Plot Summary for
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) More at IMDbPro »

In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes badly wrong. It transpires that Control believed one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian agent - a mole - and the Hungary operation was an attempt to identify which of them it was. Smiley had been forced into retirement by the departure of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by a rogue agent, Ricky Tarr, that there was a mole. Smiley considers that the failure of the Hungary operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet intelligence) confirms this, and takes up the task of finding him. Written by David Brain

A year after he was forced into retirement, ex-spy George Smiley is called back by a Cabinet office official when information comes to him that there may be a Soviet spy, a mole, at the very top of the British secret service. Smiley had been forced out along with Control, the head of spy agency, after a disastrous mission in Hungary where a colleague, Jim Prideaux, was shot. It was also an unhealthy time in the secret service, known affectionately by its members as the Circus, with several senior officers having developed a new source of information in the USSR but refusing to share that person's identity. Smiley agrees to return and in the course of his examination learns that the secret secret Soviet source has become the mainstay of the service, one that they soon plan to use to get at US intelligence information. Smiley soon realizes that the Soviets have turned the service inside out. Written by garykmcd

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