Espionage is a dirty business. A dangerous business. A dull business. John le Carre brilliantly captured this in his 1963 novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, as do the following lines from the equally remarkable 1965 screen adaptation. Spies are anything but moral philosophers.
On top of all that, espionage is frequently a spectacularly futile business. You recruit and train a spy, introduce the spy into the right circles, and then, in order to avoid detection and capture, they are hardly ever able to communicate lengthy messages back to the operational centre. If that weren't enough, the intelligence gathered is likely to be under-utilised, or even discarded.[1]
Yes, a damned, depressing business, however, there is a certain aspect of espionage that might be overlooked amidst it all- the absurdly comical. Yes, people really infiltrated Nazi-occupied Europe with evening wear under their wet-suits[2], and the CIA really did build a "cone of silence."[3]
One of the more absurd incidents in espionage history involves a curious mix of the real and the literary.
Though now obscure, William Le Queux almost single-handedly invented the romantic genre of the spy story of which Ian Fleming's James Bond is the ultimate representative. It is hard to imagine Bond without Le Queux's mix of sinister, yet exravagant, physically (or mentally) deformed villains, and outlandish plots.
"The hunchback now turned on me with a snarling expression like a tiger's.
"Fool," he hissed, "you won't be warned," and, raising his arm, he made a sign with his hand.
Almost instantly the crowd appeared to rise up en masse and to roll right over us, but as I stumbled backward, headlong from my foothold, I was astonished to see a man, got up to resemble me exactly in every feature, scramble on to my place on the upturned case, and in a voice that seemed my very own, to cry out to the auctioneer: "That, sir, is the most I can do. I now retire." And as a cheer broke out from the crowd he too skipped down instantly out of sight.
"Ah, this is indeed treachery," I told myself. And, gripping my teeth hard, I let my fists go; next, with a mighty effort, I sprang forward to roll the surging human mob out of my path--to make my voice heard, to regain my old position, to take command of the situation again, for I heard the bids still mounting higher, higher, higher.
In vain.
Lord Fotheringay, who, I thought, loved me as a brother, was on me with a bound like a lion's, and catching me by the throat exerted all his force and hurled me backwards.
Next second I found myself caught up in other and even stronger arms, and, before I could utter aught save a muffled curse, I was flung head first into an empty piano case, the heavy lid of which was instantly closed on me--but not before I heard the hammer fall and the auctioneer call: "The deeds are Mr Peter Zouche's. The price is eighteen hundred pounds." I had been tricked![4]
Prior to the First World War, Germany had many agents at work in Great Britain.
One day, William Le Queux happened to be at Chatham, where he ran into Gustav Steinhauer, leader of Germany's espionage network in Britain. Years later, Steinhauer described the encounter.
"One day while down at Chatham having a look at things in general and, as I imagined, effectively disguised with a false beard, who should I run across but William Le Queux, who had more than a nodding acquaintance with most of the spies in Europe. He at once warned the police and I had Melville on my track forthwith."[5]
Steinhauer's exploits, it seems, were later borrowed by Ian Fleming for Auric Goldfinger and his plot to steal the gold from Fort Knox.[6]
Melville was Sir William Melville, also known as "M," the first chief of Britain's MI5. Fleming adopted the initial (and much of Melville's personality) for Bond's chief[7]
So, what we have is the prototype of a character in the James Bond books pursuing the prototype of another character (a grown man wearing a patently false beard no less), after being tipped off by the pioneering author of the genre.
John le Carre (following in the footsteps of Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene) would latter shatter this genre of spy story with books like the aformentioned Spy Who Came in from the Cold, as well as The Looking Glass War, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and A Perfect Spy, but can the popularity of James Bond be denied? He is likely what immediately, almost subconsciously, comes to mind when the subject of spies is mentioned. After all, there is some truth to this image, too.
[1]For example, Abner Bennigsen AKA Goglidze- the Soviet agent who infiltrated a relatively high-ranking position in the SS- only made direct contact with his operators four or five times during the Second World War, and the valuable Messerschmidt plans that he acquired were completely ignored by the Red Army. http://berkovich-zametki.com/2006/Zametki/Nomer7/Heyfec1.htm
[2]See the excellent summary by Walker Wright of the Peter Tazelaar affair.
[3]"OTS designed a new type of “secure room” that improved the confi dence of the CIA that their operational discussions were protected from KGB eavesdropping. The special room, including chairs and tables, was constructed entirely of clear plastic to expose any electronic listening devices, or “bugs.” In theory, it was comparable to the fictional “cone of silence” from the 1960s television show Get Smart." Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton, Henry R. Schlesinger, Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda (Penguin Group Inc.: New York, 2008), 494.
[4]William Le Queux, The Hunchback of Westminster (Methuen & Co.: London, 1904), 17-18. http://archive.org/details/hunchbackofwestm00lequ
[5]Gustav Steinhauer, Steinhauer: The Kaiser's Master Spy (Appleton: New York, 1931), 62. See also Stella Rimington's introduction to the 2007 edition of the Greene brothers' The Spy's Bedside Book. Both it and the book in general are a treasure trove of espionage stories, fictional and real. Selections from Le Queux feature prominently.
[6]Goldfinger, of course, has other, self-evident prototypes (such as the architect Erno Goldfinger), but historian Andrew Cook has made a good case for Steinhauer.
[7]Andrew Cook, M: MI5's First Spymaster (Tempus Publishing: Stroud, 2004). See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7163329.stm
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