George Smiley

George Smiley is a middle-aged man, who is separated from his wife, Ann. Although he is living partly on a pension, he is financially secure. He had been educated at Oxford and had worked at The Circus, which was British intelligence. Smiley has had a successfule career in intelligence. One of his jobs had been in recruitment so he knew a lot of the agents.

Smiley didn't retire voluntarily: he was let go at the same time as his superior and many others. This was the result of problems between Control and Percy Alleline. Smiley was known as Control's man, so when Control lost his job, so did Smiley. There were also botched operations with Control trying to find a mole before he left the service. Smiley knew of the Czech incident and felt that the agent was betrayed, but he didn't know the details of the...