It's said that nothing can earn you enemies faster than being right. It seems like most people would prefer the status quo be preserved no matter what the consequences. In the televised adaptation of John Le Carre's (the pseudonym for british writer David Cornwall) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy we saw how retired spy George Smiley, played by Alec Guinness, uncovered the deeply planted Russian spy, a mole, in British intelligence. In one of the final scenes of the series he tells the upper echelon of the agency, also known as The Circus, that he has been appointed the new head of the service. So it comes as something of a surprise to find out in the sequel series, Smiley's People, now reissued in a new three disc DVD set by Acorn Media Group, as of October 25 2011, that he is once more on the outside looking in.
What you don't know if you hadn't been following Le Carre's books, was another book, The Honourable Schoolboy continued the story of the Circus in the days immediately following the uncovering of the mole. With all his agents known, or blown in the terminology, Smiley was forced to recall everyone in the field and close down every outpost in the Circus' empire. However, after months of pulling in their horns they were finally able to launch one caper in an attempt to recoup some of their lost glory and regain a measure of credibility with the only ones who matter, The Cousins, American intelligence. Even as Smiley is putting his pieces into careful motion, manoeuvring in the corridors of power have started to have him replaced by someone less old school and untarnished by any associations with the betrayer. By the end of the book, in spite of scoring a huge intelligence coup for the Circus, Smiley is out and the new order has taken over.
Of course as both Smiley and us now realize, there's only so far you can retire from the secret life. In Smiley's People he's once again he's called out of retirement by the Ministry responsible for The Circus. However, this time they don't want him leading an investigation, they want him to cover up something that might be potentially embarrassing; something that doesn't quite mesh with the new urbane image the service has been at great pains to cultivate. An ex Russian military officer, known simply as The General, who had formally spied for them has been murdered. Unfortunately just prior to having his face blown away by a high calibre bullet he had called The Circus requesting an emergency meeting with Max, his code name for Smiley. He told the agent who answered the phone to tell Max he had proof.
Only Smiley is willing to believe there is something behind his former agent's phone call. Everybody else dismisses it as an old man's desire for attention. Instead of following orders and merely making sure that nothing about the man's life can be traced back to The Circus, Smiley decides to investigate and discover whether the proof is what he thinks it might be. As we discover in a flashback years earlier the agent had approached Smiley with information they believed could bring about the downfall of the head of Moscow Centre, Karla, the very man who had recruited the mole in British Intelligence. At the time Smiley had told him that he needed more proof. Was this the urgent message The General was trying to deliver when he was shot, the proof required to bring Karla down?
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