Ian Fleming, Part I: A Brief Biography

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in Mayfair, London, to Valentine Fleming and Evelyn St. Croix-Rose Fleming on May 28, 1908. He died on August 12, 1964. His father was once a member of the British Parliament (he died in action in the Great War), and his mother descended from royal blood. His elder brother, Peter Fleming, would go on to become one of the world's most famous travel writers, and, before Bond became popular, Peter unintentionally eclipsed everything Ian did.

Ian Fleming was born into the class of Englishmen for whom every option is open, and yet he managed to single-handedly close them down. The Fleming family was wealthy, not least because his grandfather, Robert Fleming, was a successful Scottish banker — the family company being sold for $7 billion. However, Valentine Fleming's will and testament stipulated that Evelyn would only retain the family wealth so long as she never remarried, and this caused ongoing family issues throughout Ian's life. Another issue was the ghost of his father as the erudite parliamentarian and war hero. Ian Fleming grew from the age of 8 without his father and under the dominance of his overbearing mother. The children used to say prayers and ask God that they be as good as their father. Unfortunately, Ian Fleming could not live up to these ideals, and failed to be both a parliamentarian, which he did once run for, and an action war hero. On the other hand, his brother, Peter, succeeded, and indeed excelled in everything he did, from sports to writing and even the role of all-action war hero.

Ian Fleming's education at Eton didn't go as well as his elders brother's extraordinary success, so he was moved to a "more convenient" situation at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, although he had won Victor Ludorum (Latin for "Winner of Games") at Eton two years running. To the annoyance of his mother, he didn't much take to Sandhurst, so she sent him abroad to "learn languages." He went to Austria, where he spent time at Kitzbuhel with the Adlerian disciple Forbes Dennis and his American wife, Phyllis Bottome. The cover story was that he went to improve his German and other languages, but it was really an attempt to fix this troublesome teenager. Following his time in Austria, he moved on and eventually disappointed everybody by finding a job as a sub-editor and journalist at the Reuters news agency. Later on he also worked as a stockbroker with Rowe and Pitman in Bishopsgate. At this time he took up residence in Belgravia, at 22B Ebury Street, to be exact, where he spent his time entertaining friends at dinner parties. He attempted to live the high life without the financial means, and he always seemed to offer up a façade that fooled everybody. Inside himself, he was bored. The stock market offered no great excitement, and he obviously envied his globe-trotting journalistic brother. He collected books and started to grow an extensive network of friends that would prove useful for his future life as a novelist, not least because they gave him a list of characters from which to choose.

Friends in the foreign office arranged for an exciting excursion for the young Fleming in 1939, and sent him off to Russia under the auspices of reporting for the Times newspaper. In fact, he was spying for the foreign office the whole time, and other journalists spotted the ruse but remained quiet.

By May 1939, war had broken out across Europe, and Britain was preparing for some of the bloodiest battles in its history. Ian Fleming needed a role, and was soon recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, director of Naval intelligence, to be his personal assistant. Fleming moved from Royal Naval volunteer reserve lieutenant to lieutenant commander and then finally to commander — the rank he would eventually give to James Bond. It seemed that the peculiar, arrogant, imaginative, and forthright nature that was Ian Fleming, worked well for military intelligence just so long as it was kept on a leash. He worked tirelessly throughout the war, and got to know every section well. Being personal assistant to the rear admiral was a huge responsibility, and Fleming took to the role well, making sure he knew everything he possibly could, soaking it up like a sponge and storing it all unwittingly for later Bond novels. It was even at this time that Fleming managed to develop his literary skill by producing daily situation reports and regular memos — many of which read like Bond novels. He eventually contributed work to the Political Warfare Executive, the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Special Operations Executive, and the Secret Intelligence Service.

Between 1941 and 1942, Rear Admiral Godfrey, along with Fleming, made secret trips to the United States in order to open and maintain dialog between the various and newly formed intelligence agencies there, meeting such classic figures as J. Edgar Hoover and William Stephenson. In 1941, the American general William Donovan asked Fleming to write a memorandum outlining the structure of a proposed secret service. This set Fleming's mind racing, and his imagination into overdrive. He completed the task, and was awarded a .38 Police Positive Colt pistol for his services, inscribed "For Special Services." The memorandum Fleming penned was actually used in part when the OSS was organized. The OSS, or Office of Strategic Services, was the U.S. intelligence agency formed during the Second World War, and would later help to create the CIA.

Fleming also traveled to Ceylon, Jamaica, Australia, France, Spain, and North Africa, visiting embassies and setting up Operation Goldeneye, which he named, to defend Gibralter.

By 1942, Ian Fleming had secured authority to set up his own elite spy-commando unit known as 30 AU (30 Auxiliary Unit), which he nicknamed "Red Indians." The men were trained very much like the later James Bond, with lock-picking, explosives, firearms, and combat training. They were all-round intelligent and brave men, and were in fact the real and original James Bond characters, being sent in to enemy territory in order to extricate ciphers and weapons of interest. They were so successful that Fleming managed to grow them in sufficient size and strength that by the end of the war they were almost too powerful a group to be led by a mere commander, and Fleming began to lose control of them to higher-ranking officers.

After the war, Fleming didn't immediately begin to write books. Instead he went back into journalism and ended up at the Times. He spent his time socializing with various groups that he kept quite separate, and some secret; continued collecting books, including first editions of Mein Kampf and On the Origin of Species; and finding a new part-time home in Jamaica, which he renamed Goldeneye. By 1953, he plucked up the courage to finally write his first novel, and published Casino Royale. The book had a slow start, causing Fleming to wonder if the books would ever take off. So he did what all good authors have to do: He hustled. It eventually paid off, and the U.S. market opened up for him, and sales soared.

He now began a routine that was to continue for the rest of his short life: In January each year he flew to Jamaica to avoid the bitter English weather and write his novels. He remained there until March, when he would return and take up his normal day job at the Kemsley newspaper empire. Then he met Lady Anne Rothermere, and they fell in love, and were indeed lovers for several years. Anne eventually became pregnant with Fleming's child, so she divorced Lord Rothermere and married Ian Fleming. She gave birth to Caspar, Ian's only son, who himself died in 1975.

Fleming's circle of friends was incredible, and no one has ever written them all down, for he kept them all quite separate from one another. The list includes such great names as Noel Coward, Cyril Connolly, Edith Sitwell, William Plomer, Peter Quennell, Raymond Chandler, Kingsley Amis, and even the American "royals," the Kennedys. At one time, his home in Jamaica was used by the prime minister of Great Britain, Anthony Eden, to recover from an illness.

Fleming wrote 12 novels and nine short stories in total, all featuring the infamous suave and sophisticated super spy. Many people are surprised to discover that Fleming also wrote the children's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, because the film was adapted by Roald Dahl, and is quite different from the book.

By 1961, Fleming had sold the film rights for all his Bond books, present and future, to Harry Saltzman. With Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, Saltzman made the first Bond film, Dr. No, in 1962, with Sean Connery in the lead. Fleming had actually wanted David Niven, his close friend, and had also asked that his second-cousin Christopher Lee be considered for the part of Dr. No:

He said to me, "One of my books is to be filmed. Have you ever read Dr. No?" I said that was good news and, yes, I had. "I want you to play Dr. No, if you will. You'd suit the part," he said. Well, Dr. No at 6-foot-6 tops me by a couple of inches, but then he wore lifts. Dr. No had steel hands, possibly inspired by the hands I wore in Hands of Orlac, and he was a sinister Oriental, as I had been often enough. So it all seemed quite logical, not merely the idle fancy of a cousin, to pick me for Dr. No. "Great," I said, "wonderful!" "I've asked them to offer you the part," he said.

Of course, everyone who has seen the films will know that Christopher Lee did not in fact get the part of Dr. No, but sometime after the death of Ian Fleming he was asked to play Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun.

Ian Fleming only lived long enough to see the second Bond film, From Russia With Love, released in 1963. For decades he had smoked more than 60 cigarettes a day, and drank all manner of alcohol. His doctor once insisted that he reduce his daily alcohol intake and cut the cigarettes by 10, from 70. But as Fleming put it, "I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificent glow, than a sleeping and permanent planet. The proper function of life is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use the time."

In 1964 he suffered a severe chest cold combined with pleurisy, and this forced him to consider a slow recovery. This was beyond his mind, in the same way that a speedy recovery was beyond his body. Instead he slowed down a little, but still went to meetings at the Times where he worked. In fact he was said to have forced himself to attend the Royal St. George's golf club at Sandwich committee meeting, and even stayed on for lunch afterwards. However, that same night he claimed to be in "great despair," and by the following day his hemorrhage was so bad that he was rushed to Canterbury Hospital.

Ian Fleming died on August 12, 1964, of a heart attack in Canterbury Hospital, Kent, at the all-too-young age of 56. He was buried in the churchyard cemetery of Sevenhampton near Swindon, England. In 1975, his son, Caspar, joined his father, and in 1981 his widow, Anne, did the same.

The Bond Novels

James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.

— Ian Fleming, opening line from Goldfinger

Now that we know a little about Ian Fleming, and we understand a little about the role of fairy tales and the esoteric world, it's time to take a brief walk through the Bond novels and short stories to garner an overall feeling of the theme — one of stark and yet hidden realities from within the mind of a divided and yet intelligent man.

As we have already discovered, there is a constant thread, or pattern, running through the Bond stories, of awakening or interest piqued, confrontation with the darkest fear, union and resolution. Understanding and being aware of these patterns will open up a new world before us as we unravel the Bond Code. In the following paragraphs I will include some hints regarding various characters, with the etymological meaning of the name given in parentheses.

Most people will be aware of James Bond purely from the films. They will have grown up with Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, and, of course, Daniel Craig, who began his Bond career with Casino Royale — the very first Bond novel.

Casino Royale

Released on April 13, 1953, in the United Kingdom, and in 1955 in the United States, this was the first Bond novel written by Ian Fleming and the second Bond film directed by Martin Campbell, who also directed Pierce Brosnan's first Bond film, Goldeneye. Fleming's first titles for the book were The Double-O Agent and The Deadly Gamble, but were disregarded in favor of You Asked for It and subtitled Casino Royale. By 1960 the subtitle had replaced You Asked for It.

The plot has the Soviet assassination bureau SMERSH raising funds at the baccarat table at a French casino, with the villain Le Chiffre doing all the playing. Bond as the double-o agent and expert baccarat player is sent in to put a stop to the fundraising efforts by beating Le Chiffre. With the aid of U.S. money and CIA agent Felix Leiter, Bond manages to ruin Le Chiffre (the cipher, or code). However, he also has a female assistant by the name of Vesper Lynd (birth of night), who also just happens to be a Russian agent who betrays her loyalty to the Soviet Union in order to help Bond. However, Bond is captured by Le Chiffre and tortured, only to be saved by SMERSH agents who are called in to kill Le Chiffre. They set Bond free after marking him with an S for "spy" on his left hand. The S, we are told, is Cyrillic, from the language of St. Cyril, a devoted Christian who gave himself up to the pursuit of heavenly wisdom at the age of 7.

Bond then spends three weeks in convalescence with Vesper Lynd, where he expresses his wish to leave the service. However, Lynd's past catches up with her as SMERSH agent Gettler (Germanic for God from got) is seen prowling, and Lynd commits suicide. Bond, having overcome so much in his union with this feminine principle, then has to suffer the consequences of what is sown, and must begin the process again.

It seems nobody can escape their past, for God will catch up with you. All we can do is purge the soul. This is at the heart of the Bond Code.

According to Fleming's famous understatements and off-the-cuff explanations, he wrote Casino Royale to take his mind off his forthcoming marriage to Lady Rothermere. Fleming was well-known for explaining things away with simple statements, and often contradicted himself. It may be that the book was written during the period before his marriage, and that the success of this union was playing upon his mind, but the fact remains that his (and others') statements reveal that he had been piecing together the elements of Casino Royale in his mind for some time. In the book, Fleming reveals that he needs the feminine principle to see the job through, but struggles with the negative side of this concept. He is showing how he himself struggled with the concept of having to offer up himself as a virtual sacrifice to the union, both physically to his future wife, and internally to the emotional element within himself, and not just the clean, crisp, logical mind he wished to portray to the wider world. This is very much an element also found within the life of the occultist and associate of Fleming, Aleister Crowley, misunderstood on the whole by many commentators as a disliking of females.

The introduction of Le Chiffre is also the first glimpse we have of Fleming's interest in the infamous Aleister Crowley. The novel's physical description of Le Chiffre matches that of Crowley, and it is believed by Bond lovers the world over that the villains in Fleming's novels were all based upon this "devilish" character.

Live and Let Die

Released in 1954, Live and Let Die sees Bond given instructions to go to New York City and investigate the gangster Mr. Big, who operates from Harlem and Florida. It is believed that Mr. Big is selling gold coins discovered in Jamaica from the horde of the infamous pirate Sir Henry Morgan. Our villain is again an agent of SMERSH, and is using the revenue to fund Soviet spy operations. Bond meets up with his happy helper, Felix Leiter, and they are both captured and tortured by Mr. Big. Bond unites with Mr. Big's fortune-telling weakness, Solitaire, and they escape to Florida. Solitaire is captured, Leiter is fed to the sharks and loses a leg and an arm, and Bond travels to Jamaica, where he joins up with Querrel and John Strangways. In the end, Bond places a limpet mine on Mr. Big's boat, but is captured, tied up with Solitaire, and dragged across a coral reef before the limpet mine finally explodes and saves the day.