The Ian Fleming Miscellany Read Online Free PDF

doors were held wide for him. About six weeks after he submitted it, he received a mysterious invitation to dine at the Carlton Grill with Rear-Admiral Godfrey, who had recently been made director of Naval Intelligence. Another admiral, Aubrey Hugh Smith (Lance’s brother) was there to introduce them.

    Admiral John Godfrey, head of Naval Intelligence and Fleming’s boss and mentor at NID during the Second World War. The National Archive
    Rear-Admiral Godfrey had not yet taken up his post as DNI, but he had been busy choosing a team of over 100 people from various fields. They must above all be quick-witted and imaginative. They would be given free rein and they need have no service background. A determined, challenging approach – a willingness to think the unthinkable – mattered far more. ‘Blinker’ Hall, who had been head of naval intelligence during the First World War, had told him to look beyond the services for people like this, so he did.
    He had been particularly struck by the way Mansfield Cumming, ‘C’, had relied very much on one able, quick-witted person, his personal assistant, during the First World War. Claud Serocold’s tireless support had enabled Cummings to get twice as much work done. Godfrey needed somebody just like that, and he asked around, talking to – among others – Fleming’s old editor at Reuters. Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, of all people, confirmed that young Ian Fleming from Rowe and Pitman could do the job.
    And behold, it was done. All that sly questioning of friends abroad, all the proof that he could keep secrets, all that suffering over not being good enough for the Foreign Office, all the flattery and charm expended by his mother upon the great and good – and finally, Ian Fleming turned out to be exactly who they were looking for.

• 4 •
THE DREAM JOB

• W ORKING IN A T EAM •
    Ian had to be provided with a commission and a uniform. He would be in the Special Branch (intelligence and meteorology) of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve – the Wavy Navy, so called because of the undulating stripes that RNVR officers wore on their sleeves. The other requirements of his new employment, which would start in July, were outlined in writing by Rear-Admiral Godfrey. They amounted to gatekeeping, corresponding, knowing everybody who mattered inside and outside the service, communicating what Godfrey wanted, improving his likelihood of getting it, keeping him informed of developments, faultless record-keeping, diary management and being on call at all times. Being, in fact, the motivating engine that drove the wheel.
    Fleming was outstandingly good at this. He knew everyone who mattered, or if he did not he could raid his family’s combined address books. He had languages. He was ruthless – at least, in this job, ruthless enough. He communicated briskly, on one page wherever possible. He had the urbanity conferred by the City and the air of authority learned at Eton. He spotted details, recorded them, retained them and made links. He was popular, handsome, highly literate and, best of all, he liked testing fantasy solutions to knotty problems that might, or might not, arise; how to make the Germans decide you were going to invade Italy via the Balkans, for instance, or how the British Fleet in the Mediterranean would react if Franco’s Spain joined up with Hitler.
    By August he was officially installed in Room 39 in the Old Admiralty building overlooking Horse Guards Parade. Here, in a cloud of cigarette smoke, worked Section 17M, a top-secret department headed by Ewen Montagu, reporting to Godfrey. Their job was to interpret intercepts from Bletchley Park and messages from the operations centre across the parade ground in the Citadel. Godfrey had written ‘only men with first class brains should be allowed to touch this stuff’. They were mostly journalists, artists or academics. There was no great demand for practical types or scientists; they were