The gentleman in the image is Bond, James Bond, a secret agent in Her Majesty’s service. Don’t you recognize the actor who plays him in this photo? That’s normal, because that’s not an actor at all.
In fact, it is about a secret agent named James Albert Bond, a British spy in Poland against the communist regime in the 1960s. In addition to the name, our James shared with the “iconic” the intention of sexual symbol with females; only unlike his fictional character, this one didn’t do very well: he wasn’t handsome, not at all athletic, plump, and not particularly bright as an agent. So what was he doing in Poland in the middle of the Cold War?
Compared to the 1950s, when the Soviet advance seemed unstoppable, the situation in Poland in the mid-1960s was calmer, so much so that our James Bond, not one of the best agents, was able to do his job despite his abilities did not stand out. without risking his life too much. So in 1964 our James Bond, originally from Devonshire, came to Warsaw with his wife and his son, where he stayed for a couple of years.
His “cover” or front job was that of a boring secretary, filing paperwork at the British embassy; but in reality, he was gathering information about the Polish army and its plans with a method that is now obsolete, by directly spying on the movements of the armies in the field around Warsaw.
Now, in 1964, the figure of the cinematographic James Bond, with the appearance of Sean Connery, was more than recognized, and it was reasonable to think that even the communists were aware of the existence of a fictional character with that name.
Apparently sending the real James Bond as a spy was a move by Sir Richard White, the British intelligence chief at the time. the idea, which honestly sounds far-fetched, was that such a “familiar” name might have alerted the communists, who might have been suspicious of our James; doing so would have wasted time and resources investigating a mediocre agent, instead allowing good agents to have less surveillance while investigating more sensitive targets.
A crazy idea, but it worked. The bait, meaning our James was kept under very close watch by the communists, effectively distracting them a bit.
Unfortunately, it seems that our James, despite the success of his mission as a decoy, did not find anything interesting nor did he help enough for others to find anything interesting; so he came home with his hands in the bag.
*Legends and myths
–
