Assuming Van Damm will be heading for prison for espionage, I wonder if he ever wakes up to the fact that George Kaplan was just a figment of the CIA's imagination.
shareAssuming Van Damm will be heading for prison for espionage, I wonder if he ever wakes up to the fact that George Kaplan was just a figment of the CIA's imagination.
At his trial Roger would take the witness stand. He would be sworn in as Roger Thornhill. Even then, VD would continue to think he was an agent and the government is still trying not to blow his cover. After all, he ended up answering the phone in George Kaplan's hotel room, and then worked with them to do the fake shooting. It is doubtful that VD would ever truly believe he simply picked up the wrong guy and he was able to accomplish all this, even if during the trail they said there was no George Kaplan and he was a fake decoy.
That's what makes the story so amazing. Here is a guy, Roger, who is an Advertising and gets himself involved in performing like an agent.
I agree. While logic and hard evidence might have convinced them that they had been duped by something as clever as a fake decoy (not to mention that you don't flesh out agents on your tail by the simple expedient of paging them), their pride and their obstinate belief in their infallibility would probably have blinded them to the truth, no matter how clearly it was spelled out for them.
Thornhill's apparently effortless metamorphosis into a government agent is scarcely believable but at the same time wonderfully exhilarating.