Mmmm… That's the stuff, baker!
I love Le Carre, and Tinker Tailor is one of my favorites. And it's true about America and the MI6 Circus etc.
What I haven't seen anyone mention, is that in the sequel to Tinker Tailor
spoiler alert if you haven't read it and want to
the Americans bail them out after having had their highest levels of MI6 infiltrated by mole traitors for the Soviets.
The Americans completely rebuilt their intel from scratch basically, and the MI6 RESENTED them for it. They would mockingly refer to their American counterparts in the CIA as "the cousins" as in
"oh we can't let the cousins find out about this!"