I assume that the list was encrypted by the bad guys, and so Martin sent it to himself so that he could decrypt it.
I assume that the reason Martin wanted to decrypt it was so that he could make sure that he did not unwittingly hand the list to someone who was on it. Such a person would (a) take their own name off the list and (b) possibly try to have Martin eliminated to be on the safe side.
For one reason or another, Martin suspected that his old friend might be on the list and so tipped off someone that he trusted to be on the look out.
Bad guys wants to steal it back?
It could be that this was the only copy.
More likely, they just wanted to keep the contents secret, or else their assets would be arrested and no longer any use to them.
it didn't seem like any of the CIA cared how bad guy got this list in the first place?
It doesnt really matter "how", does it?
It only matters whether the info is true or not.
One way the baddie could have got this list would be if it was his own list of people he had bought secrets from.
Another way would be if he had stolen or bought information from various sources so that he could use it to blackmail the people on the list.
Shouldn't they be concerned over what is presumably a threat to national security?
Yeah, the official CIA people were concerned for exactly that reason.
They neither wanted the list to appear in the Washington Post so everyone would know, and nor did they want the traitors on the list to remain unknown to them. Hence they wanted the list for themselves.
Obviously, Martin's former friend wanted it for his own reasons.
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