62:, the later books in the series indicate that he was born around 1933. Although he has done observational "field work" in the past and recruited spies that report to him, Guillam himself is uncomfortable with getting personally involved in spying operations, preferring an administrative role. His hands-off approach to spy work places him on the periphery of the numerous cliques and rivalries that form within the Circus, allowing him to survive multiple bureaucratic shakeups that occur throughout the 1960s and 1970s; nevertheless, he retains a secret loyalty to George Smiley, who functions as his mentor. He constantly finds himself reassigned to divisions and assignments considered mediocre or undesirable, including running the Scalphunters, the division of the Circus responsible for espionage operations requiring violence or assassinations. Guillam goes through a number of failed relationships, including an affair with a married musician twenty years his junior.
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76:. He is described as having been recruited and trained by Smiley during the Second World War. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of a suspected communist whom Smiley had previously exonerated, Smiley quits the Circus in order to conduct his own private investigation, relying on Guillam to provide him inside information pertinent to the case. He appears again in a minor role in
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goes to senior Civil
Servant Oliver Lacon and, acting as his link man, Guillam facilitates Smiley's secret return from retirement in order to conduct a surreptitious investigation into the identity of the mole. Guillam is motivated not only by his loyalty to Smiley but also because, as a result of the Mole's actions, a network of secret agents he ran in the former
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Guillam appears as the Head of
Secretariat for Leonard Burr, the chief of the Service, but their working relationship is conflicted. Burr describes Guillam as "a thoroughly idle officer", while Guillam says of Burr, "Bloody man seems to expect me to work in my sleep." Guillam is replaced by Ned, the
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were identified and executed. Guillam acts as Smiley's man on the inside in the investigation, which involves his actually stealing files from the Circus
Registry at Smiley's request. Over the course of the novel, Guillam grows progressively paranoid and anxious regarding the investigation, at one
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and carry". One of
Guillam's agents, Ricki Tarr, inadvertently learns that the failure of Operation Testify—and Smiley's subsequent termination from the Circus—was due to the presence of a mole in the highest echelons of British intelligence. When contacted by Tarr and unsure of whom to trust, he
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to make
Guillam only forty in 1973. At the outset of the book, the failure of a major operation called "Testify" has resulted in Smiley and the former head of the Circus, Control, being fired. Guillam survives the purge of personnel loyal to Smiley, but is demoted to the head of the Brixton
131:, in cooperation with certain elements of the British government. Though the operation is a success, his suspicions are proven correct when Smiley is removed from head of the Circus, and Guillam himself is demoted once again to the Brixton outstation.
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point doubting the veracity of Tarr's allegations. When the mole is finally identified, Guillam loses his temper and physically attacks him, having to be restrained by the other men in the room.
100:"scalphunters", fieldmen used in operations that require physical action and/or violence. The position is seen as one of the least desirable in the Circus, described humorously by Smiley as "
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40:, the protagonist of many of le Carre's novels, and is often the person Smiley turns to for assistance when he fears he cannot trust his peers or subordinates.
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Guillam is half-French and half-English, and comes from a family that has worked for The Circus (le Carre's name for
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in the film (a departure from the novels), and as making the painful decision to break up with his boyfriend.
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and "China watcher" Doc di Salis, as they investigate a Soviet "
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30:'s series of espionage novels. He first appears in
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382:The Honourable Schoolboy
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803:Fictional British spies
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140:(the third book in the
593:The Constant Gardener
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446:The Tailor of Panama
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758:Smiley Versus Karla
751:The Incongruous Spy
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125:gold seam
44:Character
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438:Our Game
91:, which
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93:retcons
679:(2018)
671:(2016)
663:(1991)
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361:(1968)
353:(1965)
345:(1963)
337:(1962)
329:(1961)
318:Novels
714:Karla
537:Films
307:Works
210:play
102:cosh
309:by
265:In
219:In
184:of
179:BBC
147:In
129:CIA
50:MI6
794::
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299:e
292:t
285:v
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