Somerset Maugham's Ashenden has R;
Ian Fleming's James Bond has M;
the real director of the British Secret Intelligence Service is C;
one director of SIS in John Le Carre's novels was known as "Control";
in later series, the TV Avengers acquired "Mother";
Matt Helm's boss is "Mac";
I think that there is another fictional secret service boss out there called "the Man";
Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry has Fenross.
Fenross appears only twice and Anderson devises an appropriately conflictive relationship for him and Flandry. The young Flandry was mentored by Max Abrams, then later sent on a delicate mission by Vice Admiral Kheraskov. Much later, the older Flandry answers directly to Emperor Hans.
Anderson avoided writing a repetitive, linear series.
(Both "C" and "M" derive from Sir Mansfield Cumming, the first director of SIS/MI6. Maugham met an intelligence officer called "R." Andy Diggle created an American "Max." I googled the Charles Vine films here to check whether Vine's boss was the Man but he was Rockwell. "The Man" is the boss of Amos Burke, Secret Agent. See here.)
14 comments:
Paul:
Elleston Trevor's *Quiller* novels, written under the name "Adam Hall," had the title agent (of what's known only as "the Bureau") paired up in each story with a field director.
To quote from another site, the field director "organises safehouses, communication, transport, identity papers, liaison with government officials — in short, anything the agent needs for the mission; especially since Bureau agents are never told what the mission is about, the idea being that the agent should not get distracted by any larger political implications.
"Agents have a right to refuse to work with a particular director, given that trust between the two is so important. Quiller's preferred director is Ferris, even though he's slightly creepy (he's rumored to strangle mice).
"A brief passage in one book sizes up two other directors, Loman ('brilliant but desperate for personal kudos, talk you into a suicide bid if it'll get him a medal, it wasn't his fault I'd come out of Tunis alive') and Thornton ('totally dependable, pull you out of the gates of hell if he can get there in time, but short on Rusk-think patterns and mission sense....')."
All these names, including Quiller, are indicated to not be their birth names, but more-or-less-permanently-assigned aliases.
Michael Gilbert wrote a series of short stories about two agents, Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. One of the stories specifies that they work in "a bunch of middle-aged cutthroats known as the 'E' (or External) Branch of the Joint Services Standing Intelligence Committee.... 'If there's a job which is so disreputable that none of the departments will handle it, we give it to the "E" Branch.'" Their superior was Mr. Fortescue, described by the Prime Minister in that same story as looking kind but firm, "as if preparing to refuse him an overdraft."
N.B. that these "disreputable" jobs are ones that SIS, MI5, and Special Branch want no part of.
Kaor, DAVID!
Very nice, these notes of yours! Now I'm wondering, have you heard of or read any of William F. Buckley's Blackford Oakes stories? I thought them very realistic, hard headed spy novels and SAVING THE QUEEN and STAINED GLASS I would highly recommend to first comers to the series.
In some ways, I thought Blackford Oakes to remind me of Dominic Flandry, very able, charming, something of a ladies man, but also a gentleman in his own way. Blackie was recruited into the CIA in 1951 and apparently died in his early sixties around 1989. And, unlike the Bond stories, we see Oakes aging and changing as time passes.
When it comes to spy stories I like the Dominic Flandry and Blackford Oakes series best. Which reminds I really should reread Kipling's KIM soon, which I think can be considered the father of the modern spy fiction genre.
One last comment, Buckley wrote an amusing account of his somewhat apprehensive interview with British journalists about SAVING THE QUEEN, because he had Blackie having a brief fling with a fictional British queen (NOT Elizabeth II!) in that book.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I've been wondering, am I right thinking writers of contemporary spy novels tend to think there is no real difference between the agencies and countries they have their spies serving? That both sides are corrupt and the UK/US not all that better or more worthy than the USSR? That's the impression I got from what some readers or critics said about, say, John Le Carre's books.
Heaven knows I agree all nations are flawed, including the US and UK! But I don't agree they are all morally the same. The UK/US, for all their faults, were and are better than the grimly totalitarian USSR (or its thuggish, kleptocratic successor). The Terran Empire Flandry served was better than the aggressively racist Merseian Roidhunate. And both Blackford Oakes and Dominic Flandry held to some loyalties and ideals. The work they did as spies was not an end in itself but the means to an end, helping to preserve the US and the Empire.
Sean
Sean,
Writers differ. Frederik Forsyth and Tom Clancy definitely think, "the West good; its enemies bad," whereas Le Carre clearly thinks that the methods used by Western intelligence services can be as disreputable as those of their antagonists. What he thinks of the merits of Western society as a whole I am less sure.
Paul.
Sean:
I liked *Saving the Queen*, but not quite enough to seek out the other Blackford Oakes books.
Kaor, DAVID!
Darn! I'm a bit sorry about that--because many readers think STAINED GLASS was Buckley's best Blackie Oates book.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
As regards Forsyth and Clancy (many of whose books I've read), I agree. Altho, my caution as a conservative would have led me to say the West is BETTER rather than good in the sense of "all good."
Not having read any of John Le Carre's spy novels, I don't know what "methods" used by Western intelligence can be as disreputable as those used by the KGB. Isn't it at least somewhat mitigating for me to point out the UK and US were DEFENDING themselves from Soviet aggression?
Sean
Sean,
I am not concerned to defend either side in the Cold War. In any such conflict, each side demonizes the other and whitewashes itself. I am certain that the Russian bureaucrats felt threatened by the US and am also glad that that Russian bureaucracy eventually collapsed.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still have to disagree. The Gulags, the Ukrainian terror famine, Cambodian killing fields, and all the other horrors perpetrated by Communist states forever and totally discredits the USSR and all other Marxist regimes. For all their faults the UK/US/West never perpetrated such atrocities on such a colossal scala over such a long period of time. So, yes, I deny any REAL equivalency between the US and USSR.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I took a closer look at the cover of the Maugham book you selected, and I was BEMUSED to realize it quotes a blurb from "Dr. Goebbels," Hitler's Minister of Propaganda!!!
Maybe that's not so surprising. Goebbels and Speer were among the two most intelligent of Hitler's inner circle. Very unlike the sycophants and dimwitted goons surrounding Stalin.
Sean
Sean,
Goebbels' comment is hardly flattering, though!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True, and a sensible person should take with a pinch of salt anything Goebbels said. But, I would need to read Maugham's ASHENDEN: OR THE BRITISH AGENT before I could agree or disagree with what Goebbels said.
Sean
Sean:
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I'd call the Nazi's assessment of *Ashenden* accurate. The book is very much worth reading, though. Allen Dulles, an early head of the CIA, recommended it in his book *The Craft of Intelligence* (which I read in high school).
Kaor, DAVID!
I'm inclined to be wary and skeptical of anything said by a Nazi or Communist, but if YOU think well of this Maugham book, that gives me pause. I've even wondered if Maugham read some of the works of Poul Anderson (because he died in 1965, 18 years after PA started writing regularly).
Allen Dulles? I've never read his THE CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE, but I can find out more about the book by looking for comments about it online. I do have this book he edited: GREAT TRUE SPY STORIES: 39 TRUE ACCOUNTS FROM GREEK ANTIQUITY TO THE COLD WAR (Castle: 1968). The chapter called "The Archtraitor" has stuck with me, because of how it is an account of an Austro-Hungarian officer whose betrayal of his country may well have hastened or worsened WW I. And I consider that war to be the cause of many of our current woes!
A somewhat more recondite book about Intelligence which I also have is Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger's PYSCHOLOGICAL WARFARE. As all SF fans should know, Linebarger is better known as Cordwainer Smith.
And Poul Anderson has discussed intelligence work and operations very well, esp. in stories like "Tiger By The Tail," WE CLAIM THESE STARS, and A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS. See in particular Flandry's discussion of the various methods of interrogation in Chapter V of KNIGHT.
Truthfully, I like the Dominic Flandry stories better than I do the James Bond books. At least partly because I never thought Ernst Blofeld and SPECTRE to be convincing villains. The better Bond books are the ones where he clashes with the Soviet SMERSH.
It's my view that it takes an at least moderately powerful nation to run a truly effective intelligence agency. Because only a gov't can command the resources necessary to run, long term, a truly effective Intelligence agency. Al Qaeda and the seemingly collapsing Islamic State has tried, but once they finally get concentrated attention and counter attacks from a REAL and powerful nation like the US my view is they can't hold up for long. Which is why the real jihadist enemy of the US/West is Iran, which does command the resources of a real nation.
Not that I scorn attempts by other fanatical Muslims to set up a new caliphate. They seem to be trying to learn from the mistakes of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and now the Islamic State. The danger is real and needs to be countered by sound Intelligence operations, among other methods.
Sean
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