8/4/197? Smiley's People are contacted

August 4, 197?.  At precisely noon on this date a Russian emigrant woman in Paris was accosted by a mysterious stranger who claimed to have news about her daughter, left behind in the Soviet Union many years before.  The chain of events that followed forced brilliant spy George Smiley out of retirement, and led to the death of an old Russian general who claimed to have "three proofs against the sandman."  Don't you love le Carre's way with a code phrase?  Smiley's People was the climax of the Quest For Karla trilogy.