Bondage With Discipline

You might already have noticed my passion for the work of Ian Fleming and his iconic literary creation, James Bond, thanks to my posting on this page about the long-ago Thunderball affair and the involvement in that film of Kevin McClory, Fleming’s role in creating The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’s Napoleon Solo, and last year’s death of Bond author John Gardner. Well, 2008 is shaping up to best the year for Agent 007. We’ve got London’s upcoming Bond exhibition, the release of Sebastian Faulks’ new Bond novel in May, and the debut in November of the 22nd Bond film, A Quantum of Solace. Now we hear that British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse has been offered the theme song for Quantum, with the proviso that she’s drug free when recording commences.

So it is hardly surprising that today’s Sunday Times of London should get in on the act, publishing a terrific and detailed feature written by Fleming’s friend, the British journalist Godfrey Smith, which casts a fresh light not only on the Bond creator’s involvement with the real-life secret services based at Whitehall and Langley, but on his journalism and love of female companionship, as well. Writes Smith:

Ian’s friends unkindly dubbed him “the chocolate sailor” because of his glamorous back-room job. In truth, he crisscrossed the world on His Majesty’s Secret Service. He was twice at the wartime talks in Washington between Churchill and Roosevelt. He played a crucial role in what became the CIA. He flew to Lisbon and Colombo. He dreamt up ruses that were indistinguishable from later Bond adventures. One was to crash a captured bomber in the North Sea with German speakers in it dressed as Luftwaffe men. This would lure out the German air-sea rescue service, who would have on board a still-uncracked naval code. The rescuers would be shot and the code seized. Ian wanted to go in the bomber, but Godfrey judged him too valuable to lose. The scheme was aborted.

In 1945 Fleming took up his job as foreign manager of Kemsley Newspapers and began to assemble Mercury, a team of 88 men and women who were intended to supply the best foreign coverage in the business. A map behind his desk with coloured lights showed their disposition. The average age of the gallant 88 was 38, Ian proudly announced, and they spoke 3.1 languages apiece.

And of course,

One question perennially fascinates Ian’s legion of aficionados: how much of him was there in Bond? The answer, surely, is that though they overlapped in scores of ways--cars, caviar, sun, sea, gadgets, girls--Bond was still a fantasy; a projection of the man Ian could never quite be. When Bond, we learn on page 007 (of all pages) in Casino Royale, goes to sleep, his face becomes a taciturn mask--“cynical, brutal, cold”. That does not sound at all like the real Ian, who found the only street violence he ever encountered--in Istanbul--distinctly upsetting; who drove his vintage Bentley tidily but never recklessly, and who swam well away from the sharks when he was at Goldeneye.

To read the entirety of Smith’s Times piece, click here.