Incriminating pictures of Grigoriev?
I missed something while watching the last episode. While Grigoriev is being interrogated by Smiley, what was in the pictures that was supposedly so incriminating? I wasn't able to make them out on my tv.
shareThey were pictures of his supposedly clandestine Swiss banking for Karla. You know, standing at the teller's window. Getting Swiss francs to pay the sanatorium bill.
Pictures taken by British "officials,"...pictures that if sent directly to the 12th Directorate at Moscow Centre, would most certainly cause an "unfavorable" reaction by Karla towards a certain Russian diplomat named Grigoriev.
CmdrCody
Not only that, but some of Grigoriev's "escorts" show themselves in polaroids holding the pictures and standing next to Grigoriev. The message is: "Karla, your man is well and truly caught. And so are you! There will be no wiggling out of this one."
shareSmiley sums up the situation very plainly when he writes from Switzerland a letter that will be carried back to Karla by the weekly courier. "The ground upon which you stand has been cut away. You have become a citizen of no-man's land. I send you my greetings."
Elsewhere Smiley observes that he (Karla) has put love before duty; that he has appropriated the resources of his service for his own use. This was to pay for the treatment that his daughter Alexandra was receiving at the clinic for schizophrenia. If these resources dried up, her situation would become dire as she was ferried from one public hospital to another. Her anguish and Karla's could only be imagined. Karla's rivals in Moscow would not be slow to capitalise on the situation. All in all, Karla has little choice but to defect to the West where he and his daughter will be cared for.
This form of blackmail is not without painful consequences for Smiley in the final scene. "You won George," says Peter Guillam. "Yes, I suppose I did," he replies, but he does not share the jubilation of the rest of the team.
There are two reasons why the burn on Grigoriev is successful.
He has been working directly for Karla and has been caught at it. This means no friends at the Embassy, behind whose backs he has been working and a bullet in the head from Karla for giving the game away.
And he has been naughty with one of the secretaries which, apart from being naother bad career move, is also going to involve him in a deluge of abuse and nonsense from his wife.
The pictures taken with the 'Western Spies' are the final nail in his coffin, though being thick, it takes him a while to put it all together. It's not really until George draws him a picture of life with no privileges in 'somewhere inclement' with his harridan, that Grigoriev finally realises his game is up.
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