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The Story Behind: The Man With The Golden Gun

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Writer Tom Cull talks about The Man with the Golden Gun, the last of Ian Fleming’s 007 novels.

Eight months after Ian Fleming’s death, The Man with the Golden Gun was published. The birth of the final James Bond novel was difficult and its merits within the canon are still debated among aficionados.

Although Fleming had on many occasions claimed that he was finished with writing Bond books, he had completed the first draft of The Man with the Golden Gun by March 1964. After once again undertaking a Bond novel despite his rapidly deteriorating health, a word to his editor William Plomer at Jonathan Cape, rings with an eerie finality:

‘This is, alas, the last Bond and, again alas, I mean it, for I really have run out of both puff and zest.’

Along with Fleming’s reservations, the artwork for The Man with the Golden Gun also initially proved difficult. Once again Richard Chopping collaborated with Fleming on the dust jacket. Finding Scaramanga’s golden Colt .45 pistol too long to confine to a single panel, his artwork extended to the back of the jacket. Apparently, booksellers were not enamored with the experiment because it required them to open the book in order to display it properly. Now of course, it is regarded as a masterpiece of book jacket design and one of the few still affordable as a first edition.

Fleming’s Gambit

Despite this lack of “puff and zest”, the opening to The Man with the Golden Gun is as good as anything Fleming ever wrote. In summary, the opening is: fantastical, surprising, implausible, and tense. Classic Fleming.

The Service learns that a year after destroying Blofeld’s castle in Japan, Bond suffered a head injury and developed amnesia. Having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond traveled to the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M upon returning to England, and during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol. Thankfully, the attempt fails.

The psychological tension between Bond and M is palpable in Fleming’s final Bond novel. We know that something’s not right, but we’re not entirely sure what it is until the meeting takes place and we see Bond attempt to assassinate his superior, whom he had previously “loved, honoured and obeyed.”  Without question, this unspoken, taut hostility between the two men is only successful because The Man with the Golden Gun explores Bond’s psychology more than any other Bond book.

Spy-thriller writer Charles Cumming, who wrote the introduction to the 2006 Penguin edition of The Man with the Golden Gun, reflected on this opening sequence:

“Given the author’s fragile condition, The Man with the Golden Gun is a remarkable success. The opening sequence is as good as anything Fleming ever received; I particularly love Moneypenny’s ‘quick, emphatic shake of the head’ as she desperately tries to warn Bill Tanner that something is amiss with Bond.”

After recovering from the episode, Bond is dispatched to Jamaica to assassinate Francisco Scaramanga, a.k.a., The Man with the Golden Gun:

“‘Bond was a good agent once,’ said M. ‘There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be a good agent again.’”

The Golden Misfire?

Fleming died before the manuscript could go through the usual process of a second draft and revisions.  If Fleming had had his druthers, he might have delayed the publishing of The Man with the Golden Gun, as Fleming biographer Andrew Lycett stated:

“He hoped he might be able to rework it when he was in Jamaica the following spring. But Plomer disabused him of that idea, telling him that the novel was well up to standard.”

Kingsley Amis, a confirmed Fleming fan, was asked for his opinion of the manuscript, but it’s debatable how many of his suggestions, if any, were used. “No decent villain, no decent conspiracy, no branded goods…and even no sex, sadism or snobbery” were just some of Amis’s objections.  His main criticisms concerned Scaramanga, whom he labeled a “dandy with a special (and ineffective) gun”.  To the celebrated novelist this seemed a bit thin considering Fleming’s usual prowess for creating well-drawn and memorable villains.  Amis was also concerned with the lack of what he called ‘The Fleming Sweep,’ Fleming’s signature use of rich detail.

With more hindsight, Amis tempered his earlier criticisms of The Man with the Golden Gun in a later collection of essays entitled What Became of Jane Austen.  According to Amis, there is no doubt that the lack of follow-up on plot points, such as why Scaramanga hires Bond as his trigger-man, is due to an uncharacteristically unconfident Fleming.  Amis suggests that the Bond-as-trigger-man  idea might be the responsibility of “an earlier draft perhaps never committed to paper, wherein Scaramanga’s hiring of Bond is sexually motivated”.  Amis goes on to muse that Fleming could have been in critical retreat after too many bashings, and chose not to pursue this idea.  However, according to William Plomer in Andrew Lycett’s biography of Fleming, he “can’t think that Ian had any qualms about ‘prudence.’”

Part of Amis’ ire was the result of holding Fleming to such a high standard, and Amis maintained that beneath all the dash and flair (and plot inconsistencies), there was “formidable ingenuity and sheer brainwork” in Fleming.  I tend to agree, and if The Man with the Golden Gun were to come out today by a new thriller writer, it would likely receive an overwhelmingly positive reaction.  However, in the context of Fleming’s oeuvre and his standing with the critics of his day, The Man with the Golden Gun never stood a chance.

Yet despite all the negative criticism at the time, history has been a little kinder.  Of late, The Man with the Golden Gun has undergone critical reappraisal, with acclaimed novelist and Bond continuation author William Boyd arguing for the book as one of Fleming’s “realistic” novels (rather than “fantastical”) in the introduction to the 2012 UK edition published by Vintage.

“Fleming’s Bond novels are full of implausibility and coincidences and convenient plot-twists – narrative coherence, complexity, nuance, surprise and originality were not aspects of the spy novel that Fleming was particularly interested in, and The Man with the Golden Gun is no exception.  And indeed Scaramanga’s eventual drawn-out demise is almost low-key, by Fleming’s standards, and as well written – in a brutal, deadpan sense – as anything Fleming achieved.”

Charles Cumming has even better things to say about Scaramanga:

“When 007 and Scaramanga are sizing one another up at the hotel, we are treated to dialogue worthy of Raymond Chandler.”

The Final Curtain

It is apparent that Fleming’s work rate and ingenuity were failing as we witness the end of him and his creation in The Man with the Golden Gun; a novel filled with unintended verisimilitude. After creating and defining a genre, it was mission accomplished for Fleming and Bond well before this novel and Fleming’s old enemy – boredom – was lurking in the wings years before the first sentence of The Man with the Golden Gun had been written.

‘[Bond] decided that he was either too old or too young for the worst torture of all, boredom, and got up and went to the head of the table. He said to Mr. Scaramanga, 2I’ve got a headache. I’m going to bed.”‘

The Man with the Golden Gun is also fittingly about Fleming’s relationship with his beloved Jamaica and the disintegration of British colonialism. Bond and Felix Leiter are awarded the Jamaican Police Medal for “Services to the Independent State of Jamaica”, which is a blunt nod to the end of British imperialism in Jamaica in 1962. In a final effort to hang on to the old vestiges of the British Empire, Fleming takes potshots at the new world power, the United States, and the perceived “Americanization” of the Cold War West. In his recent book Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born, author Matthew Parker underscores these jabs at America by highlighting how the American-accented Scaramanga is depicted as a keen promoter of tacky Americanized resort hotels with “tropical jungle” dining rooms.

As if he were well aware that he had one figurative bullet left in the chamber, Fleming seized the chance to set the record straight about his creation in The Man with the Golden Gun. Namely, Fleming set out to dispel the notion of Bond as a snob by offering him the ultimate in status symbols – a Knighthood from the Queen. Bond declines, explaining to M: “I am a Scottish peasant and will always feel at home being a Scottish peasant.” One could read this as Fleming’s grand send-off to his critics, or one could see it as Bond’s defiance alone. Either way it presents the literary end for Fleming’s Bond and the very real finale for Fleming himself.

Tom Cull runs Artistic Licence Renewed. He knew iconic Bond cover artist Richard Chopping well as a child and Tom’s great grandfather hired a young Ian Fleming to work at the family bank Cull & Co. between 1933 and 1935.

Opinion: The Horror Inspirations For You Only Live Twice

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American writer Benjamin Welton share his take on the references Fleming may have drawn from for his macabre, ghostly novel, You Only Live Twice.

You Only Live Twice is everything you could ever want in a Bond novel. It has great action, stirling dialogue, and, for 1964, an exotic setting. But unlike other 007 novels, it has something else – Gothic horror. Set in the land of ghosts, monsters (yōkai), and demons (oni), You Only Live Twice is ultimately a revenge tale about Bond avenging his late wife Tracy’s death at the hands of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In order to imbue the novel with a fairy tale-like quality, Fleming brilliantly chose to make Blofeld even more monstrous for You Only Live Twice, which is his swan song. In particular, Fleming used two sources – Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan and Bram Stoker’s Dracula – to not only mark You Only Live Twice as more outré than its predecessors, but to also turn the brilliant criminal mastermind Blofeld into a modern-day vampire, thus making Bond’s conquest all the more important. In short, You Only Live Twice is a haunting Götterdämmerung that facilitates Bond’s short-lived renewal.

Book cover for You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming, featuring a scorpion holding a pearl on a green background.

To be fair, weirdness has always permeated the Bond novels. From the Dr. Fu Manchu-like and hideously disfigured Dr. Julius No, to the very real possibility that Le Chiffre in Casino Royale was based on famous British occultist Aleister Crowley, Fleming’s Bond novels regularly flirt with elements of horror and the fantastique, but tend to keep them at arm’s length. In You Only Live Twice, however, speculative fiction comes to the forefront. Partially this is a product of the alienating effect of Japanese culture. The first half of You Only Live Twice is more or less a tit-for-tat exchange between Bond and Tiger Tanaka, the head of the Japanese Secret Service. Scenes such as when Bond and Tiger play an unusually significant game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (or, as it’s called in the novel, Scissors Cut Paper, Paper Wraps Stone, Stone Blunts Scissors) are indicative of Fleming’s attempt to display the dissimilarities between the Orient and Occident. Less childish examples include soliloquies including this when Tiger savages American culture:

‘The Oriental way of life is particularly attractive to the American who wishes to escape from a culture, which, I am sure you will agree, has become, to say the least of it, more and more unattractive except to the lower grades of the human species to whom bad but plentiful food, shiny toys such as the automobile and the television, and the “quick buck”, often dishonestly earned, or earned in exchange for minimal labour or skills, are the summum bonum…’

But of all the arguments between Tiger and Bond in the lead up to the novel’s climax, none is more central to the novel’s plot than the Japanese viewpoint on suicide. For Bond, Tiger’s veneration of suicides as honorable people who erased the shame they earned in life with the ultimate sacrifice is disturbing if not disgusting. Furthermore, it is this opinion that allows Blofeld to argue that his suicide garden performs a great benefit to the Japanese nation as a whole. As he puts it to Bond directly:

‘I have not only provided the common man with a solution to the problem of whether to be or not to be, I have also provided the Japanese Government…with a tidy, out-of-the-way charnel house which relieves them of a constant flow of messy occurrences involving the trains, the trams, the volcanoes and other unattractively public means of killing yourself. You must admit that, far from being a crime, this is a public service unique in the history of the world.’

This then is the heart of Blofeld’s vampiric nature in You Only Live Twice. In order to evade capture, Blofeld, like Lafcadio Hearn, the Irish-Greek writer who ended his life as one of the pre-eminent translators of Japanese ghost stories, has moved to Japan under the disguise of the eccentric Swiss botanist Doctor Guntram Shatterhand. After buying a semi-ruined castle on the southern island of Kyushu, Blofeld meticulously stocks his grounds with an entire army of poisonous plants, piranhas, and guardsmen who were all former members of the Black Dragon Society, a real organisation from Japanese history that included militarists, anarchists, criminals, and ultranationalist terrorists. He has made nothing less than a formidable ‘Castle of Death,’ which acts as a magnet for those seeking suicide. As Tiger Tanaka puts it, Blofeld ‘collects death.’

Blofeld adds a theatricality to his villainy by parading around his own grounds in samurai armor and sporting a drooping black moustache that is not unlike Count Dracula’s ‘great white moustache’ in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. Even Bond himself comments on Blofeld’s ‘Disneyland of Death’ (Irma Bunt’s phrase) by calling it ‘a brilliant attempt to make a stage setting for Dracula.’

Book cover for You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming, featuring an illustration of a samurai helmet, and an asian woman kneeling whilst wearing an open robe.

Unlike Dracula however, Blofeld cannot directly feed on his victims. Instead, he draws them to his haunted edifice and gives them the tools for suicide. He is, in other words, slightly enfeebled and not the Nietzschean ‘Overman’ that he believes himself to be. This fact is fundamentally proven when Bond kills Blofeld during what can only be described as an underwhelming final battle. Like the Texan Quincey Morris who kills the ancient Dracula with a Bowie knife, Bond manages to strangle Blofeld after a short duel between katana and stave.

What follows this final battle is a dreamlike, almost surreal exit engineered by Bond. Using a balloon, Bond tries to flee the ‘Castle of Death’ through the air, but is shot in the head by one of Blofeld’s accomplices. Bond manages to survive, but is publicly and officially declared dead in the British press. Until the word ‘Vladivostok’ triggers something in Bond’s deep memory, thus inspiring him to renew his former life as Great Britain’s greatest secret agent, he lives the life of a simple fisherman with the former Hollywood actress-turned-pearl diver Kissy Suzuki. Again, You Only Live Twice commingles the horror of Blofeld’s vampire castle with the enchanted rural splendour of Japan’s southern islands. Like the old ghost stories translated by Hearn, whose name appears frequently in the novel, the terrifying and the traditional, as well as the mysterious and the bucolic converge in what is often Fleming’s most underrated novel.

Find out more about Benjamin Welton here.

Art Evolution: For Special Services

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John Gardner’s second Bond book, For Special Services sees Bond on Special Services to the US government alongside Cedar Leiter, the daughter of Felix Leiter. Together they pose as art experts to infiltrate the organisation of art lover Markus Bismaquer, whose ventures threaten to “set the world ablaze”. To celebrate this much-loved thriller we take a closer look at the evolution of its cover art.

When For Special Services was first published in 1982, the cover for Jonathan Cape’s UK hardback edition was created by British artist, illustrator and designer Bill Botten, whose work has decorated over 250 books, including novels by Kingsley and Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Ian Fleming’s old friend William Plomer, Salman Rushdie, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Crichton and J.G. Ballard. Among James Bond fans, Bill’s work is most recognisable from John Gardner’s novels Icebreaker and, of course, For Special Services, but it can also be found on Christopher Wood’s screenplay novelisations of The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker.

The snake adorning the first edition of For Special Services – referencing the deadly thirty-foot pythons in Nena Blofeld’s house in the Bayou – is reminiscent of the artwork created by Richard Chopping for Ian Fleming’s original James Bond books, even down to the black cloth and gold lettering. When interviewed by Literary 007, Bill said that this was the only time that Jonathan Cape gave an indication of what they wanted on a cover. For the other books, it was (creative) Licence to Bill.

The paperback editions of For Special Services were published by Coronet Books, which soon became the third publisher of paperback James Bond novels in the UK. Like the hardback, the cover made by Coronet featured a snake but its block red background and the addition of a spy silhouette contributed to a bolder and more commercial look for the novel. It emphasised the speed and captured the action of John Gardner’s storytelling as well as his mission to “bring Mr Bond into the 1980s”.

Book cover for For Special Services by John Gardner

In 1995 Coronet revamped the entire 007 series with vibrant new covers by David Scutt, Bill Gregory and Paul Robinson. This series is the most complete set of James Bond books to date. It would be the last set to include Colonel Sun and the only set to include both John Gardner and Raymond Benson titles. A 2003 omnibus containing the first three John Gardner books (Licence Renewed, For Special Services and Role of Honour) used the artwork from For Special Services.

In 2012 all fourteen of John Gardner’s James Bond titles were republished by Orion. The cover artist on this series, Dan Mogford, explains on his website how the concept came to him at the very last minute after he had decided to go in a different direction from the typical spy clichés of sex and villainy. The snake previously associated with the For Special Services covers moved (or sssssslithered along to) Scorpius, Gardner’s seventh 007 book, during the climax of which Bond’s bride, Horner is killed by a snake. On the new For Special Services cover, a satellite replaces the python, which arguably gives a more accurate impression of the novel’s atmosphere: airplane hijackings and a murdered CIA agent’s body, not to mention SPECTRE’s world-threatening plans to gain control of America’s military space satellite network.

1981: The Return of 007 With John Gardner

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In 1979, Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications) decided it was high time for a new James Bond novel. They had invited Kingsley Amis to write Colonel Sun back in the late 1960s, and after a decade’s rest they wanted Bond to embark on some new missions. Here we take a look at the man who brought 007 back to book shops – John Gardner.

During his forty years as an author, John Gardner wrote over fifty novels including sixteen books which continued the James Bond series. Before finding his calling as an author, Gardner lived a wildly varied life in which he fought as a Royal Marine Officer in World War Two, performed as a stage magician, worked as a journalist, and for a brief period he was even a priest.

After leaving the Royal Marines in 1945, Gardner enrolled at Cambridge University and studied Theology which led to his stint in the Church, but after a short while he realised that it was not the life he wanted, and became a drama critic and arts reviewer. This new profession allowed Gardner to re-engage with a childhood interest in poetry and develop his love for Shakespeare. During these years Gardner recognised that he was an alcoholic. As part of his treatment for addiction Gardner wrote a long memoir for his doctor which became his first book, Spin the Bottle, published in 1964.

Following this first non-fiction book, Gardner believed he now had to “write the great British novel”, and proceeded to author a “pretentious piece of rubbish about how governments went around legally killing people”. Off the back of this project Gardner’s agent encouraged him to write a comedy instead of a drama and he went on to create the ‘Boysie Oakes’ series starring a cowardly and inept secret agent who was hired by mistake; a world away from the slick and professional James Bond. The Liquidator, the first book of the series, became a best-seller and was adapted into a film. Gardner wrote eight ‘Boysie Oakes’ novels in total, and it proved to be a very popular series.

In the mid-1970s Gardner wrote The Moriarty Journals. The two books, The Return of Moriarty and The Revenge of Moriarty, revealed ‘the truth’ about Sherlock Holmes’ arch-nemesis. Gardner was extremely proud of them, and they were particularly popular in the United States where they received backing by Sherlock Holmes societies, most famously by the ‘Baker Street Irregulars’. Just before Gardner’s death in 2007, he completed the third and final instalment of the Moriarty trilogy which was published posthumously in November 2008.

With this successful background in espionage novels and in continuing a pre-existing series, Gardner was brought to the attention of Glidrose Publications Limited and he was approached in the early 1980s to continue the Bond novels. Gardner admitted that his initial response was along the lines of ‘thank you but no thank you’, and he actually wrote a letter declining the offer on the basis that the fantasy world of Bond was not for him. However, the letter was never sent.

Gardner was persuaded by his agent to fly from Ireland to London to meet with members of the Glidrose Board. Gardner wanted to modernise Bond and bring Fleming’s hero into the 1980s by equipping him with more modern thinking and updated intelligence methods. Gardner said, “Most of all I wanted him to have operational know-how: the reality of correct tradecraft and modern gee-whiz technology”. Glidrose  agreed, and so Gardner became the new Bond novelist.  Originally signed-up to write just three Bond continuation novels, Gardner went on to write fourteen and took James Bond through the eighties and well into the nineties.  He said, “while the job remained a challenge, it was far from easy, but once I got the bit in between my teeth I wasn’t going to let go- and I didn’t.”

The technology that Bond utilises during his escapades was of great interest to Gardner, and he wanted to equip his hero with the most cutting-edge gadgets. Gardner made it his mission to handle and test every item of technology or weaponry that he gave to 007 to use. Furthermore, he only sent his hero to locations he himself had visited.  Gardner already had extensive knowledge concerning weapons from his time in the Royal Marines, and said that “real experience is a very useful tool that lends itself to the writer of these kinds of books”. Gardner described how he had Bond use a telescopic baton in Death is Forever, a weapon that had not be heard of before the novel, but since then it has been used by police forces worldwide.

Margalit Fox, who wrote Gardner’s obituary in the New York Times, stated that

“In Mr. Gardner’s hands, Bond is every inch a late-20th-century man. He smokes low-tar cigarettes… and, in an authorial choice that anguished 007 purists, drives a fuel-efficient Saab instead of his Bentley Mark II Continental”.

Gardner defended this decision by saying a 1980s Bond needed a 1980s car. By being specific with the technology and locations in his novels, Gardner grounded them in the present day and thus achieved his aim of updating Bond for context modern audience. He said, “To allow Bond to have remained static in a changing world… would, I still believe, have been death”.

Whilst writing the Bond books Gardner also wrote another espionage series, The Herbie Kruger Series. Kruger was the antithesis of Bond in many ways; unattractive, poorly dressed and of German origin, but nonetheless a skilful and impressive spy. Maestro, the penultimate book of the series, was awarded the honour of the New York Times ‘Book of the Year’ in 1993. After fighting two battles with cancer and following the death of his wife in 1997, Gardner took a break from writing. When he returned to writing in 2001 he began a series about Suzie Mountford, a female Detective Sergeant working in London during World War Two. The first book was entitled Bottled Spider, and four books followed.

Book cover for Cold by John Gardner

Gardner said that his time writing the Bond novels was “a splendid experience” and that he was “proud that [his] contribution to the Bond saga played such a great part in its development.” Throughout Gardner’s career he remained interested in the world of espionage and investigation, most likely influenced by his time in World War Two. It is fascinating to trace how his writing progressed from Boysie Oakes, a spoof of early Bond, to continuing the Bond franchise, and beyond.

The Story Behind: Diamonds Are Forever

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Writer Tom Cull takes us on a deep dive into Ian Fleming’s trans-continental thriller Diamonds Are Forever.

‘Bond put down the piece of quartz and gazed again into the heart of the diamond. Now he could understand the passion that diamonds had inspired through the centuries, the almost sexual love they aroused among those who handled them and cut them and traded in them. It was domination by a beauty so pure that it held a kind of truth, a divine authority before which all other material things turned, like the bit of quartz, to clay. In these few minutes Bond understood the myth of diamonds, and he knew that he would never forget what he had suddenly seen inside the heart of this stone…’

Ian Fleming said of Diamonds Are Forever in an interview with the Daily Express in 1956, ‘I’ve put everything into this except the kitchen sink. Can you think of a plot about a kitchen sink for the next one? Otherwise I am lost.’

And indeed he did. Whereas some of his books relied heavily on his imagination, this vastly under-rated fourth novel published in 1956, required lots of first-hand research and travel. Fleming’s twin love of travel and ‘things’ were indulged to their fullest potential in this novel. The central plot revolved around diamond smuggling – a hot topic at the time – and like many, he was enchanted by their lustre, permanence and chatoyance:

‘When jewels have chatoyance the colour in the lustre changes with movement in the light, and the colour of this girl’s eyes seemed to vary between a light grey and a deep grey-blue.’

He was also fascinated in the power and allure of these jewels that could provoke people, even of good standing, to smuggle them. In his book The Man With The Golden Typewriter, Fergus Fleming describes how in 1954, while coming home from Jamaica, his uncle saw an advertisement in American Vogue that read ‘A Diamond is Forever’. He reported on this for one of his Atticus columns in The Sunday Times commenting in his piece upon the fifth largest diamond ever recorded at the time on June 20th.

Fleming’s enthrallment with diamonds would need to be tied to a thrilling narrative to become the core of the new Bond novel; one possible source of inspiration for the plot was the true story of a former geologist for De Beers who, while prospecting in a forbidden zone in Namibia, had managed to hide a container of some 1400 diamonds. On December 21, 1952, a small aircraft landed on the diamond-strewn beach in the forbidden zone, whereby the geologist got out of the plane and retrieved the cache of diamonds that he had squirrelled away six months earlier. The geologist and his pilot were spotted and arrested.

The opening chapter of Diamonds Are Forever– ‘The Pipeline’ – is very reminiscent of this true-life event and brilliantly describes the details of a smuggling operation conducted by the Spang brothers. As Fleming later told the Daily Express in 1964, “I always study the best authorities on a particular subject.” These authorities included De Beers themselves and former head of MI5 Sir Percy Sillitoe of the International Diamond Security Organisation, who later would help advise him on his non-fiction work The Diamond Smugglers. De Beers allowed him to watch the cutting and sorting of the diamonds, and Sillitoe’s name would make it into the novel as M tells Bond in chapter 2, ‘”You probably saw in the papers that De Beers took on our friend Sillitoe when he left MI5, and he’s out there now, working in with the South African security people.”’

After confining Bond to a domestic English setting in Moonraker, both Fleming, Bond, and apparently their readers, were ready for some foreign travel. What better excuse for Fleming to visit his old Eton chum Ivar Bryce? Bryce who was now in Vermont at Black Hole Hollow Farm with his new wife, the millionairess Josephine Hart.

Bryce had played an important role in Fleming’s life as a friend, confidante and business partner, while his regular summer excursions to this idyllic spot in the Green Mountains of Vermont gave Ian the kind of relaxation and adventure that fed his imagination. He and Bryce would take road trips in Bryce’s Studillac car to various places, notably across the border to New York state to Saratoga and the famous racetrack and mud baths. The resort was a favourite of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt known for its healing properties that helped his polio, as Fleming alludes to in his novel: ‘People drift up to take the waters and the mud baths for their troubles, rheumatism and such like, and it’s like any other off-season spa anywhere in the world.’

In chapter 10 entitled ‘Studillac to Saratoga’, Fleming beautifully describes the atmosphere at the racetrack, ‘It’s probably the smartest race-meeting in America, and the place crawls with Vanderbilts and Whitneys.’ And the scenes with Bond and Felix Leiter could well be describing Fleming and Bryce.

The American artist and literary Bond fan Gerald Wadsworth commented on the accuracy of the US setting.

‘When Bond and Felix Leiter drive up to Saratoga Springs in the Studillac, Bond is treated to an exercise in American car culture – a black Studebaker convertible with a Cadillac engine, special transmission, brakes and suspension, designed by Raymond Loewy, and could run circles around Corvette’s and Thunderbird’s of the day. Their route to Saratoga was detailed, not unlike when Bond would travel through Europe. Roads, highways, turnpikes and various elements of local laws would be routinely described to the reader.’

Another one of their gang was Ernie Cuneo, whose name features heavily as an undercover cab driver, Ernie Cureo. No argument who this was based on. Famous gangster Lucky Luciano also gets a mention, who later featured again in Fleming’s Thrilling Cities travelogue.

Fleming’s fascination with American gangster culture would feature in a few of his novels (Goldfinger, for example), but in Diamonds Are Forever, he placed it at the fore in the form of the Spang brothers, Wint and Kidd and Shady Tree. The setting, style and tone of this novel reads more like one of Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective novels; indeed, as the great man noted himself, Fleming’s proficiency for setting was one for his most unique strengths, ‘Fleming can go to a town for the background of a new novel, and in three days he will have mapped up every detail of that town.’

Fleming was not immune from criticism however, and his friend and peer Chandler knowingly jibed Fleming for forgetting to ‘have a glass of iced water on the table while he wrote about Las Vegas.’ In Chandler’s well-qualified review in The Sunday Times, he criticised the book for a certain amount of padding, which Fleming disagreed with: ‘I find technical details of a place like Las Vegas so fascinating that I put them in over-generously.’ He went on. ‘I quite admit to my tendency of overloading my books with Baedekerish information, but Chandler is wrong in thinking this was ‘padding’ which I abhor in other writers.’

Chandler did however finish his review with a resounding endorsement of Fleming’s ability to please his American audience, saying in the Sunday Times on 25th March 1956,

‘I have left the remarkable thing about this book to the last. And that it is written by an Englishman. The scene is almost entirely American, and it rings true to an American. I am unaware of any other writer who has accomplished this.’

Hardback book cover for Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming, designed by Michael Gillette.

Finally, and not least, is the wonderful Tiffany Case (a nod to Tiffany & Co. presumably), who is one of the very few women that earns an extended stay at Bond’s Chelsea flat. A diamond in the rough herself, if you will forgive the pun, Tiffany has a troubled past and gets mixed up with the Spang brothers in their diamond smuggling racket. Tiffany and Bond are kindred spirits in many ways; loners who struggle with attachment which leads to some particularly reflective conversations about love and marriage. Fleming’s writing here perhaps reflected by his own cynical views on matrimony by this time, a few years into his own marriage with Ann Fleming.

“Are you married?” She paused. “Or anything?”

“No. I occasionally have affairs.”

“So you’re one of those old-fashioned men who like sleeping with women. Why haven’t you ever married?”

“I expect because I think I can handle life better on my own. Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.” Tiffany Case thought this over. “Maybe there’s something in that,” she said finally. “But it depends what you want to add up to. Something human or something inhuman. You can’t be complete by yourself.”

Diamonds Are Forever is unique in the Bond canon as it is one of the most true to life stories Ian Fleming wrote. Take the road trip with him once again.

Tom Cull runs Artistic Licence Renewed. He knew iconic Bond cover artist Richard Chopping well as a child and Tom’s great grandfather hired a young Ian Fleming to work at the family bank Cull & Co. between 1933 and 1935.

Interview: Artist, Kevin Walker

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In 2005, Kevin Walker was commissioned to draw the character of a 13-year-old James Bond for Charlie Higson’s first Young Bond adventure, SilverFin. He went on to illustrate a graphic novel of SilverFin in 2008 and cover art for the Young Bond books in the USA. We catch up with the British comic book artist to talk about his process and experiences in the Young Bond world.

Have you always been a James Bond fan? 

Absolutely, Bond is one of those iconic characters, you can’t miss. I came to the novels quite late, but I certainly watched all the movies from a young age. Young Bond was my chance to become a fairly prominent part of the whole James Bond universe.

Which is your favourite Young Bond book?

My favourite of the series is Charlie Higson’s Double or Die. I love the whole setting, with the analytical engine and the communist enemy, the whole feel of it being like one long chase in grim weather. It’s the one where James trashes his Aunt Charmian’s Bentley.

Where did you get your inspiration for the James Bond Origin comic covers?

I can’t take all the credit for that. I was asked to come up with Bond pin-ups that were reminiscent of WWII propaganda posters, and I didn’t want to go too close because the image still has to work as a cover. That’s how I came up with the idea of using the same formal layout design on each illustration.

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What’s your process for creating a cover and how does it differ to illustrating comic strips?

It’s actually the same process: rough sketches, finished pencils, inks and colours, with consultation in between each step. The difference is you don’t have to worry about continuity and narrative flow. You’re trying to tell a story in a single image. You can see the evolution of a piece of cover art here.

Three images showing the evolution of a piece of comic book cover art by Kev Walker. The pictures show a young man in WW2 London on rubble.

Which Young Bond action scene did you most enjoy illustrating? 

It’s where James confronts Mimic in the slum apartment, from Steve Cole’s Red Nemesis.

Where do you work?

I have a converted attic where I’ve been working for the last 10 years. A comfy chair and a table pitched at just the right angle, good lighting, a fan in summer and a heater in winter. I used to be able to work with music, but now I can’t. Any repetitive beat and I stop working and start listening to the music instead. I stream a lot of stuff – documentaries, any weird drama that I can listen to in the background while I work.

 Who inspired you to become and artist? 

The ones that made me want to become an artist in the first place were people like Ralph McQuarrie, Chris Foss, just masses of influences from all over the place. When you realise, as a teenager, that there are plenty of people making a living at it, you have to be single-minded, stubborn and a bit selfish to focus on doing it, despite all the naysayers that tell you you’ll never get a job in art… like my art teachers when I was 12 (and I have that in writing).

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to become a full-time artist?

The trick is to keep doing the things that make you happy, always keep looking, and don’t be afraid to try new things.

 Kev is known for his work on 2000AD and Warhammer comics, Marvel and Magic: The Gathering. Find out more here.

 

The Story Behind: Three Bond Women

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Writer Tom Cull explores the real heroes behind some of Ian Fleming’s most admired characters.

Like many authors before him, Fleming took ideas for his James Bond novels from the world around him and the people he knew. The plots were often heightened re-imaginings of his wartime experiences or altered versions of real-world intrigues he’d reported on as a journalist. He often drew upon the names of his real-life acquaintances when christening his characters: from Felix Leiter whose name is inspired by combining the middle name of Fleming’s school friend Ivar Felix Bryce with the surname of their good friends Tommy and Oatsie Leiter, to Mary Trueblood whose name is a nod to Ian Fleming’s secretary at the Sunday Times, Una Trueblood. Many of the female characters in Fleming’s stories have intriguing links to people Fleming knew and many could claim to have been immortalised under the stroke of Fleming’s typewriter keys.

An illustration of Miss Moneypenny from Ian Fleming's James Bond. Image shows a woman with black hair piled on top of her head in chic fashion, holding a smoking gun on a teal background.

Miss Moneypenny

‘Moneypenny screwed up her nose. ‘But, James, do you really drink and smoke as much as that? It can’t be good for you, you know.’ She looked up at him with motherly eyes.’

Thunderball

As part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War, Vera Atkins is a strong candidate as an inspiration for Miss Moneypenny. Atkins would visit Room 055a in the Old Admiralty Building down the corridor from Fleming’s office and he would have known of her. She joined Section F (France) in April 1941 and oversaw the secret preparation of more than 400 agents, seeing off most of them in person. Vera was most intimately associated with the female agents whom she called her ‘girls’, among whom were Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo.

Many who worked with Atkins could find her intimidating and protective of her operatives but she commanded the respect of her superiors. The atmosphere at Orchard Court, one of the SOE headquarters, was akin to a private members’ club, with women smoking at their desks and handsome men passing through and breaking into French. They were only known by their aliases.

Another inspiration for Moneypenny is hinted at in an early draft of Casino Royale, where M’s assistant is named Miss ‘Petty’ Pettaval, no doubt borrowed from Kathleen Pettigrew, the Personal Assistant to the Chief of MI6, Stewart Menzies.

Fleming had many loyal secretaries throughout his career and greatly admired their skill and dedication. At The Times, it was Joan Howe who typed the manuscript of Casino Royale. Others who played their part included Beryl Griffie-Williams and Una Trueblood, but perhaps Jean Frampton was the most significant. Letters between Fleming and Frampton appeared in 2008 at Duke’s auctioneers in Dorset. Amy Brenan of Duke’s comments

“You can look on Mrs. Frampton as Ian Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny because he really does seem to rely on her. She was the first person to read the books and the collection is interesting because it details how the James Bond books were put together in the early 1960s.”

Cover for the Moneypenny graphic novel written by Jody Houser, with art by Jacob Edgar.

Mary Ann Russell

‘Taking these people on all by yourself! – It’s showing off.’

From a View to a Kill

In the short story From a View to a Kill, the character Mary Ann Russell is an agent for Section F who saves Bond’s bacon against the Russian military intelligence agency. Her name is likely to have been inspired by a woman who played a significant role in Fleming’s life, Maud Russell. Her granddaughter Emily Russell has recently edited a revelatory collection of Maud’s war-time diaries, and explains:

‘Maud and Ian met in late 1931 or early 1932 and they quickly became close friends. Through Maud and her husband Gilbert Russell, Ian met a number of influential political figures during the 1930s and also obtained contacts in Military Intelligence. After Gilbert died in May 1942, Ian got Maud a job at the Admiralty. From 1943, she worked in the Admiralty’s Naval Intelligence Division (NID) 17Z, a section led by Donald McLachlan that was dedicated to generating white, grey and black propaganda from naval intelligence to undermine enemy morale.’

Maud shared the same zeal for her work at the NID as Fleming did, as she notes in her diary:

‘London, Thursday 10 December 1943 — On Monday the Scharnhorst sinking kept us very busy. Only Mc., C.B. & I. [Ian Fleming] in the room. Then came the news of the sinking of the blockade runner and more excitement.  Only Mc. reacts as I do, froths and fizzes over with inward excitement. I. of course is the same as Mc. and I – tension, excitement, hammering energy.GR’

A picture of Vesper Lynd from Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, seen as a comic book art of a white woman with dark hair and red lipstick

Vesper Lynd

‘”People are islands”’ she said. “They don’t really touch. However close they are, they’re really quite separate.”’

Casino Royale

A popular suggestion for the inspiration behind Vesper Lynd was the SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek, also known as Christine Granville. Polish by birth, she was recruited by the SOE, won a George Medal and was reputedly Churchill’s favourite spy.

Granville was remarkably beautiful and she stole, and broke, many hearts. She was certainly known to Fleming who briefly mentions her in his non-fiction book The Diamond Smugglers. The rumour that Ian Fleming had an affair with Christine Granville is unfounded as her biographer Clare Mulley and writer Jeremy Duns have explored. Christine Granville survived the War but was tragically stabbed by a love-crazed stalker in 1952, aged 44.

There were other members of the SOE who Fleming would have encountered during his time working with Section 17 in Naval Intelligence, where he was responsible for coordinating intelligence between divisions. Violette Szabo was recruited by the SOE at 23, as a war widow with a one year old child. She was dropped into France in 1943 and bravely served the war effort, in one instance fending off an SS Panzer division with a Sten gun before collapsing exhausted. After being captured, Szabo, was shot along with fellow agents Denise Bloch and Lillian Rolfe at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in northern Germany. Szabo’s defiance was greatly admired by her fellow prisoners and she was one of only four women to receive a posthumous George Cross Medal.

Whatever the truth behind the fiction, the women Fleming encountered during his time in Naval Intelligence were truly courageous. They faced daily dangers and risked everything to help secure the freedom of Europe. Fleming was inspired to write about many interesting characters from his real life, from naming Bond’s mother Monique after a former fiancée, to calling Bond’s Secretary Loelia Ponsonby after the Duchess of Westminster. We may never know the full extent of the real people who lend parts of themselves to the James Bond story, but it’s certainly inspiring to learn more about these real-life heroes.

Tom Cull runs Artistic Licence Renewed. He knew iconic Bond cover artist Richard Chopping well as a child and Tom’s great grandfather hired a young Ian Fleming to work at the family bank Cull & Co. between 1933 and 1935.

Interview: Audio Book Narrator, Nathaniel Parker

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Join us as we delve into the world of audiobooks with TV, stage and voice actor, Nathaniel Parker, narrator of all nine Young Bond books.

Do you remember your first experience with James Bond?

It was wonderfully exciting. I think my first experience was at the Kensington Odeon. I thought it was Goldfinger, but I would have only been two years old, so I think it was probably You Only Live Twice. It felt so grand, with the audience standing and singing the national anthem, guided by an organist on the stage in front of the screen, before the curtain up. Such a glamorous introduction. I was hooked.

Illustration of James Bond, from the young Bond book series. James is shown in his Eton school uniform as a young man.

How did you find your voice for Young Bond?

Well, obviously, I look to my own voice for James himself because I have always cherished the thought of playing him! This is the biggest buzz of all you see, pretending to be James Bond. The voices are great fun to find, but I will admit to using some old Bond villains from the films as a basis for some of them – Charles Gray, for instance. Such fun to do. I worked with him years ago and his marvellous gravelly voice with a side helping of evil is wonderfully adaptable.

I do look to include as much variety as possible, but perhaps that’s only in my head. I can usually picture the character and fit a voice to that. Sometimes, like in Strike Lightning, I am told quite clearly by the author. That always helps. Take a listen.

Illustration of James Bond from the Young Bond book series. James is shown here in his striped school blazer as a young man.

How does Bond change on the journey from SilverFin to Strike Lightning?

He definitely changes. He has to grow up fast. One of the most intriguing parts of the process is seeing how he learns various death-defying talents and how they progress into the grown up version we see in the later books. There’s a little less naivety and he accepts the thrill of the moment as a bit of a drug. What is unchanging is his reliance on justice and his ‘fight for right’.

What is your most memorable Young Bond moment?

I think it was in Hurricane Gold, when Bond has to get through an obstacle course and there are alligators and more waiting to snap him if he falls – reminiscent of Live and Let Die. I think I generally enjoy the pace as it all builds up to the denouement. Strangely for me, I make slightly fewer mistakes at pace. I am slightly dyslexic, so it can be a wee bit tortuous for the engineer.

Can you tell us more about the process of recording audiobooks?

One of the joys about audiobooks that has not been afforded to me as an actor on stage or screen, is the opportunity to do my voices. I have always loved imitating others and finding voices and accents, and this is the perfect platform. Some books, like the Artemis Fowl series I used to do, actually have made up creatures, so finding voices for them is terrific fun. As for performance, it is relentless. Nowhere else do you sit in a tiny room for roughly eight hours a day trying to keep up the pace and passion that in turn keeps the audience listening. The studios themselves often get hot and then you put on the air-con and then your voice dries up, so it’s a delicate balance, and you need to get on quickly and trustingly with your producer and engineer through the window.

Which are your favourite characters to bring to life?

Baddies, definitely.

And finally, if you were to feature in a Young Bond novel, would you play a heroic ally, or a scheming villain?

Well, to be honest the heroic allies don’t get much of a look in. They’re there a lot, but you only really want to know what’s happening to James Bond himself, and that is usually down to the villain. So baddie for me.

Find out more about Nathaniel Parker here.

The Story Behind: Ian Fleming & The President

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Author, screenwriter, filmmaker and Bond aficionado, John Cork investigates how From Russia, with Love came to be on President John F. Kennedy’s bedside table and went on to appear on his top-ten book list.

From The President’s Voracious Reading Habits, LIFE magazine, 17th March 1961:

‘Kennedy has confined himself mostly to nonfiction, but like many of the world’s leaders he has a weakness for detective stories, especially those of British author Ian Fleming and his fictitious undercover man, James Bond.’

The story has been told far and wide. In the late 1950s, Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels sold well in the UK, but in the massive US market, sales barely made a ripple. Not one single Bond title generated a second printing in either hardback or paperback in the United States. All that started to change in March 1961 when LIFE magazine published a list of the president’s ten favourite books, naming From Russia, with Love as one of them. It was, by far, the highest profile endorsement for which an author could hope.

How did From Russia, with Love get on the president’s list? Like so many things associated with 007, it happened with the help of a remarkable and strong woman.

She was born Marion Oates in Montgomery, Alabama, the Cradle of the Confederacy. Marion came from obstinate and ambitious stock. Her grandfather, William Oates, once fractured a man’s skull in a fight. He went on to be deemed a Confederate Civil War hero, having led a charge up Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg and then losing an arm at Fussel’s Mill. He returned to Alabama, was elected to Congress and served as a combative one-term Governor.

Raised to be a society hostess, Oatsie (as she was known) married Thomas Leiter in 1942.  Tommy was the grandson of one of Chicago’s great real estate barons and two of Tommy’s aunts married British nobility. Tommy’s father once attempted to corner the U.S. wheat market,  which is a fine gamble as long as one has family that can pay off the $10,000,000 of debt when it all goes pear-shaped. The night before Oatsie’s wedding, legendary Alabama-born actress Tallulah Bankhead explained the finer points of intimate marital relations to her. That was Oatsie’s world, and it was quite a place.

Oatsie and Tommy Leiter took up residence in ‘a most glorious apartment’ built inside the converted stables of the famed Leiter family mansion near Dupont Circle in Washington.

‘I knew both Ian (vaguely) and Ivar [Bryce – a close friend of Ian’s] in Washington during the Second World War,’ she recalled in 2000. After the war, Oatsie and Tommy started vacationing in Jamaica for what was known then as ‘the season.’ ‘We’d be there three months a year. Which was lovely. Really lovely.’  During her stay in 1949, she was dramatically re-introduced to Ian Fleming.

‘I’d gone to a party, and a great friend of mine was very much in love with Ian, or thought she was. And he was treating her in the most atrocious way. And with the arrogance of youth, I walked up to Mr. Fleming when I was introduced to him, and said, “Mr. Fleming, I consider you’re a cad.” And he looked at me and said, “Mrs. Leiter, you’re indeed right. Shall we have a drink on it?”’

They did and became fast friends. ‘Ian really had enormous charm…he was irresistible as a companion, as a guest, as a friend.  And he was an extremely good friend.’

In the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, Fleming borrowed Tommy Leiter’s last name for Bond’s CIA accomplice, Felix.  Naturally Fleming sent Oatsie and Tommy a copy and Oatsie, never one to mince words, quite enjoyed the book.

Oatsie and Tommy maintained homes not just in Washington D.C., but in Aiken, South Carolina and Newport, Rhode Island. Newport also happened to be where Jacqueline Bouvier grew up at Hammersmith Farm. After marrying John F. Kennedy, a newly elected young senator from Massachusetts, Jackie and JFK spent summer vacations there. Oatsie knew JFK and Jackie socially. In 1954, JFK called up Oatsie. ‘Oates, I’m sick,’ she recalled Kennedy telling her. ‘“Have you got anything to read? I can’t find anything in this house that I think is possible to read.” And I said, “Yes, do you like spy stories?”’

She sent over her copy of Casino Royale. ‘He was crazy about it. And he said, “If you get another one at any point, let me know.”’

Book cover of Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, featuring yellow typography and a repeated heart motif.

Jackie Kennedy, on her husband’s recommendation, also took to reading the Bond novels, and she made another important connection for Ian. ‘I was introduced to Fleming’s books,’ noted CIA Director Allen Dulles, ‘by Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy herself. “Here is a book you should have, Mr. Director” she said.’ Dulles went on to praise From Russia, with Love as ‘one of the best of Fleming’s thrillers.’

In March, 1960, Ian Fleming arrived in Washington D.C. He was staying as the guest of one of the Sunday Times’ most renowned correspondents, Henry Brandon. On Sunday, 13th March, Ian went to see Oatsie who was now divorced from Tommy Leiter. ‘Ian and I were going somewhere, probably the National Gallery or something, and we were driving down one of the streets in Georgetown. And I saw Jack and Jackie walking down the street. As they started to cross one street, I stopped. And we yelled,’ Oatsie recalled. ‘I said, “Jack, this is Ian Fleming.”  And Jack poked his head in the window and said, “Not the Ian Fleming.” And I said, “Yes.” “Well,” he said, “bring him for dinner.”’

Castro, not yet officially claiming to be communist, was nonetheless quickly nationalizing U.S. industries in Cuba and signing lucrative trade deals with the Soviets. Joseph Alsop wanted to know how James Bond would handle Castro. Fleming said ridicule was the proper response. ‘And Ian had us all absolutely hysterical saying that he had some plots that he thought would be wonderful if the CIA would play on Castro,’ Oatsie said.

Indeed, Fleming opined that there were only three things for which the Cubans cared: money, religion and sex. Thus, the first plot involved counterfeiting Cuban money and dropping it by the bushel from planes along with notes that read, ‘compliments of the United States.’ To take care of religion, Fleming proposed a massive Bat-signal of sorts that would put a cross in the night sky above the nation. The Cubans would stay up all night praying to the mysterious sign rather than worshipping Castro.

The last idea was the one that caused the greatest laughter. Fleming noted that beards were essential to the Cuban revolution and had become a sign of male virility on the island. The CIA, he declared, could promote the idea that nuclear fallout was collecting in men’s beards:

‘The CIA could just fly over Cuba and drop these leaflets, telling the women of Cuba that all the men wearing beards were impotent,’ remembered Oatsie. All the men would shave their beards, and with no beards, there could be no revolution.

At the CIA’s Monday staff meeting, John Bross told the story of his Sunday evening, relating with gusto Fleming’s plot to get Cubans to shave their beards. CIA Director Allen Dulles, who was a fan of the Bond novels and had dined with Fleming in London, was more alarmed than amused and wanted to know how to reach Fleming, immediately.

‘The telephone rang, and it was Allen Dulles,’ according to Oatsie. ‘“Oatsie, where is Ian Fleming?” And I said, ”I don’t know, I suppose he’s in bed at Henry Brandon’s.”  “Well, I have to get in touch with him.”’

Dulles called Brandon only to find that Fleming had already left for New York. There is no record of Dulles reaching Fleming on that trip, but Fleming’s story of the Cubans shaving their beards was not published in Alsop’s column nor propagated by Fleming in the many articles he penned during this era, and there may have been a good reason for that.

What Bross did not know was that the CIA was that very week preparing to present to the Eisenhower administration a plan entitled ‘Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime.’ This program would lead directly to the Bay of Pigs invasion, but it also contained plans, as President Eisenhower later stated, to ‘undermine Castro’s position and prestige.’ One of those plans involved dusting Castro’s boots with thallium salts. The idea was that the salts would get on Castro’s fingers, and when he touched his beard the poison would make the beard fall out in splotches, humiliating the revolutionary and making him look weak, impotent and sickly.

Six months later, according to some sources, CIA-backed operatives entered the Hotel Theresa in Harlem (where Castro and his entourage were staying for the opening of the UN General Assembly) and dutifully dusted Castro’s boots with powdered thallium salts. Other, possibly more reliable, sources, claim the plot was never carried out. Regardless, Castro’s beard remained. In 1977, Castro railed against the CIA plots, telling interviewer Fred Ward, ‘I could write a book [about the CIA plots]! Exploding cigars, poisoned cigars, powder to make my beard fall out! Bazookas! Grenades! Incredible!’

That night Fleming joined Oatsie at the Kennedy’s home. Also in attendance were the columnist and part-time CIA operative Joseph Alsop, John Bross (soon to be a deputy director at the CIA) and the painter and Kennedy confidant William Walton. ‘And somehow the conversation got around to Castro, which was not all that unusual in those days,’ Oatsie recounted.

John F. Kennedy won the election in November 1960, and in March the following year, LIFE ran their article on Kennedy’s reading habits. The inclusion of From Russia, with Love stood out among the scholarly biographies and histories, most many decades old. Some have maintained that Kennedy was repaying Fleming for the entertaining evening by including From Russia, with Love on the list of favourite books, which could certainly be the case. Others say that he wanted a book on the list that showed he was not so much of an egghead that he couldn’t enjoy popular literature, and Fleming happened to be the one he chose.

Henry Brandon told a different story. He said that he knew for a fact that a White House staffer compiled the list by talking to others like Jackie and William Walton, and that Kennedy, far too busy with the nation’s business, never approved it. Regardless, the public proclamation that Kennedy was a fan gave Fleming’s American publishers an important tool to promote the James Bond novels. Dulles himself acknowledged this in an essay he penned after Fleming’s death:

‘The Kennedy interest in James Bond gave Fleming’s books a great lift, and Ian well knew it. But,’ Dulles added, ‘there is something more than that in his success.’

To a casual observer, it may seem like that ‘something more’ is luck. Without a well-placed friend like Oatsie Leiter, a chance dinner invitation, and a White House staffer’s audacity, From Russia, with Love would have never appeared on the list in LIFE. These things, though, did not happen by luck or chance. No, Fleming appeared on the list in LIFE because when called a cad, he was cool under pressure. When he sat down to write a novel, he created a thrilling and unique tale that engaged readers and was easily recommended. When he found himself at dinner with his most influential fan, he rose to the occasion. Fleming appeared on the president’s list in LIFE because of his talent and the sheer force of his personality. In that, Fleming embodied so many of the qualities we admire in 007.

As to the wonderful woman who brought Kennedy and Fleming together, she is known as one of the most charming and respected scions of Newport. She befriended many presidents, senators and diplomats over the decades with her irreverent humor, her lack of pretension and disarming grace. In her nineties, she said outliving so many of her friends like John F. Kennedy and Ian Fleming is a curse of sorts. Yet, looking back on her remarkable life, she expressed only a few regrets. A small one was her chance at immortality on the pages of a Bond novel.

‘I said to Ian once, not long before he died, “Ian, I’m really terribly hurt, you’ve got every friend you’ve ever known in those books,” because all the characters in his books are taken from his friends.  And he said, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly use Oatsie. It’s far too distinctive. You know, it just wouldn’t do.” And I said, “Come on, Ian, anybody who can use Pussy Galore can use Oatsie.” …He said, “Alright, I’ll use you in the next book.”  But that was…’

She trails off, her eyes filling with memories eventually punctuated by a shrug. ‘He died shortly after that.’

Thanks to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Photos courtesy of Cecil Stought and Robert Knudsen.

Interview: Illustrator, Patrick Léger

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We check in with New York-based illustrator Patrick Léger who created the art for the US paperback edition of Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis.

What was your first encounter with James Bond?

My mother was a huge Timothy Dalton fan, and I remember watching our VHS of The Living Daylights constantly, growing up. I’m a bit of a movie buff so I’ve seen every Bond film. From Russia With Love is one of my favorite movies from the ’60s.

Your cover is a gorgeous hark back to Bond’s ’50s and ’60s origins – could you tell us about your inspirations?

When I was asked to do Trigger Mortis, I had just finished another spy novel cover a few months earlier and was currently working on an assignment for a men’s fashion magazine, so a James Bond cover seemed like a inevitable next step! The scene for the cover didn’t require too much research but I tried to make the fashion, hairstyles, and other details appropriate for the period. I referenced several of the earlier Bond films, which are a treasure trove for the look and the style of the ’60s. I did look at some of the original Bond covers, but I was more enamored with Robert McGinnis’ posters for the films and his own incredible covers for various crime novels of the ’60s and ’70s.

What originally drew you to the style of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s?

When I first began illustrating, I was working in ink and looking at a lot of work by the illustrators from the 60s and 70s to study mark-making and learn more about the medium. Their techniques of drawing and that kind of generalised realism made it’s way into my own work and became a strong aspect of my own style.

How did this cover process differ from independent artwork projects?

Not being able to show Bond’s face was an interesting challenge. Typically you have those kinds of limitations with any book now though because marketability has become a big part of the process. I think overall it was actually easier to work on this than a typical book cover. James Bond is such an iconic character; you don’t really need to convey to the reader as much as you normally would. They already know what to expect from a Bond adventure.

How does the process for covers differs from other pieces of illustration?

Often with books, the art director will describe a rough concept, because the book may still be in the editing phase or there isn’t enough time for the illustrator to read through the entire text before the sketches are due. Here I believe the scene used was chosen by the Ian Fleming Estate. With editorial work, it’s usually entirely up to the artist to come up with multiple concepts for an article from which the editorial staff can choose a direction.

Your style always includes a striking palette – can you talk us through your colour decisions for Trigger Mortis?

The color choice was mainly up to the art director/designer in this case. We worked together doing various combinations and landed on those. The original idea was to use very limited color, so we tried to find 3-4 colors that would work in conjunction with the title design. I often use brighter colors because it helps to set off the the heavy, black linework in a way that a muted color scheme wouldn’t.

Explore Patrick Léger’s work here.