Connie Sachs is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Sachs plays a key supporting role in the Karla Trilogy, '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', '' The Honourable Schoolboy'', and '' Smiley's People''.

Biography

Sachs is an eccentric alcoholic with an incredible memory and intellect who works in the research department of the Circus. "A don's daughter", her brothers were also dons, and she herself "some sort of academic". Her family lived at Millponds, a "beautiful

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

house" with "lovely grounds, near Newbury", later owned by one of her brothers. According to legend, Control met her while she was at university and was so impressed that he invented a job so as to hire her. Her personal and professional life is devoted to the study of Soviet intelligence and most notably the Soviet spymaster known as Karla. She is close to spymaster George Smiley and forced into early retirement at the same time he is. From her vast memory, she provides him with important clues in ''Tinker Tailor''; when he must rebuild the Circus after its betrayal, Sachs returns happily to her work despite her failing health. She is crucial to the unravelling of the paper trail at the centre of ''The Honourable Schoolboy'' and retires after their success against Karla, this time permanently. When Smiley visits her for the last time in ''Smiley's People'', she is dying from old age and alcoholism. She is taken care of by her female lover, a former Circus agent named Hilary; despite her objections, Connie agrees to speak with Smiley, and provides a key that leads to the eventual victory over Karla.

Background

Sachs was widely reputed (in outline at least) to be based on the legendary real-life

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

Soviet watcher Milicent Bagot. Although she worked in domestic intelligence (unlike the fictional Connie), she was reportedly the first to alert British authorities that

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963, he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring that had divulged British secr ...

had past associations as a

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

. Bagot died, aged 99, in 2006.

Portrayals

In the BBC's 1979 television adaptation of ''Tinker Tailor'' and the 1982 adaptation of ''Smiley's People'' which followed it, Sachs was played by Beryl Reid. Reid won two BAFTAs for her performance in each miniseries. In

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's 2009-10 adaptation of the Karla trilogy, Sachs was played by Maggie Steed. In the 2011 film adaptation '' Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'', Sachs was played by Kathy Burke.

References

Characters in British novels of the 20th century John le Carré Fictional British spies {{novel-char-stub