Smug international arms dealer and military history buff portrayed by Joe Don Baker in The Living Daylights. He joins forces with renegade Russian general Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé) to perpetrate a huge opium-for-diamonds deal. Based in Tangier, Whitaker lives in a mansion housing a virtual museum of wax military figures (Hitler, Napoleon, Attila, Caesar), toy-soldier dioramas, and ancient weaponry. It also hides a devil’s cache of the newest weapons, all displayed in drawers operated electronically by a series of remote controls. Whitaker considers himself a brilliant military mind, but he’s actually a pathetic little weasel who was thrown out of West Point for cheating.

Whitaker has made a huge arms deal with the Russians, who have given him a $50 million advance. However, instead of delivering the weapons in quantity to the Soviet Union, Whitaker and General Koskov have taken the advance and converted it into diamonds, which they use to purchase a huge heroin shipment from the Snow Leopard Brotherhood of Afghanistan. To conceal their treachery, the partners convince British intelligence that KGB chief General Leonid Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) is behind a rash of killings that have targeted British agents. They plant the supposed evidence—the words “Smiert Spionam,” Russian for “Death to Spies”—on or near the bodies of the dead agents.