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The CIA is involved in many Bond films. James Bond’s friend Felix Leiter turns up in many of them.

In May 1941, Fleming accompanied Godfrey (Director of British Intelligence) to the States, ostensibly to inspect security in US ports, but also to help William Stephenson, head of British intelligence in North America,  and William ‘Big Bill’ Donovan, the US government official, develop the intelligence relationship with America.

The Americans didn’t have an agency to handle espionage, the secretary of state Henry L Stimpson was opposed to the idea of such an agency saying that gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.

On the way, they stopped at Estoril, near Lisbon, where Fleming gambled at the casino with some Portuguese businessmen, and lost. On leaving, Fleming remarked: ‘What if those men had been German secret service agents, and suppose we had cleaned them out of their money; now that would have been exciting.’

It was another glimpse into the workings of Fleming’s imagination. The scene would marinade in his mind for a decade before finding its way into the most memorable moment in Casino Royale, when Bond cleans out the repulsive communist agent Le Chiffre.

In Washington, Godfrey and Fleming met J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, for exactly sixteen minutes, but soon afterwards Roosevelt followed British advice and made Bill Donovan head of the new government intelligence department that would later become the OSS. At Donovan’s request, Fleming penned a seventy-page memo with suggestions on the shape a US intelligence agency should take.

His description of the ideal secret agent has the unmistakable ring of Bond: ‘must have trained powers of observation, analysis and evaluation; absolute discretion, sobriety, devotion to duty; language and wide experience, and be aged about 40 to 50’. Fleming would later claim, not entirely seriously, that this work had been instrumental in forming the CIA charter; even if this was not strictly true, Donovan was grateful enough to present Fleming with a .38 Colt revolver inscribed ‘For Special Services’.

FELIX LEITER & BENSON

Bond’s main ally in the books and films is a CIA operative called Felix Leiter, and we should point out that there will be a new Felix Leiter spin-off book by Bond continuation author Raymond Benson. The book will be first serialised in chapters via eBook next month, with paperback release to follow in October of this year. This was an idea that Benson had pitched to the Fleming estate in the mid 2000s.
We know from various reports and interviews that the story sets place between Live and Let Die and Moonraker where Felix Leiter is recovering from his injuries and has joined Pinkerton’s a private detective agency. Benson told David Lowbridge Ellis on Licence to Queer that it will be accurate to the time frame from which Fleming gives in the novels. This being the year of 1952. It will also focus on world events of that year. I looked up the big events of 1952 and we have these potentials:
  • Hydrogen Bomb Test:The hydrogen bomb was detonated for the first time in 1952
  • the Great Smog of London, a severe air pollution event that killed thousands.
  • King George VI of the United Kingdom passed away, and his eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, became Queen Elizabeth II. 
  • Roll-on deodorants were invented

THOUGHTS ON FELIX

It’s interesting that not having a regular Felix is probably one of my main criticisms of the Bond films. Even not having Jeffrey Wright in Skyfall or Spectre, lessens the impact of his death in No Time to Die. On paper that is a hammer blow, in reality it’s just another ancillary character that gets bumped off.

They had ample opportunity also, with Wade coming in during the Pierce era. I guess they were worried about having a continuation issue with another Felix, but then they threw that out of the window just by casting Joe Don Baker from Daylights.

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