A few remaining questions re Hungarian mission, the Circus's stalling re Tarr's message, & Karla

1) Was the offer of service by the Hungarian general to Control genuine or was it a Karla/Haydon ruse to embarrass control and hasten his departure? Of course, the mission would have been compromised in any case by Jim’s informing Haydon of the trip beforehand, but the question as to whether there was a real offer remains open. (Even if the offer was real, it would have been unlikely that such highly sensitive KGB information as to the identity of the mole would have been known outside of a very few people in Moscow Center—strains credulity to think a Hungarian general would have this info. On second thought--it is possible that a Hungarian general might get wind of the chickenfeed coming from the Circus through Polyakov and think it genuine; the revealing of this leak may have been info that such an offer was referring to, and not the identity of the real mole. See #3 below as well.)

2) In any case, what was Karla’s plan for Jim in Budapest? We understand that the shooting was a mistake, but what exactly did they envision? Was it always their intention to take Jim back to Moscow and torture him? Did Bill Haydon realize that? How did they intend to embarrass Control? Edit 1: Jim himself says to Smiley "it was supposed to be a simple snatch job." I guess this helps, but how does he know for sure? And even if it were a "snatch job," what then?

3) Why exactly did the Circus stall when they received Ricki Tarr’s message from Turkey? Of course, the motivations of Percy/Toby/Roy were NOT the same as the those of Bill. Ricki’s message said he had info regarding a mole from a perspective defector. We have to keep in mind that Percy/Toby/Roy would have thought that information regarding the chickenfeed/glitter they were giving to Polyakov had been somehow disseminated and interpreted as genuine by lower level officers in Moscow; their fear would be that such information percolating back to the Circus would keep the “mole hunting” pressure on in the Circus, to the detriment of Witchcraft. After all, this is why they wanted Control out so badly. But conspiring with Moscow (through Polyakov) to have Irina captured in Istanbul would have been counter-productive because it would only HEIGHTEN Tarr’s suspicion. Only Bill had a genuine motive for stalling to give the KGB time to get to Irina. But Percy was in charge; how did Bill convince the others to stall?

4) Same thing goes for the message Tarr sent from Paris. Only Bill would need time to get to Polyakov to warn him and help plan Tarr’s demise. The others thought he was a simple turncoat and would have wanted to encourage him to come in so he could be captured. Delaying would only make him suspicious and likely to flee. The movie makers seem to treat Percy/Toby/Roy and Bill as if they are a monolithic block in their motivations, but they manifestly are not! Percy/Toby/Roy are NOT the bad guys like Bill. They’re duped, but they’re on the UK’s side.

5) Other than for simply dramatic effect, it’s a stretch to come up with any really good explanation for Karla to say to Jim “Tell Alleline what we’ve done!” after shooting Irina. My only thought is this: Karla wants to maintain the illusion that he’s “happy” receiving the chickenfeed the Circus is sending him through Polyakov—that is, he wants the Percy/Toby/Roy to believe that Moscow thinks Polyakov is doing a great job running his “mole.” (He actually IS running a mole, but from Percy/Toby/Roy’s perspective the mole is of their own making.) Therefore, Karla would want to demonstrate to Percy how ruthless he is when it comes to anyone on his team, such as Irina, threatening to expose the valuable mole. Still, this is a stretch, and it gives me a headache to think about it. Thoughts?