Former MI6 Boss Sir Richard Dearlove Hits Out At Author John Le Carré Over His 'Corrosive' Spy Books And Accuses Him Of Being 'Obsessed' With His Life In The Secret Service

Jake Hurfurt offers a piece at the Daily Mail on the former head of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, who said that SIS intelligence officers are not fans of spy novelist John le Carre. Le Carre was a British intelligence officer for three years.

Spooks are not fans of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy author John le Carré because his novels portray them as untrustworthy, according to the former head of MI6.

Sir Richard Dearlove (seen in the below photo), 74, said Mr le Carré's espionage thrillers portrayed Britain's intelligence services in a negative light.

Mr le Carré, 87, worked for both MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and 1960s before leaving and becoming an author.


The writer was 'obsessed' with his time as a spy, said Sir Richard.

Spooks are not fans of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy author John le Carré (right) because his novels portray them as untrustworthy, according to the former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove.

Speaking at the Cliveden Literary Festival, the former spymaster said: 'We've all enjoyed enormously reading the Smiley books... and he does capture some of the essence of what it was like in the Cold War.

'However, he is so corrosive in his view of MI6 that most professional SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) officers are pretty angry with him.'

Trust between co-workers is at the heart of Britain's intelligence agencies but Mr le Carré's books are 'exclusively about betrayal', said Sir Richard.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7518851/Real-life-007s-stand-reading-legendary-spy-author-John-le-Carr-s-books-says-former-MI6-boss.html

  

You can also read my Washington Times review of a biography of John le Carre via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2015/12/my-washington-times-review-of-john-le.html

And you can read my Crime Beat column, Spy Writer vs Spy Writer, which covers John le Carre’s other obsession – the late Ian Fleming (seen in the above photo) and James Bond – via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/08/spy-writer-vs-spy-writer-john-le-carre.html 

My Washington Times Review of Ben Macintyre's 'The Spy And The Traitor'

The Washington Times published my review of Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War.

John le Carre, the author of the classic spy thrillers “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” called Ben Macintyre’s book “The best true spy story I have ever read.”

Now out in paperback, Mr. Macintyre’s “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War” is the true story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB colonel who spied for the British and later defected to the United Kingdom in 1985.

“Oleg Gordievsky was born into the KGB: Shaped by it, loved by it, twisted, damaged, and very nearly destroyed by it. The Soviet spy service was in his heart and in his blood. His father worked for the intelligence service all his life, and wore his KGB uniform every day, including weekends. The Gordievskys lived amid the spy fraternity in a designated apartment block, ate special food reserved for officers, and spent their free time socializing with other spy families. Gordievsky was a child of the KGB,” Mr. Macintyre writes in the beginning of the book.

The author notes that the KGB — the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnnosti, or Committee for State Security — was the most complex and far-reaching intelligence agency ever created. The KGB had the role of both foreign and domestic intelligence gathering, as well as internal security enforcement and state police. The KGB controlled every aspect of life in the Soviet Union.

Gordievsky moved up the chain in the KGB to become the “rezident,” the senior KGB intelligence officer in London, working out of the Soviet embassy. For more than 10 years he was also working as a double agent for the British.       

As Mr. Macintyre points out in his outstanding book, Gordievsky became disillusioned with Soviet communism while posted in Copenhagen. The Soviet police state paled in comparison to the freedom of the West. His disillusionment became total after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 and he decided to spy for the British.  

His intelligence was so valuable that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan were given briefings on Gordievsky’s insights into the KGB and Soviet political leadership. The CIA was not told who the Brit spy was, so they launched an investigation to learn who the valuable British asset was. 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/30/book-review-spy-and-traitor/ 

Nine Lives: My Time As The West's Top Spy Inside Al-Qaeda

Joshua Sinai offers a good review in the Washington Times of Aimen Dean’s Nine Lives: My Times as the West’s Top Spy Inside Al-Qaeda

This is a dramatic account by a young Muslim from Saudi Arabia who had become so radicalized into Islamist extremism that he decided in 1994 (at the age 16) to travel to Bosnia and join a group of al Qaeda-affiliated foreign fighters who were fighting on behalf of Bosnia’s Muslims against their adversary Croatian and Serbian Christian militias.

What makes this account so interesting and important (and how it became a CNN documentary) is that Bosnia was the first of many jihadi battlegrounds in Asia and the Middle East that Aimen Dean (a pseudonym) was involved as a fighter and a member of an elite bomb-making team (including attempting to build a chemical weapon) during al Qaeda’s formative pre-9/11 period in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

It was there where he interacted with a “Who’s Who” of its top operatives, including Osama bin Laden (to whom he pledged personal allegiance), Khaled Sheikh Muhammad (9/11’s mastermind), Abu Zubaydah (the group’s logistical manager) and Abu Khabab (the group’s top bomb-maker).

Even more compelling, eventually, in 1998, Mr. Dean became so disillusioned with al Qaeda’s mass killings of innocent victims in the August 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and elsewhere, which were part of what he considered its hypocritical ideology and self-destructive warfare and political strategy, that he defected and became a double agent on behalf of MI6, the British intelligence service.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/25/book-review-nine-lives-by-aimen-dean-with-paul-cru/ 

Real-life 'James Bond Q' Is A Woman, MI6 Reveals

The BBC reports that the chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, popularly known as MI6, claims the agency's "Q" is a woman.

The real-life equivalent of Q in the James Bond films is a woman, the head of MI6 has said.

Alex Younger, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, made the revelation as he encouraged more women to join the service.

He said there is a stereotype that MI6 spies were posh and he wanted recruits from diverse backgrounds.

The character of Q, a technology expert, has always been played by a man in the Bond films.

Speaking at the Women in IT awards on Wednesday, Mr Younger said: "The real-life Q is looking forward to meeting you and I'm pleased to report that the real-life Q is a woman."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38755032

Britain’s Top Fictional Spy Also Its Greatest Intelligence Asset

Peter Apps at Reuters.com offers a column how Ian Fleming's iconic James Bond character is the United Kingdom's greatest intelligence asset.

In the 62 years since James Bond first appeared in print, there's no doubt he has helped boost the reputations of his real-life counterparts in British intelligence.

Now, Daniel Craig - the truest to author Ian Fleming's original vision since Sean Connery, if not ever - is back on screen in "Spectre." The franchise is as strong as ever.

In reality, however, the decades since Fleming first penned "Casino Royale" have been distinctly mixed for the United Kingdom and its spies.

For sure, the Secret Intelligence Service - traditionally known to its members as SIS and to the rest of the world as MI6 - and its sister service MI5 retain a world-class reputation. They are in good company. The reach and skill set of those two agencies - responsible for foreign and domestic intelligence, respectively - are more than equaled by signals intelligence specialists Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Britain's special forces - the Army's Special Air Service (SAS) and Royal Marines' Special Boat Service (SBS) are also legendary.

They have, however, been far from infallible. Even as Fleming wrote of their prowess in the early 1950s, some stellar embarrassments loomed.

Throughout the late 1950s and 60s, Whitehall (one-word shorthand for the UK's version of the State Department, the Pentagon and CIA and FBI headquarters) was torn apart by slow-burning scandal as news emerged that some of Britain's most trusted intelligence officials had in fact been spying for the Soviet Union. More recently, there have been controversies over officials' complicity in torture and rendition, as well is the small matter of their intelligence-gathering related to Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Bond and his fellow fictional British operatives, however, allow UK intelligence to project an image that goes well beyond the niggling issues of reality.

It might have only the most tangential relationship to what really happens, but it still has real-world impact.

A couple of years ago at a drinks reception in Washington, a former CIA official told me he believed neither he nor anyone else in the U.S. government would ever turn down a briefing from British intelligence. It wasn't just about the quality of the material, he said - good though it often was.

Even the phrase "British intelligence," he said, had a mystique, glamour and style that was intrinsically fascinating. He suspected British officials were well aware of it, he added, and deliberately styled themselves accordingly.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/10/27/britains-top-fictional-spy-also-its-greatest-intelligence-asset/   

Thriller Writer Frederick Forsyth's Adventures As A Cold War spy

Frederick Forsyth admitted to working for the U.K.'s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, more commonly known as MI6) in his new book, The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue.

You can read an excerbt from the book at Business-Standard.com via the below link:

http://www.business-standard.com/article/specials/frederick-forsyth-s-adventures-as-a-cold-war-spy-115090900787_1.html

   

Thriller Writer Frederick Forsyth Reveals His Cold War Intelligence Work And Tells Of His Early Newspaper Work

Matt Leclerc at kentonline.co.uk offers a piece on one of my favorite writers, Frederick Forsyth, author of The Day of the Jackal and other classic thrillers.

With the publication of Forsyth's The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, Forsyth is speaking of his early life doing intelligence work for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly called MI6 by the press and public.

He also speaks about his early days as a journalist.

Ashford-born author and journalist Frederick Forsyth today revealed his past working as an MI6 operative at the height of the Cold War.

Forsyth, famous for his espionage novels including The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, speaks about his time working undercover for more than 20 years in an interview with The Sunday Times. 

He started out working for his hometown newspaper, the Kentish Express, as a 17-year-old cub reporter in 1956 before starting his National Service.

In the interview, published today, he tells of his time working in East Germany, running several missions to help out MI6 throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

It comes as he publishes his memoir called The Outsider.

Speaking to Sky News this morning he said: "It doesn't do any harm now to mention various adventures that were had way back. We're talking a long time ago.

"It was the Cold War, it was serious and dangerous.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/author-reveals-his-espionage-past-42479/ 

Revealed: Grim Fate Of The MI6 Agents Betrayed By Soviet Spy George Blake

Tom Parfitt and Justin Huggler at the British newspaper the Telegraph report on the fate of the British agents betrayed by George Blake.

He is the traitorous master spy who betrayed scores of British agents to the KGB in one of the greatest Soviet coups of the Cold War.

As a mole inside MI6, George Blake is known to have passed thousands of top-secret documents to Moscow – but the fates of the people he exposed have been shrouded for decades in rumour and half-truth.
 

Now, for the first time, the specific punishments suffered by individual victims of Blake's duplicity can be revealed.
 

New research shows that a group of six MI6 agents who Blake identified to the KGB were imprisoned for up to 17 years inside East Germany, serving time in jails notorious for torture and psychological intimidation of inmates. One is now believed to have been taken to Moscow and executed.
 

The details of their fate were uncovered by George Carey, a British filmmaker, who trawled through archives in Berlin, including those kept by the feared East German secret police, the Stasi, which worked in tandem with the KGB.
 

The findings are presented in a new film by Mr Carey called Masterspy of Moscow.

Blake, 92, defected to the Soviet Union after escaping Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 and still lives in Russia, where he is feted as a hero by Vladimir Putin, the president, and other KGB veterans. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11472573/Revealed-Grim-fate-of-the-MI6-agents-betrayed-by-George-Blake.html 

A Look Back At Ian Fleming's Newspaper Obituaries From 50 Years Ago

As yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Ian Fleming's death, the James Bond web site MI6 offers a look back at two of his obituaries in the world's leading newspapers.

You can read the obits via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/chronicles_19640812_ian_fleming_dies?t=&s=&id=03728

Smiley's People: Spy Who Inspired George Smiley Accused John Le Carre Of 'Giving Comfort' To Britain's Enemies

Jasper Copping at the British newspaper the Telelgraph offers another piece on the late MI5 officer John Bingham and his views of spy thriller writer John le Carre.

The man who inspired George Smiley, one of Britain’s most celebrated fictional spies, accused his creator John le Carré of giving “comfort, pleasure and glee” to the country’s Cold War foes in his depiction of the secret service. 
 

John Bingham, who was le Carré’s former mentor in MI5 and model for Smiley, wrote to the author to express himself “puzzled” at what he saw as his disloyalty to the intelligence agencies, in his cynical portrayal of their activities and agents. 
 

Bingham wrote: “You are far from being pro-Soviet or pro-Communist, but I would think the attacks gave comfort and even pleasure and glee in some places.”
 

He added that he had “often been puzzled as to why you have so frequently attacked” the security services, adding “troops don’t normally improve by, in effect, being called a lousy lot of bums, and inefficient or ineffective to boot”. 
 

The letter was written in October 1979, the same month that a television adaptation of le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was broadcast on the BBC, with Alec Guinness starring as Smiley.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10678879/Spy-who-inspired-George-Smiley-accused-John-le-Carre-of-giving-comfort-to-Britains-enemies.html

You can also read an earlier post on Bingham/le Carre via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/03/british-mi5-officer-who-inspired-george.html

Note: John Bingahm is the subject of Michael Jago's book, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham.   

John Le Carre On John Bingham And The Inspiration For George Smiley

The British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on John le Carre's response to the claim that John Bingham, the MI5 officer le Carre based his character George Smiley on, despised le Carre's portrayal of British spies.

He is one of Britain’s most celebrated of literary characters of the twentieth century - a spymaster who personified the country’s Cold War intelligence battles. 
 

Now, his creator, John le Carré, has shed new light on the inspiration behind George Smiley, and defended himself against accusations that he had "hurt" his former mentor in the secret service, on whom the character was partly based. 
 

The author, who worked for both MI5 and MI6 during the 1950s and 1960s, has written to the Daily Telegraph to respond to accusations in Tuesday's newspaper which claimed that John Bingham, his former boss, had “deplored” the author’s portrayal of the intelligence services. The letter said Bingham had “not been treated as respectfully as he deserved by his protégé”. 
 

That intervention, from Lord Lexden, a Conservative peer and historian had, in turn, been prompted by revelations in last week's Daily Telegraph about Bingham’s achievements during the Second World War.     

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10676670/John-le-Carre-on-the-inspiration-for-George-Smiley.html

You can also read an earlier post on John Bingham via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/03/british-mi5-officer-who-inspired-george.html 

But He's One Of Us: British MI6 Chiefs Tried To Protect Notorious Cambridge Spy Ring Double Agent Kim Philby As They Thought He 'Couldn't Possibly Be A Traitor'

I enjoyed watching a clever and funny British TV comedy series years ago called Yes, Minister. The show was about a bumbling political hack turned government minister who was aided (and foiled) by his assistant, a professional bureaucrat.

The show was later called Yes, Prime Minister, as the hack was voted in as the British Prime Minister.

I recall in one episode of Yes, Prime Minister where the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS (commonly called MI6), told the Prime Minister that despite claims by the press and other politicians, he didn't believe that an accused SIS officer could possibly be a Soviet spy.

"Why not?" asked the Prime Minister.

"Why, he's one of us!" replied the SIS chief as he stuffed his pipe.

"One of us?"

"Yes, Prime Minister. He is one of us."

Hugo Gye at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on a new book on British traitor and spy Kim Philby that claims MI6 chiefs tried to protect the double agent because he was "one of us" - a member of the British establishment.

British spy bosses repeatedly tried to protect Soviet double agent Kim Philby because they believed he 'couldn't possibly be a traitor', according to a new book which was banned by MI6.  

Tim Milne, an MI6 spy who was Philby's oldest friend, has revealed the extraordinary lengths to which intelligence officials went in order to protect the notorious figure.

Philby came under suspicion when two other members of the Cambridge spy ring fled to Moscow - but despite a 12-year investigation, he was never brought to justice and was eventually allowed to defect to the USSR.

MI6 chiefs refused to believe that he could be guilty because of his apparently distinguished service and Establishment background, and shielded him from an MI5 probe.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567359/Mysteries-Cambridge-spy-ring-unravel-BANNED-book-MI6-insider-close-notorious-double-agent-Kim-Philby-finally-published.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

MI6 Had 'Blind Faith' In Kim Philby For Years After Soviet Agent Fears

Peter Day and Neil Tweedie at the British newspaper the Telegraph offer a piece on how British intelligence had faith in British intelligence officer Kim Philby, despite the evidence that he was a traitor and a Soviet spy.

MI6 continued actively to protest the innocence of Kim Philby for years after he helped fellow Soviet agents Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to flee to Russia, according to a newly released Downing Street file. 
 

The head of the Secret Intelligence Service said it would be “un-English” to brand Philby a traitor on suspicion alone, pointing out that the master-spy had helped unmask other Soviet agents, including Maclean.
 

“It is entirely contrary to the English tradition for a man to have to prove his innocence even when the prosecution is in possession of hard facts,” argued Major-General Sir John Sinclair, chief of the SIS in the mid-1950s. “In a case where the prosecution has nothing but suspicion to go upon there is even less reason for him, even if he were able to do so, to prove his innocence.”
 

The blind faith placed in Philby by his old service despite compelling evidence of his treachery is disclosed in documents prepared in 1963 for Harold Macmillan, the prime minister, after Philby’s defection to the Soviet Union from Beirut in January of that year. Sinclair’s defence, dating from 1955, is contained in the previously Top Secret file.     

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10552357/MI6-had-blind-faith-in-Kim-Philby-for-years-after-Soviet-agent-fears.html 

The President's Favorite Thriller Writer: A Look Back At Ian Fleming's Meeting With John Kennedy

The James Bond web site MI6 offers a piece on Ian Fleming's meeting with John Kennedy.

How does it feel to be President Kennedy's favorite mystery thriller writer? "It's quite flattering," says author Ian Fleming, whose melodramatic adventures of British secret agent James Bond have sold millions of books throughout the world. Fleming, who at 54 is a somewhat older version of his suave fictional hero, was sitting outside the tiny Turkish railroad station of Yarimburgaz, where recently a British film company was shooting the latest James Bond movie, "From Russia, With Love." The author had come down from London to watch. He brushed lank gray hair from his eyes and smile creased his ruddy face as he recalled his only meeting with President Kennedy.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/history_ian_fleming_jfk_interview.php3?t=&s=&id=03612 

 

To learn more about Ian Fleming's fasincating life one should read Andrew Lycett's biography.

'Terrorists Are Rubbing Their Hands With Glee': British Intelligence Chief On Edward Snowden's Leaks

The British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on the British intelligence chiefs who testified about the damage done by NSA leaker and traitor Edward Snowden.

Britain’s enemies are “rubbing their hands with glee” over the leaking of tactics used by our security services, the nation’s three leading spy chiefs have warned.

Terrorists around the world are already changing their methods because of the disclosures by the Guardian, MPs were told. Al-Qaeda and other fanatics were “lapping up” the exposing of UK spying techniques, which had put operations at risk and caused damage that would last for years, the leaders said.
 

The GCHQ files were stolen from the US National Security Agency (NSA) by a former CIA contractor, Edward Snowden, and exposed in the Guardian.
 

The warnings were made during a historic parliamentary hearing in which the heads of the three spy agencies, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, gave evidence in public for the first time.

They used the session to attack the ongoing Guardian and Snowden revelations, adding that their job was now “far, far harder” than it was five months ago.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a video clip via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10434196/Terrorists-are-rubbing-their-hands-with-glee-after-Edward-Snowden-leaks.html

A Look Back At Ian Fleming's Obituaries In The Times Of London And The New York Times

The James Bond web site MI6 noted that Ian Fleming died on August 12, 1964 and offered Fleming's obituaries from the Times of London and the New York Times.

Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond 007, was struck by a heart attack whilst vacationing at Sandwich with his wife and 12 year-old son on August 12th, 1964. In the ambulance speeding him to Canterbury, where he died three hours after arrival, he managed one last civilized Bond-like gesture, "I'm sorry to have troubled you chaps," he told attendants.

Below are obituaries published the following day by two of the world's foremost newspapers: The Times of London and The New York Times.

 

Mr Ian Fleming, whose death at the age of 56 is announced on another page, was one of the most successful and controversial thriller writers in recent years.

 

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in 1903, son of Major Valentine Fleming, MP, DSO. He was educated at Eton and Sandhurst, and then at Munich and Geneva universities. In 1929, having failed to secure a place in the Diplomatic Service, he joined Reuter's at a time when the international wire services were struggling for supremacy. 'Reuter's was great from in those days,' Fleming said afterwards, 'a very good mill. The training there gives you a good straightforward style. Above all, I have to thank Reuter's for getting my facts right.'

The Times

 

He covered the trial of the Vickers engineers in Moscow in 1933, and was offered the job of Reuter's assistant general manager in the Far East. He decided instead to seek his fortune in the City, an attempt which continued, without much success, first as a banker, then as a stockbroker, until he joined the Navy in 1939. As personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, he found the war 'intensely exciting'. When it was over, Lord Kemsley offered him the foreign managership of Kemsley )now Thomson) newspapers. Fleming accepted on condition that he could have two months' holiday a year to spend at his house, Goldeneye, in Jamaica, where he subsequently did most of his writing.
 

If his war experiences and his post-war job provided the background for his thrillers, Fleming maintained that it was his marriage to Anne Viscountess Rothermere in 1952 which spurred him to start writing. 'I was in the process of getting married,' he said, 'which is a very painful thing to do at the age of 44; so to take me mind off the whole business, I sat down and wrote a novel.' The noel was a spy story, Casino Royale (1953), remotely derived from a real case in the history of Soviet espionage activities in France: it introduced the handsome, ruthless British agent, James Bond ('007 - licensed to kill'), and the various elements - a gambling scene, a torture scene, physical luxury and knowingness about the world's ways - which were to become the hallmarks of Fleming's style. It was well received and he soon followed it with other James Bond adventures, Live And Let Die (1954), Moonraker (1955), and Diamonds Are Forever (1956).

 

You can read the rest of the obituaries via the below link:

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/chronicles_19640812_ian_fleming_dies.php3?t=&s=&id=03550  

Identity Of Double Agent Killed By MI6 in WWII Revealed: How Ian Fleming Helped Cover Up Secret That Stayed Buried For 70 years

 

Kerry McDermott at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece that reveals a secret from War World II.

Foreign Office files kept secret for more than 70 years have revealed details of how Mi6 kidnapped and killed a French double agent during World War Two - and ordered the creator of James Bond to help them cover it up.

In July 1941 British Intelligence learned that 'deeply trusted' Captain Pierre Lablache-Combier - a Royal Navy commander recruited by MI6 and posted to Spain - had divulged secrets to the Nazi-backed French Vichy government. 

James Bond writer Ian Fleming (seen in the above photo) - then a Naval Intelligence officer - issued an official report stating the officer was 'missing believed drowned'. In fact, the 'complete double-crosser' was killed as Secret Service operatives scrambled to smuggle him out of Spain.  

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330825/Identity-double-agent-killed-MI6-WWII-revealed-newly-released-files.html

Solo, Part Two: More Of William Boyd On His New James Bond Continuation Novel

The James Bond web site Mi6 offers part two of the conversation between the latest James Bond continuation author, William Boyd, and the Times literary editor, Erica Wagner.

EW - How was your process of writing different, having to create characters from scratch?

WB - It is slightly different, but that was the advantage of re-reading the books, because there is a phenomenal amount of information there, which most people have forgotten about. Fleming tells you a huge amount about Bond: From his inner thoughts; his softest emotions to his most savage; his background, where he lives. Bond's flat is in Chelsea, in Wellington Square, which is about two hundred yards from where I live, which was another bonus. Fleming's mother lived in Chelsea. So, getting all that information allowed me to make Bond seem real in my mind. But then, of course, I had to invent a villain and various antagonists. I had to come up with two very interesting women for him to meet and have a relationship with. So, there was a lot of invention to be done, not just plotting - my plots are always very elaborate and complicated, so I had to construct a very elaborate and complicated plot - but I had to populate that world with creatures of my imagination, not just the ones that Fleming had.

There is "M" and there is a brief Moneypenny moment, but otherwise, they're all mine. So, it is ninety-five percent imagination, I would say, and then all this information that Fleming provides for you.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/literary_solo_william_boyd_preview_interview2.php3?t=&s=&id=03488

 

And you can read part one via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/04/solo-william-boyd-on-his-new-james-bond.html 

Solo: William Boyd On His New James Bond Novel

The James Bond web site MI6 offers a piece on William Boyd, the latest author to write about Ian Fleming's iconic character James Bond.  

MI6 reports from The London Book Fair, where William Boyd, author of the new Bond continuation novel 'Solo', was 'author of the day' and was interviewed by Erica Wagner, Literary Editor of The Times.

... I think what is apparent, as soon as I started thinking about the book was that everybody thinks about Bond in terms of the films, inevitably, because they're so successful. Fleming died in 1964 but the latest Bond film came out just last year. So, Bond in the popular imagination is a celluloid Bond. Because of the nature of the medium and because of the nature of the film franchise, the difference between the cinematic Bond and the literary Bond is marked. I re-read every Bond novel and Bond short story in chronological order before I started writing my own, and Fleming gives you a massive amount of information about Bond: His inner life; his back story; his education; his likes; his dislikes; his phobias; his passions. So, as a character in a novel, there's this incredible richness, whereas in a film - because film is photography - it's very hard to be subjective. So, you see Bond, you see what he gets up to, but I feel that you just don't know him at all. The literary Bond is a far more complex and nuanced creature than even a brilliant actor like Daniel Craig can portray.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/literary_solo_william_boyd_preview_interview1.php3?t=&s=&id=03484

You can also read the Ian Fleming Publications' press release on the publication of William Boyd's Solo via the below link:

http://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=10879

Interview With Jon Gilbert, Author Of 'Ian Fleming: The Bibliography'

David Leigh at the James Bond web site MI6 offers an interview with Ian Fleming's bibliographer, Jon Gilbert.

Jon Gilbert is the bibliographer of Ian Fleming and a James Bond archivist. Last year, he completed the gargantuan 'Ian Fleming: The Bibliography' for Queen Anne Press - a comprehensive 736-page guide to the work of 007's creator. It is not only an indispensable source of information for collectors, enthusiasts, libraries and booksellers alike, but an entertaining and informative volume. Gilbert is one of the foremost experts on the works Ian Fleming. He is a renowned bookdealer at rare book experts Adrian Harrington Limited in London and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Fleming’s works. His research took him to the Jonathan Cape Publishing archive, Eton College Library, the Pan Macmillan archive, Penguin Books Ltd., The Imperial War Museum’s Fleming Exhibition, the British Library and the ‘Bond Bound’ display at The Fleming Collection, London. In addition he has been able to interview colleagues, friends and family of Ian Fleming.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/interview_jon_gilbert.php3?t=&s=&id=03475

 

You can also read Andrew Lycett's Times Literary Supplement review of the book via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/02/bonds-books-ian-fleming-bibliography.html