What do these espionage tradecraft phrases from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy mean?

Question

When Ricky Tarr is recounting his story to George Smiley, he speculates that Boris -- a Russian spy working undercover as a trade delegate -- was "waiting for a connect, working a letterbox, maybe, or trailing his coat and looking for a pass from a mug like me." This language appears in both the novel and the recent movie version. Do these phrases refer to cut-and-dried spying activities? The best I can come up with, based on inference and previous rodeos, is this: - "waiting for a connect" means hanging out and waiting for a confederate to make contact via established protocol - "working a letterbox" might mean sending or receiving QSL cards in coordination with a numbers station - "trailing one's coat and looking for a pass" might mean deliberately dropping hints that one is a spy, in the hopes of drawing out enemy spies That's all I've got. If anyone knows better, I'd love to find out.

Answer 1

Yes, these are good guesses. Le Carre uses trade lingo as he was once a spy himself. I recommend "The Spy who came in from the cold"