He was an ideas man, not overly concerned with practicalities or logistics. He didn’t see much of the war firsthand, but was involved in its planning. Fleming excelled, under the codename 17F. The director of British Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Henry Godfrey, recruited Fleming as his assistant. The outbreak of war in 1939 changed everything. He spent a few years as a journalist, but drifted purposelessly through much of the 1930s. He only lasted a year at military college (where he contracted gonorrhoea), then missed out on a job with the Foreign Office. Ian Fleming, Agent 17Fįleming came from a wealthy, well-connected British family, but he was a mediocre student.

Intelligence work is often less glamorous than he depicted, but in both espionage and novel-writing, the difference between fact and fiction is not always easy to distinguish. Some of this was real: Fleming drew on his own work as a spy for his novels. Since 1953, martinis, gadgets, and a licence to kill have been part of how ordinary people understand spycraft. The two infiltrate the casino, play at the tables, and dodge assassination attempts, while engaging in a dramatic battle with French communists, the Soviets, and each other.įleming’s Bond – the sophisticated, tuxedo-clad secret agent – is an enduring image of espionage. The director of British intelligence, known only by his codename “M”, also assigns Bond a companion – Vesper Lynd, previously one of the agency’s assistants. Bond’s mission is to play against Le Chiffre and win, bankrupting both the Frenchman and the union. After losing Soviet money, Le Chiffre takes to high-stakes gambling tables to recover it. The novel’s principal villain is Le Chiffre, the paymaster of a French trade union controlled by the Soviet intelligence agency SMERSH. It had expensive liquor and cars, exotic destinations, and high-stakes gambling – luxurious things beyond the reach of most people. British readers, still living with rationing and shortages after the war, eagerly devoured the first James Bond story. Cover of the first edition of Casino Royale.įleming’s first novel, Casino Royale, was published 70 years ago on April 13 1953.

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