London's Imperial War Museum opens a new exhibition on Thursday devoted to
the life and work of British author Ian Fleming, creator of superspy James
Bond. 

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 He may not have cheated death, seduced women at will and killed
countless baddies, but James Bond creator Ian Fleming's experience of the
shadowy world of wartime espionage helped inspire his best-selling novels.

    'For Your Eyes Only' is the first major exhibition devoted to the
British author and coincides with the centenary of his birth. It opens at
London's Imperial War Museum on Thursday and runs until March 1, 2009.
    On display is Fleming's desk from his Jamaican home Goldeneye where he
wrote his Bond books, a jacket he wore during a raid by British forces on a
French port in 1942, several Bond manuscripts and props from the blockbuster
film franchise.
    The show seeks to explain how a man born into a world of privilege and
with a playboy reputation was grounded by his work as a naval intelligence
officer during World War Two.
    The exhibition is also a history of the fact and fiction of the world
of espionage and secret intelligence.
    "Part of our frame of reference has always been the intelligence
war, the secret war," Museum Curator Terry Charman told Reuters.
"And since 1995 we've had a dedicated gallery, a permanent gallery with
that title, that tells the story of Britain's intelligence services - the true
story - and we actually start that with the war of fiction, as we've termed
it, which features James Bond. And we say to our visitors, this is what you
think is the secret war, but now we will tell you the truth."
    Fleming, whose father was killed during World War One when he was
eight, attended Eton, joined the military before leaving under a cloud and
went to Austria to learn languages.
    In 1931, he became a journalist at Reuters, which his niece Kate
Grimond said played an important role in his success later in life as a
novelist.
    "By chance (he) got a job at Reuters where he was very well suited
and he learned to write very fast and very accurately and that was the basis
of his very good writing style," she said.
    She added that in order to make more money he left the news agency for
a job in finance, but was "no good at that". According to exhibition
organisers, he "preferred to spend his time and money on women, golf,
gambling and drinking."
    During World War Two, as a naval intelligence officer, he came up with
several plots to outwit the Germans which would not have looked out of place
in a James Bond novel.
    In 1940 he devised Operation "Ruthless", a scheme to seize a
German naval coding machine by landing a captured enemy bomber in the English
Channel, lure in a rescue vessel, kill the crew and "dump them
overboard". The idea was quickly abandoned.
    Fleming suggested the pilot be a "tough bachelor, able to
swim" -- an early prototype for 007.
    "In 1940 James Bond was on the horizon, who should knock out the
German crew and get the Enigma machine," Terry Charman explained.
"But some reason or the other the scheme was aborted and it never went
into operation and of course it was later in the war, in May 1941, that we
actually did get an Enigma machine, but again due partly to the work of
Fleming's department the Naval Intelligence Division."
    Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, 'Casino Royale', in 1952, and the
world of danger and glamour he created for his superspy was the perfect escape
from drab post-war Britain.
    He married the same year but the stormy relationship quickly
deteriorated. Fleming's heavy drinking and smoking took their toll, and he
died of a heart attack in 1964 aged 56.
    By then the Bond film franchise was underway, which made Fleming a
celebrity and boosted sales of his books. In 1964 they were selling 112,000
copies each week.