Despite being hospitalised by a heart attack, Fleming was delighted. Nothing spurred him more than a challenge to Bond’s authenticity. He replied with enthusiasm, and was intrigued to discover that Liebert was not only a book collector but owned a house in Jamaica and had been a member of the OSS, the CIA’s forerunner. To have a fan of such erudition was one thing, but to find he was also a bibliophile, ex-spy and lover of the Caribbean was irresistible. Fleming wasted no time enrolling him as unofficial fact-checker and editor for his latest book The Spy Who Loved Me. They conducted a warm and witty exchange during its publication, for which Fleming paid Liebert with a Cartier pen set that had to be smuggled into the States by a friend to avoid customs charges.
The archive correspondence ends in 1962 but it would be good to think that their friendship continued, and that they eventually met, whether in New York or Jamaica. As Fleming said, ‘I have no doubt that fate will bring us together when the stars are right’. To which Liebert replied philosophically, ‘favete astrae’ – ‘Let the stars decide’.
FROM LIEBERT
May 10th, 1961
Dear Mr. Fleming,
I am an insatiable Bondomane (what sensible man is not?) and found Thunderball one of the very best. But it was very nearly spoiled for me by the supposed Americanese of Leiter and Pederson.
A list of alternate readings is enclosed. A few are optional, most are not; that is, there are one or two an American might use, but most he would never use.
The Bond books are so very good that it hurts to find them at fault in any particular. Won’t you get an American friend with an ear to vet the American dialect from now on? Then they would be perfect.
TO MR. HERMAN LIEBERT, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A.
29th May, 1961
Dear Mr. Liebert,
Thank you for your absolutely splendid and invaluable letter of May 10th, but I only plead semi-guilty.
I particularly asked Vikings to clean up this story to spot anglicanisms and I can only suggest that through publishing Graham Greene and me they are beginning to forget their own language.
Mark you, I have set two or three books in and around America and this is the first time I have had such a dressing down, so I am taking the matter very seriously and passing your letter on to Vikings as they have a manuscript in the oven at the moment in which I suspect a great deal of the American gangster talk is very ham.
I shall accordingly suggest to Vikings, if I may, that they approach you with a view, for some miserly fee, to go over the Ms with your blazing eye. We will see what happens.
On the other hand I am not prepared to accept without further witnesses more than around 20% of your suggestions for the very good reason that Felix Leiter has been affected by his international work for CIA, and has picked up a good deal of English in the process. An example is “sixpenny sick”, a very English expression for the kind of boat ride holiday makers take from the sea shore holiday beaches.
Anyway I am indeed grateful for your harsh letter and it was very kind indeed of you to have taken the trouble.
FROM LIEBERT
June 5th, 1961
Dear Mr. Fleming:
I am most grateful for your full, frank, and generous letter, and much concerned that mine gave you the impression of being harsh. Its emotional source was sorrow rather than anger – the sorrow of seeing what seemed a flaw in an author otherwise so sure and so stimulating that he evokes the wish for perfection. Language wouldn’t matter in the host of bad books with which we are all surrounded; it matters desperately to me in books like yours to which I am devoted.
I would be delighted to comb any MS of yours and to offer a list of suggestions that you or Viking could accept or reject. For such a privilege I would not dream of accepting a fee, even the miserly kind publishers usually offer. And of course, if I were offered such a chance, it would shut me up.
I demur at the view Leiter has picked up more than one or two Anglicisms; of the 20 or 30 people I know in CIA (my wartime colleagues in OSS) I don’t think one has picked up any, except rarely in humorous quotes. But you are Leiter’s parent, so I demur.
Delighted to hear there’s a book in the oven; I would love a chance to baste it while it’s cooking.
[PS] Good Lord, I have just done my homework and looked in Who’s Who to be sure I shouldn’t hang a couple of honors (sorry, honours) after your name, and suddenly realize it is you who publish the Book Collector. I suppose I have read the masthead fifty times without waking up. Now I am more than ever at your feet. Incidentally, Jake Carter and John Hayward are both good friends.
I also see you go to Oracabessa. I have a place in Runaway Bay. We must drink together sometime on that blessed isle. You must have known Peter Murray Hill: he and Phyl stayed at my place before he died.
TO LIEBERT
15th June, 1961
Dear Mr. Liebert,
Thank you very much for your letter of June 5th and I am most amused by the number of “bonds” we seem to have.
These, and your apparent enthusiasm, have decided me to take you at your word and ask you to go through the American parts of my next book with a microscope and a very sharp red pencil. I had already passed on your previous letter and notes to Vikings, but I am not sure that they will do anything about it and I would rather take the bull by the horns myself.
I am accordingly sending you by registered airmail a copy of ‘THE SPY WHO LOVED ME’ which, as you will see, is very different from the usual Bond but has considerable American angles which I am most anxious to have stringently vetted by an expert.
What I would pray you to do is to pay particular attention to the gangsterese – improving, re-writing, and even editing snatches of conversation wherever you think fit.
Any additions or amendments to the motel theme would also be invaluable as would any necessary brushing up of the local police procedure and nomenclature at the end of the book.
This is an uncorrected first typescript and you can assume that obvious mistakes have been picked up here. What I want badly to stiffen up are the points I mentioned above and if you decide to re-write whole pages or tear out chunks, I shall not be in the least dismayed – very much the opposite.
For instance, at the moment I feel the gangsters are three-quarters cardboard, and if you choose to change their names, clothes, or anything else about them I shall not object, for at the present moment they look to me rather like Mutt and Jeff.
This is going to be hard work, and I am afraid it must also be fast, as my publishers here are screaming for the corrected typescript at the latest by July 15th which means that I must have your amended and corrected typescript back by July 10th. Please don’t bother about “suggestions”, just write in your comments on the typescript.
So, as you see, I am taking your kind offer very seriously indeed and I am embarrassed to suggest what fee to offer you for this invaluable work. But if you can successfully bring about this vital piece of collaboration I propose to present you with a handsome present from Cartiers as a memento.
I am coming out to New York by the Queen Elizabeth sailing on July 20th and shall be about two weeks in the States, when perhaps we might meet and I could make the presentation!
I hope you will quickly get over the shock of this letter, and it would be most helpful if, on receipt of the typescript, you could send me a brief L.T. cable saying yes or no to the project.
I would also be most grateful if you could keep this whole affair a secret between us, though if the weight of your scholarship is as important as I think it may be, I will take the liberty of dedicating the book to you.
FROM LIEBERT
June 19th, 1961
Dear Mr. Fleming:
If, in the cable just now sent, I had given free rein to my reactions on getting your letter this morning, the cable would have bankrupted me. So I settled for “overwhelmed”.
I cannot imagine an offer more exciting, or put in more generous terms
. I will do everything I can with the script, and if you feel when it returns that I have done little, that will be because it seemed good as it was, and not through reluctance.
I must go west for a speaking engagement on 6th July, and I will airmail the script back before I leave, so you should have it easily by the 10th.
Grateful as I should be, I hope you will not indulge in a present, for the pleasure and pride I have in the offer to go over the book are more than sufficient reward. The fact that I am doing this work will be graveyard so far as I am concerned.
If you could spare a day to come to New Haven while here (90 minutes by train from N.Y.) we could meet and you could see both the Yale library and my own collections, and I could promise you food and drink fit for a Bond. If you can’t spare the time, I would eagerly come to N.Y. In any event, let us meet.
Renewed thanks and cordial regards.
TO LIEBERT
21st June, 1961
Dear Mr. Liebert,
Thank you for your delightful cable and charming letter and I do hope you are not at this moment cursing your generous impulse.
But once again I abjure you to be as tough as hell with this book, as I am not at all satisfied that the peril represented by the gangsters is nearly powerful enough, or that the realism, though it may get by in England, will stand up to informed readership.
I am afraid it is bound to be a much heavier job than you could have expected, and I shall not be surprised if you are forced to rewrite whole pages.
But, anyway, there it is, and the gift is already on order from Cartiers so I am afraid there is no escape however powerful your nausea.
Incidentally, the Albany call sign is WGY.
Naturally we must meet when I get to America, but as I am semi-convalescent I shall be going straight up to Vermont to a millionaire’s farm belonging to an English friend of mine, John F.C. Bryce [Ivar Bryce], who is married to an American and lives at Black Hole Hollow Farm just across the border from Cambridge, New York State.
Anyway we will fix up a meeting in due course and probably spend a great deal of time roaring with laughter over this extraordinary project.
With my warmest thanks and best wishes for your dreadful labours.
FROM LIEBERT
July 5th, 1961
Dear Mr Fleming:
Viv returns to you airmail registered under separate cover tomorrow. I fear you will find her not as much a changed girl as you hoped – partly because I have not been able to shake loose as much spare time to work on her as I wished, and partly because I am a much better editor than a collaborator. I would have liked to try some re-write, especially about the gangsters, which I agree is the place it is needed most, but by the time I had done what I knew I could do and so did first, the English/American transition, there was no more time.
A little about what I did do. There are two levels of correction, one in red (for the redcoats) of changes I think should be made both in the English and in the American editions; and a second in blue (for the Atlantic) of changes for the American edition only.
The changes are of several kinds: (1) matters of fact; (2) within dialogue by Americans, changes to American current usage fitting to the character speaking; (3) in Viv’s story, changes of English expressions that would either mystify American readers or, though perfectly plain in meaning after a second’s thought, would nevertheless obtrude on and slow the narrative pace. I have left Viv enough Anglicanisms of the kind most familiar to Americans so that they will remember she is Canadian and English-schooled, but have, I hope, pruned enough unAmerican from her so that most American readers will feel that she is simply speaking naturally.
I wish I could come up with better names for the gangsters, because here especially, I think, they have a literary flavor. ‘Horror’ seems to me a bookish word, and I am put off by the feminine ending in ‘Sluggsy’. ‘Slug’ would be better, or ‘Hot Shot’: both are names of real underworld characters of the past, who were notable shots. One very tough thug a while ago was named ‘Chiller’, on the same ground as ‘Horror’, but I don’t know that I like it much better.
My reaction to the whole book is that it is good but different. I like the Viv half of the book, and think the story is vivid, observant fiction; some of your Bond devotees may find it not the Fleming they expect. The second half is Bond enough for any devotee.
I suspect that when you see how little I have really done, in spite of many hours of work, you will want to send that item back to Cartier’s and buy me a drink. I would of done more if I hadda chance, and certainly your very generous invitation gave me carte blanche to do more. It was the time, not the will that was lacking.
Sorry to hear you have been knocked up – a term of very different meanings on either side of the Atlantic. I hope your visit here and rest will repair the difficulty. Do let me have your American address, so I can at least get in touch with you while you are here. If there is a chance of seeing you, here or anywhere else this side of Calif., I am yours to command.
Tom Guinzburg of Viking, who was here at Yale a while ago, and whom I knew as a student, phoned the other day to ask about my work on the book. I tried to play it close, respecting your wish for confidence, and did not let on I was doing anything to it until he read me part of a letter from you telling them I was at work, so I presumed then that the secret did not extend to them, if you had told them yourself. He seemed pleased to know that I was working on the script.
No more now as I am off to Ohio for a speech to (rest my soul) a convention of librarians. If I make my address in Sluggsy dialect, it will be your fault.
Just a last word of sincere appreciation for the opportunity you have offered me, so fully and generously. No author could be more open-handed with his opus. What I have come to know about the man I.F. leads me to admire him as much as I have always admired the writer.
TO LIEBERT
12th July, 1961
Dear Mr. Liebert,
I really am most grateful to you for your splendid labours and for your charming and perceptive letter.
I shall pay close attention to all your advices and, from a quick glance, I already see that you have saved me from a thousand otiosities.
Regarding Tom Guinsburg’s communication, I felt I had to tell Vikings that I had called on you for help to stop them hacking around on their own. I hope he was much impressed by the weight of the authority I had invoked.
Now, it’s maddening, but the united medical councils of London have forbidden me to visit America next week. So the meeting I was so much looking forward to will have to be deferred and a small token from Cartier will have to come to you anonymously through whatever channel I can devise. Since it will reach you anonymously, this is to ask you to accept it as a memento of this curious literary association, which comes to you with my affectionate thanks.
I do hope that our meeting will not be too long deferred, and that if I do not catch up with you in America I may do so in Jamaica when, over a glass of flaming Old Man’s Liqueur, we can discuss cabbages and kings.
Again with renewed thanks for your extreme kindness.
FROM LIEBERT
July 17th, 1961
Dear Mr Fleming:
How utterly rotten for you that your health will not permit you to make the trip here. I do hope this is a passing and not a chronic ailment and that you will soon be free of it.
I will, of course, receive the memento you are sending with warm appreciation, though the privilege of being “in” on the forthcoming Bond and of receiving such gracious and friendly letters from you are quite reward enough.
I am glad that some of my advices seem useful; I abjure you to abide by our understanding that they are only advices, and if you at last decide to reject all of them, I will be perfectly satisfied by their having been considered.
One thing I meant to say in my last, which you have already detected by now: I am a heavy hyphener, and you will probably want to neglect my many insertions of that mark.
Missing the chance to see you here makes me insist we meet in Jamaica. We will be at Runaway Bay from 15 December through 6 January, and back again sometime between mid-March and mid-April. I hope some part of our stay will coincide with yours. Though we have less reason to exchange letters now, I hope you will, toward the end of the year, let me know what your Jamaica dates may be.
Give my regards and thanks to the Hayward and the Carter when you see them; I am sure it was partly their vouching for me that encouraged you to make so trusting an offer as you did. I only wish I had had more time to tackle the larger aspects, but I felt my first responsibility was to the verbal problems, and when I had done those, the postman knocked.
I remain much in your debt for a stimulating experience backstage with my favourite fiction character. Let us now hope that your vitality (not I am sure broken down by torture or intercourse) will reassert itself as miraculously as Bond’s.
Until we meet, when I will be able to express my gratitude and admiration in person, believe me,
Faithfully yours,
[PS] You must tell me one day what books you collect.
FROM LIEBERT
July 27th, 1961
My dear Fleming:
The chaste and handsome product of MM. Cartier has just arrived, and is so beautiful that it makes even signing checks a real pleasure.
I find my cyanide fits very neatly in alongside the ink-holder, and I think my thermite people will be able to make up a package just like the ink-tube, so you will see how handy it will be for everyday needs. And as soon as I have the Yale library filmed in microdot, I can close up shop and move to Jamaica with my pen and my swimming trunks.
Seriously, it is a very generous and much-appreciated gift, and I am proud both of its beauty and of its source. Adding it to the fun I had with the MS puts me deep in your debt. Thank you.
I hope your ailment has abated, and that if it does not permit you to come here, it will at least allow you to get to Jamaica later in the year. We will be there 15 December through 7 January and greatly hope this will synchronize.
The Man with the Golden Typewriter Page 30