Ian Fleming: The Spy Who Came In With the Gold (1965)

THE MAKING OF A SPY … WHO MADE A SPY

Fleming began to hear funny little questions being asked about him; friends would tell him that so-and-so had been asking about where he'd been, what he knew, and so on. These funny little questions eventually turned into an offer that was to determine Fleming's career for the next six years, and which in turn played a great part in the writing of the Bond books.

The people asking questions about Fleming were from Naval Intelligence.

The war gave him a unique insight into the techniques of espionage. He knew, for example, that Naval Intelligence had sent a false priest to hear confession from a U-boat captain so as to trick him into giving knowledge that was vital to save British seamen. He knew that when the Russians sent two men to assassinate Franz von Papen in Ankara, they gave one a blue case and the other a red one. The Russians told the assassins that the red case contained a bomb which was to be thrown at von Papen while the blue case contained a smoke bomb which would conceal their getaway when a button was pressed. The bomb was to be thrown first, but the assassins decided to better their chances by releasing the smoke first. It saved von Papen's life, for both cases contained bombs, and the assassins were demolished while von Papen was only knocked down. The Russians had decided to eliminate the assassins once their mission was accomplished and thought up a rather neat way to do it. Fleming later made use of this situation in Casino Royale.

In fact, all of this wartime background was utilized, in one way or another, in his later work. He said: “I couldn't possibly have had a more exciting or interesting War. Of course, it's my experience in Naval Intelligence, and what I learned about secret operations of one sort or another, that finally led me to write about them — in a highly bowdlerized way — with James Bond as the central figure.”

Here, for the first time, is the fabulous story of the creator of the most flamboyant — and flamboyantly successful — spy hero of modern fiction, the deadly and notorious James Bond, agent 007 of the British Secret Service.

Journalist, foreign correspondent, director of a top-secret unit of British Naval Intelligence, bon vivant, and fantastically successful author, Ian Fleming's own career sometimes reads like a working script for one of his novels.

Son of a hero of the First World War, brother of the famous writer-explorer, Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming was marked from the beginning for an extraordinary career. How he scooped the world press as a cub reporter for Reuters, his travels in Russia, his business career, his wartime service with Naval Intelligence, his marriage, the wide range of his tastes and interests, and finally his invention of Bond and the stupendous success of his novels, are all part of the story.

THE FABULOUS IAN FLEMING, CREATOR OF THE GREATEST SPY OF ALL, JAMES BOND… WHOSE BOOKS HAVE SOLD OVER 600,000,000 COPIES… WHOSE PRIVATE LIFE READS LIKE AN 007 THRILLER…

The casino at Estoril was suddenly silent. The lean British agent named Ian Fleming could feel the merciless pressure of a hundred eyes upon him as he prepared alone to match his wits against the Germans playing opposite him.

The stakes were the highest. The prestige of England hung in the balance. Drawing a deep breath, Ian Fleming reached out to turn the card…

Here is the first full-length portrait of the personality whose rich and incredible life is equalled only by that of the man he created — James Bond.

Originally published at $3.95 by Duell, Sloan and Pearce