Leipzig, East Germany. A flashpoint of spies and counterspies, moves and countermoves in a Cold War that could turn hot ' nuclear hot ' in seconds. In that perilous city, the CIA asks American physicist James Bower (Montgomery Clift) to meet with a Russian scientist who's eager to share vital information with the West. Simple enough, until Bower finds himself sequestered in a hotel room, subjected to harrowing mind games as a guest of Communist agents who want to turn him into The Defector. He resists ' and plunges into a netherworld of secret microfilm, covert ops, lies and sudden death. In his last film, Clift brings gravitas to an espionage thriller where paranoia is business as usual and murder is a political tool.