He dreamt up Bond, but did Fleming also create the CIA?

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, liked to claim – only half in jest – that he had helped to create the CIA.

During the Second World War Fleming worked as personal assistant to John Godfrey, the hard-driving head of Naval Intelligence, who was Fleming’s model for M in the Bond series.

Part of Fleming’s job was to liaise with General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s newly minted wartime answer to MI6. The two men got on extremely well, and when Donovan was preparing plans for a new American intelligence service in 1941, he asked Fleming to write him a blueprint.

It seems that Fleming knew quite a bit about the espionage game which is probably why his James Bond books are still popular.