The Kremlin Letter

The Kremlin Letter is an American DeLuxe Color spy film in Panavision directed by John Huston, starring Richard Boone, Orson Welles, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Patrick ONeal and George Sanders. It was released in February 1970 by 20th CenturyFox.

Late in 1969, a brilliant young United States Navy intelligence officer named Charles Rone Patrick ONeal finds his commission revoked so that he can be recruited into an espionage mission. Rone is told that the mission is being undertaken independently of governmental intelligence agencies, as was commonplace prior to World War II, when espionage operations were handled by a small community of agents operating on a freelance basis.Rone is told that the primary operator in that community, a brutal, sadistic, conscienceless assassin named Robert Stuydevant, did not adapt to the postwar shift to government intelligence agencies, and the independent network of spies disbanded, with Stuydevant disappearing and reportedly later committing suicide. Now, the government has suffered a significant failure in an important intelligence operation and has turned back to the independent agents for help. ........

Source: Wikipedia