PLAYING TIGERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200610007-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: June 24, 1974
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

TIME
2l.JUN197l
Approved For Release 2004/10/13: CIA-RDP88-0135
Playing Tigers
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY
by JOHN LE CARRE
355 pages. Knopf. $7.95
The subject at hand is not who put
the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's existential
,
,
g
.
p
chowder but who is the mole in Mr. Con- a foreign government. He is planted in dures of his baby sitters (bodyguards),
trol's Circus. Control, as John le Carre his native society (in this case British) lamplighters (watchers,. safe-house
followers know, is the director of British years and years. and years in advance men), and pavement artists (shadowers)
Intelligence. The. Circus ivhis sad collec- ; and then left to burrow upward to a po- rarely palls. As Smiley pursues the mole,
tion of far-flung agents, now for the most sition of power from which he sends cru- lives, careers and ancient loyalties are
part disabused :'oId cold. warriors who cial information to England's enemies put in jeopardy along his secret, path, _ c
TIME, JUNE 24, 1974 (in this case Moscow). r For all its arms and legs, the book rem
As the book opens,. Control is dead. mains something of a paper chase. Why? I
The Circus is all but undone, for the un- In part, one suspects, because the strug
detected mole, in the guise of a career gle occurs mostly in Little England, a po-
British agent, now dominates it. Oh litical shire now shorn of power and pur-
cursed spite! And the only man left in pose, where there may simply be too
England to uncover the mole-and set much central heating for the spy who
things right is old George Smiley, Au- comes in from the cold. (One of the rea-
thor le Carre's perennial round man. sons the mole becomes a mole, in fact,
Smiley still wears good clothes badly, seems to be the 1956 Suez disaster. He
stay numb in order to survive or glumly sis when all the files grow arms and
hope that "somewhere the path of pain legs and it isn't funny any more." Le
and betrayal must end." And a mole? A.., Carre can still raise Circus shoptalk to
mole
of course
is a turncoat workin
for the level of art
The intricate
roce-
has a memory Eke a computer - bank, joins Moscow in part to be where the his-
and is married: ;tbs Lady Ann, a wife; ="toric action is.) Le Carre heightens sus-
include4e3riia1 of sexual access to a num-
ber of illicit cloak-and-dagger suitors.
straight fiction (The Naive and Sen-
timental Lover-1972).. If it is not ex-
actly a three-ring literary homecoming,
it is a splendid assemblage of the- vir-
tues displayed in previous le Carrd thrill-
ers. Fine public-school scenes (see- A
Murder of Quality). Gently savage re-
minders that lingering old-boyism from
the heroic days of World War II can
lead to lethal folly in the crocodile world
of modern espionage. Brisk demonstra-
tions that hell hath no fury like that of
feuding bureaucrats (The Looking Glass.
War, A Small Town in Germany).
The fascinating thing about the spy
war between East and West, le Carre
once explained, "is the way the di-
rectors live and work with files and pa-
pers and they plot and scheme. Then
suddenly there comes a moment of cri-
since a mildly lamentable foray into
This is le Carre's first Circus act
pense- by lowering the. number of sus-
pect `moles- to two. The remorseless
world of international espionage is thus
transformed into something very -like a
traditional English detective- story with
the suspects figuratively locked in, the
English country house as the sleuth
(Smiley) pokes around and the. tanta-
lized spectators wonder if he will dare
pin it on the butler.
Tinker, Tailor; Soldier, Spy is one
of the best tales of the year so far. But
by le Carne's highest standards it is, as
Evelyn Waugh- remarked in another
connection, simply "creamy English
charm playing tigers." a Timothy Foote
S! Al
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-0135OR000200610007-0