Control never told anyone his name. It’s fiction, of course, but what a fun idea, to so compartmentalize your life that you run a whole spy organization and no one has even the least idea who you are apart from some handle you chose for yourself.
Predictably, he started with the last days of Control: “Your old boss, George, bless him, the only one who ever kept his name a secret. Not from you, of course, he never had any secrets from you, George, did he? Close as thieves, Smiley and Control were, so they say, right to the end.”
Think about how difficult this would be. You can’t very well withhold your name from your boss or your co-workers and just say “I’m Control”, especially not when you’re new at the job.
It would depend, in particular, on not having anyone to answer to, or on those people forgetting or otherwise not caring what his name was before they left.
I have two unlikely theories.
One: maybe started on a very low rung, possibly in a position without any need for collaboration, then worked his way into a position of indispensable but invisible importance. At some point, maybe he has no clear direct report and his place on the org chart is unclear, there’s a power vacuum. He’s built up a huge disparity between his leverage and his recognition, and he executes the trade.
Or, he came in as a sought-after hotshot, right at or near the top, already on the fifth floor from day one, and anonymity was (unofficially) part of his terms.
The latter seems much less likely. What spy agency is likely to hire someone at the top who won’t say who he is?
The former also seems unlikely. In TTSS we get a sample of the interviews that formed part of the hiring process (for Bill Hayden) and they were comprehensive, if a bit perfunctory. Transcripts were kept for later reference, which is more than can be said for any company I’ve worked at.
But Control joined long before Hayden, potentially long before the hiring process had been built out to that degree. Maybe he joined at a time when such a trick would still be possible.