The Sandbaggers

The Sandbaggers is a British television drama series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, The Sandbaggers examines the effect of the espionage game on the personal and professional lives of British and American intelligence specialists. The protagonist is Neil D. Burnside , Director of Operations in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service . Burnside oversees, among others, a small, elite group of British intelligence officers: the Special Operations Section nicknamed the "Sandbaggers". This group is... composed of highly-trained officers whose work includes dangerous missions that tend to be politically sensitive or especially vital, such as escorting defectors across borders, carrying out assassinations, or rescuing other operatives who are in trouble behind the Iron Curtain. Why the group was called the Sandbaggers was not explained in the context of the show, but it may have to do with putting up sandbags as a defence against an incoming flood.
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