General Carrington

General Carrington is the main antagonist of the Doctor Who story "The Ambassadors of Death".

He was portrayed by the late.

Biography
General Carrington was originally an astronaut on the Mars Probe 6 mission. While orbiting Mars, he made first contact with a group of peaceful aliens from another solar system, looking to establish relations with Earth. However, since their bodies were radioactive, they accidentally killed Carrington's colleague Jim Daniels simply by touching him. This left Carrington convinced that the aliens were evil invaders who must be stopped. He passed on the aliens' message to his superior, Sir James Quinlan, who agreed to bring alien ambassadors to Earth in secret, hoping to strike a deal that would benefit Britain. Carrington himself planned to sabotage the arrangement.

Carrington and Quinlan made a deal with the aliens to replace the three astronauts from the subsequent Mars Probe 7 and Recovery 7 missions with their ambassadors. Neither the astronauts nor mission control were informed of this. When Recovery 7 started back to Earth, Carrington secretly contacted their craft, having his men battle UNIT when they traced the communication. He then ambushed the UNIT convoy transporting the returned Recovery 7 and stole the capsule. The Doctor tricked him and got the capsule to mission control, but Carrington managed to remove the ambassadors during a fake inspection.

Carrington placed the ambassadors in the care of Professor Heldorf, telling him they were the human astronauts but an accident in space had meant they needed radiation to survive. He and Quinlan gave the same cover story to the Doctor and UNIT. However, without Quinlan's knowledge, Carrington hired a criminal, Reegan, to kidnap the ambassadors and kill Heldorf and his assistant, having them looked after by a discredited scientist, Lennox. Carrington planned to force the aliens to commit crimes by threatening to deprive them of radiation, ruining any chance of them being viewed as friendly.

The Doctor began to realise the truth, that the human astronauts were still in space aboard Mars Probe 7, and intended to take Recovery 7 to retrieve them. Carrington had Liz captured by Reegan and forced one of the ambassadors to kill Quinlan when he planned to tell the Doctor the truth. When Lennox fled and tried to warn UNIT, Carrington had a radioactive isotope delivered to his cell, killing him. He also had Reegan sabotage Recovery 7 in an attempt to kill the Doctor but it failed and he was able to contact the aliens and learn the truth.

Carrington ordered the Doctor killed on his return to Earth. When he learned Reegan had merely captured him, he prepared to shoot the Doctor but was convinced they needed his help to build a machine to properly communicate with the aliens. Carrington was now preparing for his final gambit, placing Space Command under military control and having the UNIT personnel there arrested, although the Brigadier escaped. He planned to unmask one of the aliens on live television and then call upon the world leaders to unite and declare war on them.

The Doctor managed to send a message to UNIT, who captured Reegan and rescued the Doctor, Liz and the other ambassadors. They then stormed mission control together, quickly subduing the soldiers loyal to Carrington. As Carrington was about to make his broadcast, he was reduced to a wreck by the appearance of the remaining ambassadors, insisting they were being invaded. He ultimately offered no resistance as he was taken into custody by UNIT.