Percy Alleline
Encyclopedia
Sir Percy Alleline is a fictional character in British novelist John le Carré
's work. He is the Chief of the "Circus", Le Carré's fictionalised version of MI6/SIS
, in the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
.
Alleline comes from a religious Scottish background and is portrayed as a man of limited potential who rises beyond his level of competence thanks to assiduous political networking.
He is recruited by British intelligence shortly after World War II
thanks to the "furious" lobbying of Maston, a mediocre Circus hack (presumably the same figure appearing in Le Carre's debut novel
, "Call For The Dead
"). Shortly thereafter, Maston falls from favor, and Alleline is promptly sent to a backwater assignment in Latin America
. Alleline performs unexpectedly well and is reassigned to India
, where he also leaves a good impression. He is then dispatched to Egypt
with the difficult task of following in the footsteps of Bill Haydon
, a Circus legend in the Middle East, and nearly succeeds in equaling his illustrious predecessor. However, the decidedly pro-American Alleline involves himself in a U.S.-backed coup that runs contrary to the interests of British oil companies. The coup aborts and Alleline, exposed, is recalled to London in disgrace.
Thanks to his political connections, Alleline escapes relegation to a low-level job and coaxes Control
, the anonymous head of MI6, into promoting him to a senior post. Control is portrayed as a brilliant but dying master spy, a man who was so skilled at his job that no one even knew his name, including George Smiley, who held him in highest regard and later mourned his death. Control, refusing to admit Alleline to any real responsibility, instead specially creates a position for him as Director of Operations, which ostensibly gives him approval authority over all field operations, but in fact is empty of real power. Starved of any responsibility, Alleline is determined to find a way back to "a seat at the top table" of the Circus by any means necessary.
When a group of ambitious MI6 officers led by Bill Haydon
approaches him with information about Source Merlin, a provider of seemingly invaluable intelligence on the USSR, Alleline sees an opening. He relentlessly promotes the so-called Witchcraft material collected from Merlin to his political contacts, burnishing his own credentials at a time when Control is falling from grace due to a string of operational setbacks. In 1972, after the failure of Operation Testify in which British agent Jim Prideaux
is shot and captured by the Soviets, Control is forced into retirement along with many other competent old-timers including his right-hand man George Smiley
. Haydon's group assumes total control of the Circus and Alleline is promoted to Chief (along with a much-desired knighthood) on the continuing strength of Witchcraft.
This cabal
of intelligence officers includes Bill Haydon
, Toby Esterhase
and Roy Bland
which leads to the phrase oft-repeated by Control, and later by Smiley: "There are three of them and Alleline." In other words, three possible puppet masters and the puppet, Alleline. Control, dying from cancer, urges Smiley, his only confidante at the top of the Circus, to create delaying actions in order to slow the cabal's efforts to seize power. Control knows that if he can uncover the Soviet spy Gerald, almost certainly a member of the cabal, he can destroy it before his own death.
Unbeknown to Alleline, Merlin is in fact a complete fabrication created by Moscow Centre
to engineer the eviction of Control and protect the existence of a mole
, code-named Gerald, at the highest level of the Circus. In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
, Smiley
is called back from retirement in 1973, after Control's death and Alleline's accession, to investigate growing suspicions of Soviet penetration of the Circus and ultimately unmasks Gerald.
When the mole is exposed, Alleline is broken by the disaster: one of his chief lieutenants has been exposed as a Russian spy; the marvelous intelligence on which he has built his career turns out to be so much Russian "chickenfeed"; and he is left with the humiliating realization that the only reason he is Chief at all was because Moscow and the mole considered him an ideal stooge. After commencing negotiations with Moscow to exchange the mole for the British Eastern Bloc networks, Alleline turns over his job to Smiley and resigns.
According to the time-line of later le Carré work, Alleline is already dead by 1989 or 1990, when the events of the novel The Secret Pilgrim
take place. Aside from the disgrace of the mole's exposure, he has left the Circus a number of awkward messes, in that several of his proteges and allies, of dubious morals, have continued to exploit the opportunities he provided them.
Gerald's devotion to the USSR.
He is also portrayed as a bigamist
, or at least as a womanizer; both of his wives (or his wife and regular mistress) are alcoholics.
When Gerald is exposed, there is even a bizarre moment when Smiley finds himself in sympathy with him, since a man like Alleline is undeserving of anyone's loyalty.
A common theme in le Carré's novels is the transient personal triumph of the politically adept administrator over the true intelligence officer; Alleline, Maston (in Call for the Dead
) and Sir Saul Enderby (in many of the later novels starting with Smiley's People
) are all portrayed as having reached their positions through politics and social network
ing rather than any inherent brilliance in their chosen profession. The buffoonish Roddy Martindale in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
is also another example of this kind of politician/spy.
in the 1979 television
serial based on the novel. In the 1988 BBC Radio 4
7-part series he was played by James Grout
. In the 2011 film adaptation, Alleline is portrayed by Toby Jones
.
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
's work. He is the Chief of the "Circus", Le Carré's fictionalised version of MI6/SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
, in the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...
.
Alleline comes from a religious Scottish background and is portrayed as a man of limited potential who rises beyond his level of competence thanks to assiduous political networking.
He is recruited by British intelligence shortly after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
thanks to the "furious" lobbying of Maston, a mediocre Circus hack (presumably the same figure appearing in Le Carre's debut novel
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
, "Call For The Dead
Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain...
"). Shortly thereafter, Maston falls from favor, and Alleline is promptly sent to a backwater assignment in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Alleline performs unexpectedly well and is reassigned to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where he also leaves a good impression. He is then dispatched to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
with the difficult task of following in the footsteps of Bill Haydon
Bill Haydon
Bill Haydon is a fictional character created by John le Carré, and is a major figure in le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.-Biography:...
, a Circus legend in the Middle East, and nearly succeeds in equaling his illustrious predecessor. However, the decidedly pro-American Alleline involves himself in a U.S.-backed coup that runs contrary to the interests of British oil companies. The coup aborts and Alleline, exposed, is recalled to London in disgrace.
Thanks to his political connections, Alleline escapes relegation to a low-level job and coaxes Control
Control
Control is the ability to purposefully direct, or suppress, change.Control can also refer to:-Literature:*Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, "Control" was the head of the Circus, a stand-in for MI-6, in the 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré...
, the anonymous head of MI6, into promoting him to a senior post. Control is portrayed as a brilliant but dying master spy, a man who was so skilled at his job that no one even knew his name, including George Smiley, who held him in highest regard and later mourned his death. Control, refusing to admit Alleline to any real responsibility, instead specially creates a position for him as Director of Operations, which ostensibly gives him approval authority over all field operations, but in fact is empty of real power. Starved of any responsibility, Alleline is determined to find a way back to "a seat at the top table" of the Circus by any means necessary.
When a group of ambitious MI6 officers led by Bill Haydon
Bill Haydon
Bill Haydon is a fictional character created by John le Carré, and is a major figure in le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.-Biography:...
approaches him with information about Source Merlin, a provider of seemingly invaluable intelligence on the USSR, Alleline sees an opening. He relentlessly promotes the so-called Witchcraft material collected from Merlin to his political contacts, burnishing his own credentials at a time when Control is falling from grace due to a string of operational setbacks. In 1972, after the failure of Operation Testify in which British agent Jim Prideaux
Jim Prideaux
Jim Prideaux is a fictional Intelligence officer in the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. Although his character and actions are central to the plot, they are mostly revealed in sequences of dialogue and flashbacks, or are indirectly referred to.-Character and Career:Jim Prideaux...
is shot and captured by the Soviets, Control is forced into retirement along with many other competent old-timers including his right-hand man George Smiley
George Smiley
George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
. Haydon's group assumes total control of the Circus and Alleline is promoted to Chief (along with a much-desired knighthood) on the continuing strength of Witchcraft.
This cabal
Cabal
A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...
of intelligence officers includes Bill Haydon
Bill Haydon
Bill Haydon is a fictional character created by John le Carré, and is a major figure in le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.-Biography:...
, Toby Esterhase
Toby Esterhase
Toby Esterhase is a fictional character in John le Carré's George Smiley spy novels including Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy; and Smiley's People, as well as some of the stories in The Secret Pilgrim....
and Roy Bland
Roy Bland
Roy Bland is a fictional character in the novels of John le Carré, appearing most prominently inTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He is a high-ranking official in "The Circus" , and one of five men suspected of being a mole for the Russians.-Background:Unusually for Circus officers, Bland is from a...
which leads to the phrase oft-repeated by Control, and later by Smiley: "There are three of them and Alleline." In other words, three possible puppet masters and the puppet, Alleline. Control, dying from cancer, urges Smiley, his only confidante at the top of the Circus, to create delaying actions in order to slow the cabal's efforts to seize power. Control knows that if he can uncover the Soviet spy Gerald, almost certainly a member of the cabal, he can destroy it before his own death.
Unbeknown to Alleline, Merlin is in fact a complete fabrication created by Moscow Centre
Moscow Centre
Moscow Centre is a nickname used by John le Carré for the Moscow central headquarters of the KGB, especially those departments concerned with foreign espionage and counterintelligence...
to engineer the eviction of Control and protect the existence of a mole
Mole (espionage)
A mole is a spy who works for an enemy nation, but whose loyalty ostensibly lies with his own nation's government. In some usage, a mole differs from a defector in that a mole is a spy before gaining access to classified information, while a defector becomes a spy only after gaining access...
, code-named Gerald, at the highest level of the Circus. In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...
, Smiley
George Smiley
George Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
is called back from retirement in 1973, after Control's death and Alleline's accession, to investigate growing suspicions of Soviet penetration of the Circus and ultimately unmasks Gerald.
When the mole is exposed, Alleline is broken by the disaster: one of his chief lieutenants has been exposed as a Russian spy; the marvelous intelligence on which he has built his career turns out to be so much Russian "chickenfeed"; and he is left with the humiliating realization that the only reason he is Chief at all was because Moscow and the mole considered him an ideal stooge. After commencing negotiations with Moscow to exchange the mole for the British Eastern Bloc networks, Alleline turns over his job to Smiley and resigns.
According to the time-line of later le Carré work, Alleline is already dead by 1989 or 1990, when the events of the novel The Secret Pilgrim
The Secret Pilgrim
The Secret Pilgrim is a 1990 novel, set within the frame narrative of a series of lectures by John le Carré's George Smiley, famous only within the 'Circus'. The memoirs, narrated by Ned, a former pupil of Smiley's, are, except for the last, triggered by tangential Smiley comments in lectures given...
take place. Aside from the disgrace of the mole's exposure, he has left the Circus a number of awkward messes, in that several of his proteges and allies, of dubious morals, have continued to exploit the opportunities he provided them.
Character
Alleline is presented as a bombastic bureaucrat full of low cunning and intimidation, with a distinctive turn of phrase. He has risen to his position not through tradecraft, but through plausibility and connections. His political ambitions (and particularly his devotion to the USA) are presented in harsher terms by le Carré than the moleMole (espionage)
A mole is a spy who works for an enemy nation, but whose loyalty ostensibly lies with his own nation's government. In some usage, a mole differs from a defector in that a mole is a spy before gaining access to classified information, while a defector becomes a spy only after gaining access...
Gerald's devotion to the USSR.
He is also portrayed as a bigamist
Bigamy
In cultures that practice marital monogamy, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. Bigamy is a crime in most western countries, and when it occurs in this context often neither the first nor second spouse is aware of the other...
, or at least as a womanizer; both of his wives (or his wife and regular mistress) are alcoholics.
When Gerald is exposed, there is even a bizarre moment when Smiley finds himself in sympathy with him, since a man like Alleline is undeserving of anyone's loyalty.
A common theme in le Carré's novels is the transient personal triumph of the politically adept administrator over the true intelligence officer; Alleline, Maston (in Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead
Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain...
) and Sir Saul Enderby (in many of the later novels starting with Smiley's People
Smiley's People
Smiley's People is a spy novel by John le Carré, published in 1979. Featuring British master-spy George Smiley, it is the third and final novel of the "Karla Trilogy", following Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy...
) are all portrayed as having reached their positions through politics and social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
ing rather than any inherent brilliance in their chosen profession. The buffoonish Roddy Martindale in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...
is also another example of this kind of politician/spy.
Portrayals
Alleline was played by Michael AldridgeMichael Aldridge
Michael William ffolliott Aldridge was an English actor. While it was his role as Seymour in the television series Last of the Summer Wine which made him widely recognised, his long career as a successful character actor on stage and screen dated back to the 1930s.-Early life:The son of Dr...
in the 1979 television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
serial based on the novel. In the 1988 BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
7-part series he was played by James Grout
James Grout
James Grout is an English actor of radio and television.Grout was born in London, the son of Beatrice Anne and William Grout...
. In the 2011 film adaptation, Alleline is portrayed by Toby Jones
Toby Jones
Toby Edward Heslewood Jones is an English actor.-Early life:Jones was born in Hammersmith, London, the son of actors Jennifer and Freddie Jones...
.