The Secret Memo That Led To The James Bond Movies

It's the secret memo that eventually led to the James Bond movies.

A lot of people forget this, but Bond creator, Ian Fleming, was himself instrumental in the modern spy apparatus of both Britain and America.

Fleming served as the personal assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, and later helped design the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA.

In the memo, Flemming stresses that he wants the movie to be "as fast-moving and packed with incidents as possible. To my mind the chief weakness is the thinness of the Mafia threat and this must be considerably strengthened."

"I am badly in need of good Italian names for the Mafia gangsters and these could perhaps be obtained from the Venice telephone directory!"

Though this first movie was never made, it was eventually retooled to become the Bond original "Thunderball".