Callan (TV series) is run by Colonel Hunter. ("Hunter" is a pseudonym for the current Section Chief, like the C of SIS.) The Section removes those who pose a danger to the "innocent" by persuasion, blackmail, extortion or death. David Callan had been the Section's top operator but he had become too curious about his targets and the rationale for their removal. The Section considered him vulnerable, volatile and dangerous and had laid him off to a dead-end book-keeping job for an ungrateful employer. ABC then commissioned a series of six episodes in 1967. In the first episode Callan rejoins the section in
Callan (TV series) File for Callan", also by James Mitchell. However, the film's credits give only the novel as source (no mention is made of the pilot teleplay or the TV series), and identify the novel as "A Red File for Callan", the mild variant title under which it had been published in the United States (in 1969) by Simon & Schuster. (In 1974 Dell would reissue the book under that title in paperback, but despite coinciding with the film's release year, the edition gives no hint of being a tie-in.) Callan's boss "Charlie" Hunter was played by Eric Porter and Meres was