Bond and the CIA

In a news item a week or so ago we discussed an anatomical error in the new Bond film “Spectre”. In the course of researching that article though a study from two years ago came to light which deserves examination because it illustrates how profoundly art can influence life.

The Bind films of course are rooted in a series of Bond books written by Englishmen Ian Fleming. In the paper in question a researcher from the University of Warwick examined declassified letters and media reports from the 1950s and 1960s that revealed the relationship between Fleming and the then head of the CIA, Allen Dulles.

The previously classified material provided a wealth of information that revealed a surprising two-way influence between Fleming and his novels and the United States intelligence agency. The letters show that Dulles persuaded Fleming not to kill off his character in 1963 and described Fleming as “brilliant and witty”.

In 1959 Fleming had met with Dulles and told him that the CIA was not doing enough in the area of “special devices”. As a result Dulles told his CIA technicians to replicate as many Bond devices as they could. The CIA subsequently reproduced Rosa Klebb’s “spring-loaded poison knife shoe” made famous in the film From Russia With Love. The CIA had less luck with the homing device used to track a villain’s car in Goldfinger. The device did work in open spaces but could not cope once the baddie moved into a crowded city.

The correspondence also shows that Fleming agreed to include some flattering references to the CIA in later novels, thus becoming something of a publicity agent for the agency (although anyone reading the books or watching the films would come away with the impression that MI6 is the premiere spy agency in the world). In the earlier Live and Let Die (1954) the CIA agent was something of a bumbling boob but by Thunderball (1961) Bond’s boss “M” delivers some stirring praise of the American agency.

The import of this is that it reinforces for us that nothing exists in isolation. A novel does not only reside in your hands as you lie in bed at night; it lives in the world and therefore shapes the world. A pebble dropped into a pond, no matter what size, always causes a ripple.