Agent 007: as much Tudor England and the SAS as deskbound operatives

Yet another Bond film, and another leading man as Britain's ultimate spy. The producers of Casino Royale are clearly relying on the British public's apparently insatiable appetite for thrillers revolving around secret agents - reports The Guardian.

But how far does Daniel Craig's 007 reflect the world of real life spies? Bond's pursuit of an evil financier who is funding international terrorists seems all too current in the post-9/11 world of state paranoia and genuine risk, but the celluloid spy's seamless journey through a world of high-stakes gambling, Euro-trash hotels and daring swimwear is a long way from the realities of life in the security services.

Bond certainly spends little time behind a desk.
Officers in MI5, the domestic security service, were said to have revelled in the early episodes of the BBC television series Spooks, as well as the flood of applications it attracted. If so, they take a different view now. The reality may be more boring; it is also more difficult.

"I wish life were like Spooks, where everything is (a) knowable and (b) soluble by six people," Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, said on Thursday in her speech on the terrorist threat.

MI5 could suggest to job applicants that they go over the river to the exotic headquarters of the secret intelligence service, SIS, commonly known as MI6. This is closer to Bond territory.

Potential recruits are warned not to expect a life like Bond's. But, they add quickly, it is the nearest thing to it in real life.

"How realistic is the depiction of SIS in the James Bond films?" the agency asks in a titillating passage on its website. "James Bond, as Ian Fleming originally conceived him, was based on reality," it responds, and adds: "But any author needs to inject a level of glamour and excitement beyond reality in order to sell. By the time the film makers focused on Bond the gap between truth and fiction had already widened."

"Nevertheless," the agency continues, "staff who join SIS can look forward to a career that will have moments when the gap narrows just a little and the certainty of a stimulating and rewarding career which, like Bond's, will be in the service of their country."

One person who did was Richard Tomlinson, who was sacked and sentenced under the Official Secrets Act for spilling the beans about what SIS had been up to.

In his book The Big Breach, he describes how he smuggled Russian missile secrets out of Moscow, posed as a journalist and recruited agents in the Balkans - mainly to gather intelligence on the Serbs - and disrupted an alleged Iranian attempt to procure chemicals for weapons.

Tomlinson, who now works for a yacht chartering company in the south of France, yesterday brushed aside comparisons with Bond. "It is a wide gap," he told the Guardian, referring to the comments on the SIS website. "Occasionally," he added, "the gap narrows."

SIS officers rarely carry guns, let alone have a licence to kill, though under the 1994 Intelligence Act the foreign secretary can authorise them to conduct operations abroad which would be illegal in Britain.

"A lot of the time you spend at the desk," said Tomlinson. Advertising for administrators this year, SIS explained: "We rely on each one to be accurate and efficient, whether they are maintaining databases or handling filing."

But, true to form, it added: "You will understand that there's little more we can tell you at this stage."

Perhaps James Bond is really a combination of SIS and SAS - the style and hint of real danger which percolates through SIS's cloak of secrecy, and the menacing violence and weaponry associated with special forces soldiers. They would be the kind of individuals, Tomlinson suggested, who were dropped by parachute into hostile territory under cover of darkness.

Fleming, who had been in naval intelligence, wrote a letter to the Times in 1962 describing his hero as "a highly romanticised version of a true spy". He said "the real thing" was William Stephenson, a Canadian, codenamed Intrepid, who masterminded British intelligence operations in North America during the second world war.

It has also been said that Bond's number, 007, was inspired in part by a 16th century English secret agent who used the code for his messages to Queen Elizabeth I. The two zeros signified "for your eyes only".

One thing is quite clear, Tomlinson said yesterday. "SIS," he explained, "loves gadgets." For example, it used to hide transmitters in car ornaments in the form of Garfield the Cat.

How ironic, then, that in opening a new era for Bond, Daniel Craig's superspy seems to be cutting back on the gadgets.

Thanks to `Brokenclaw` for the alert.

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