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. Through the efforts
of Peter Guillam, Smiley obtains information that eventually leads
him to Jim Prideaux, the agent at the heart of the Hungary fiasco...
