by Larry Loftis
Günter Peis, The Mirror of Deception: How Britain Turned the Nazi Spy Machine Against Itself (Pocket, 1977)
1977
“It has been said that Ian Fleming modeled his James Bond on Dusko Popov.” p. 160
“Dusko Popov, said to have been the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s spy, James Bond.” p. 14 of photo section
“Dusko Popov, Ex-Spy, Dies: Aided British in World War II.” New York Times, August 24, 1981
1981
“Dusko Popov, a double agent for Britain in World War II who was thought to have been the model for James Bond . . . has died at the age of 69. . . . In one incident, he gambled $50,000 in a night at a Portuguese casino as Mr. Fleming, who was then a British naval intelligence officer, looked on. Mr. Popov won, and the incident became part of the Fleming thriller Casino Royale. p. D15
Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (Norton & Co., 1991)
1991
“British agent Dusko Popov, the man said to be the model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond . . .” p. 269
Stevan Petrovic, Dzems Bond Se Zvao Dusko Popov (DJuro salaj Bgd., 2001)
2001
“James Bond Named Dusko Popov.”
Mark Riebling, Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11: How the Secret War Between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security (Touchstone, 2002)
2002
“By the 1950s, when Ian Fleming wove into his books both Dusko Popov’s daring and the theme of FBI-CIA competition . . .” p. 81
Claire Hills, “The Name’s Tricycle, Agent Tricycle,” BBC News Online, May 9, 2002
2002
“But although Agent Tricycle may have come across as an early James Bond type, he was vital to Britain’s intelligence gathering and, some say, the country’s most important agent.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1973962.stm
Russell Miller, Codename TRICYCLE: The True Story of the Second World War’s Most Extraordinary Double Agent. (London: Secker & Warburg, 2004)
2004
“Popov was told that Ian Fleming . . . used it [Dusko’s stunt in Casino Estoril] as the inspiration for James Bond’s epic baccarat battle in his first book, Casino Royale.” p. 89
Mario de Queiroz, “Will the Real James Bond Stand Up?” Inter Press Service English News Wire, December 1, 2005
2005
“The wealthy Yugoslav lawyer and spy whose life was the basis for Ian Fleming’s James Bond character was considered to be one of the most important British agents operating in the nest of spies in Portugal during World War II. Dusan ‘Dusko’ Popov, who . . .”
Augustino von Hassell and Sigrid MacRae, Alliance of Enemies (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2006)
2006
“The character of James Bond was said to be modeled on Popov.” p. 106
“As Tricycle had been a model for Ian Fleming . . .” p. 207
Simon Adams, DK Eyewitness Books: World War II (DK Children, 2007)
2007
“Author Ian Fleming was so impressed by the Yugoslavian-born spy Dusko Popov (1912–1981) that he based his character 007 on him.” p. 65
True Bond. Released June 22, 2007
2007
Video produced by Jane Armstrong and distributed by Starz Entertainment and CineNova Productions, Inc.
Andrej Zivanic, Britic: The British Serb Magazine, two-part series: “The Name Is Popov, Dusko Popov,” December 13, 2009; “The Man with the Golden Gusle! Dusko Popov,” May 13, 2010
2009–2010
“The real life inspiration for the fictional superspy James Bond, his name was Popov, Duško Popov!”
Joshua Levine, Operation Fortitude: The Story of the Spy Operation That Saved D-Day (London: HarperCollins, 2011)
2011
“Dusko Popov, lawyer, playboy and perhaps 007 prototype . . .”
The Real Life James Bond: Dusan-Dusko Popov, video
2011
Uploaded February 10, 2011.
Julia Gorin, PoliticalMavins .com, “The Name Is Bond. James Dusan Popov Bond,” March 28, 2011
2011
“As Bond creator Ian Fleming himself told newspapers in the early 60s, James Bond is actually Dusan Popov.”
http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2011/03/28/the-name-is-bond-james-dusan-popov-bond/
Dwight Jon Zimmerman, “Dusko Popov, Real Life James Bond, Ran Afoul of the FBI,” Defense Media Network, September 1, 2011
2011
“Popov was credited with being one of the inspirations for Fleming’s spy, James Bond, and the casino scene in its various permutations would become the most famous scene in the Bond novels and movies.”
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/when-%E2%80%9Cjames-bond%E2%80%9D-ran-afoul-of-the-fbi/
Secret War: Double Agent TRICYCLE. History Channel documentary, May 30, 2012, Executive Producer—Matthew Barrett
2012
History Channel documentary on Dusko Popov as the real James Bond, narrated by Alisdair Simpson and with archives from the BBC Motion Gallery, Getty Images, the Imperial War Museum, the British National Archives Kew, and the U.S. National Archive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtupvfr1m4I
Edward Stephens, “Just Like Bond, It’s Suave and Sophisticated,” Birmingham Post, June 7, 2012
2012
“I’ve got a shock for James Bond fans everywhere. Believe it or not, the archetypical British spy wasn’t born in the UK at all, but in Portugal. In Estoril to be precise, at the Hotel Palacio. . . . And it was in that environment of intrigue, adventure and mistrust that Fleming created 007, based in part, I’m told, on a roguish character of the time called Popov, who always had a girl on his arm and more often than not was in the company of two or three.”
Double Agent Dusko Popov—Inspiration for James Bond, produced by Stephane Krausz and Barbara Necek
undated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvZyy -_gXvE
APPENDIX 4
LIVING CASABLANCA AND DR. NO
As one author put it, 1941 Lisbon resembled Casablanca more than the movie’s film set. Indeed, when Rick Blaine finished his farewell in the fog, it was to Portugal’s capital that Ilsa Lund and Victor Laszlo fled. And as Casablanca mirrored Lisbon, so Rick Blaine’s life was strangely similar to Dusko Popov’s. In the movie Blaine had met and fallen in love with Lund (played by Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman) in Paris in 1940. In 1939 Dusko met and fell in love with French actress Simone Simon. In Paris. As Blaine rekindled his love affair during the war, so did Popov. Simone moved to Hollywood in 1940 to work for RKO Studios; when Dusko arrived in New York the following year, their relationship began anew and Simone flew to see him around the time she was filming Cat People.
Almost prophetically, as Humphrey Bogart was filming Casablanca and scheming against the Nazis on the Warner Bros. Morocco stage, Dusko was doing it in real life in New York’s E
l Morocco. While Bogart was feigning romance with Bergman in Rick’s Café Americain, Popov was romancing Simon in the Stork Club.
Like Rick Blaine, Popov lost his love, Simon moving on the following year. But while he lost his Ilsa, Dusko would later marry his Ingrid—Swedish beauty Jill Jonsson. Thirty-one years Dusko’s junior, the stunning blonde brought comparisons to a woman seven years her senior—Swiss actress and the first “Bond girl,” Ursula Andress. The year Ian Fleming’s first James Bond movie was released—Dr. No in 1962—Dusko and Jill were married. As Sean Connery was feigning romance with Andress on the beaches of Jamaica, the real James Bond was romancing his “Bond girl” bride on the beaches of the Bahamas.
Humphrey Bogart and Sean Connery, it seems, acted the part that Dusko Popov lived.
NOTES
“He had the steel within” Ewen Montagu, Foreword to Dusko Popov’s Spy Counter-Spy, vi.
“My own life” Dusko Popov letter to Tar Robertson (undated but approximately August 9, 1941), KV 2/849 (p. 196b).
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
For German Intelligence and Abwehr structure, see Paul Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence, 28–32, and Lauran Paine, German Military Intelligence in World War II, 8–14. For SS, Gestapo, SD, and RSHA organization and structure, see Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head, x–xi, 218, 226–27 and Walter Schellenberg, The Memoirs of Hitler’s Spymaster, X–XII, 10–12.
PREFACE
“You might wish they had” Dusko Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 255.
Luger While Popov recalled carrying the German sidearm, it is more likely he carried a Wembley revolver, the British standard issue service pistol. MI5 files indicate that Dusko requested a “revolver” from his first case officer, William Luke, to carry back to Lisbon. “TRICYCLE” memo, March 5, 1941, KV 2/846 (p. 47J); Luke memo, February 24, 1941, KV 2/845 (p. 41A).
“Turn around slowly” Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 256; Russell Miller, Codename TRICYCLE, 194–95.
CHAPTER 1 FORGING THE ANVIL
“must be prepared to be a villain” Donald McLachlan, Room 39, 355.
For Popov background and family, see Ian Wilson MI5 memo of March 26, 194, KV 2/852 (p. 456B); author correspondence with Marco Popov, Milorad (“Misha”) Popov, Nicolas Popov. See also Miller, 13–14.
water polo and tennis, and riding horses Dusko Popov, interview with Alan Road, “Double-Agent Popov and the James Bond Affair,” Observer, May 13, 1973, 24.
whom Dusko idolized—was six-foot-two Author correspondence on February 12, 2015, with Nicolas Popov (son of Ivo Popov).
For the education of Vladan and Ivo: Vladan’s universities are mentioned in the MI5 files at Kew, while Ivo’s universities and degrees are noted in the author biography of his book Stay Young, inside cover back flap.
enrolled him at Ewell Castle Dusko enrolled August 22, 1928. Popov personnel file of February 27, 1941, Aliens Office, KV 2/845 (p. 45). See also Ewell Castle student records.
For Ewell Castle history, see Ewell Castle website: http://www.ewellcastle.co.uk/about-us/history-of-the-school.html.
Dusko snatched the cane Author correspondence with Ewell Castle archivist and development manager Mike Coleman, June 21, 2013. Dusko was expelled by the headmaster at the time, Mr. Budgell.
“Germany sits at the heart” James Rickards, The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System, 136.
Heidegger Julian Young, Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism, 11–12; Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, 8.
For Hitler, Heydrich, Himmler, and chronology of events, see Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS, x–xi. See also Reinhard Rürup, Topography of Terror: Gestapo, SS and Reichssicherheitshauptamt on the “Prinz-Albrecht-Terrain”: A Documentation, 11, 44.
“Ordinance for the Protection” Höhne, x.
in some cases murdering Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, 16.
“preventive arrest” and Schutzhaft Höhne, 197, 199–200; Rürup, 99.
SD formed “Working Associations” Höhne, 216.
three thousand full-time employees Ibid., 218.
Walter Schellenberg Walter Schellenberg, The Memoirs of Hitler’s Spymaster, 22.
Joseph Schachno Larson, In the Garden of Beasts, 3–4, citing “Conversation with Goering,” unpublished memoir, 5–6, and July 11, 1933, and July 18, 1933, letters of George Messersmith to Cordell Hull.
For boycotts of Jewish businesses, see Rürup, 44.
Mrs. Birlinger Ian Wilson memorandum of December 8, 1942, to Guy Liddell, KV 2/851 (p. 368a); Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 6.
For Karl Laub and the saber duel, see Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 8–9; Richard Farrington, “Super Spy Dusko Popov: He Lived the James Bond Legend,” True Action, June 1974, 74; Russell Miller, Codename TRICYCLE, 16.
“a code of honor and duelling” Schellenberg, 20.
Mark Twain described a bout Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 12–13. Twain described several bouts in Heidelberg in 1878.
Otto von Bismarck “Dueling in Berlin,” Galveston Daily News, November 9, 1886.
duty bound by his Yugoslav cavalry Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 9; Farrington, 74; Miller, 16. The excuse was wholly fabricated, but Dusko and Johnny knew the referee and student court had no way of checking.
“The Vivovdan and the September Constitution of Yugoslavia” University of Freiburg records, Faculty of Law and Political Science, 1937.
pro-democracy speech, foreign-student club “The Story of SKOOT,” December 23, 1940, KV 2/845 (p. 6x); Ian Wilson “Tricycle” memo, March 26, 1943, KV 2/852 (p. 456B).
CHAPTER 2 EXITING FEET FIRST
team of Gestapo guards, arrest “The Story of SKOOT,” December 23, 1940, KV 2/845 (p. 6x); Ian Wilson “Tricycle” memo, March 26, 1943, KV 2/852 (p. 456B); Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 11; Russell Miller, Codename TRICYCLE, 17.
Politika A Yugoslav paper. “The Story of SKOOT,” December 23, 1940, KV 2/845 (p. 6x).
speeches at the foreign-student club “The Story of SKOOT,” December 23, 1940, KV 2/845 (p. 6x); Ian Wilson “Tricycle” memo, March 26, 1943, KV 2/852 (p. 456B).
Kadavergehorsam Augustino von Hassell and Sigrid MacRae, Alliance of Enemies: The Untold Story of the Secret American and German Collaboration to End World War II, xix.
Reichsführer-SS Reinhard Rürup, Topography of Terror, 11, 36.
Konzentrationslagers Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, 54.
“that attacked the political” Raphael Lemkin was one of the drafters of Poland’s legal code after World War I. Quoted from Krystyna Wituska, Inside a Gestapo Prison: The Letters of Krystyna Wituska, 1942–1944, xiii, xiv.
Gestapo agents interrogated Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 11–13; Farrington, 74; Miller, 17–18.
von Kageneck In his memoirs, Dusko refers to him as “Freddy von Kaghaneck.” This appears to be Alfred Alexander Heinrich Maria Faustinus, Graf von Kageneck (or “Count of Kageneck”), son of Heinrich Karl Alfred Joseph Kaspar, Count of Kageneck, and Baroness Alice Böcklin von Böcklinsau. Born in Freiburg on February 15, 1915, Freddy would have been twenty-one when Dusko met him in 1936. MI5 files refer to him as Count Alfred Kageneck. See, e.g., KV 2/845, (pp. 15B, 17b).
For the von Kagenecks: The noble line of the von Kageneck family can be traced back to at least the twelfth century. It appears that Freddy had a cousin, also in Freiburg and about Freddy’s age, who was named after Erbo Graf von Kageneck (1185–1258). See http://www.genealogieonline.nl/de/stamboom-helmantel/I16909.php. Freddy’s cousin, Erbo Graf von Kageneck (1918–1942), was a German fighter pilot and ace who recorded sixty-seven aerial victories before being mortally wounded in North Africa. MI5 files refer to “C
ount von Kageneck” as a “member of a wealthy Catholic landed family.” See June 16, 1942, memorandum to Guy Liddell, KV 2/850 (file 3).
For the Jebsens: The Jebsens were Danish, and Johnny on at least one occasion mentioned his split nationality (Danish heritage but born in Germany). Johnny’s grandfather, Michael Jebsen, Jr. (1835–1899, Denmark) had five children: Jacob (1870–1941), Johanne (1879–1907), Heinrich (1880–1944), Friedrich (1881–?), and Michael III (1883–?). Mr. Jebsen (grandfather) died in Berlin in 1899. The eldest son, Jacob, appears to have been Johnny’s uncle. Jacob studied in Berlin and apprenticed in Hamburg. In 1895, Jacob cofounded Jebsen & Co. in Hong Kong (as shipping agent for father Michael) with partner Heinrich Jessen. In 1899, Johanne married Heinrich Jessen, Jacob’s partner, and in 1909 the family expanded operations, setting up Jebsen & Jessen Hamburg. By the time Johnny enrolled at Freiburg, both of his parents were dead. Jebsen & Co. seems to have progressed through Jacob (Johnny’s uncle), and then by his sons, Michael and Hans Jacob. Hans Jacob’s son, Hans Michael Jebsen (b. 1956), currently lives in Hong Kong and is the CEO and chairman of Jebsen & Co. In 2009, Forbes estimated his net worth at $680 million.
Johnny as shipping heir: MI5 files describe Johnny as “the son of [a] rich Hamburg shipping family”; Dusko Popov, undated “Dramatis Personae,” KV 2/849 (p. 177b); Ian Wilson memo, March 26, 1943, KV 2/852 (p. 456B). MI5 files also refer to him as “the son of the owner of Jebsen and Jebsen, export and import company, dealing with China, with headquarters in Hamburg,” extract from FBI report of November 11, 1943, KV 2/855 (sub-file 1).
of it . . . “sports cars and sporting girls” Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 19, 5; Ben Macintyre, Double Cross, 7, Miller, 16.
“encyclopedic,” his recall infallible Popov, Spy Counter-Spy, 7.
intelligent, cultured, clever, English See, e.g., December 20, 1940, memo, KV 2/845 (p. 2); “The Story of SKOOT,” December 23, 1940, KV 2/845 (p. 6x); Ian Wilson’s “Tricycle” memo, March 26, 1943, KV 2/852 (p. 456B); Dusko Popov, undated “Dramatis Personae,” KV 2/849 (p. 177b).