Fleming once related one of his Eton experiences to Paul Gallico. He was due for a birching in the headmaster's office at noon one day for some misdemeanor. But as he was also due to run the steeplechase at noon for the championship, he persuaded the headmaster to move the caning back to 11:45. At the appointed time, Fleming reported to the office and submitted to the punishment. Afterwards, he proudly ran the steeplechase with blood stains on the back of his trunks, and came in second place. Fleming was, from the beginning, a strong advocate of the British stiff upper lip.
But Fleming soon lost interest in his studies at Eton; his marks dropped. Eve Fleming decided to remove her second son from the school and place him into a more rigorous, disciplinary environment. At age eighteen, Fleming was enrolled in the Royal Military College at Sandhurst (England's West Point). In that summer of 1926, Fleming was sent to a "Crammer's" tutoring school to prepare him for the Sandhurst entrance exam. Colonel William Trevor, who ran the school, wrote to Mrs. Fleming that Ian should make an excellent soldier, "providing always that the ladies don't ruin him." For already, Ian Fleming was something of a ladies man. He was extremely good-looking and had a natural ability for meeting and wooing girls. According to Paul Gallico, once Ian escorted a local girl to a nightclub and persuaded another cadet to sign in for him at the evening roll call. Later that night, Fleming was caught climbing into the college and was penalized with thirty days confinement to barracks and no leave for six months.
Actually, Fleming did quite well at Sandhurst. By 1927, he had been placed on His Majesty's List for the King's Royal Rifle Corps. But as the time approached for him to take his commission, it was reported that the army was going to be "mechanized." Fleming, along with a few other cadets, decided he didn't want to spend his time pushing buttons and levers in the army, and refused his commission. He even had the audacity to write his refusal on a postcard, drop it in the mail, and then simply leave the college. Needless to say, his mother was not pleased.
Eve Fleming had heard through friends that an excellent private school had been set up in Kitzbuhel in the Austrian Tyrol, run by Eman Forbes-Dennis and his wife, the novelist Phyllis Bottome. This school, located high in the mountains in a château called the Tennerhof, held a special place in Fleming's memory for the rest of his life. For it was here when he was in his late teens and early twenties, that he discovered his ambitions and began to think of himself as something other than Peter Fleming's younger brother. The Forbes-Dennises not only provided a rigorous foreign-language program (from which Fleming learned German and French), but also experimented in psychology. The life in the mountains was idyllic, and Fleming soon became an avid skier and mountain climber. He also became very popular with the local girls.
Encouraged by Phyllis Bottome, Fleming began to write in Kitzbuhel and even produced a short story called "Death, On Two Occasions." With the prodding of the Forbes-Dennises, Fleming decided to build a career in the Foreign Office, which was considered a prestigious and difficult profession. To improve his language skills, the Forbes-Dennises sent him to Munich
University in 1928. Fleming soon picked up an adequate knowledge of Russian. In 1929, he enrolled in the University of Geneva to improve his French. One of his notable achievements at the time was receiving permission from Carl Jung to translate a speech Jung had delivered on Paracelsus.
Fleming had many friends during this time, mostly girls. One of his closest friends was Lisl Popper, to whom Fleming left £500 in his will. Fleming told another friend years later that Ms. Popper was one of the few people he had known who cared sufficiently enough about him to tell him the truth about himself. On the BBC's Omnibus documentary about Fleming, Lisl Popper told how she and Ian had met. She and a few friends were sitting at a table in a restaurant and one of the youngest and most naive of the girls said, "Can you see the Englishman over there?" The girls all looked and there at another table was Ian Fleming, whom they had never seen before, wearing a navy blue shirt. He was "slim, very good-looking, reading a book, very serious." The girl asked, "How can we meet him?" The others told her to forget it. She persisted. Finally, Lisl explained to her that the English were "shy," and that there was only one thing to do. She should get up, pass the Englishman's table, fall over his feet, and say, in English, "I am sorry." The girl repeated the phrase over and over to make sure she would get it right, then went over and fell over Fleming's feet. "Ian was delighted," and from then on, "We never left each other," Ms. Popper said.
While Fleming was in Geneva, he became engaged to a Swiss girl named Monique. Perhaps for the first time, Fleming was truly in love; and despite the differences in their backgrounds, the young man made a valiant attempt to convince her family and his that theirs was a suitable match. But when Ian's mother met the girl, there was a scene. She did not approve and that was the end of that. Eve Fleming held a very powerful card in her hand: in Valentine Fleming's will, she had been granted power to alter the family's inheritance in any way she saw fit. This meant she could disown any of her sons, and they would be denied the extensive Fleming fortune. After the engagement was broken off, Fleming was reportedly quite bitter, and his attitude toward women became one of careful objectivity. Never again would he become so obsessed with a woman. Fleming, however, later paid something of a tribute to his ex-fiancée: the mother of James Bond was a Swiss named Monique.
In 1931, Fleming took the Foreign Office exam. He placed twenty-fifth out of sixty-two. The failure was a tremendous blow to his pride, and he never told the truth about the defeat. To friends he said that he placed seventh, but that only five candidates were accepted.
Back in England, now that he was out of school and in his early twenties, it was time to look for a suitable job. Luckily, his mother's influence pulled some strings for him: she was friends with Sir Roderick Jones, the head of Reuters News Service. Jones hired young Fleming to work in the news office under the editor, Bernard Rickatson-Hatt Reuters, at this time, was highly competitive with its American counterpart, United Press International, and was attempting to become one of the leading news agencies in the world. In this fast-paced, demanding environment, Fleming quickly learned the trade of a journalist. He was soon out of the news office and given reporting assignments. And in 1933, Fleming was given a particularly important assignment—covering the trial in Moscow of British citizens who had been accused of spying on the Russian government.
That March, six British and several Russian employees of the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company had been arrested as part of Stalin's great purges of the mid-thirties. The arrests outraged the British government News agencies from all over the world sent reporters to Moscow to cover the trial, and twenty-four-year-old Ian Fleming was chosen to represent Reuters because he could speak Russian.
Fleming, who already had developed a mind for creating detailed plans of action, came up with a scheme to scoop the other news agencies. He wrote two possible reports of the trial beforehand, one with a guilty verdict and one without. The censors had to approve the articles before they could be phoned or cabled to the appropriate news agency, and Fleming used his charm and panache to strike up a friendship with a censor named Mironov. Mironov, with reluctance, stamped his approval on both stories with the understanding that when the verdict was announced, the appropriate story would be used. Fleming also enlisted the services of a young boy and a man at the cable office. According to Fleming's plan, as soon as the verdict was announced, he would lean out of a window, drop a message to the boy, who would then run to the cable office. There Fleming's other man would fill in the remaining details to the story and cable it to Reuters.
The plan worked beautifully, and Fleming's story was the first to reach London by cable. But Central News beat him by twenty minutes over the telephone. The Central News reporter just happened to be on the phone with his office as the verdict was announced and heard the judge's statement over the building's loudspeaker. Still, Fleming's ingenuity was soon recognized by all the reporters in Mo
scow who sent Sir Roderick Jones a telegram saying that they all had an "extremely high opinion of his journalistic ability." Fleming was a winner after all.
In October of 1933, Ian Fleming surprised everyone by announcing his resignation from Reuters to take a position as a junior partner in a firm of merchant bankers. He subsequently wrote to Sir Roderick Jones, declining Reuters' offer to be general manager of the Far East office, saying that his family had urged him to take the job. So at the age of twenty-five, Ian Fleming became a stockbroker in the City for the firm of Cull and Company. He later moved to Rowe and Pitman, and remained a junior partner there until 1945.
It seems odd that Fleming would be happy as a stockbroker, but London held a particular fascination for the young man. He was particularly good at organizing and managing; although he always admitted finding money-making a little boring. It was life after hours that held his interest, and the thirties was Fleming's period of bachelor paradise. His circle of friends became more elite. He founded a gentleman's club with a friend, Gerald Coke, and named it The Cercie, short for Le Cercie gastronomique et des jeux de hasard (The Circle of gastronomy and of games of chance).
The members basically were Etonians with whom Fleming shared bridge games and elegant dinners. Living in a bachelor apartment on Ebury Street, Fleming maintained a conservative life as a stockbroker by day, and an indulgent, sometimes mysterious, life by night He was never one to socialize at parties, save for his gatherings with The Cercie. He had many girlfriends, as usual, and would court them by preparing elaborate meals and by serving them champagne in his apartment. And like James Bond, he kept his affairs uncomplicated and noncommittal, as well as extremely private. He soon had a reputation for extraordinary ruthlessness with women, yet these same women found him irresistible.
Ivar Bryce reports that during this period Fleming wrote a collection of poetry called THE BLACK DAFFODIL and had it privately printed. But Fleming was ashamed of the book and soon after burned all available copies. The fact that Fleming would write a book of poetry at this time signifies that he indeed had a romantic view of himself and his lifestyle.
Fleming had always been keen on rare books and first editions, and in 1935, he decided to begin a collection of books that "started something," or "made things happen." A friend from Kitzbuhel, Percy Muir, was a partner in the rare book firm of Elkin Mathews, of which Fleming himself became a partner. Fleming wrote to Muir, instructing him to search for appropriate additions to the collection. Though the idea and the purchases came from Fleming, it was Muir who did the work Now known as The Fleming Collection, these books became one of the most valuable and important collections of rare first editions in the world. It consists of works by scientists and practical workers whose writings were responsible for what could be called the modem revolution. For instance, included in the collection are the Wright Brothers' first papers on aeronautics; Bell's original description of the telephone; Einstein's work on relativity; the major contributions of Pasteur, Koch, Lister, and others; works of economic and social importance by authors such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Hitler; works in psychology by Darwin, Freud, Jung, Pavlov, and others; as well as major literary works by Goethe, Byron, Balzac, Dickens, Maeterlinck, Kipling, Schiller, Tolstoy, and many more. The collection numbered over a thousand when it was completed, and was eventually purchased by the Lilly Library at Indiana University a few years after Fleming's death.
In the spring of 1939, Fleming learned that "funny little questions" were being asked about him; his friends told him that people were asking where he'd been, who he knew—things of that sort. These questions were the first stirrings of a major change of direction in Fleming's life.
War with Germany was imminent. The newly appointed Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral John Godfrey, was looking for a personal assistant. His predecessor, Sir Reginald Hall, had used a young stockbroker as an assistant during World War I and had found that the man's organizational and business experience proved invaluable. Godfrey decided to look for the same type of individual, and sent inquiries through the Bank of England. Most likely on the recommendation of Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, Fleming was finally invited to a luncheon with Admiral Godfrey. Fleming was surprised when he found the brother of the senior partner in his own brokerage firm, Admiral Aubrey Hugh-Smith, sitting at the table as well. Godfrey decided Fleming was the man for the job and that spring, Ian Fleming became a lieutenant (Special Branch) in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His duties were to assist Godfrey in practically any conceivable manner, but what that meant in essence was that Fleming became the number two man in Naval Intelligence. He was in on the planning and organization of the department, and sometimes represented Godfrey at routine conferences. The headquarters were located in Room 39 of the Ministry of Defense, where Britain's propaganda, subversive activities, political warfare, and undercover operations originated. Although Fleming never actually participated in active operations, he certainly helped plan them. He was known for his imaginative suggestions, even though some of them had to be highly bowdlerized. Admiral Godfrey, who most likely served as the model for M, James Bond's chief, described Fleming as "a benevolent presence" who served as the binding force in a group of men and women working in close proximity to each other and under a great deal of pressure. It was through his "wit, laughter, appreciation of human frailties and willingness to become the butt of others' humour" that Fleming created a position for himself in Naval Intelligence. But he was a good officer as well, and soon was promoted to Commander. "Ian," Godfrey said later, "was a war-winner."
One of Fleming's more active experiences of the war took place in June of 1940, when the Germans almost completely controlled France. The French Naval Commander, Admiral Darlan, was holding out at Le Bourget, refusing to evacuate his fleet to British ports. Fleming proposed that he and a wireless operator be sent to Le Bourget to report on Darlan's situation, and convince him to sail. Once in France, Fleming followed Darlan to Bordeaux, which had become the safest port for evacuation. The town was mobbed with families attempting to leave. Fleming took it upon himself to organize the evacuation and help the British citizens decide what to leave behind and what to take with them. Tons of valuable items including motorcars had to be abandoned. Fleming received orders to make sure that a load of engine parts did not fall into German hands, and that the reluctant ship captains carried the equipment to England. Fleming and his assistant burned the remaining files and papers at the temporary British embassy, and just as they were leaving, King Zog of Albania arrived with his family and the crown jewels. Fleming took responsibility for seeing King Zog aboard, and the party finally left France for Arcachon, where they met a cruiser to Britain.
In February, 1941, Fleming went on a special Naval Intelligence mission to Tangier, carrying an official diplomatic courier's passport. In June, he and Admiral Godfrey went to Lisbon. On their second evening there, the two men visited the Estoril casino where Fleming rather hoped they could engage a group of Nazis in a game of baccarat and attempt to clean them out. But there were only a few Portuguese in the casino. Nevertheless, Fleming sat down to play and duly lost all of his money. This incident became the main plot of CASINO ROYALE, in which James Bond challenges the evil Le Chiffre to a baccarat game in an attempt to wipe out the man's finances.
From Lisbon, Fleming and Godfrey flew to the United States, where attempts were in progress to create an American intelligence organization. They visited Sir William Stephenson, the man called "Intrepid," who was the head of the British Security Co-ordination in New York. It was in Stephenson's office on the thirty-sixth floor of the RCA building in Rockefeller Center that Fleming first met Ernest Cuneo, who was working for General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, the father of the OSS—Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. Fleming took to New York immediately, and he enjoyed spending off-hours with Stephenson and Cuneo at "21," or at Stephenson's apartment in the Hotel Dorset.
There
is a well-known story told of the time Fleming accompanied Stephenson on a profitable intelligence "exercise." The Japanese Consul General's office was located on a floor below Stephenson's office in Rockefeller Center. Stephenson knew that messages were received and transmitted to Tokyo from that office. Very late one night Stephenson, Fleming, and two assistants broke into the Consulate and its locked safe; microfilmed and copied the Japanese code book; replaced the materials; and left the office as they had found it. This incident, highly embellished, would also play a part in CASINO ROYALE. James Bond's first assignment with the Secret Service was to assassinate a Japanese cipher expert by shooting him through the window of a neighboring building.
In June of 1941, Admiral Godfrey left Fleming in the United States with instructions to contribute as much as he could to the development of the American intelligence operation. Fleming accompanied William Donovan to Washington for a weekend, and the two men reportedly worked on a document which most likely helped Donovan in drawing up the original chart of organization for the OSS. Thomas F. Troy, in his book, Donovan and the CIA, reports that in the document, dated June 27, 1941, Fleming urged Donovan to confront those in the government who opposed the institution of an American intelligence operation. Fleming then went on to recommend certain individuals for key positions in what was a sketchy organizational chart and made suggestions on other practical matters such as space and tactics. On the subject of a liaison between the Americans and MI6, Fleming referred to his "previous memo"; what the Naval officer had to say about a collaboration between British and American "secret agents" remains unknown, as that memo has never been found. Although none of Fleming's suggestions ever came to fruition, legend has it that Donovan presented Fleming with a Colt .38 Police Positive revolver inscribed with the words "For Special Services" in appreciation for his contribution.
The James Bond Bedside Companion Page 10