The Chairman

The Chairman is a Cold War thriller about an American scientist, John Hathaway, who is recruited for a secret mission in communist China. His assignment is to obtain the formula for an agricultural enzyme that could allow crops to grow in any climate and potentially reshape global agriculture. Powerful governments are eager to control the discovery, and Hathaway is sent to a country he does not fully understand.

What Hathaway is not told is that his superiors have implanted a tiny bomb in his brain without his knowledge. Should the mission appear to be failing, or should he become a liability, they can kill him remotely at the push of a button. Gregory Peck plays Hathaway, with Anne Heywood, Arthur Hill, Alan Dobie, Keye Luke and Zienia Merton among the cast.

J. Lee Thompson directed the film, working from a screenplay by Ben Maddow for producers Mort Abrahams and 20th Century Fox with APJAC Productions. It was released in 1969 and runs 93 minutes. In Thompson's directing career it followed Mackenna's Gold and preceded Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Reception has been modest: on IMDb the film holds a rating of 5.6 from around 1,600 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 5.5 from a much smaller number of votes, suggesting limited later attention for this Cold War espionage story.