In the start of the movie they find Barley in Portugal. In the end he returns back, to which seems to be Portugal to his apartment. No doubt Barley would have been found a traitor of England so is it a safe assumption that Portugal has a no extradition with England in such matters? Comments and facts?
shareI have not yet read it, so this subject might have been explained in the book, but here's my interpretation: 1) The Brits let the incident die quietly because they didn't want to be embarrassed by bad publicity if the press got hold of the story. 2) The Americans weren't going to press the issue either, because as Ned states near the end of the movie, the CIA planned for the Sovs to get the questionnaire anyway. I could be wrong about this, so I hope someone will add more light to this subject.
sharePortugal and Britain share the oldest Treaty in history between governments, an alliance that i think dates for more than 500 years.
And yes, there is an extradition pact between both countries.
I'm in the process of reading the book, so i'll definitely will know what the ending means. :)
"The Sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
In the book, the end makes clear that the americans don't want to pay any revenge on Barley, (like stated in the first message, because the rules of the game changed so fast, and that the British even want to pay for Barley not to return to England, saying that everyone knows he "did an honourable thing", even despite the fact that he's a traitor. The events in the book (and in real life) developed so fast, that an act of revenge or an extradition would shed light on a great blunder by the ocidental secret services (it is never clear in the book that the CIA indeed serve a false "shopping list" to the Russians by way of Barley, it felt more like a way of trying to disguise their blunder).
"The Sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
"(it is never clear in the book that the CIA indeed serve a false "shopping list" to the Russians by way of Barley, it felt more like a way of trying to disguise their blunder)."
In the film it is definitely a way to rescue the situation to pretend that the list was false so that the Russians will discount it.
Of course, for either the British or Americans to try to punish Barley would indicate that the list was genuine - hence he is safe as anyone can be the spy world.