If you are having trouble sleeping, tune in to HBO and watch the 2011 film, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and let a British psy-op knock you out. The film is excruciatingly dull. I’m not the type to fall asleep during movies, but watching Tinker made me feel like I had swallowed a handful of sleeping pills – just like it did 39 years ago when I tried to read John Le Carré’s equally dull novel.

In fact, I tried to read Tinker more than once. Each time, I got exasperated and threw the book down in disgust. I defy you to read it. And I love spy novels. I’ve read all of Tom Clancy’s books, for example. In general, I read books cover-to-cover. Even bad books because I keep thinking: “the good part that brought it to my attention must coming up any minute now.”

So, I’ve been perplexed by Tinker for my whole life. But I think I have finally solved the mystery: Tinker is dull because it was designed to be dull. It was written by a British intelligence agent to literally put Americans to sleep. It is a psy-op aimed at us as a deterrent to keep us from looking further into the machinations of Perfidious Albion.

How was it possible for such a horrible book to make it onto the New York Times Best-Seller list? I’ll bet that if the truth were known, British intelligence agents were sent out to bookstores to buy-up copies and goose the sales numbers. Just like L. Ron Hubbard used to send out his thralls to buy copies of Dianetics.

But why? What were the British trying to hypnotize us into forgetting? Well, as World War II wound down, President Roosevelt refused to help Churchill maintain the British Empire, which infuriated Churchill and he turned against us. Churchill sought to weaken the USA by instigating the Cold War, and having us turn against our Russian allies. Stalin even believed that Churchill had FDR assassinated (see story here).

Don’t you think that it’s odd that the US military did so well in World War II, but all of sudden, couldn’t fight its way out of a paper bag in Korea and Vietnam? Genghis Khan had no trouble conquering Korea, so why couldn’t we do it? Well, General MacArthur suspected that the North Koreans and Chinese were being tipped off to his plans. Back then, we foolishly trusted the Brits with too much of our intelligence.

In Vietnam, it was a Brit who talked us into the disastrous Strategic Hamlet program where our side “helped” villagers by burning their houses down and marching them into concentration camps. Not the best way to win hearts and minds.

Ostensibly, the Russians had infiltrated British intelligence, and spies like Kim Philby sent intel to the Kremlin during the Cold War. But Stalin himself didn’t trust Philby and thought that he was a triple agent still loyal to the British.

Ultimately, the Tinker psy-op has succeeded. The vast majority of Americans think that the Brits have been nothing but staunch allies since World War I, when in reality the picture isn’t quite so clear.