I have listened to Le Carré The Looking Glass War, having previously seen the excellent film with Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Richardson. The radio play as the film which I have on DVD lacks the emotional punch of the Spy who came Back from the Cold. It is also the story of how the individual may be sacrificed for the national advantage and sometimes for the national good, although at other times just to save face.
It is also the story of those who having experienced the tensions and the challenges of wartrime or some other difficult, at times threatening experience, then find it difficult to impossible to cope with the everyday of normal times. In this instances it is those left from military intelligence during World War II who participated in dangerous and vital operations, risk their won lives or the lives of others asnd who are now restricted to making assessments and reporting information for others, the Circus, professional spying in Cold War peace time for the State.
When a former contact located in East Germany provides a photos of what appears to be Soviet rockets being moved into East Germany of a type similar to those which were attempted to be located in Cuba, instead of passing the information to the Circus the aging Director of the Department’s agency sees the opportunity to return to the old days of glory and arranges for the pilot of charter plane on its way to Scandinavia to fly over East Germany by mistake and take aerial photos of the alleged site area. Unfortunately his contact unable to get a taxi back to his hotel is knocked down and killed.
The decision is taken to send an office man to take responsibility for the body and personal effects in the hope of retrieving the film. The chosen individual is a young man who is already having difficulties with his wife because of his inability to share all the details of his work with her. She feels isolated at home caring for a young child and resentful oft his freedom which he husband appears to have, especially as he appears to enjoy and be satisfied by his work and role in life. It is not an uncommon situation and when he announces he is going off on a trip this only reinforces her feeling of being left out.
The trip is not success and no film is found although this only fuels the paranoia of the head of the department that their man was not killed in an accident and that the film was taken by the enemy. He therefore convinces the Minister that they should send in someone to check out the allegations but because this should be the responsibility of the Circus all that the Circus is official told is that the project is a training one just as the visit to Scandinavia had been, keeping their hand in so to speak in the event of being required to provide an operational service again. I am guessing that in reality the military retained their full operation role after the World War and if anything it remained as professional and more reliable than what happened to the British Circus, so named because of its location although apt given what was subsequently revealed.
The decision is taken to use someone who was sussful in the War but is long since retired with a liking for gin basd cocktails and women and for a training house to be established with the departmental the link which means he has to live in an and away from home, another divide which becomes unbridgeable.
Thus far there is close similarity between radio play and film although the operative is involved in a sexual adventure when he is contacted and if I rememebr correctly the location of the training house is on the coast and not Oxford as in the book,
The Circus with its Control are consulted and their passive help arranged with George Smiley the link pretending to know less than they do although they do not then know precisely what the Department is up to. When there is a request for the ltest radio communicatiosn device in the hope that direction finders can be avoided, Smiley explains that the technical boys will not pass out equipment over which they cannot maintain full control, but they let them have a war time radio one where the crystal has to be changed at regular intervals to enable some difficulties for the direction finders.
The operation is doomed of course and soon after crossing into East Germany the operative encounters a young border guard and instead of knocking him out kills him thus alerting the entire nation to be on the look out for the intruder. Worse is to come become because Smiley’s lot have analysed the photos and found them to be false. In the film the Operative goes to meet the contact who is also like the rest of Departmental team wanting to relive past times and be regarded as important and also well paid
The enemy becomes quickly aware of the travels of the agent via his use of the radio, forgetting to change the crystals and in order to mislead they arange for troops to enter the area so as to give the oeprative something to report and help them to identify his precise location. In the film he is given a lift and kills the driver adding to the deaths of the innocent of what is a wild goose chase. In both the novel and the film the agent meets up with a girl at bar in the town where the rocket (rockets) were reported as being seen.
While the net closes in the decision is taken back home to cut their loses so that when the operatuve is caught and put on a show trial it will be claimed this is a stunt and that a war time radio was found in possession illustrates the absurdity of the claims. This horrifies and angers the young man in the department having established a close relationship with the operative he cannot understand the betrayal, the abandonment, in the context of having managed a couple of days home between the training and preparing for the departure, his wife has announced she will not be there when he returns.
In the book the fate of the operative is uncertain as he hides out with the girl to make what is his final radio call adn in film there is a post script where some children playing in what is now a summer field by the roadside come across the roll of film which is opened and cast to the winds. There is also the implication in the film there was reality, albeit unknown to the contact, at the deployment of missiles.
