News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
As I've noted here before, MGM + is now showing A Spy Among Friends.
Based on Ben Macintyre’s book, the series is about the true story of the notorious
British traitor and spy Kim Philby and his friendship with British SIS
intelligence officer Nick Elliot.
In one episode that takes place during
WWII, Philby and Elliot encounter Commander Ian Fleming, a British naval
intelligence officer. Fleming, as we all know, would go on to write the popular
James Bond novels.
Ian Fleming was also featured prominently
in another dramatization of one of Ben Macintyre’s books on Netflix, Operation
Mincemeat.
Ben Macintyre (seen in the below photo), the author of outstanding
books about historical intelligence and military operations, wrote a book called
For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond.
Back in March of 2020, I wrote a column
about Ben Macintyre and Ian Fleming that appeared in the Washington Times.
You can read the column via the below
link or the below text:
With the release of latest James Bond
film “No Time to Die” postponed from April to November due to the COVID-19
outbreak, millions of Bond fans around the world will have to be content to
watch the older Bond films, or perhaps they should go back to the original
source — Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.
They could also read some of the many
books written about the popular character and his creator, such as two fine
biographies of the late Ian Fleming, John Pearson’s “The Life of Ian Fleming”
and Andrew Lycett’s “Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond.”
Ben Macintyre, a columnist for the
London Times and the author of “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage
Story of the Cold War,” (which I reviewed in these pages) “A Spy Among Friends:
Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal” and “Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi
Espionage, Love and Betrayal,” also wrote an interesting book called “For Your
Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond.”
He wrote the book in 2008 as a companion
to the Imperial War Museum exhibition that was held to celebrate the centenary
of Ian Fleming’s birth. The exhibition examined the late thriller writer and
his fictional character in historical context.
The exhibition also looked at Ian Fleming’s experiences as a
naval intelligence officer in World War II and how they informed his plots and
characters.
Ben Macintyre was chosen to write the
companion book because of his nonfiction books on espionage and his many
columns on Ian Fleming and James Bond, including one column that revealed that
there was a Nazi plot to rob the Bank of England, which perhaps inspired Ian
Fleming to use a similar plot to rob Fort Knox in his great thriller “Goldfinger.”
Ian Fleming admitted his plots in the novels were fantastic (the films much more so), but he also said they were based on the real world of intelligence.
I’m currently reading Ben
Macintrye’s Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy.
One of the most interesting historical characters in
his book on espionage history is Richard Sorge (seen in the above photo).
CrimeReads.com offers an excerpt
from Agent Sonya about Richard Sorge.
Ian Fleming once described Richard Sorge as “the most
formidable spy in history.” Despite being German and communist, and approaching
middle age, in 1930 Sorge bore a distinct resemblance to the fictional James
Bond, not least for his looks, appetite for alcohol, and prodigious, almost
pathological, womanizing. Even Sorge’s sworn enemies acknowledged his skill and
courage. After China, Sorge would move on to Tokyo, where he spied, undetected,
for nine years, penetrating the innermost secrets of the Japanese and German
High Commands and alerting Moscow to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in
1941. When he met Ursula, Sorge was just setting out on his espionage career in
the Far East, a journey that would lead, eventually, to a place in the small
pantheon of spies who have changed the course of history.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
Guy Walters offers a piece in the British newspaper the Telegraph on newly published photos of British spy and traitor Kim Philby living in the Soviet Union.
At first glance, it looks like an official news photograph from yesteryear. The figure in the middle is perhaps a politician, visiting a dreary industrial complex, his secretary holding some flowers presented to her by the plant’s management.
But look closely again, especially at that central figure. Unlike the other men, he is not wearing a suit, but a jacket in Prince of Wales check. His smile is uncertain, and his features, softer than those of the burly men around him, suggest that he is a foreigner.
He most certainly was a long way from home, as the Bratsk Hydroelectric Station in Siberia is exactly 3,782 miles from London. When the picture was taken, in the summer of 1972, he had not been home for more than a decade, and at the age of 60, knew that he was unlikely ever to return.
The reason was quite simple: he was a traitor, the worst the United Kingdom has produced for the past century - perhaps the worst it has ever had. In his adopted home of the Soviet Union, he called himself Andrei Fedorovich Fyodorov, whereas the world knew him better by a name that continues both to repel and to fascinate – Kim Philby. These never before published pictures show him on honeymoon in Siberia with his Russian wife Rufina - and a couple of KGB minders.
“Glimpses of Philby’s life after defection are unusual, and are read like tea leaves by espionage historians,” says the spy writer and historian, Jeremy Duns. “These photos are a final glimpse of his ‘normal life’ behind the Iron Curtain before he went into a far darker place.”
You can read the rest of the piece and see the Philby photos via the below link:
You can also learn more about Philby by reading Andrew Lycett's Telegraph review of Ben Macintyre's outstanding book, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal via the below link:
Ollie Gillman at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on a new book that claims the notorious British traitor and spy Kim Philby tipped off Italian Bruno Pontecorvo, who later fled to the Soviet Union.
For decades the mystery of why Italian nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo defected from the Allies to the USSR has baffled Cold War historians.
The scientist, while on holiday in Italy with his wife and children in 1950, suddenly disappeared, resurfacing years later on the side of the Iron Curtain.
But now a new book has revealed that Pontecorvo was being trailed by the FBI for suspected communist activity, and has claimed that he fled to Russia after being tipped off by none other than infamous double agent Kim Philby.
Pontecorvo, a prominent nuclear physicist in Britain, the U.S. and Canada, shicked the world when he defected to the USSR. After re-emerging five years later in Moscow, he eventually said he left for ideological reasons - but the real reason why he fled remained shouded in mystery for more than 60 years.
Frank Close, a scientist who believes that Pontecorvo could have gone on to win a Nobel prize had he stayed with the West, told the Observer that the FBI were investigating the Italian at the time of his disappearance.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
Received an Amazon gift card or some other gift card for Christmas? Looking for a good book to purchase?
Well, you can search here for my book reviews and posts on a good number of books.
Or, the Philadelphia Inquirer - where I've been a contributor since 1999 - offers their staff's choice of a good book to read this Christmas season.
Avid readers are always happy to tell you about the good things they've been reading, and we at The Inquirer are no different. Here's a roundup of the best new books that Inquirer staff members have read this year. Enjoy!
Bagmen, by William Lashner (Thomas & Mercer, $14.95 paperback). If they gave a Pulitzer Prize for snappy dialogue, William Lashner would be a betting favorite every time. Bagmen is a murder mystery set in the altogether too convincingly rendered demimonde of Philly's bagmen, the political fixers. - Michael D. Schaffer.
You can read the rest of the staff picks via the below link:
The Telegraph's web site offers a video interview with Ben Macintyre, author of a new book on the most notorious traitor and spy of the 20th Century, Kim Philby.
Philip Henson at The Spectator offers a review of Ben Macintyre's new book on the British traitor, spy and rotter Kim Philby.
The story of Kim Philby is, of course, like so many English stories, really one of social class. He was one of the most scandalous traitors in history, and from within the security services sent specific information to the Soviets during the early years of the Cold War that resulted directly in the deaths of thousands of men and women. Among them were the Albanian guerrillas, hoping to liberate their country, who found Soviet-sponsored troops waiting at their landing places to shoot them. A list of non-communist opposers to the Nazis in Germany was passed on to the Russians who, advancing into Germany in the last years of the war, summarily executed 5,000 named people.
Philby worked for the British security services for years, almost all the time passing significant information to our country’s enemies. He was closely associated with those other traitors, Burgess and Maclean, and clearly helped them to escape. Despite very substantial evidence against Philby, he was allowed to retire from the service and left unprosecuted. MI6 seems to have protected and defended him; MI5 wanted to bring a case, but was rebuffed.
How did Philby get away with it, and how, at the last, confronted with indisputable evidence of his treachery in his exile in Beirut, was he allowed to flee to Moscow? The answer, according to Macintyre, is the British class system, and in particular the loyalty felt on account of social standing by two men, Nicholas Elliott and James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. Angleton seems to have handed over the details of every one of those Albanian landings during immensely long boozy lunches in Washington. What was Elliott’s responsibility? Why did he allow Philby to slip through his fingers at the end? They are questions which still can’t be answered.
You can read the rest of the review via the below link:
MI6, the James Bond web site, not the British intelligence agency, offers an interesting look back at three film biographies of thriller writer Ian Fleming.
Naval commander, stockbroker, journalist, author, and bon
vivant are just some of the words that can be used to describe Ian Fleming. With
his birth on May 28, 1908, the world was certainly introduced to a unique
individual whose total life experiences, it could be argued, were leading up to
the creation of master spy James Bond. But, who really was Ian Fleming? Since
the 007 phenomenon began sixty years ago it has been fashionable for critics and
fans alike to proclaim that Fleming was James Bond and James Bond was Ian
Fleming. However, the threads of Fleming's real life are layered and complex and
this assessment has since been proven to be not so cut and dried.
What was real and what has since been embellished? Since his
death on August 12, 1964, three movies Goldeneye, Spymaker, and Age of Heroes
have attempted to answer these questions by focusing on different aspects and
times within his life. While these films may be of mixed quality and merit,
together they show how Fleming's all-too-short life and work can be ably
juxtaposed with the timeless character he created.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
I have not yet seen Age of Heroes, but I interviewed two authors who wrote about Fleming's creation and involvement with the World War II commando group 30 Assault Unit, and they didn't think much of the film.
I recall not liking Spymaster very much, as the filmmakers put in a lot of fiction in an attempt to make Fleming out to be a James Bond character. Goldeneye, not to be confused with the James Bond film also named Goldeneye, was a fine film and I liked Charles Dance as Fleming.
Fleming, in my view, is as interesting a character as his fictional creation. Fleming was a womanizer like Bond and he traveled the world and saw and did interesting things as a journalist before and after World War II and during the war as a naval intelligence officer. These experiences allowed him to write authentically about crime and espionage.
I look forward to the new Fleming film, although I fear the filmmakers may spend more time on his sex foibles than his world adventures.
There are several good books about Fleming's life, including two biographys written by John Pearson and Andrew Lycett, and For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond by Ben Macintye.
You can also read my piece in Counterterrorism magazine on Fleming's time as a naval intelligence officer in World War II via the below links:
Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime. He has written extensively about organized crime, cybercrime, street crime, white collar crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, the military, espionage and terrorism. He is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and Counterterrorism magazine, and he writes the magazine's online 'Threatcon' column. His 'Crime Beat' column, which covers crime news, crime issues and crime prevention in South Philadelphia, appears weekly in the South Philly Review, and his 'On Crime' column, which covers crime in the Greater Philadelphia region, appears weekly at Philly Daily and Broad and Liberty. His crime fiction appears in American Crime Magazine. His work has also appeared in the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Weekly and other publications. As a writer, he has attended police academy training, gone out on patrol with police officers, accompanied detectives as they worked cases, accompanied narcotics officers on drug raids, observed criminal court proceedings, visited jails and prisons, and covered street riots, mob wars and murder investigations. He has interviewed police commissioners and chiefs, FBI, DEA, HSI and other federal special agents, prosecutors, judges, public officials, WWII UDT frogmen, Navy SEALs, Army Delta operators, Israeli commandos, military intelligence officers, Scotland Yard detectives, CIA officers, former KGB officers, film and TV actors, film writers, directors and producers, journalists, novelists and true crime authors, gamblers, outlaw bikers, and Cosa Nostra organized crime bosses. Paul Davis has been a student of crime since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17 in 1970. He served aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War and he later served two years aboard the Navy harbor tugboat U.S.S. Saugus at the U.S. floating nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. He went on to become the civilian administrative officer of a Defense Department command in Philadelphia, where he oversaw security, safety and other programs for the command's military and civilian employees, and served as an investigating officer. He also worked part-time as a newspaper crime reporter and columnist during this time. He retired in 2007 after more than 37 Navy/DOD years of service and became a full-time writer. From 1991 to 2005 he was a producer and on-air host of "Inside Government," a public affairs interview radio program that aired on Sunday mornings on WPEN AM and WMGK FM in the Philadelphia area. You can read Paul Davis' crime columns, crime fiction, book reviews and news and feature articles on this website. You can read his full bio by clicking on the above photo (by Brittany Davis-Pearson). And you can contact Paul Davis at pauldavisoncrime@aol.com.
