Operation Witchcraft
E915697
Operation Witchcraft is a covert British intelligence operation central to the plot of John le Carré’s spy novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," involving a high-level source inside Soviet intelligence.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Operation Witchcraft canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11292391 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Operation Witchcraft Context triple: [Percy Alleline, associatedWith, Operation Witchcraft]
-
A.
Operation Opera
Operation Opera was a 1981 Israeli Air Force airstrike that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor to prevent Saddam Hussein’s regime from developing nuclear weapons.
-
B.
Operation Whirlwind
Operation Whirlwind was the codename for the large-scale Soviet military intervention that crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and reasserted Soviet control over Hungary.
-
C.
Operation Wunderland
Operation Wunderland was a World War II German Kriegsmarine naval operation in the Arctic aimed at disrupting Soviet shipping and naval forces along the Northern Sea Route.
-
D.
Operation Unicorn
Operation Unicorn was the contingency plan detailing the specific protocols and arrangements to be followed if Queen Elizabeth II died in Scotland.
-
E.
Operation Ariel
Operation Ariel was the World War II British evacuation of Allied troops and civilians from western France in June 1940, following the Dunkirk evacuation.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Operation Witchcraft Target entity description: Operation Witchcraft is a covert British intelligence operation central to the plot of John le Carré’s spy novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," involving a high-level source inside Soviet intelligence.
-
A.
Operation Opera
Operation Opera was a 1981 Israeli Air Force airstrike that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor to prevent Saddam Hussein’s regime from developing nuclear weapons.
-
B.
Operation Whirlwind
Operation Whirlwind was the codename for the large-scale Soviet military intervention that crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and reasserted Soviet control over Hungary.
-
C.
Operation Wunderland
Operation Wunderland was a World War II German Kriegsmarine naval operation in the Arctic aimed at disrupting Soviet shipping and naval forces along the Northern Sea Route.
-
D.
Operation Unicorn
Operation Unicorn was the contingency plan detailing the specific protocols and arrangements to be followed if Queen Elizabeth II died in Scotland.
-
E.
Operation Ariel
Operation Ariel was the World War II British evacuation of Allied troops and civilians from western France in June 1940, following the Dunkirk evacuation.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (37)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional intelligence operation
ⓘ
plot device ⓘ |
| appearsInWork |
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
ⓘ
linked to:
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (novel)
|
| associatedWithTheme |
betrayal
ⓘ
deception ⓘ intelligence tradecraft ⓘ |
| centralTo | main plot of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ⓘ |
| countryOfOriginInFiction | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| createdFor | narrative tension and intrigue in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ⓘ |
| fictionalStatus | not a real historical operation ⓘ |
| genreContext | spy fiction ⓘ |
| hasAdaptationContext |
film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
ⓘ
television adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ⓘ |
| hasCreator | John le Carré ⓘ |
| hasFictionalAdversaryOrganization |
Karla’s Moscow Centre network
ⓘ
linked to:
Karla’s Moscow Centre
Soviet intelligence ⓘ |
| hasMedium | novel ⓘ |
| involvesFictionalCharacter |
Bill Haydon
ⓘ
Control ⓘ George Smiley ⓘ Karla ⓘ Percy Alleline ⓘ Roy Bland ⓘ Toby Esterhase ⓘ |
| involvesFictionalConcept |
double agent
ⓘ
high‑level Soviet mole ⓘ |
| isCoverFor | Soviet penetration of the Circus ⓘ |
| isInvestigatedBy | George Smiley ⓘ |
| isLinkedTo | search for a mole inside the Circus ⓘ |
| isUsedByCharacter |
Bill Haydon
ⓘ
Percy Alleline ⓘ |
| isUsedTo | elevate Percy Alleline’s position in the Circus ⓘ |
| narrativeFunction |
covert intelligence operation
ⓘ
source of high‑level Soviet intelligence ⓘ |
| operatedByInFiction |
British intelligence
ⓘ
the Circus ⓘ |
| setDuringFictionalTime | Cold War ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Operation Witchcraft Description of subject: Operation Witchcraft is a covert British intelligence operation central to the plot of John le Carré’s spy novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," involving a high-level source inside Soviet intelligence.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.