Mission: Impossible - clips from "The Mind of Stefan Mikos"

The Mind of Stefan Miklos
Season 3, Ep. 13

Walter Townsend, an enemy agent working in the U.S., has been allowed to obtain false information that, if believed by his home country, will cause its leaders grave embarrassment (and discredit Townsend). But another spy from Townsend's home country also working in the U.S., George Simpson, tells his superiors that the information supplied to Townsend is false. Because Simpson and Townsend are known to be rivals, their home country sends its most brilliant agent, Stefan Miklos, to determine the truth or falsity of the information Townsend supplied. The IMF's job is to "assist" Miklos in reaching the "correct" conclusion -- while letting him believe that he has determined for himself that the information is true. - IMDB


We are having a little trouble with "The Mind of Stefan Miklos".  It has all the hallmarks of a Batman gambit:  Mr. Phelps' plan depends critically on predicting how Miklos - the brilliant enemy agent with Holmesian deductive powers and a photographic memory  - will react to the train of clues the IMF leaves behind.

"Stefan Miklos is cold, calculating, and ruthless.  He has no weaknesses and no flaws."

At the planning stage, Willy and Barney express concern that some of the clues are so subtle that Miklos will miss them.  Turns out there's no need to worry about that.

Wiilly and Barnie pretend to be from the gas company to get into the back of a shop where a statue is used for dead drops.  They cut through from inside the cabinet, remove the dead drop and pull out the critical document...

"Your contact will be Lou Grant George Simpson." 

...replacing it with a slightly modified version.

"Your contact will be Commander John Koenig George Simpson."

Commie Sherlock takes the bait.:

Rollin heads for the intercept point, an innocent-looking art shop, which in those days were, apparently, mostly secret operating posts for hostile intelligence agencies.

He scams the operative into thinking his cover has been blown and gets him out of there.  When Miklos arrives, the operative is just as he appeared in the dead drop, and Rollin remembers to be left-handed, too:




Bit by bit the scam comes together.  The airport locker keys, the tickets to Rio for him and her "proving" Townsend has been disloyal.  A bug in Townsend's shirt collar dart keeps them up to date on Miklos' deductions.  Phelps marvels at how efficiently Miklos figures it all out.

"He's running the maze perfectly."

But Miklos isn't quite getting it all.  If he misses a single clue, he will conclude that the information Townsend has conveyed is false (which, of course, it is).  He has most of the puzzle, but he falters.  Phelps, increasingly frustrated, blurts out that "He's letting his emotion affect his reason.
He's never done that before."

But then the eidetic memory kicks in...

Wait...the matches in her purse had been used from the left side...

The girl was not Townsend's lover, but left-handed Simpson's accomplice, which means that Simpson was trying to falsely discredit Townsend...

Miklos thinks

...which means the information Townsend passed along must be true.  Now he sees through the attempt to make him believe otherwise.

"You could have been set up.  Very cleverly."

- "Somebody did alter your information."
- "It's Simpson. I know it is."
- "No, not Simpson. He's not a brilliant man. It took a brilliant mind to plan this entire operation. Someone else is behind it."
- "Who?"
- "The Americans."

After further investigation...

- "What happened?"
- "I allowed them to think they had fooled me.  His proof authenticated the document concerning the nuclear-arms treaty as being false.  Therefore, it must be true.  Our immediate concern now is to get word back that the document is valid."

(So, not a Batman Gambit after all, more of a Kansas City Shuffle, we decided.)

As Miklos and his right-hand man head for the airport they become reflective.

- "I wish I could meet the man who masterminded their operation."
- "He was brilliant."
- "I feel sorry for him.  He played the game well.  But he lost.  It will destroy him."

Think on that, Mister Phelps.

"The best part," says one of our viewers, "is that everybody went away happy.  [Pause]  Except they were probably executed later."

The estimable Christopher Bennett reviews the episode in detail here.