General Pratt, a national security chief, and his aides approach Dr. Bartholomew Snow, a successful psychiatrist for his assistance to the United States Government for which he is sworn to secrecy. A patient once psychoanalyzed by Dr. Snow is a government scientist who evidently has had a mental breakdown. General Pratt hides the patient, Arthur Vincenti, in a remote place known only as "Base X," forcing Dr. Snow to wear a blindfold whenever he is taken there by airplane and car.