chunk: In October 1973, "Control", head of British intelligence ("the Circus"), sends agent Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general wishing to defect. Prideaux is shot and captured. Amid the international incident that follows, Control and his right-hand man George Smiley are forced into retirement. Control dies of illness.
  Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, with Bill Haydon as his deputy, and Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase as key lieutenants. Despite Control and Smiley's misgivings, their successors had already begun a secret operation—"Witchcraft"—to obtain Soviet intelligence, which is being exchanged with the CIA for US intelligence.