The Fourth Protocol (1987)

Ian Richardson: Sir Nigel Irvine

Quotes 

• George Berenson : [George just found out that his South African contact is a Russian spy]  Oh my God... what have I done?

  Sir Nigel Irvine : You've betrayed your country. You've passed on untold numbers of military secrets to Moscow, and endangered the lives of British men and women. And I'd say you've weakened NATO. Perhaps irretrievably.

  George Berenson : Oh my God...

  Sir Nigel Irvine : Just you, and your schoolboy politics, and your idiotically conceited faith in your own importance.

  [pause] 

  Sir Nigel Irvine : Now some of our more muscular colleagues would like to lock you in a cell and go to work on you with a carving knife and a pair of pliers. The rest would like to feed you to the newspapers and throw whatever's left into prison for 20 years. It's a tricky choice.

  [Smiles ever so slightly, pauses] 

  Sir Nigel Irvine : However, this is what you will do. You shall resume your special relationship with Moscow, but this time I will be supplying the papers. Do you understand?

  [George nods] 

  Sir Nigel Irvine : And later, when you are finished, we will decide what to do with you.

  George Berenson : [very shakily]  I'm very grateful, Nigel.

• Sir Nigel Irvine : Hello, George. Had a good holiday? Not missing anything, are you?

  [lays out George's stolen diamonds] 

  Sir Nigel Irvine : These are yours, I believe. But these, beyond a doubt...

  [lays out the stolen NATO documents] 

  Sir Nigel Irvine : Never were.

  George Berenson : I don't suppose there's very much I can say, is there?

  Sir Nigel Irvine : I don't know. Try me.

  George Berenson : All right. Well, for years now I have adopted the attitude that there was only one struggle on the planet worth a damn: the fight against world communism. And, it has long seemed to me ridiculous that the most committed anti-Communists in the Southern Hemisphere, the South Africans, should be excluded from NATO planning merely because of some... unfashionable domestic attitudes.

• John Preston : [to Karpov]  You and Irvine set it up, didn't you?. You gave us Petrovsky in exchange for the evidence you will use to destroy Govershin. You could very well become the next Chairman of the KGB.

  Sir Nigel Irvine : Preston, you're out of your depth.

  John Preston : It's just a game to you, isn't it? You both don't give a shit about anything except your lousy careers! It's about time they put you in a fucking museum!

  General Karpov : [as Preston walks away]  Do you think he'll talk?