Geopolitics trumps humanitarianism

I saw this movie when I was a pre-teenager so my memories may not be accurate.

I recall the American professor had been enlisted by the CIA to steal an agricultural bio-chemical formula from the Red Chinese upon his scholarly visit to Red China, at the time an avowed enemy of the United States.

The bio-chemical formula enabled farming in heretofore, land that was not suitable for farming. A CIA photo slideshow showed the professor a plot of land under agriculture in China while snow covered the ground around the plot of land.

At the movie's end, the professor gains the formula and escapes Red China by a hair's breadth. Back in the United States, he learns to his dismay that the U.S. government and CIA plan to keep the Chinese formula secret, as a weapon of blackmail against the Red Chinese, instead of disseminating the formula worldwide to increase agricultural output and feed the world's population.