The James Bond spy novels dreamed up by Ian Fleming were rooted in his World War II experiences as a British intelligence officer. In one instance, Fleming had an idea that was so wild it’s still hard to believe it actually worked. To misdirect the Nazis, he suggested outfitting a corpse with fake military plans and strategically placing it off the coast of Spain.
Because truth can be stranger than fiction, that scheme is now the subject of the rollicking Broadway musical “Operation Mincemeat.” The show, a hit in England before arriving in New York last spring, gets big laughs from this absurd tale of deception. In a rousing number, “God That’s Brilliant,” the conspiring spies sing rapturously as they plot to kill Hitler. (Fleming paints a picture of a martini-drinking, tuxedo-wearing assassin who “kills the guards, snogs the girl and says something cool.”)
Though the show presents him as a sort of bumbling genius, the Fleming character helps to establish the complex story as a spy caper. He “is so respected and revered and made a huge contribution to British culture,” said one of the show’s creators, Zoë Roberts, who also plays Fleming and other characters. “It seemed like a huge opportunity to have a little bit of fun and poke a little fun at him.”
But the musical provides only a glimpse of Fleming’s life as a spy.
In reality, Fleming was a clever and sophisticated British intelligence officer, who worked on both sides of the Atlantic and gained a wealth of insider knowledge that he later transformed into colorful, action-packed fiction with his Bond novels. “Never say ‘no’ to adventures — always say ‘yes,’” he explained. “Otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”
The Operation Mincemeat ruse originated in 1939 — shortly after Britain declared war on Hitler’s Nazi Germany — with a lengthy memo by Fleming’s boss, Adm. John Godfrey, the director of naval intelligence. “It was issued under Godfrey’s name, but it bore all the hallmarks of his personal assistant Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming,” concluded the historian Ben Macintyre, who has written about the wartime caper and Fleming’s fictional character, the suave MI6 agent James Bond, a.k.a. 007, who was portrayed in a string of popular films by a series of actors.
Though the schemes appeared to be implausible, the memo advised, “the more you examine them, the less fantastic they seem.” No. 28 envisioned that “a corpse dressed as an airman, with dispatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed. I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at the Naval Hospital, but, of course, it would have to be a fresh one.”
Fleming’s idea was later put into action by the British naval intelligence officers Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu. (Both are leading characters in the musical, and properly given credit for their heroics. In 1953, Montagu published a book about it called “The Man Who Never Was.”) According to Macintyre, Fleming was “at least tangentially involved” in launching the plan, though these other spies carried it out.
Found on the corpse were documents identifying him as Capt. (Acting Major) William Martin — he was actually a vagrant named Glyndwr Michael who had died after ingesting rat poison — and paperwork that in time convinced Nazi forces that a 1943 Allied invasion of Italy through Sicily would instead take place at Sardinia. The deception helped make the Allies’ eventual victory in Italy easier and less bloody than expected.
Under Prime Minister Winston Churchill, an advocate of espionage, sabotage and “ungentlemanly warfare,” Fleming was sent to Manhattan to join the spies working to persuade the United States to join the war. For several months before the Americans entered the war, in December 1941, the British Security Coordination (B.S.C.), based on the 36th floor of the International Building at Rockefeller Center, used propaganda, political influence and media manipulation to secretly combat isolationists and the Nazi threat inside America.
Soon, the United States created its first spy agency — the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency — with the help of Fleming, who impressed officials with his advice about espionage and his willingness to take chances. “The British are many things, but cowards they are not,” Ernest Cuneo, a top O.S.S. official, said after working with Fleming.
GHASTLY BUT INGENIOUS, Fleming’s Mincemeat plan — itself inspired by a detective book on his shelf involving a corpse with forged papers — wasn’t his only creative idea. “Fleming could always laugh when some stratagem misfired — he had plenty more to choose from,” observed John Pearson, whose Fleming biography appeared two years after Fleming’s death, in 1964 at the age of 56.
One of Pearson’s favorite stories was how Fleming and William Stephenson, overseer of Churchill’s spies in Manhattan, broke into the Japanese consul general’s office, located below the B.S.C. headquarters in Rockefeller Center. Stephenson, Fleming and two other spies entered the closed offices at 3 a.m. Fleming acted as a lookout. They picked a safe’s locks and “borrowed” the Japanese code book and other confidential documents. They ran upstairs to their own offices to microfilm the important material.
Then they returned the papers, leaving them in the same order they were found. “To Stephenson, it was a straightforward operation,” Pearson recounted in Life magazine, “to Fleming a great and gleeful adventure.”
Fleming told Godfrey, his former boss, about the successful break-in, hoping the story would reach the appreciative ears of Churchill, whose approval mattered to Fleming on a personal level. Churchill had been friendly with Fleming’s father, Valentine, a fellow Conservative in Parliament, who was killed by German shellfire in World War I when Fleming was only 9.
Years later, Fleming turned this spy scheme in Manhattan into fiction. In his first novel, “Casino Royale,” he introduced the assassin James Bond, who tracks down a Japanese cipher expert who was cracking British coded messages inside Rockefeller Center. Stationed in another building and equipped with a Remington rifle that had telescopic sights and silencer, Bond takes aim and shoots the Japanese agent. “It was a pretty sound job,” Bond summarized. “Nice and clean too.”
After the war, Fleming had felt at a loss, craving the intrigue and intensity of his spy work. “We almost suffered emotional ‘bends’ the day the war ended — tension went out like a power line turned off,” recalled Cuneo, who later ran a small newspaper syndicate with Fleming. “Aside from its horrors, you missed the frightful challenge of war. I think Fleming missed it as much as most; he seemed both grumpy and disconsolate.”
By January 1952, Fleming had turned most of his attention to writing spy novels. He modeled Bond on various real-life figures — notably Stephenson for his bold moves, inventive killing gadgets and coolheaded fearlessness. This fictional secret agent would have a boss called “M” — modeled after his own Royal Navy superior Admiral Godfrey. And Fleming dedicated his “Thunderball” novel to his American spy pal Cuneo.
The author amused himself by slightly changing the names and identities of his spy friends: Cuneo, for example, became Ernie Cureo, a taxi driver and secret C.I.A. informant, in “Diamonds Are Forever.” And the American spy Felix Leiter, a recurring character who appears in “Live and Let Die” and “Goldfinger,” gets his first name “Felix” from the actual middle name of Fleming’s childhood friend, the British spy Ivar Bryce.
One of Fleming’s most enthusiastic readers was President John F. Kennedy. They met at a Washington dinner party the Kennedys were hosting in the spring of 1960, months before the election. Kennedy was already a fan of the 007 novels. After dinner, he asked Fleming how he might handle Fidel Castro’s Communist takeover of Cuba.
“Ridicule, chiefly,” Fleming replied wryly. He then outlined several Bond-like spy techniques that could “deflate” Castro’s reputation. Kennedy seemed amused by Fleming’s far-fetched suggestions. One called for American scientists shooting off a rocket intended to form a fiery cross in the sky, which might be interpreted as a heavenly sign that Castro should be replaced.
Apprised of Kennedy’s dinner conversation, the C.I.A. director Allen Dulles later directed scientists in the agency to see if Bond’s fictional gadgets and high-tech killing devices could be adopted.
Fleming’s novels — already moderately successful — soared in popularity with a public endorsement by the new president. In March 1961, Life magazine listed Fleming’s “From Russia With Love” as one of Kennedy’s favorite books. The Kennedys later hosted a private screening of the Bond movie “Dr. No” at the White House.
Around that time, Dulles received a copy of Fleming’s “From Russia With Love” from the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, with the inscription, “Here is a book you should have, Mr. Director.”