Draft for 'Casino Royale' novel reveals Ian Fleming's original cover name for 007

"The name's Secretan... James Secretan."

That was the moniker author Ian Fleming had originally planned to give James Bond as a cover name whilst working in the field. The revelation came to the forefront recently when an extract from original draft of the first novel, 'Casino Royale', was released to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the literary series.

In a passage from the manuscript, a CIA agent introduces himself to the MI6 spy by announcing, "My name's Felix Leiter. Glad to meet you," to which Bond replies, "Mine's Secretan. James Secretan." "Secretan" was then crossed out by Fleming in blue ink to be replaced with the name "Bond".

Fleming's niece who owns the draft, Kate Grimond, shared her views on why her uncle changed his mind about the alias. "Ian must have realised it would cause confusion if he had Bond known as Bond to his friends and the security services in London, but as Secretan for his cover name to strangers or people he didn't want to know he was a spy."

MI6 Note: To clarify some of the media coverage which has become confused, Fleming never intended Bond's name to be Secretan, it was merely a cover name for him to use in the field during missions, which the author abandoned. 007 did go on to use many fake identities in the novels.

The draft also uncovers the original name for M's secretary as "Miss Pettavel" or "Petty" for short, but Grimond explains, "Ian again had second thoughts and changed it to Miss Moneypenny". Miss Pettavel is thought to hark back to Kathleen Pettigrew – personal assistant to MI6 director-general Stewart Menzies – on whom the character was based.

Thanks to `Samuel001` for the alert.

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