Source: The Times of India

LONDON: The creator of 007, Ian Fleming could be the brain behind CIA. In fact, Fleming often claimed, albeit in humour, that he had helped to create the CIA.

According to the Times , during the Second World War, Fleming had worked as a personal assistant to John Godfrey, the hard-driving head of naval intelligence, who was Fleming's model for M in the Bond series.

During the war, a 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.

Fleming and Donovan got along extremely well, and when Donovan was preparing plans for a new American intelligence service in 1941, he asked Fleming to write him a blue print. Fleming wrote a 72-page memo on how a US secret service should be. The memo contains a description of what an ideal secret agent should be, and this is strongly echoed in the form of James Bond.

Later, Fleming went on to suggest indirectly that his advice to Donovan on founding the OSS had been instrumental in forming the CIA charter. This idea might not be strictly true, but Donovan was grateful enough to present Fleming with a .38 Colt revolver inscribed, somewhat cryptically, "For Special Services".

Fleming did not precisely say what those services were, but he liked to imply they had been very special indeed.