What's the deal with the xlated books in the 70's movie"3 Days of the Condor" [Open Spoilers]

Cafe Society
1

I recently watched “Three Days of the Condor”, and while it was a good movie, I didn’t understand the main plot point about the secret message discovered by Redford.

In the movie, Redford analyzes books for the CIA. He discovers a novel which has been translated into an odd assortment of languages and has odd plot points and this makes him suspicious. It turns out it’s part of a big conspiracy and Redford has to go on the run.

My question is, WTF was the deal with the books? That seems like just about the stupidest, most convoluted way to create secret plans to invade the Middle East. A rogue group in the CIA writes a crappy novel and then translates it into different languages? Why would the CIA go through all that trouble? What’s the point in translating the crappy novel into different languages?

I thought the movie was well made and well performed, but I was confused trying to figure out what what the conspiracy was. Even at the end I wasn’t sure what was going on and how the books figured into it.

2

Okay, trying to resurrect some memories here.

I think the translation service was from other languages to English for analysis.

Condor noticed a one particular book. A mystery, translated to an odd set of languages: Arabic, Turkish, Dutch, Spanish. But not French, German, Russian.

These are languages associated with oil-rich areas. (Supposedly. Turkish not so much. The Dutch controlled the oil in the East Indies way back. Maybe Dutch Shell which was big in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, etc.)

Condor’s mistake was actually reading the books (I don’t think that was his main job) and then reporting the oddity to his boss (who was part of the cabal).

Again presumably, the books were created by the cabal as a way to inform their cohorts in the region about the details of the plain. That these books were later found out by someone within the organization not in on it was not desired.