Karla

Gerstmann, his workname in California and in Delhi. The Sandman, General Vladimir’s name for him in Smiley’s People.

Soviet spymaster and head of the Thirteenth Directorate of Moscow Centre in John le Carré’s George Smiley novels. Also known as Gerstmann and the Sandman

Karla is the Soviet spymaster who opposes George Smiley in John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979). He heads the Thirteenth Directorate of Moscow Centre, le Carré’s name for Soviet intelligence, and he recruited the mole Bill Haydon, who rose to the top level of the British service. Le Carré never gives his real name. Karla was the codename of the first network he built, and the name passed to the man.

He is almost never on the page. Smiley, Connie Sachs, Bill Haydon and a Soviet diplomat named Grigoriev each describe him, and he appears in person once, at the end of Smiley’s People, when he crosses into West Berlin to defect. General Vladimir, an émigré agent, calls him the Sandman. In the 1982 BBC serial Smiley gives the reason: Karla puts to sleep anyone who gets too close to him. Patrick Stewart played Karla in the BBC serials of 1979 and 1982 and did not speak a word in either.

Nationality	Soviet. He is Russian, and le Carré gives no birthplace.
Languages	Russian. English and German are near certain from his postings, though le Carré never lists his languages.
Appearance	Small and wiry, with silvery hair, bright brown eyes and a deeply lined face
Habits	Chain-smokes American Camel cigarettes. Lives and works in bare rooms. For about twenty years he keeps the gold lighter he took from Smiley.
Family	A father said to have served the Tsar’s Okhrana and then the Cheka. A wife, a student from Leningrad, who killed herself after his arrest in 1948. A daughter, Tatiana, by a wartime mistress.
Chief agents	Bill Haydon, codename Gerald, in British intelligence. Nelson Ko in the People’s Republic of China.