The Model and the Mirror

Today, May 28, in honor of Ian Fleming's birthday, we look at whether the novelist had a model for James Bond, and if so, the shadow cast in the literary mirror.   The most likely candidate for Fleming's inspiration, it seems, was British double agent Dusko Popov (codenamed TRICYCLE), the incorrigible playboy who spied and lied for MI5 (counter-intelligence) and MI6 (foreign intelligence) during World War II.  Popov was well-known in British Intelligence circles, including Naval Intelligence,