DC -- International Spy Museum -- 6. Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years Of Bond Villains:
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SPYBON_141026_002.JPG: Exquisitely Fifty Years of Bond Villains
EVIL
SPYBON_141026_027.JPG: Time To Die
Mr. Bond
SPYBON_141026_050.JPG: EXQUISITELY EVIL
Fifty Years of Bond Villains
For half a century British intelligence has sent its finest operative to face the most diabolical villains ever imagined. Why does one man succeed when all others fail? Because he's Bond -- James Bond, the most celebrated fictional secret agent in history.
In a world where few have lived the life of a spy, fiction helps fill the gaps in our understanding of real intelligence work. Through Bond we see espionage tradecraft both fantastic and authentic. While the villains he battles change with the times, he remains a constant, our suave and enduring hero. We identify with Bond because he allows us to safely explore real threats as well as uniminaginable new ones. And in the end we are reassured, certain that evil will be defeated in the nick of time by the man we know simply as 007.
SPYBON_141026_056.JPG: Dr. No
Julius
SPYBON_141026_060.JPG: The Times of London rejected Fleming's 1939 article about the Soviet military, but the British government recognized his aptitude and asked him to work in Naval Intelligence, where he used this passport on a 1941 mission.
SPYBON_141026_065.JPG: Ian Fleming (1908-1964)
James Bond's creator shared the tastes of his fictional secret agent -- fast cards, golf, gambling and beautiful women. Fascinated by international intrigue, in 1939 he was recruited as assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, who was involved with several operations during the war, including secret preparations for the D-Day landings and a response to a planned Nazi invasion of Spain that bore a name Bond fans can recognize: "Operation Golden Eye."
SPYBON_141026_068.JPG: Italy's Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini? Not quite. Arms dealer Brad Whitaker could only find an American uniform when he posed for this portrait, but his bald head, sash and arrogant pose suggest that he had Il Duce in mind.
Brad Whitaker portrait, The Living Daylights, 1987
SPYBON_141026_072.JPG: Bloody Evil
Just as 007 is no ordinary secret agent, the villains he faces are also extraordinary: wealthy, intelligent, charming on occasion,yet devious, depraved and deranged. Bond is always Bond, but his adversaries change, mounting schemes that mirror threats we see in the day's headlines. The villains both fascinate and repel us as they execute plots to enrich themselves, hold nations hostage -- or merely control the world.
SPYBON_141026_073.JPG: The dapper dinner jacket of Maximillian Largo and stylish golf shoes of Auric Goldfinger deflect attention from their owners' sinister scheming.
Largo dinner jacket, Never Say Never Again, 1983
SPYBON_141026_078.JPG: Assassin Francisco Scaramanga operates from the shadows with his unique single-shot golden gun.
Scaramanga's golden gun (replica), and golden gun bullet, The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974.
SPYBON_141026_082.JPG: EXQUISITELY EVIL
Fifty Years of Bond Villains
For half a century, British intelligence has sent its finest operative to face the most diabolical villains ever imagined. Why does this one man succeed when all others fail? Because he's Bond... James Bond, the most celebrated fictional secret agent in history.
In a world where few have lived the life of a spy, fiction helps fill the gaps in our understanding of real intelligence work. Through Bond we have seen espionage tradecraft both authentic and fantastic. In the ongoing fight between good and evil this agent has been our suave and enduring hero. The villains Bond battles change with the times, but he remains the constant. In Bond's violent world we can safely explore real threats -- as well the unimaginable. We identify with Bond, and in the end, are reassured, knowing that evil will be defeated in the nick of time by the man we know simply as 007.
SPYBON_141026_085.JPG: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Dr. No premiered less than two weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which the Caribbean island was armed with Soviet nuclear ballistic weapons capable of striking the US in minutes. Set nearby, the film was a chilling reminder of real-world events and a glimpse into the previously hidden realm of authentic espionage making headlines around the globe.
Innovative film production designer Sir Ken Adams's concept for Dr. No's living room includes an underwater window with 10" convex glass that magnifies the fish on the other side. Bond's impression? "Minnows pretending to be whales -- just like you on this island, Dr. No."
Concept art, Dr. No's living room
SPYBON_141026_091.JPG: Quiet: Writer at Work:
After the war, Fleming divided his time between working for Britain's Sunday Times and writing the Bond novels at his home in Jamaica. He described his hero as a "compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war." Making the character merely a "blunt instrument" of government, he gave him what he thought was the bland name of a real individual; American ornithologist James Bond.
SPYBON_141026_093.JPG: This "golden" typewriter belonged to Lady Dojean Smithers, wife of the dashing Sir Peter Smithers, who worked closely with Ian Fleming for British Naval Intelligence. Smithers' exploits, it is said, contributed to Fleming's vision of the Bond character. Fleming so admired his friends' golden typewriter that he purchased one for himself, and used it to write several novels.
SPYBON_141026_098.JPG: Fleming's one-of-a-kind walking stick sports a "golden eye" grip, a reference to the World War II intelligence operation he helped plan and to his house in Jamaica where he wrote the Bond novels.
Fleming's walking stick
SPYBON_141026_103.JPG: Telegram from Fleming requesting information on the Rosenbergs, 1953
SPYBON_141026_108.JPG: Fleming London Sunday Times editorial about Francis Gary Powers and the U-2 spy plane.
Journalist Fleming sometimes covered stories of real espionage, even as he created fictional tales like Casino Royale and the 11 other Bond novels he wrote before his death at age 56.
SPYBON_141026_110.JPG: Casino Royale first edition, 1953
SPYBON_141026_114.JPG: 001
BOND BEGINS
James Bond is the creation of former British Naval Intelligence officer Ian Fleming, who crafted novels around a hero combating the refinement of an English gentleman spy and the toughness of an American private eye. With plot details taken from his own experiences during World War II, Fleming's books inspired film adaptations. Beginning with the release in 1962 of Dr. No, a fast-growing global obsession was set in motion: Bondmania.
SPYBON_141026_119.JPG: Vladimir Lenin: The Face of Communism
For Ian Fleming and many of his generation, the Cold War began in October 1917 with the Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He is depicted in this aluminum portrait that was used to decorate a truck in a Lithuanian parade circa the 1970s. In all but one of the Bond novels published in the 1950s, the enemy is either Soviet or Soviet-sponsored, and a strong anti-Soviet position is a persistent feature. In From Russia with Love, published in 1957, Fleming describes the Soviets as "masochists" and "among the cruelest peoples in the world."
Low relief metal sculpture
SPYBON_141026_124.JPG: Bond films went global from the beginning, inspiring translations, imitations and parodies. Most early Bond films followed closely the novels that inspired them, but later movies often added Fleming titles and character names to modern stories and plot twists.
Foreign language editions of Bond books, Matzohball
SPYBON_141026_131.JPG: Bond imitators included Bulgarian Secret Service officer Avakoum Zahov, who faced off in 1967 against "Agent 07," defeating the "vulgar character and ruthless violence" of his Western-bloc nemesis with his own "superior mind."
Avakoum Zahov Versus 07
SPYBON_141026_133.JPG: A Hero for the World:
When a 1961 Life magazine article revealed that President John F. Kennedy's favorite reads included From Russia With Love, Bond novels grew more popular. After the film version debuted in 1963, 007 became a worldwide craze, and a new vocabulary was born -- "due Bondamanie" in Germany, "il Bondismo" in Italy, and, in the US, a commercial "Bondanza."
SPYBON_141026_137.JPG: The Veil Comes Off
Spying was still a secretive craft during the Cold War years of the 1950s, but the next decade saw the downing of an American U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and scandals within British intelligence. Clandestine operations were suddenly a topic of open discussion, and espionage found a place in mainstream popular culture.
SPYBON_141026_146.JPG: SPECTRE has a variety of headquarters in different Bond films. In Thunderball it is based in Paris behind the front of "The International Centre for Assistance to Displaced Persons" -- an ironic reference to the diverse collection of evildoers within the criminal network.
SPECTRE headquarters sign, Thunderball, 1965
SPYBON_141026_150.JPG: Villain:
Elliot Carver
SPYBON_141026_151.JPG: Carver's torpedo-like Sea Vac drill penetrates ship hulls and, ultimately, Carver himself. The full-size version is in the Spy Museum lobby.
Sea Vac miniature model, Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
SPYBON_141026_155.JPG: This banner headline appears in Carver's newspaper before the incident occurs, but he is never able to use the obituary that he pre-writes for Bond.
Carver newspapers, Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
SPYBON_141026_161.JPG: Villain:
Max Zorin
SPYBON_141026_171.JPG: 002
Cold War Power Plays
The Cold War was a struggle over which political system would dominate the world: Western democracy or Soviet communism. When international tensions eased briefly in the early 1960s, the Soviets and political organizations in the Fleming books were replaced with Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE, his worldwide criminal organization.
The seven SPECTRE films capitalized on Cold War fears of international espionage, economic sabotage, the space race, and nuclear proliferation and blackmail. SPECTRE is a lurking menage large enough to challenge the superpowers and take advantage of their unstable relations. However, East and West also often found themselves as SPECTRE's co-victims, forced to work together -- a trend eventually seen in the real world.
SPYBON_141026_174.JPG: Henchwomen
Rosa Klebb / Tatiana Romanova
Soviet Stereotypes?
Former Soviet Colonel Rosa Klebb was Head of Operations and Executions for SMERSH before becoming SPECTRE's No. 3. She tries to entrap Bond in From Russia with Love, recruiting clerk Tatiana Romanova to seduce 007 so assassin Red Grant can murder him. Klebb's name is a play on the words with khleb i razy ("bread and roses"), a popular Soviet women's rights slogan. The female characters represent two 1960s Soviet stereotypes: the humorless bureaucrat and the seductress. But the movie helps confirm the allure of capitalism, because both choose to defect: Klebb for a life of crime in the "private sector," and Romanova for love and the materialism of the West.
SPYBON_141026_179.JPG: Children's author and former British intelligence officer Roald Dahl wrote the screenplays for You Only Live Twice and Fleming's own young people's classic, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
SPYBON_141026_181.JPG: Bond narrowly escapes death after Blofeld engages this self-destruct lever in his secret volcano lair, but 007 eventually gets payback when he throws the wheelchair-bound SPECTRE chief down a smokestack, presumably to his death.
SPYBON_141026_185.JPG: Woman's SOE concealed-weapon shoes
SPYBON_141026_188.JPG: Villain Rosa Klebb's deadly knife-tipped shoes (image) may have been inspired by these real British Secret Operations Executive shoes (right), that have a fold-out knife in the lower heel and a stopping plate in the arch of the upper heel.
SPYBON_141026_195.JPG: Britain's real foreign intelligence service, MI6, is the country's first line of defense against foreign threats. On screen, these MI6 briefing materials are given to 00 agents as background on the theft of a bomber carrying two nuclear weapons, which Bond is trying to locate when he is ambushed by SPECTRE NO. 2 Emilio Largo and his team of spear-wielding frogmen.
Top secret file labeled "004", Thunderball, 1965
SPYBON_141026_199.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Buster's Last Dive
SPYBON_141026_201.JPG: Bond escapes an ambush beneath Largo's yacht in Thunderball, a scene inspired by the tragic 1956 mission of British foreign intelligence agency MI6's diver Lionel "Buster" Crabb, who disappeared while examining the newly designed propeller of a Soviet warship docked in a British port. Months later his wetsuit-clad headless body was found floating in a nearby harbor.
SPYBON_141026_204.JPG: Largo's lethal frogmen in Thunderball bear a striking resemblance to real Soviet Naval Special Forces, among the most secretive components of Soviet intelligence in the Cold War.
SPYBON_141026_207.JPG: Note from the Real World:
Was SPECTRE Real?
SPYBON_141026_210.JPG: No. The "Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion" was a fictional organization. It was broadly designed to replace SMERSH (Mert Shpionam, or "Death of Spies"), a real and ruthless Soviet counterintelligence agency Fleming had known from his wartime duty in British Naval intelligence and had used in his novels until 1961.
SPYBON_141026_215.JPG: Used by an officer of SMERSH, the ruthless World War II-era Soviet counterintelligence service which figured in the early Bond novels.
SPYBON_141026_216.JPG: Bond discovers Blofeld's plot to use smuggled diamonds in a satellite weapon being developed with laser expert Dr. Metz. Hot on the trail, 007 narrowly escapes cremation when he tangles with SPECTRE assassins at the funeral home of the aptly named Morton Slumber.
Metz ID, Diamonds are Forever, 1971
SPYBON_141026_222.JPG: Slumber diploma, Diamonds Are Forever, 1971
SPYBON_141026_224.JPG: Former MI5 head Sir Percy Sillitoe took charge of the International Diamond Security Organization in the 1950s. He gave Fleming information about the smuggling trade, which became a key plot element in the author's 1956 novel Diamonds Are Forever and inspired his non-fiction The Diamond Smugglers the following year.
SPYBON_141026_227.JPG: The Diamond Smugglers, 1957, by Ian Fleming
SPYBON_141026_230.JPG: Hitler relied on Otto Skorzeny, the 6'4" Goliath with the hard-won dueling scar, as his personal bodyguard and occasional assassin. In 1943, he was successful in engineering a dramatic rescue mission of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. After escaping from an Allied prison in 1948, he managed to run a spy network in Spain, advise Egyptian President Nasser, and develop a close relationship with Juan and Evita Peron, even acting as her bodyguard.
Wanted posted (replica)
SPYBON_141026_241.JPG: Who is the real Scarface?
Blofeld (right) in You Only Live Twice has a vivid cheek scar, as does SPECTRE's training chief in From Russian with Love, Morzeny (left). Morzeny's name evokes that of Otto Skorzeny (center), a Nazi commando well known to Ian Fleming. Skorzeny was famous for his own dueling scar, once a mark of courage among German officers. As an officer during World War II, Fleming patterned a British commando unit on Skorzeny's own, and Hugo Draz, the villain in the novel Thunderball, was a fictional former member of Skorzeny's unit.
SPYBON_141026_247.JPG: Villain
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
SPYBON_141026_248.JPG: Finally killing Blofeld in For Your Eyes Only, Bond completes his most personal mission: avenging his wife's murder.
Teresa Bond's headstone, For Your Eyes Only, 1981
SPYBON_141026_258.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Is Blofeld's Underground Base Feasible?
SPYBON_141026_260.JPG: Yes. Part of Cold War Yugoslavia's air force was hidden beneath mountains for years, and Sweden today maintains an underground naval base. The purpose of Russia's Yamantau Mountain complex is still a mystery, however, despite the best efforts of the US Defense Intelligence Agency's Underground Facilities Analysis Center.
SPYBON_141026_264.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Did the KGB and MI6 often cooperate as they did in The Spy Who Loved Me?
SPYBON_141026_266.JPG: Not for most of the 20th century. Relations between the KGB and MI6 were almost nonexistent after Britain attempted to undermine the young Bolshevik state and the Cambridge Five spy ring was exposed in the 1950s. In fact, they worked hard to undermine each other's countries. Today, however, Western intelligence agencies including MI6 cooperate with the successors to the KGB on such global threats of terrorism.
SPYBON_141026_271.JPG: High-explosive detonator, The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977
SPYBON_141026_274.JPG: Bond disarms a nuclear missile and converts this detonator into a time bomb to break into Liparus' control room.
SPYBON_141026_277.JPG: 003
Earth Redesigned
Bond villains of the late 1970s plotted global genocide, reflecting real fears that nuclear weapons would wipe out life in earth. In The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Karl Stromberg aims to undermine MAD -- Mutually Assured Destruction -- a strategy where neither side can expect to survive massive nuclear strikes. His plan: trick the superpowers into all-out war. In Moonraker (1979), Hugo Drax hopes to use chemical weapons to depopulate the Earth. Each wants to create civilization anew: Stromberg in an undersea world and Drax breeding his race of perfect humans in space.
SPYBON_141026_279.JPG: Octopus, Octopussy, 1983
SPYBON_141026_283.JPG: The blue-ringed octopus that kills one of Kamal Khan's assassins is a species that can kill a human if provoked, using the same venom as a deadly pufferfish. There is no known antidote.
SPYBON_141026_287.JPG: Franz Sanchez taunts Bond with this note pinned to the clothing of the CIA's Felix Leiter, who lost his legs to the villain's sharks.
Bloody note left on Felix Leiter, License to Kill, 1989
SPYBON_141026_295.JPG: Animal Assassins
Bond villains sometimes rely on non-human killers for "wet work" -- the murder of those who stand between them and the realization of their mad dreams. The list includes spiders, alligators, piranhas, octopuses, scorpions and sharks -- lots of sharks. A similar idea was pursued in World War II, when the Red Army trained dogs to carry explosives under Nazi tanks.
SPYBON_141026_299.JPG: Bond sweats bullets when he feels the furry footsteps of this tarantula. In reality, an adult won't due from a tarantula bite unless already allergic to its venom. This brain control device directs a shark to pursue a Bond-flavored meal -- more than twenty years before scientists could actually control a shark in a laboratory.
SPYBON_141026_301.JPG: Tarantula, Dr. No, 1962
SPYBON_141026_306.JPG: Shark brain control device, Never Say Never Again, 1983
SPYBON_141026_310.JPG: Drax builds space shuttles for NASA and a few for himself, the latter to transport his chosen individuals to the space station on which he will breed a new humanity.
Space shuttle model, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_314.JPG: Draz plans to drop containers of nerve gas like this one to eliminate humanity from the globe.
Nerve gas sphere, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_317.JPG: Assuming correctly that opposition to his scheme might arise, Drax will defend the space station with this powerful laser weapon.
Space station weapon, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_322.JPG: When US Marine Corps astronauts assault the space station, Drax followers battle them with these laser rifles.
Space gun, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_326.JPG: Drax followers employ these laser guns against threats to the space station.
Henchmen laser guns, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_330.JPG: Villain:
Hugo Drax
SPYBON_141026_332.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Could Stromberg have detonated his stolen American nuke?
SPYBON_141026_334.JPG: No. American nuclear weapons are protected by highly classified systems called Permissive Action Links (PALs), which are designed to prevent unauthorized detonation. But of the nine countries believed to possess such weapons, not all secure them with PALs -- meaning a villain might be able to trigger a stolen bomb if he could obtain one.
SPYBON_141026_340.JPG: Henchman:
Jaws
SPYBON_141026_342.JPG: Jaws' infamous teeth, which he uses to both bite through steel cable and flash a smile at the love of his life, Dolly. He ultimately chooses bliss over mayhem.
SPYBON_141026_350.JPG: Actor Richard Kiel passed away on September 10th, 2014. We are honored to have worked with him on this exhibit. Known for portraying Jaws, and other screen villains, Mr. Kiel himself personified warmth and generosity and will be remembered fondly.
SPYBON_141026_353.JPG: "His name is Jaws. He kills people."
-- James Bond, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_355.JPG: Jaws wields this machine gun as he chases Bond in this powerboat, but ends up following an abandoned Bond boat over the giant Iguacu Falls.
Jaws' boat model and machine gun, Moonraker, 1979
SPYBON_141026_360.JPG: 004
Murderous Monopolists of the Information Age
Digital data became the new weapon for Bond villains intent on vast profits and global domination. Max Zorin of 1985's A View to a Kill and Elliot Carver of 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies both scheme to corrupt the delivery of information. Zorin wants to eliminate all competition in the manufacture of silicon chips. Carver's media group plans to gain exclusive broadcast rights in the growing Chinese market through extortion. Monopolize the technology, win fabulous wealth; control the news, control the world.
SPYBON_141026_367.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Could earthquakes be used as weapons as Zorin attempts in a View to A Kill?
SPYBON_141026_369.JPG: No. For many years, rumors spread that a Soviet-Russian "tectonic weapon" somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains could trigger earthquakes by detonating [a] nuclear device, but the notion proved to be mere hearsay.
SPYBON_141026_371.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Who had facial-recognition technology first: CIA, MI6 or Bond?
SPYBON_141026_374.JPG: Bond. After seeing Max Zorin use facial-recognition technology to identify 007 in A View to a Kill, CIA Director William Casey wanted his agency to acquire the same capability. But only in recent years has it become widely available to the intelligence community, the military and law enforcement.
SPYBON_141026_377.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
Does a stealth ship like Elliot Carver's really exist?
SPYBON_141026_380.JPG: At left is Carver's ship; on the right is a rejected concept for its design. At bottom is Sea Shadow, a real US Navy experimental craft intended to be nearly invisible to radar. Now decommissioned, neither the Sea Shadow nor any other vessel can be made completely undetectable.
SPYBON_141026_387.JPG: Your Bond Moment
Hang Time
Bond often finds himself in a dangerous situation hanging from a bridge, a helicopter runner, a building ledge and even an elevator shaft.
He makes it look easy and always manages to save himself.
Can you?
SPYBON_141026_403.JPG: 005
Drugs and Thugs:
Bond battles another form of evil when he tackles the global illegal narcotics trade. In 1973's Live and Let Die, Mr. Big deals heroin, while in 1987's The Living Daylights, renegade KGB General Georgi Koskov moves opium out of Afghanistan. Two years later, in Licence to Kill, Bond confronts the sadistic Franz Sanchez's cocaine distribution network. In taking the view that the drug trade was a national security threat, Bond films were ahead of the real MI6 and CIA. Not until 1989 -- with the end of the Cold War in sight -- were resources freed up for the CIA to establish the inter-agency Counternarcotics Center.
SPYBON_141026_407.JPG: Villain
Mr. Big / Dr. Kananga
SPYBON_141026_408.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Mr. Big meet Mr. Lucas
SPYBON_141026_411.JPG: The drug kingpin Mr. Big in Live and Let Die resembled the flamboyant Frank Lucas, who trafficked heroin in New York in the early 1970s. Working with a henchman nicknamed "Sergeant Smack," Lucas claimed to have smuggled Southeast Asian drugs into the US in empty military coffins during the Vietnam War.
SPYBON_141026_420.JPG: Trapped in Koskov's plane, Bond drops this bomb on Soviet Forces to help Afghan fighters win a battle.
Bomb and sack timing device on grenade belt, The Living Daylights, 1987
SPYBON_141026_427.JPG: Koskov embezzles rubles from the Soviets to buy diamonds, which he smuggles into Afghanistan in this transplant kit.
Organ transplant kit, The Living Daylights, 1987
SPYBON_141026_429.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
The Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend
SPYBON_141026_432.JPG: Bond's good relations with Afghan fighters in The Living Daylights reflect the reality of the time. CIA, MI6, and several other intelligence services supplied arms -- including shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles -- to mujahideen fighting to expel the Soviets, who had invaded in 1979. During the war, the CIA and MI6 gave little attention to the drug trade, focusing on bringing down the USSR. A decade later, thanks in part to the weaponry they received, the Afghans forced the Soviet Army to withdraw from the country.
SPYBON_141026_436.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
How much for that Stinger?
SPYBON_141026_438.JPG: In License to Kill, CIA's Pam Bouvier tries to buy shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles from Sanchez' security chief and return them to American control. In reality, the CIA ran a multiyear operation to buy back unused Stingers from Afghan fighters after their war against the Soviet invaders to keep such weapons out of the hands of villains like Sanchez.
SPYBON_141026_442.JPG: Villains
Brad Whitaker / Gen. Koskov
SPYBON_141026_445.JPG: Bond pursues the tankers filled with Sanchez' cocaine, but the drug lord's henchmen fire Stinger missiles at 007.
Stinger missiles and launcher, License to Kill, 1989
SPYBON_141026_449.JPG: Sanchez brutally beats his long-suffering girlfriend with this custom-made stingray-rail whip and tries to fillet bond with this machine.
Sanchez whip and Machine, License to Kill, 1989
SPYBON_141026_451.JPG: Bond knocks out Sanchez' pilot with a cube of cash, then flies off with the drug lord's millions.
Blue cubes of money, License to Kill, 1989
SPYBON_141026_454.JPG: Notes from the Real World:
Who inspired the character Sanchez in Licence to Kill?
SPYBON_141026_456.JPG: Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. He was as powerful and brutal as his fictional counterpart, but the real drug lord was even more eccentric: while Sanchez merely kept a pet lizard, Escobar raised hippos. Both men met violent ends -- Escobar shot by police (with behind-the-scenes assistance from US intelligence and military agencies), Sanchez incinerated by Bond.
SPYBON_141026_460.JPG: Bond and CIA agent Felix Leiter detour on their way to Leiter's wedding to capture Sanchez. The drug kingpin escapes, but as revenge he orders his demented henchman Dario to rape and kill Leiter's bride, leaving behind this blood-stained evidence.
Felix Leiter's wife's bloody bodice and wedding skirt, License to Kill, 1989
SPYBON_141026_465.JPG: Kidnapped as a young woman by the terrorist Renard, heiress Elektra King eventually becomes his lover and a partner in his plots -- a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome, the phenomenon that causes hostages to bond with their captors and sometimes even attack their own rescuers. One of the few women able to resist the Bond charm, she tortures him before he turns the tables.
Electra King's death costume, The World Is Not Enough, 1999
SPYBON_141026_469.JPG: Emotionally damaged, Severine owes her life to the villainous Silva, who saved her from ruin when she was a teen. She wears this dress as she leads Bond to Silva's lair.
Severine's costume, Skyfall, 2012.
SPYBON_141026_487.JPG: Renegade MI6 agent Miranda Frost transfers her loyalties to villain and fellow fencing enthusiast Gustav Graves. Wearing this outfit, Frost is iced in a fight in a plane over North Korea.
Miranda Frost death costume, sword, and ID card, Die Another Day, 2002
SPYBON_141026_489.JPG: The National Security Agency's Jinx Johnson uses this knife and book to ventilate Miranda Frost in their final showdown.
Knife in The Art of War, Die Another Day, 2002
SPYBON_141026_493.JPG: Baron Samedi uses the secret radio in this flute to report Bond's location on San Monique to Kananga. In Haiti -- the model for the fictional island -- Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the country's despised brutal dictator from 1957 to 1971, deliberately mimicked the look and behavior of the voodoo spirit Samedi to further intimidate his people.
Baron Samedi's radio-mic flute, Live and Let Live, 1973
SPYBON_141026_500.JPG: Kananga plans to feed Bond and Solitaire to his sharks, but 007 jams this compressed air bullet down the dictator's throat and watches as he inflates and bursts.
Compressed air bullet, Live and Let Die, 1973
SPYBON_141026_503.JPG: Investigating the death of an MI6 agent, Bond narrowly escapes Kananga's efforts to have him killed with a dart like this one, fired from a car-mounted launcher.
Wing mirror dart, Live and Let Live, 1973
SPYBON_141026_508.JPG: Dr. Kananga relies on the predictions that Solitaire reads in these cards, but her psychic gift evaporates after she loses her virginity to Bond.
Tarot cards, Live and Let Live, 1973
SPYBON_141026_525.JPG: Magda and her boss Kamal Khan must outbid Bond to make this ornament -- billed as "The Property of a Lady" at a Sotheby's auction -- part of the hoard smuggled by Khan and his beautiful partner, Octopussy. When Khan betrays Octopussy, she helps 007 steer the Afghan prince to his doom.
Fake Faberge egg, Octopussy, 1983
SPYBON_141026_532.JPG: Villainous Women:
Some of the beautiful spies and elegant assassins whom 007 encounters operate as
"swallows" -- the real term for women who catch their spy prey in "honey-traps." Many of Bond's villainous women exhibit qualities of strength, self-reliance, and heroism that in different settings might make them feminist role models. All are proficient at their trades -- yet few can resist the charms of the most seductive agent MI6 ever fielded.
SPYBON_141026_535.JPG: Bambi and Thumper, Diamonds Are Forever, 1971
Blofeld henchwomen Bambi and Thumper guard kidnapped defense contractor Willard Whyte (who was based on billionaire Howard Hughes).
SPYBON_141026_536.JPG: Irma Bunt, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 1969
The only woman to best Bond, Irma Bunt kills 007's bride in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
SPYBON_141026_539.JPG: Rosie Carver, Live and Let Die, 1973
Rosie Carver is an eager CIA officer who helps Bonds. Or so it seems. In fact, her loyalties are with Dr. Kananga.
SPYBON_141026_541.JPG: Pussy Galore, Goldfinger, 1964
Pilot Pussy Galore is a key member of Goldfinger's assault team at Fort Knox.
SPYBON_141026_543.JPG: Helga Brandt, You Only Live Twice, 1967
Number 11 in SPECTRE, Brandt is under orders to kill Bond. She sleeps with him but then leaves him trapped inside a plummeting plane while she parachutes to safety.
SPYBON_141026_546.JPG: Octopussy, Octopussy, 1983
An international jewel smuggler in league with Kamal Khan, Octopussy joins forces with Bond when Khan double-crosses her.
SPYBON_141026_552.JPG: May Day, A View To A Kill, 1985
May Day switches allegiance from Zorin to Bond when she learns that her beloved boss has betrayed her.
SPYBON_141026_555.JPG: 006
Cold War Castoffs
With the 1991 disintegration of the USSR, event M thinks 007 is "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur -- a relic of the Cold War." But chaos across the former Soviet empire, "loose nukes," and terrorists like Osama bin Laden and al Queda kept real intelligence services busy. Bond himself faces three villains capitalizing on Cold War collapse. MI6 traitor Alec Trevelyan becomes a Russian crime boss in GoldenEye (1995), an ex-KGB assassin Renard commits nuclear terrorism for love in The World Is Not Enough (1999), and North Korean Colonel Tan-Sun Moon of Die Another Day (2002) reinvents himself as blood-diamond dealer Gustav Graves.
SPYBON_141026_560.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
Moscow Mafia
SPYBON_141026_562.JPG: MI6 and CIA gather information on Russian organized crime because of its global reach in a variety of activities. GoldenEye accurately portrays the chaos of the country in the 1990s, when in reality Russian criminals' most important facilitators were KGB veterans and active-duty officers. One possible renegade -- an ex-KGB bodyguard -- is suspected in the 2006 death of Alexander Litvinenko, who was working with MI6 when poisoned in London with radioactive polonium.
SPYBON_141026_566.JPG: Sir Robert King's company acquires these secret Russian documents while investigating terrorist attacks on his oil pipeline. Renard bombs a Russian missile base and steals a plutonium fuel rod to trigger a meltdown in a Russian sub. This dirty bomb almost destroys Elektra King's pipeline in Azerbaijan, while her henchman Bullion delivers a bomb-in-a-briefcase to the Russian security service.
Plutonium rod, The World Is Not Enough, 1999
SPYBON_141026_569.JPG: Renard's C4 mine bomb, The World Is Not Enough, 1999
SPYBON_141026_577.JPG: Pipeline bomb, The World Is Not Enough, 1999
SPYBON_141026_579.JPG: Bullion's briefcase, The World Is Not Enough, 1999
SPYBON_141026_581.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
Web spiders
SPYBON_141026_584.JPG: In GoldenEye, young Boris is a master hacker who can use his 14.4-kilobyte modem to break into any computer on behalf of the Russian military or Russian organized crime. His technology may look outdated today, but the concept is all too real. Russian hackers, both government and private, are among the biggest menaces on the internet. In 2007, Russian cyber attacks brought the small nation of Estonia nearly to its knees.
SPYBON_141026_588.JPG: Bond and Trevelyan infiltrate a Soviet chemical weapons facility containing barrels (far right) that hold toxic substances. Their MI6 raid prompts the Soviets to scramble MiG fighters like this one. In order to get rid of the stolen Tiger helicopter -- as well as Bond and Natalya -- Travelyan straps them into the helicopter and activates heat-seeking missiles that will return to destroy them.
Russian MiG fighter model, GoldenEye, 1995
SPYBON_141026_593.JPG: The key element in Trevelyan's plot is the Russian weapons system satellite controlled by the GoldenEye device -- but the satellite is ultimately destroyed.
Remains of the satellite, GoldenEye, 1995
SPYBON_141026_596.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
Betrayal of the Cossacks
SPYBON_141026_598.JPG: Trevelyan's intense hatred of Britain is based on a real incident. At the end of World War II, many Russian Cossack soldiers who had joined the Nazis to defeat the communist Cossack soldiers regime in their homeland surrendered to the British in hopes of receiving asylum. Thousands were forcibly sent back to the USSR, along with many of their wives and children. The Soviets shipped most to Siberia, and few survived. As Bond notes: "Not exactly our finest hour."
SPYBON_141026_608.JPG: Villain:
Alex Travelyan
SPYBON_141026_612.JPG: These authentic historic busts represent the leaders of communism, and they came from sites throughout the former Soviet Union. Left to right: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, Friedrich Engels, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and Karl Marx.
Soviet statuary
SPYBON_141026_623.JPG: Flamboyant, fearless and fabulously wealthy, Graves is a perfect cover subject for High Life magazine. Graves occasionally chills out in his ice hotel in, appropriately, Iceland.
Gustav Graves' magazine, ice phone, ice table and candelabras, Die Another Day, 2002
SPYBON_141026_629.JPG: Bond rips this necklace from Zao's neck, revealing African blood diamonds bearing the mark of billionaire Gustav Graves.
Bullet necklace holding diamonds, Die Another Day, 2002
SPYBON_141026_630.JPG: Notes From The Real World:
Death Rays!
SPYBON_141026_632.JPG: Blofeld, Trevelyan and Graves all employ energy weapons mounted on satellites to threaten the world. No such satellite weapons have ever existed. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced a program to put lasers in space -- not to attack ground targets, but to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. Ultimately, the system proved too difficult to build.
SPYBON_141026_638.JPG: Collateral damage from the fencing match between Bond and Graves that ends with a civilized but thoroughly insincere handshake.
Fencing epees, slashed Blue Boy painting, Die Another Day, 2002
SPYBON_141026_642.JPG: Unable to sleep as a side effect of his gene replacement therapy, Graves employ this "dream mask" to rejuvenate.
Gustav Graves' dream mask, Die Another Day, 2002
SPYBON_141026_654.JPG: Cast Into Prison
Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, two US intelligence officials who spied for Moscow during the 1980s and 1990s are real Cold War castoffs. Today, they languish in prison, never to be exchanged -- unlike Bond in Die Another Day. Ames, a CIA officer, betrayed numerous Soviets who were spying for the United States and was arrested in 1994. Hanssen, an FBI officer, compromised sensitive technical operations and was arrested in 2001 after a former KGB officer sold the KGB's file on him -- complete with fingerprints and a voice recording -- to FBI investigators.
SPYBON_141026_658.JPG: Evil businessman Hai Fat, partner to villain Scaramanga, runs a martial arts school where his students fight to the death with these swords.
Ceremonial swords, The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974
SPYBON_141026_670.JPG: Bond battles a terrorist bomber for this backpack, in which he finds the cellphone that leads him to Le Chiffre and his associate Alex Dimitrios.
Bomber's backpack, Casino Royale, 2006
SPYBON_141026_674.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
Making a Market in Death
SPYBON_141026_676.JPG: Le Chiffre tries to enrich Quantum by short-selling an airline stock and then launching a terrorist attack to ensure he profits as the share price drops. Many speculated that Al Qaeda had been equally cunning with stocks of US carriers before September 11, but extensive investigation by multiple government agencies and the 9/11 Commission proved no such scheme was attempted.
SPYBON_141026_681.JPG: Dominic Greene bribes would-be dictator General Medrano with these euros in a Bolvian hotel, but the resort's fuel cells explode, allowing Bond to capture Greene and Camille Montes to kill the general.
Quantum of Silence, 2008
SPYBON_141026_684.JPG: 007
New World Disorder
Villainy in the most recent Bond films reflects a modern fascination with wealth tied to hidden forces at work in the world. Le Chiffre in Casino Royale (2006) and Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace (2008) embody both obsessions, pursuing fortunes through Quantum, a shadowy network connected to the highest levels of international power.
In its clandestine ways and international reach, Quantum is similar to SPECTRE. However, today's terrorists -- including Quantum -- operate in small groups, only loosely connected to each other. They are both our neighbors and outsiders, operating at home and abroad. Unlike Bond villains of old, the masterminds of Quantum try to keep their ambitions high but their profile low. Similarly, consider Osama bin Laden. Why did it take real intelligence agencies so long to get him? In the words of former CIA Director Michael Hayden, "Because he [was] hiding." Quantum works from the same script.
SPYBON_141026_690.JPG: Dominic Greene uses the corpse of this murdered geologist to intimidate his girlfriend, Camille Montes, from revealing his true intentions in Bolivia.
Quantum of Silence, 2008
SPYBON_141026_693.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
MI6 and CIA: Who leads?
SPYBON_141026_695.JPG: Secret Intelligence Service MI6
In the Bond films, Felix Leiter is the face of the CIA. He is represented as reasonably skilled, but his friend James Bond from MI6 is clearly a superior agent and always takes the lead. In reality, MI6 and CIA are equally capable and they work closely to carry out espionage and covert actions abroad. However, the CIA is larger and better funded. The US-UK special relationship in intelligence dates back to World War II. Although it was strained in mid-century when Soviet moles were discovered within MI6, it remains strong today.
SPYBON_141026_697.JPG: Notes From the Real World:
Cleaning Cash
SPYBON_141026_700.JPG: Terrorist funding is moved secretly by enablers like Le Chiffre, who launder money through multiple legitimate vehicles to make its origins untraceable by law enforcement. Since 9/11, intelligence agencies around the world -- including the FBI, CIA and the Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis -- have found one of the most effective means of disrupting terrorist organizations is to track and choke off their supply of financing.
SPYBON_141026_703.JPG: Quantum members hold a secret meeting during an opera using these earpieces to communicate. Bond steals one, joins the meeting, then captures the criminals on film as they depart.
Earpiece in a box, Quantum of Solace, 2008
SPYBON_141026_707.JPG: Torture
Torture is a subject of intense debate, with some interrogation professionals saying it produces unreliable information and others arguing its usefulness as a means of breaking prisoners' will. Bond villains from Goldfinger to Le Chiffre raise no such questions, inflicting pain with everything from high-tech lasers to a simple knotted rope.
SPYBON_141026_708.JPG: Exotic weaponry is not just used for torture. Over the years, numerous villains have attacked Bond with an amazing array of devices. When this one is thrust into his chest, he survives thanks to a wad of cash in his breast pocket.
Assassin's weapon, Octopussy, 1983
SPYBON_141026_713.JPG: Ken Adam's concept art for the laser room in which Goldfinger threatens 007.
Sir Ken Adam's concept art of laser room, Goldfinger, 1964
SPYBON_141026_718.JPG: These antique pain-inducing devices belong to Elliot Carver's henchman Mr. Stamper, an expert in the fictional fine art of "chakra torture."
Box of torture devices, Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997
SPYBON_141026_726.JPG: Le Chiffre relies on a simple but effective real-world torture technique; forcing 007 to listen to the screams of a loved one being physically abused. When that fails he applies this rope vigorously to the captive Bond.
Le Chiffre's rope, Casino Royale, 2006
Le Chiffre henchman Kratt uses this knife to remove Bond's subdermal tracking device before his boss subjects 007 to a brutal round of torture.
Kratt's knife, Casino Royale, 2006
SPYBON_141026_731.JPG: 008
The Next Threat
Early Bond villains reflected our fears of communist subversion and nuclear war. Today -- as Skyfall's Raoul Silva ably demonstrates -- cyberspace is the battleground for spies, terrorists and even nation states. The target: computer networks that can be hijacked to bring a country to its knees without a shot being fired.
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2014 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Trips this year:
three Civil War Trust conferences (Winchester, VA, Nashville, TN, and Atlanta, GA),
Michigan to visit mom in the hospice before she died and then a return trip after she died, and
my 9th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, Oakland, and Los Angeles).
Ego strokes: Paul Dickson used one of my photos as the author photo in his book "Aphorisms: Words Wrought by Writers".
Number of photos taken this year: just over 470,000.
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