Hi, you'd be better off re-posting this in the General Discussion forum attached to the film, instead of the Content Issues forum because it will just get buried under reports. Thanks.

I was wondering which would be the best choice, and now I know. Thanks mucho!

PS: Done…

It's this one.

** SPOILERS**: I originally answered this question when it was posted at the Support/General forum, but I've since copied my replies in that thread over here where they belong:

@JohnnyCNote said on May, 18 2017 at 1:12AM:

When Higgins and his associates are researching some of Condor's leads on the Langley computer, the information is organized around seemingly arbitrary classifications like "hatsize". Is anyone familiar with this?

Reply by PT 100 on May, 18 2017 at 2:22AM

He's doing a computer database cross-reference to link Wicks to the mailman, looking for commonalities. Hat size comes up as an irrelevant connection, causing impatience. He eventually finds a relevant connection: "Lucifer."

Reply by JohnnyCNote on May, 18 2017 at 2:51AM

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll check that out. As far as hatsize goes, it seems like a totally irrelevant search term, so I was wondering if it was something unique to the Company's database…

Reply by PT 100 on May, 18 2017 at 1:55PM

Think of hat size as a biometric measure, just like width of nose or distance between eyes, etc. It's a quick way, along with other traits, to help determine someone's identity. So sometimes it can be useful (although less so today, because so few men wear hats or have a known hat size). In this case it was irrelevant to connecting the two men; but when "Lucifer" popped up as a commonality, they knew it was significant. Here's a description of the scene that basically shows that Wicks and the mailman together helped create the fiction that the hitman Lucifer was dead:

The Jet Ranger comes into the grass pad at Langley and Higgins goes through to an Operations room that's more like something from NASA. A suite of video monitors, computers and communications equipment at which he sits with a computer operator and another CIA man. The Mail Man's corpse is shows from different angles, electronically transferred and retrieved from the scene. Then, a photo of him in USMC uniform. On-screen, the words:

WILLIAM LLOYD, GUNNERY SGT. USMC

320-618 DETACHED SERVICE: CIA LEBANON/1967-9/OPNS LIBYA/1970/OPNS VENEZUELA/1972-3/OPNS

Higgins tells the operator to cross-check it with Wicks' tape and hold the intersects. The screens fill with electronic text, changing too fast to read (With what look suspiciously like in-jokes hidden on screen) and, to Higgins' disgust the machine throws out some of Wick's measurements, including hat size; both Lloyd and Wicks took a seven in hat size. Finally, however, an intersect of interest;

HAVANA, CUBA/8-21-67 GHAT, LIBYA/1-14-68 JASL,IRAN/5-31-68 PARIS,FRANCE/8-7-68 BEIRUT,LEBANON/9-9-69 IN RE: LUCIFER 2

Lucifer. Higgins tells the operator to run the name. This brings up an image of Joubert, for some reason in negative, followed by a negative image of a VW Beetle exploding somewhere in Europe. Text appears on screen claiming this to be the termination of free-lance agent G.Joubert, confirmed by the case officer - none other than Wicks, assisted by the Mail Man, Lloyd. Clearly something is very, very wrong inside the Company.

Here's the key piece of actual dialog from that scene:

"Cross-check this tape against Wicks and hold any intersects. Hat size. Lucifer. All right, run Lucifer. Coming up. I'll be damned. I'll be damned." I hope that clarifies things for you.

Reply by JohnnyCNote on May, 18 2017 at 4:47PM

That's definitely the best thing I've seen on the subject. Thanks mucho! The excerpt must be from the book as it's much more detailed than the movie, which I've watched many times. While serving in the USAF as a Russian linguist an opportunity presented itself to follow a career path leading to being a "field agent". Ultimately I decided against it, which is one of the best decisions I've ever made…

Reply by PT 100 on May, 18 2017 at 8:08PM

A long time ago, when I lived in MD, I used to have a neighbor who was a Russian linguist at the NSA (aka "Never Say Anything" or "No Such Agency"). He would never tell me anything about his work other than his general occupation and where he worked. I was approached after grad school to work for the CIA, but decided that wasn't for me. Too spooky.

Reply by JohnnyCNote on May, 19 2017 at 2:42AM

Among other negatives are the unacceptable occupational hazards. You may recall William (no "F") Buckley, one-time station chief in Beirut, who was grabbed off the street and ultimately died during "questioning" in Iran, setting off the trail of dominos that became the Iran-Contra scandal. I can live without that sort of risk. Basically they do a lot of the dirty work, in which a conscience can be a liability. No thanks…

@pt100 said: A long time ago, when I lived in MD, I used to have a neighbor who was a Russian linguist at the NSA (aka "Never Say Anything" or "No Such Agency"). He would never tell me anything about his work other than his general occupation and where he worked.

You'd probably be pretty disappointed with what actually becomes classified. The first time I saw a Top Secret document I couldn't imagine anyone actually risking his life to get it. The only really interesting event, when the first KAL airliner was shot down in the summer of '78, was in the news after a few hours, but was TS when we first found out about it from the ancient teletype terminal we used…