Phillip Vandamm

Phillip Vandamm was a fence for the Soviets living in America, who dealt in stolen secrets. His method of transporting the secrets (contained on microfilm) was to buy them from auctions contained in priceless statuary. He introduced himself to Roger Thornhill as Lester Townsend, believing Thornhill to be George Kaplan. Nothing Thornhill said would persuade Vandamm otherwise, and he assigned his henchmen to dispose of "Kaplan." Thornhill escaped however, and pursued Vandamm across the United States.

Vandamm for his part assigned his mistress, Eve Kendall, to mislead and ultimately eliminate Thornhill, little suspecting that Eve was actually a CIA plant working for the Professor. After purchasing a statue containing microfilm from an auction in Chicago, Vandamm went to his house atop Mt. Rushmore to await the arrival of an airplane which would take himself and Eve to Russia. However Thornhill appeared, and with Eve's help escaped with the statue. Vandamm sent Leonard and Valerian after them, but they failed to capture them and Vandamm was taken into custody by the Professor and the police.