Assume, Peter, the Circus has the dogs on you 24 hours a day.
Think of it as a foreign country.
Hello, Bryant.
Hello. Nice to see you again, sir. Just a moment, please.
Mr Guillam, sir.
Mr Lauder Strickland's expecting you. He'll meet you on the 5th floor.
Right.
Thanks.
- About time someone oiled this. - We keep asking.
You can talk till you're blue in the face!
Well met, Peter. Greetings. A trifle late, but never mind.
Sorry, Lauder. You have to make allowances for country yokels.
- How long have you had that monster? - You really are a stranger, aren't you?
It saves man hours. Fantastic. Quite fantastic.
- Sorry, terribly sorry. - Hello, Bill.
What the hell are YOU doing here, you pariah?
He wants to buy a diplomatic courier. He needs to wash some dirty money.
That's a job for Banking Section, so we're sorting out the tangle.
He knows it has to be cleared here. He told me the papers were routed to you.
- They're probably in your in-tray now, Bill. - They had better be, Peter.
Lock up the spoons. Scalphunters will have the gold out of your teeth!
Lock up the girls, as well ...if they'll let you!
There you go, Bert. Keys of the city.
London Station couldn't be in better hands.
Everything's a lot tighter here these days, Guillam.
Hey, Lauder, hold on!
Have you seen bloody Bill anywhere?
Indeed I have seen Bill. We were having a brief word back down the corridor.
- He's wanted urgently. - Immediately. We've put out an alert for him.
I suspect he may well be on his way to you at this moment.
Peter...hello.
Hi.
Thanks for the glad hand.
I did wipe the cow dung off my boots. What's the joke, Roy?
No joke, Peter, old lad. Just... surprised to see you, that's all.
- We're used to having this floor to ourselves. - Like to see my pass, Toby?
- How are you keeping? - I wintered very well.
You know what it's like in Brixton these days. Plenty of Ludo, ping pong.
- Normally I have my afternoon zizz now. - Off with you, Peter.
- Don't waste Lauder's time. - No, sir. Sorry, sir.
Shut up, Flush! Stop it.
Stop it, boy. It's only a dunderhead.
Flush, shut up!
George Smiley!
Oh, but you lovely, darling man!
You haven't come to sell me a hoover! You're my gorgeous George!
- Connie. - Oh, George.
Jingle, darling, could you possibly make it tomorrow? Don't be cross.
It isn't often my oldest, oldest lover comes to see me.
Oh, George, if only I'd seen you first.
I'll give you a whole hour all to yourself. Honestly I will, darling.
One of my dunderheads.
I will teach...
I don't know why.
Oh, George, of all the lovely, darling men I ever knew.
He walked, Flush. Don't you see his shoes?
Oh...bless you, darling.
God bless.
Did he walk alone, Flush? Not accompanied, were we?
Quite alone, Connie.
So...what does George want from Connie?
The bad boy!
Her memory.
To go over some very old ground, Connie.
Hear that, Flush? First, they chuck us out with an old bone, then they come begging to us.
I was the best Head of Research the Circus ever had! Everyone knew that!
And what did they say the day they gave me the chop?
That personnel cow! "You're losing your sense of proportion, Connie."
"Time you got out into the real world."
I hate the real world!
I like the Circus and my lovely boys!
Polyakov. Aleksey Aleksandrovich Polyakov.
Born March 3rd, 1922...
in the Ukraine.
Graduate of Leningrad State University.
Height five-foot-ten. Color of eyes, green. Color of hair, black.
Married, but unaccompanied by wife,
and a six-cylinder Karla-trained hood if ever I saw one!
But don't tell Percy Alleline or Toby Esterhase.
Oh, no,
Aleksey Aleksandrovich was as pure as the driven snow.
He was Persil white, wasn't he, Flush? And Connie's an old silly.
If she doesn't lay off and do as she's told, she'll have to pack her bags and go.
He's come alive...Polyakov. Just as you predicted.
'Course he has! Of course he has!
I knew it in my bones!
The day he arrived, I thought, "Hello, I'll have some fun with YOU." Tough as a button!
Army written all over him.
But not declared, George, not a mention.
Oh, he had a lovely voice. Mellow, like yours.
I used to play the tapes over and over just to bathe in it.
Bottom pincher, too. I just know. Not that we ever caught him at it.
We might have if Tobe had played along and offered him a bum,
but tiny Tobe wouldn't.
Eight years.
I watched Pretty Polly for eight years.
Then last Remembrance Day, I got him.
There he was, that smashing November morning, at the wreath laying.
We photographed his medals... two gallantry and four campaign.
Oh, yes. Aleks Polyakov was a star soldier just as I'd told them,
and not a word.
So I said to Toby, "Listen, you two-faced ferret,"
"ego has got the better part of cover and that's nothing new."
"Now will you turn Pretty Polly inside out for me?"
"Because Connie's little hunch has turned up trumps."
What did Toby Esterhase say?
Oh, I got the dead-fish voice.
- "Tell Percy Alleline. Percy's in charge." - And then?
"Not every ex-warrior's a Karla agent," says Percy.
I said, "Listen, Percy, Polyakov's running an English mole."
So I get the rude letter. "Stop it or else."
I wrote at the bottom... "Yes, repeat no!"
So...here we are...
Flush and me.
Please kiss me, George.
Hey..ho. Halcyon days.
- Did I start the landslide, George? - You were always dead right, Connie.
- Is George now picking up the pieces? - Something of the sort.
Poor loves. Trained to Empire, trained to rule the waves.
Englishmen could be proud then. They could, George.
All gone.
Taken away.
Bye-bye, world.
If it's bad, George...
don't come back.
Promise?
I want to remember you just as you were.
My lovely, lovely boys.
Promise?
Alright, Lauder, I'll just have to wait for the wheels to turn.
I don't need a pass to use the gent's, do I?
Stop that moaning!
Pages had been removed with a razor blade. No mention of Ricki Tarr's cable from Lisbon.
No Irina, no Boris, no Tarr.
There's a note scribbled on the next page. "All inquiries to Head of London Station."
It's in Toby Esterhase's handwriting.
The janitor's attendance list has also been removed.
Nothing to tell us who was duty officer...or even who was in the building.
Connie's appraisal matches the story Irina gave Ricki Tarr.
The implications, the indications,
are that Karla has managed to build himself a cadre
of senior men placed about the globe who work exclusively to him at Moscow Center.
- Polyakov is Karla's executant in London - You offer that as a working hypothesis?
Operation Witchcraft, that vital flow of Russian intelligence
which happily came Alleline's way.
"Supplementary estimates to the Treasury."
"Special accommodation in London."?
"Wider exploitation."
"See also Secret Annex." May I see it?
- The Minister keeps it in his safe. - Do you know the combination?
- Certainly not. - What's the title of this unobtainable document?
It doesn't have one. It's highly secret and we've kept the readership to a minimum.
The supplier of the Witchcraft material is Merlin. Does the file give his identity?
Don't be ridiculous. The Minister wouldn't want to know and Alleline wouldn't want to tell him.
- What does "wider exploitation" mean? - I refuse to be interrogated.
Why do you waste your time pursuing this? I should have you cleared before you see this.
- Witchcraft cleared? - Yes, George.
Do we have a list of people who've been cleared in that way?
I hope you're not going fey, George.
Please, stick with the primary problem...the mole Gerald...
instead of rootling around in extraneous matters.
This is no time to be whimsical.
Are you off? You won't forget Prideaux?
Anything you can get on him, even scraps, would help.
He has a point, George.
Witchcraft and Merlin, Polyakov and the mole.
Prideaux getting himself shot up on some wild goose chase of Control's in Czechoslovakia.
- You think it all connects? - I think I am not the first
to make this journey of exploration.
I believe Control was here before me.
He might even have made the full distance but for the bullets in Prideaux's back.
"There are three of them and Alleline." Control's words.
He meant Operation Witchcraft.
Merlin's minders or inventors
or programmers or marionettes ...or what?
Why was Control so hostile to Alleline? Percy wasn't a fool.
Percy can flirt, Peter. And Control hadn't reckoned on the power of the Alleline lobby.
- Who were they? - Golfers.
"Golfers and Conservatives." That's what Control said to me.
I got a call from Control one day... very sharp, very combative.
"George, come in here or there'll be bloodshed."
Brother Percy's trying to twist my tail.
Take a look at this nonsense.
Top-level Soviet naval dispatch.
Specially prepared for the Soviet High Command...
isn't it, Percy?
An appreciation of a naval exercise in the Med and the Black Sea,
of which our sailors have been screaming for details.
- Haven't they, Percy? - Topicality's always suspect.
Yes, George. Would you like to repeat that for Percy?
- Who made the translation? - God made it, didn't he, Percy?
- Don't ask him. He won't tell you. - Shore-to-sea strike power.
Radio activation of enemy alert procedures. This is hardly my territory.
Don't let that worry you. Total ignorance of subject matter doesn't bother Percy.
- Whose initials are these? - Zharov. Admiral, Black Sea Fleet.
- What do our own evaluators say? - They've not seen it.
What's more, they're not going to.
However, Lilley of Naval Intelligence has passed a preliminary opinion,
has he not, Percy?
Percy showed it to him last night.
- Over a pink gin, was it, Percy? - At the Admiralty.
Note that, George. They battened down the hatches for Percy.
Brother Lilley telephoned me half an hour ago to congratulate me.
He believes this material to be neither a plant nor chickenfeed, but gold dust,
and he seeks our permission to... Percy's, I suppose I should say...
to apprise his fellow Sea Lords of its conclusions.
Quite impossible. It's for his eyes only for another couple of weeks.
- It's so hot, you see, George. - But where does it come from?
- Who's the case officer? - You'll enjoy this.
Source Merlin has access to the most sensitive levels of Soviet policymaking.
We've dubbed his product Witchcraft.
Ask him who "we" are, George.
Merlin is the fruit of a long cultivation by certain people in this service.
People who are bound to me as I am to them.
People not entertained by the failure rate about this place.
There's been too much blown, too much lost, wasted.
Too many scandals. I've said so many times.
I could've talked to the wind for all the heed HE paid me.
"He" means me, George.
The ordinary principles of security have gone to the wall in this service.
It's all divide and rule, stimulated from the top.
- Me again. - We're losing our livelihood, our self-respect.
We've had enough.
We've had a bellyful, in fact. Please.
Like everybody's who's ever had enough, he wants more.
"This service."
Alleline would sell his mother for a knighthood and "this service" for a seat in the Lords.
- Suppose Merlin's genuine? - Suppose Merlin would pick Percy?!
It seems somebody has.
I gather Percy's under the impression he picked himself and a whole team.
You're sure he left you out, are you, George?
- What are you going to do about it? - Depends on "it".
I'll wait for "it" to show itself.
In the meantime, I see nothing to deal with except Percy's envious eye on my chair.
And I've put my thumb in that optic before.
- George, tittle-tattle Tuesday again? - Hello, Percy.
Toby, Roy.
This time.
Oh, Lor'! I thought it would be half over by now.
Got a rabbit to pull out of your hat, Percy? You've got that Britain-can-make-it look.
Very intimidating. Should we have brought our sandwiches?
I'll be brief, Bill, so long as I'm not obstructed.
I'm sorry. Traffic. I should've walked.
I think you and Percy between you are contriving to keep me off the streets.
They're all here now, sir. Would you go in, please, gentlemen?
How often do I have to emphasize the extreme sensitivity
of the source of the Witchcraft product?
There is no existing method of Whitehall distribution to meet the case.
Need I remind you of that disgraceful incident when an Undersecretary...
Albeit it overworked, so be it.
But the fact remains the man actually gave
his dispatch box key to his personal assistant.
We simply cannot afford that kind of ludicrous insecurity
when we are handling Witchcraft.
Now...
I have already discussed the problem with Lilley of Naval Intelligence.
He is prepared to put at our disposal a special main reading room
in the Admiralty main building,
where Witchcraft material can be seen
and watched over by a senior janitor of this service.
Wouldn't you rather have Securicor?
The reading room will be known for cover purposes
as the conference room of the Adriatic Working Party, the AWP room, for short.
Thank you.
Customers with reading rights will not have passes, since these can be too accessible.
Instead, they will appear on a special list with photographs.
They will identify themselves personally to MY janitor.
- Whose janitor, Percy? - He's already got his own personal wizard.
The odd commissionaire seems modest enough domestic staff.
- Allowing that all this is necessary... - Essential.
...my Minister will want to know more about the cost.
It must appear to be borne by the Admiralty, even if you reimburse covertly.
Of course. The reading room will have to be extensively rebuilt to begin with.
Now, I'd like to call your attention to the Foreign Office comment
on the most recent Witchcraft product.
And I quote, "This document sheds an extraordinary sidelight"
"on Soviet aggressive thinking."
Does that mean they like it, Percy?
Do you like it, Bill? It's from the very heart of your territory.
In 25 years, I haven't laid hands on anything of that quality.
Unless I'm mistaken, nor have our American cousins.
Anyone taking it to Washington could drive a hard bargain.
- Early days, Bill. - Agreed.
But if Merlin maintains that standard, we can buy whatever's in the Yanks' shop.
I don't think Control's going to play. That would rule me out, as well, of course.
- Percy will get his reading room. - Yes.
And after that, I suppose anything's possible.
Did you want to ask me something?
I'm afraid he's not seeing anyone today.
Again?
I'm being asked why he's canceled the Tuesday conferences.
I can't add anything to his memorandum, even for you.
- Even if I could, Mr Smiley... - No, of course.
I was rather hoping, before I set off on this Hong Kong trip...
Well, when I get back, perhaps he'll have got through that little lot.
Now there's a committee. The Minister is in the chair, Alleline's vice-chairman.
Merlin's become an industry. It's THE industry and I'm not employed.
- You won't even read Alleline's reports. - I haven't time.
Buying their way in with counterfeit money. Tell them that.
Tell them anything. I need time.
There are three of them and Alleline.
Sweat them. Tempt them. Bully them. Anything.
Give them what ever they eat. I need time.
Prompt as ever, Mr Smiley.
- How are your children, Toby? - Doing terribly well.
The boy's at Westminster. Is that right? You daughter's probably left school by now.
- First year medical student. Loves it. - Good for her.
Toby...I have to ask you this.
Sorry to come prying.
Your department's behind with its work sheets. Two months almost.
Now, why is that?
It's not lamplighter style.
We're not infallible, George.
Two months? Well, I won't question it. Is it terribly important?
If you say it is, I'll see it's dealt with.
The question is WHY, Toby.
- Let me be blunt. - Not YOUR style, George.
I'm allowed to say that, surely?
You haven't been using your staff for any special jobs? Either at home or abroad?
The kind of special jobs which, for reasons of security,
you haven't felt able to mention in your returns.
Who would I do that for? In my book, that's completely illegal.
Well, if Percy Alleline, for example, ordered you to do something
and not record it, that would put you in a difficult position.
- What sort of something? - Clear a letter box, prime a safe house.
Watch someone's back. Spike an embassy. It's all lamplighter work.
If Percy told you to do it,
you might reasonably assume he was acting on instructions from the fifth floor.
I do like the service. I may be sentimental about it, but I prefer to stay in it.
Now, you understand that. You of all people.
My problem is promotion.
I mean, the absence of it.
I've so many years' seniority that I feel quite embarrassed
when these young fellows ask me to take orders from them.
Who, Toby?
Which young fellows? Roy Bland? Percy?
Would you call Percy young?
Who?
When you're overdue for promotion and working hard,
anyone looks young who is above you on the ladder.
- Have you been taking orders? - You know the line of command, George.
Perhaps Control could move you up a few rungs.
Well, you know, actually...
I'm not sure he's able to these days...are you?
- So what's the deal? - There isn't a deal, Roy, really.
It's just that Control feels the present situation is unhealthy.
He doesn't like to see you getting mixed up with a cabal. Nor do I.
- So what's the deal? - What do you want?
What about 5,000 quid out of the reptile fund for starters?
- Then a house and a car? - And the kid to Eton.
- Your father would turn in his grave. - Let him rotate, the old Commie thug.
If there's no deal, George, you'll have to tell Control he can get stuffed.
I've paid, you see. You know that.
I don't know what the hell I've bought with it, but I've paid a packet.
Poznan, Budapest, Prague, back to Poznan.
Have you ever been to Poznan?
Sofia, Kiev.
Two bloody nervous breakdowns and still between the shafts.
That's big money at any age ...even yours.
No one can deny that, Roy.
And...you brought me in, remember.
If you think I'm going to the bad, you've only got yourself to blame.
You're an educated sort of a swine.
"An artist is a bloke who can hold two fundamentally opposing views"
"and still function."
- Who dreamed that one up? - Scott Fitzgerald.
Well, Fitzgerald knew a thing or two.
And I'm definitely functioning.
As a good socialist, I'm going where the money is.
As a good capitalist, I'm sticking with the revolution
because, if you can't beat it, spy on it.
Don't look like that, George? It's the name of the game these days.
You scratch my conscience, I'll drive your Jag, right?
No. Did you get that from Haydon?
Is that one of Bill's jokes about materialist England, the pigs-in-clover society?
- Don't you like it? - Not much.
Of course there are acquisitive instincts in Western society.
They are offset against other concerns you won't find in...
Poznan, Budapest, Kiev, Sofia.
Tell me all about it, George.
I'm just saying that's England now, man.
All you have to do is look out the bloody window.
You're seen with Bill Haydon a great deal these days.
Jealous, George? You've got his job.
You're Control's High Chamberlain. What more do you want?
Long as it lasts.
- They do say you write the reports. - That's Roy's job.
No. Bland makes the translations. YOU write the covering reports.
They're typed on your machine.
The material's not cleared for typists.
Percy Alleline won't do. Is that the premise?
Which means that Merlin won't do either. Poor old Control. He is in a pickle.
Merlin would do if he were MY source, wouldn't he?
If dazzling bloody Bill had hooked a whacking big fish and wanted to play him alone,
what would happen then?
Control would say, "That's very nifty of you, Bill boy. You do it just the way you want."
"Have some filthy jasmine tea."
He'd be giving me a medal now...instead of sending you snooping round corridors.
We used to be rather a classy bunch. Why are we so vulgar these days?
- He thinks Percy's on the make. - So he is. I also want to be head boy.
And Toby and Roy have designs on your spot.
Since when was ambition an offense in our beastly outfit?
Is Ann at home?
Sent her out to play while you grill your old buddy.
- Who runs him, Bill? - Percy? Who do you think?
Karla runs him. Stands out a mile.
Lower-class bloke with upper-class sources. Must be a bounder.
- Bill... - Percy's sold out to Karla. Only explanation.
- Percy's our house mole. - I meant who runs Merlin?
Who is Merlin?
What's going on?
This is a Callot, isn't it?
- Nice, very nice. - Bill.
Doesn't anyone think MY nose should be out of joint?
I'm supposed to be in charge of the Russian target. Given it my best years.
Set up networks, talent-spotters, all mod cons.
You've all forgotten what it's like to run an operation
where it takes three days to post a letter and you don't get an answer.
That's hardly fair to Control.
You know how he detests glamor-boy agents who hog the budget,
how he hates "miracles" if they put the networks out of focus.
Pity he doesn't have the same hatred of failure.
Has he lived with it too long?
Face it, George, it's Percy.
Percy's success...it's thrown Control.
And me, a bit.
Trouble is, my networks haven't been good enough.
This is new.
I fancy this very much.
Ann gave it me.
- Making amends? - Probably.
Must have been quite a sin.
How is she?
George...cut the cord.
Get away from Control.
He's cut you out of his life for weeks.
Dispatching you with errands a probationer could handle.
What's he doing up there?
He's gone through files of Circus folk heroes from year minus-one
Half of them under the earth already.
Sniffing out the dirt to see who was pink, who was a queen.
He's given us all up.
- I don't think that's true. - Senile paranoia. Control's going potty.
And he's also dying.
It's just a question of which gets him first.
And within six months of Bill Haydon's diagnosis,
Control was indeed dead.
And what killed him? Operation Witchcraft or Operation Testify?
Neither.
Let's not be melodramatic. Control would disapprove.
He died of old age.
A little early.
But Testify destroyed his function in life, which was a form of murder.
I don't have nearly enough on Testify, Peter.
Would you, please...er...?
Of course, George.
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
Depart in peace
According to
Thy word
For mine eyes have seen
Thy salvation
Which thou hast prepared before the face
Of all people
To be a light
To lighten
The gentiles
And to be the glory
Of thy people
Israel
Glory be to the Father
And to the Son
And to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning
Is now and ever shall be
World without end
Amen