13-02-2013, 01:07 AM
Bill Kelly Wrote:All of Fleming's novels include fictional characters who have real life counterparts, and story lines that are based on real, sometimes historic events, especially "From Russia with Love."
I've written at length, on DPF and elsewhere, of how Fleming introduced to the reading public the notion -- today it's safe to call it a meme -- of serial killers being controlled (if not created) by government agencies at the deepest of deep political levels and utilized for wet work.
Hence the character of lunar cycle serial killer "Red Grant," in Fleming's imagination a British soldier taken by the Russians in Berlin and "modified" by SMERSH to become a most lethal instrument.
He introduces himself to Bond as "Captain Nash" -- classic Fleming playfulness here insofar as "nash" is the transliteration of the Russian/KGB term for "one of ours."
If Fleming were aware of actual programs such as that hypothesized here, then we are confronted with the likelihood that ARTICHOKE-like manipulations were being undertaken as early as the mid-1950s.
"You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees. How does it feel old man?"