When "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" came out in 1974, revelations exposing the presence of Soviet double agents in Britain were still fresh in public memory. Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, John Cairncross, and Kim Philby, later known as members of the Cambridge Five, had been exposed as KGB moles. The five had risen to very senior positions in branches of the British government. The book, based on the premise of uncovering a Soviet double agent in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), offers a novelisation of this period. It is also set against a theme of decline in British influence on the world stage after the Second World War, with the USSR and the USA emerging as the dominant superpowers during the Cold War.