in miracles and he didn't believe in Witchcraft, but you were lazy and you were greedy, and so you hounded him out of the Circus and you let Karla in. - Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: George Smiley and Lady Ann, with unromantic results.
- Vague Age: Smiley seems to exist somewhere on a floating timeline, with his birth year being retconned in Tinker Tailor from 1906 to 1915, making him around fifty-eight during the events of that novel, aging into his sixties during the trilogy. Then he keeps appearing in other novels in Le Carré's canon taking place across several decades. In his last appearance, in A Legacy of Spies, he is over one hundred years old. A reference in Smiley's People to his declining health due to his increasing heaviness and advancing age is quietly ignored in subsequent appearances.
Peter Guillam
Played by: Michael Jayston (miniseries), Benedict Cumberbatch (film)
Longtime associate of Smiley and the head of the scalphunters, operatives of The Circus who engage in physical and/or violent activities.- Adaptational Sexuality: Is straight in the books but switched to being gay in the film.
- Everyone Has Standards: Takes over Prideaux's job of overseeing the Scalphunters, the Circus' assassination branch, and is terrified by their violent sociopathy.
- Serial Romeo: Is in a relationship with a different woman in each book but is genuinely and passionately devoted to each while the relationship lasts.
Control
Played by: Alexander Knox (miniseries), John Hurt (film)
Former head of The Circus who was eased out of the position by Alleline's faction and deceased by the start of the first book.- Broken Pedestal: Inverted. It is implied Control began to believe his loyal subordinate Smiley was the mole. Smiley is heartbroken to discover this.
- No Name Given: His real name is never mentioned. Outside the Circus, he has two different names (and two different "wives"), neither of which appears to be the real one.
- Puppet King: In Tinker Tailor, Control is rendered politically impotent by Percy Alleline's powerful connections in Whitehall.
- Room Full of Crazy / String Theory: In reaction to the various disasters befalling the Circus, Control locks himself in his room with old files stacked everywhere, including the floor. Everyone thinks Control is losing his grip, but it turns out he's tracking down The Mole who's behind it all.
Percy Alleline ("Tinker")
Played by: Michael Aldridge (miniseries), Toby Jones (film)
Head of The Circus after Control is ousted, gaining recognition for cultivating a high-placed Soviet source codenamed "Merlin".- Be Careful What You Wish For: Alleline has spent his whole career trying to become Chief of the Circus; he finally succeeds, getting unimaginable prestige and authority, his knighthood, and the brutal realization that the man at the top is the first to catch blame when anything goes wrong.
- Break the Haughty: As seen in the film version, discovering that Control and Smiley were right all along about the mole and being blamed for the intelligence catastrophe that happened on his watch really takes the wind out of Percy's sails.
- Fatal Flaw: Arrogance. Facilitating "Merlin" gives him an overinflated sense of his own brilliance and he is quick to drum out anybody who jeopardizes his plans for the Circus, which makes him an obvious suspect when Smiley begins the mole hunt. It turns out that Karla and Haydon recognized this quality in Alleline and deliberately used it as part of the Witchcraft scheme.
- Also his admiration of America. Watching from his posting in South America, he admired the United States's ability to route the "forces of centralisation," and nearly ended his career early by getting himself involved in an American plot to engineer regime change. Of the six senior officers in the Circus, he is the most stridently Atlanticist, and makes the possibility of a long-term intelligence deal one of the selling points of Witchcraft.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Likes to present himself as the biggest swinging dick in the Circus for his role in facilitating "Merlin", an indispensable Soviet intelligence source. Not only is "Merlin" a massive intelligence-stealing con happening right under his nose, but Karla and The Mole explicitly use Alleline's arrogance to their advantage.
- Jerkass: Alleline is an egotistical, unpleasant dick who acts like he is better than everyone else and upstaged Control just to satisfy his ambition.
- The Peter Principle: He's out of his depth when it comes to Russia and the satellite states. His area of expertise is in Latin America, India, and the Middle East, where even Smiley internally acknowledges that he did a good job. This makes him the best possible mark for Haydon's scheme with Witchcraft.
- Puppet King: Is unwittingly this thanks to Karla and Haydon and his own arrogance. He thinks he's cultivating an indispensable intelligence source in the form of "Merlin", and is confident enough in the information that he relays it to the Americans, when in reality he is being played like a fiddle while Haydon is turning the Circus into Karla's personal library.
- Unwitting Pawn: Bill Haydon arranges for Alleline to get appointed Chief of the Circus by providing him with seemingly useful Soviet intelligence, knowing that he's one of the most incompetent spies in the agency—and thus, the one least likely to finger Haydon as The Mole.
Bill Haydon ("Tailor")
Played by: Ian Richardson (miniseries), Colin Firth (film)
Longtime veteran of The Circus and commander of London Station. He is a close companion of Jim Prideaux and a cousin (and lover) to Smiley's wife Ann.- Actually Pretty Funny: Can't help but chuckle the entire way through Peter's interrogation by the Circus leaders, where Guillam snarks at Alleline the entire time.
- Ambiguously Gay: Haydon is bisexual, but just how "inseparable" he is from Prideaux is never made clear. Their relationship is certainly intense.
- Depraved Bisexual: At the end of Tinker Tailor, Haydon gives Smiley a four-figure cheque for a woman and what is assumed to be his kid, while asking him to pay off a male sailor. Haydon also seduced Smiley's wife as part of Karla's scheme. It is heavily implied that he and Prideaux were lovers and that Prideaux murdering Haydon is in response to a lover's betrayal as much as a professional one.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Both the book and the miniseries have Prideaux killing Haydon with a Neck Snap. The film had Prideaux shoot Haydon through the face with a sniper's rifle.
- The Dilbert Principle: Haydon arranges for Alleline to get appointed Chief of the Circus by providing him with seemingly useful Soviet intelligence, knowing that he's one of the most incompetent spies in the agency—and thus, the one least likely to finger him as a Soviet agent.
- Et Tu, Brute?: He betrays Jim Prideaux to the Russians, leading to his capture and torture. What makes it worse is that Jim independently figured out Haydon was the mole and warned him. All that did was prompt Haydon to sell him out.
- Face Death with Dignity: In the film, Haydon behaves his way once he realizes how badly he betrayed Prideaux.
- Fatal Flaw: Pride. Part of the reason Haydon gives for switching sides is because of what he perceives to be the loss of Britain's international prestige.
- Foreshadowing: Film only. When the Soviet national anthem is played at the office party, Alleline and Esterhase briefly shake their heads in disapproval, while Haydon is hidden in the shadows seducing Smiley's wife. This is not only a clue to his duplicitous nature, but is actually part of the plan hatched between him and Karla.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Because Witchcraft is explicitly an intelligence-trading con, where valuable Soviet intelligence is traded for useless Western information, no one bothers looking closer when the results end up being of phenomenal benefit. This allows Haydon to switch the information, providing genuine Western intelligence to Karla through "Merlin" in exchange for useless Soviet intelligence, and con the rest of the Circus into stymieing any attempt to unmask Haydon or unravel the scheme.
- Honey Trap: Employs a subverted form of this at Karla's direction—sleeping with Smiley's wife and making sure everybody at the Circus knows about it—in an attempt to remove Smiley as a threat.
- The Horseshoe Effect: Much is made of the irony that a quintessential upper-class British ultraconservative is a mole in the service of communism. At Oxford, he was genuinely of the Right, belonging to a political club led by his tutor, Fanshawe, a Circus talent spotter who was, in Smiley's opinion, a "passionate Empire man." During this period, by his own account, Haydon details a talent for mixing with a rival left-wing club in order to spy on and subvert its membership, Foreshadowing a situation where the reverse would be true later in life — the Soviet agent Gerald mixing with upper class British society to undermine the country. In his dubious and contradictory Motive Rant, Haydon blames America for the sidelining of the British Empire, indicating that he, a hardcore Empire man, finds the Soviet Union more relatable (even though the U.S.S.R. played a similar role in overtaking the Empire as a postwar hegemon). That the most outwardly right-wing of Control's inner circle was the traitor is at the heart of Smiley's metaphor of the nesting dolls: the final doll, which only Karla could perceive, was that Haydon the British imperialist and Gerald the Soviet mole were the same man in character, if not in political alignment.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick / Number Two: To Alleline.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Smiley realizes that Haydon found out about Prideaux's capture long before anyone at the Circus logically could have told him about it; the news broke on the radio after Haydon's club had closed for the night.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Haydon is a hardass, but there are several hints that he might be a good person underneath the rough exterior. Then he turns out to be The Mole.
- The Mole: Haydon turns out to be the mole Smiley is looking for.
- Mole in Charge: Not only is Haydon, a Soviet mole, in command of one of the Circus's most important posts, but he facilitated the rise of an unknowing Percy Alleline to the top seat because Alleline was seen as essential to the success of the Witchcraft operation.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Is partly modelled after Kim Philby, a member of the "Cambridge Five" spy ring who defected to the Soviet Union. (The Philby affair had ended the author's own career at MI-6.)
- Not So Stoic: After being outed as the mole, Haydon takes an unrepentant, even defiant tone under interrogation. In the series, however, his attitude noticeably changes when Prideaux comes to kill him.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Aside from being a classist and sleazy jerk, he seems to be also an antisemite, making a disparaging remark towards several pedestrians while going with Smiley on a walk through town in the novel. His admittedly rather sketchy Motive Rant after being outed as a mole reveals that prior to being recruited by Karla, he at least used to be an ardent follower of british imperialism and overall right-winger, with the slight possibility that he might have retained at least some of his reactionary beliefs even after defecting to the Soviets.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to discuss Haydon's role in detail without revealing that he is The Mole.
Roy Bland ("Soldier")
Played by: Terence Rigby (miniseries), Ciarán Hinds (film)
Haydon's second-in-command at London Station and a top specialist in Soviet satellite states.- Flat Character: In the film. He isn't given much characterization other than he isn't a jerk like Alleline, Haydon and Esterhase.
Toby Esterhase ("Poorman")
Played by: Bernard Hepton (miniseries), David Dencik (film)
Hungarian-born head of the Lamplighters, The Circus's surveillance and wiretapping section.- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Esterhase is a con man who deals in counterfeit art and lives in the dry-cleaning shop he owns. He's also one of the Circus' top spies and the head of their domestic surveillance unit, who themselves are made up of an array of homeless people, families, and Eastern Europeans that live in a trailer camp in a hidden car park behind the shop. It speaks to Esterhase's value that despite his role in the Bill Haydon debacle, he's the one person in Alleline's former faction who isn't fired and returns for subsequent books. When Smiley comes back for one final job in Smiley's People, Esterhase is one of the few people he trusts to help with the assignment, despite Esterhase's louche nature.
- Con Man: It's implied multiple times that he has a side business dealing counterfeit art, which the Circus turns a blind eye toward because he's such a good agent. In The Secret Pilgrim, his final appearance, he convinces the CIA that an exiled Hungarian professor - a charlatan, completely worthless agent - is an anticommunist hero, so that the Americans take him off British hands and put him on their own payroll.
- Cunning Linguist: In the words of the book, "Tiny Toby spoke no known language perfectly, but he spoke them all."
- Famous-Named Foreigner: His Hungarian origin and the fact that his name is similar to a Real Life Hungarian noble family implies that he is related to them in some way, or at least pretends to be.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Peter Guillam in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Ned in The Secret Pilgrim both say the same thing about Toby: that during an operation they're thankful to have him by their side, but can't stand him under any other circumstances.
- Heritage Disconnect: As he himself says, he's a Hungarian trying his damndest to be an authentic English gentleman.
- Jerkass: Esterhase is an opportunistic coward who sells out Control and Smiley at the first opportunity, in spite of them having pulled him off the streets.
Jim Prideaux
Played by: Ian Bannen (miniseries), Mark Strong (film)
Close companion of Bill Haydon and former head of the scalphunters, who was wounded during the collapse of Operation Testify. Now teaches at a boys' prep school.- Badass Bookworm: Becomes a teacher after leaving the Circus and is still highly capable of killing someone undetected, as Haydon learns the hard way.
- Cold Sniper: The film establishes him as one, which allows him to kill Haydon in the end.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Is strongly implied to have been lovers with Haydon, only for Haydon to sell him out.
- Retired Badass: At the start of Tinker Tailor, as a result of being injured during Operation Testify.
Connie Sachs
Played by: Beryl Reid (miniseries), Kathy Burke (film)
Former Russia analyst for The Circus, who is forced to retire around the same time as Smiley. Renowned for her impressive memory.- The Alcoholic: Is an eccentric alcoholic when we first meet her in Tinker Tailor, and is dying from a combination of both drink and old age in Smiley's People.
- Crazy Cat Lady: By Smiley's People, Connie has started taking in all sorts of random, and frequently decrepit, animals.
- Super-Intelligence: Connie is virtually a living repository of knowledge on Soviet Intelligence, and was affectionately nicknamed "Mother Russia" for it. Her specialty was tracking the movement of Soviet moles until she came dangerously close to the truth about Polyakov, and "Gerald" had her pensioned off.
Jerry Westerby
Played by: Joss Ackland (miniseries)
Sports journalist, former crickter, and "occasional" asset for The Circus.- Adaptational Nice Guy: The Tinker Tailor miniseries makes him a much more pleasant character than he was in the book.
- Adapted Out: Twice.
- As the Alec Guinness series skipped over The Honourable Schoolboy, the book where his character was fleshed out, his supporting role in Tinker Tailor is his only televisual appearance.
- Westerby's role in the Gary Oldman film is combined with that of Sam Collins.
- Ascended Extra: He has a brief role in Tinker Tailor as one of the old Circus operatives who Smiley interviews for clues about The Mole's identity, but reappears as the central protagonist of The Honourable Schoolboy when Smiley assigns him to investigate Karla's funds in Hong Kong. It turns out that The Mole overlooked him because he was only an occasional Circus agent, making him one of the few field agents whose identity wasn't leaked to the Soviets.
- Face–Heel Turn: Westerby ultimately goes rogue and tries to help Drake Ko smuggle his brother Nelson—a Soviet mole—out of China. However, Westerby only does it because he wants to save Ko's lover from getting caught in the crossfire.
- The Hero Dies: Westerby goes into a dangerous situation to try to rescue his love interest, who is tangled up with the bad guys, and is killed. It underscores his status as the "honourable schoolboy" of the title, too straightforwardly honest to survive in the murky world of espionage.
- Heroic BSoD: After he finds his friend Luke murdered, Westerby spends the rest of The Honourable Schoolboy in this state.
- Intrepid Reporter: On paper, he's a sports journalist, which gives him cover to travel Europe picking up various bits of intelligence which he then sells off to the Circus by way of Toby Esterhase. It's during one of these trips that he receives a scoop that the Russian soldiers who had captured Prideaux had been deployed there before he arrived, knew he was coming, and were waiting for him.
- Tonto Talk: He and Smiley have an inside joke where they pepper their banter with this on occasion. It ends up reading a bit like a spin on Spy Speak.
Fawn
A former member of the Scalphunters who is assigned as Smiley's bodyguard.
- The Sociopath: There are several hints that Fawn is one, and it's confirmed when a boy on a bike tries to steal his watch while he's stopped at a traffic light. Fawn grabs hold of the boy when the light turns green and drags him for some distance with the car before stopping, getting out, and breaking both of his arms before a horrified Guillam.
Moscow Centre
Karla
Played by: Patrick Stewart (miniseries), Michael Sarne (film; voice)
Chief of the Thirteenth Directorate within Soviet Intelligence and Smiley's nemesis.- Achilles' Heel: His love for his daughter, which Smiley ultimately exploits to force Karla to defect.
- Beneath the Mask: Karla appears to be an iron-willed fanatic for whom taking advantage of the opposition's humanity is part of the job. It is not until Smiley's People that we see the crack in his mask: his love for his illegitimate daughter, Tatiana, who is driven insane by her inability to recognize the spymaster as her father. The ending of Smiley's People implies that beneath their masks, Smiley and Karla are similar — a revelation that drives Smiley to retire for good.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Karla spent a lifetime building an efficient and fanatical espionage organisation that is devoted to communism. Which he cannot use when he needs to use illicit funds for an illegal and personal act. He defects when found out by Smiley, out of fear the organisation will turn on him and destroy his daughter.
- Honey Trap: Karla employs a subversion to get the upper hand on Smiley in Tinker Tailor. He knows that Smiley is the one most likely to figure out that Haydon is The Mole, so he orders Haydon to seduce Smiley's wife and make sure that everyone in the Circus knows that he did it. He knows that Smiley's anger will cloud his judgement and that no one at the Circus will take him seriously if he accuses Haydon of treason.
- It's Personal: Karla deliberately takes advantage of this by ordering Haydon to sleep with Smiley's wife, thereby making Smiley unable to truly suspect him in a cold, detached way. In the end, Smiley's only way to retaliate is to threaten Karla's illegitimate daughter with exposure.
- No Name Given: "Karla" is a codename; his real one is never divulged.
- Shrouded in Myth: It's said of Karla in Smiley's People that he "is too important to exist. He controls the whole of Russia, but he does not exist... He does not exist, but everyone is afraid of him."
- Silent Antagonist: In the 1979 miniseries, Karla appears in just one short scene; a flashback in which he is interrogated in a Delhi prison cell by Smiley. He doesn't say a word, barely twitches an eyebrow, and pockets Smiley's engraved gold cigarette lighter. The scene is unforgettable.
- In the adaptation of Smiley's People, he appears in the final scene and again doesn't say a word.
- Straight Edge Evil: Karla is said to have quite ascetic tastes, the only pleasure he indulges being his fondness for chain-smoking Camel cigarettes.
- Wife Husbandry: Karla with his mistress. He and his unit rescued a young girl from the ruins of her town in the last days of World War II, and after the war was over he took her back to Russia as his ward. And then fell in love with that same girl and had a child by her.
