Telefon is a 1975 novel by Walter Wager with a mind control theme. It was made into a movie (IMDB:0076804) in 1977, starring Donald Pleasance and Charles Bronson. It was directed by Don Siegel (of Dirty Harry fame).

Telefon's central idea is that, during the cold war period of the 50s, the Soviet Union planted long-term sleeper agents who had been brainwashed into their cover stories so thoroughly that they no longer knew that they were agents, to be used only in the event of nuclear war, at which point they would be activated to cripple the American civil and military infrastructure. Now, twenty years on, the Cold War is ending. Nikolai Dalchimsky, a rogue senior KGB man, disappears to America, taking with him the Telefon Book containing the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the sleeper agents, and starts activating them one-by-one by placing a phone call to each one in which he reads the catch phrase that restore their original personality; a line from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".

The KGB dare not tell their own politicians, still less the Americans, about what is going on. It is up to one Colonel Borizov to go to the U.S., find Dalchimsky, and stop him before the politicians learn what's going on and start a full scale war.

Trivia

• The city skyline depicting Houston, Texas in the film is some other city. None of the Houston-area skyscrapers appear in the film.
• The fictional Halderville, Texas has a 214 area code (as depicted on a phone) - there is no Halderville, Texas in real life. 214 is the area code for the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

Compare with

• The Manchurian Candidate
• The Simultaneous Man