Brad Whitaker
Encyclopedia
Brad Whitaker is a fictional character
and a major antagonist in the James Bond
film The Living Daylights
. He was portrayed by American
actor Joe Don Baker
. Baker also played Jack Wade, Bond's CIA contact in GoldenEye
and Tomorrow Never Dies
.
for cheating, he spends a short stint as a mercenary
in the Belgian Congo
before working with various criminal organizations to help finance his first arms deals. He loves military history, and it is implied that he wargames
various historical conflicts using automated miniature figures and effects, such as the battles of Agincourt
, Waterloo
, and Gettysburg.
In a conversation with Bond, Whitaker believes that Pickett's Charge
should have been made up Little Round Top
, and that if Grant
was in charge of the Union at Gettysburg, he would have crushed the Army of Northern Virginia
, ending the war.
Whitaker even has a pantheon of "great military commanders" in his headquarters, which included some of history's most famous and infamous figures, such as Adolf Hitler
, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan
, Julius Caesar
, Alexander the Great, and Attila the Hun
. Whitaker holds these men in high regard and calls them "surgeons who removed society's dead flesh". Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this collection is that all representations of these "surgeons" (or "butchers" as Pushkin describes them) are sculpted to resemble Whitaker himself, which is highly noticeable when Whitaker hides among the statues waiting for Pushkin to visit.
to secure a large shipment of opium
from the Snow Leopard Brotherhood in Afghanistan
for $500,000,000 worth of diamond
s that he had obtained from an arms deal with the Soviets. Once the opium is sold, Whitaker will have enough money to continue arms deals far into the future. At the same time, they attempt to use Bond to eliminate the Soviet head of secret operations, General Pushkin, on the basis that he has instituted an ongoing operation called "Smert Shpionam
" meaning "Death to Spies." Actually, it is their men, especially Whitaker's henchman Necros, who are involved in killing British secret service agents. After thwarting Whitaker's plans, Bond hunts him down at his Tangier
headquarters and kills him after a game of cat-and-mouse in his gaming room, with him using high-tech weapons, such as an 80-round light machine gun
with an integral ballistic shield and a loaded battlefield cannon, while Bond has only his 8-round Walther PPK
. After Bond hides behind a bust of the Duke of Wellington
, he primes his key-ring finder behind it. Whitaker gets right in front of it, and the key-ring finder explodes, triggered by Bond's wolf whistle. The explosion topples the bust and podium on top of Whitaker, crushing him through a glass display case containing one of his miniature wargaming setups resembling Waterloo
– he thus dies on the battlefield after all, Bond ironically quipping, "He met his Waterloo."
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
and a major antagonist in the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights is the fifteenth entry in the James Bond series and the first to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent 007. The film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story, "The Living Daylights"...
. He was portrayed by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...
. Baker also played Jack Wade, Bond's CIA contact in GoldenEye
GoldenEye
GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film in the series not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming...
and Tomorrow Never Dies
Tomorrow Never Dies
Tomorrow Never Dies is the eighteenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Bruce Feirstein wrote the screenplay, and it was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. It follows Bond as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering...
.
Personality
Brad Whitaker is an international black market arms dealer from the U.S. He is fascinated by war, but his actual military career is a failure, so he turns to arms dealing to organize his own personal military force. Expelled from West PointUnited States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
for cheating, he spends a short stint as a mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
in the Belgian Congo
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
before working with various criminal organizations to help finance his first arms deals. He loves military history, and it is implied that he wargames
Wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...
various historical conflicts using automated miniature figures and effects, such as the battles of Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
, Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
, and Gettysburg.
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg , was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac...
In a conversation with Bond, Whitaker believes that Pickett's Charge
Pickett's Charge
Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander,...
should have been made up Little Round Top
Little Round Top
Little Round Top is the smaller of two rocky hills south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was the site of an unsuccessful assault by Confederate troops against the Union left flank on July 2, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg....
, and that if Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
was in charge of the Union at Gettysburg, he would have crushed the Army of Northern Virginia
Army of Northern Virginia
The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, as well as the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most often arrayed against the Union Army of the Potomac...
, ending the war.
Whitaker even has a pantheon of "great military commanders" in his headquarters, which included some of history's most famous and infamous figures, such as Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
, Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, Alexander the Great, and Attila the Hun
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
. Whitaker holds these men in high regard and calls them "surgeons who removed society's dead flesh". Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this collection is that all representations of these "surgeons" (or "butchers" as Pushkin describes them) are sculpted to resemble Whitaker himself, which is highly noticeable when Whitaker hides among the statues waiting for Pushkin to visit.
In the film
Whitaker hires the help of Soviet General Georgi KoskovGeneral Georgi Koskov
General Georgi Koskov is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the James Bond film The Living Daylights. He was portrayed by Jeroen Krabbé.-In the film:...
to secure a large shipment of opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
from the Snow Leopard Brotherhood in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
for $500,000,000 worth of diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s that he had obtained from an arms deal with the Soviets. Once the opium is sold, Whitaker will have enough money to continue arms deals far into the future. At the same time, they attempt to use Bond to eliminate the Soviet head of secret operations, General Pushkin, on the basis that he has instituted an ongoing operation called "Smert Shpionam
SMERSH (James Bond)
SMERSH is a Soviet counterintelligence agency featured in Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels as agent 007's nemesis. СМЕРШ is an acronym from two Russian words: "SMERt' SHpionam" meaning "Death to Spies"...
" meaning "Death to Spies." Actually, it is their men, especially Whitaker's henchman Necros, who are involved in killing British secret service agents. After thwarting Whitaker's plans, Bond hunts him down at his Tangier
Tangier
Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...
headquarters and kills him after a game of cat-and-mouse in his gaming room, with him using high-tech weapons, such as an 80-round light machine gun
Light machine gun
A light machine gun is a machine gun designed to be employed by an individual soldier, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. Light machine guns are often used as squad automatic weapons.-Characteristics:...
with an integral ballistic shield and a loaded battlefield cannon, while Bond has only his 8-round Walther PPK
Walther PPK
The Walther PP series pistols are blowback-operated semi-automatic pistols.They feature an exposed hammer, a double-action trigger mechanism, a single-column magazine, and a fixed barrel which also acts as the guide rod for the recoil spring...
. After Bond hides behind a bust of the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, he primes his key-ring finder behind it. Whitaker gets right in front of it, and the key-ring finder explodes, triggered by Bond's wolf whistle. The explosion topples the bust and podium on top of Whitaker, crushing him through a glass display case containing one of his miniature wargaming setups resembling Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
– he thus dies on the battlefield after all, Bond ironically quipping, "He met his Waterloo."