SPECTRE and the ILLUMINATI
bigzilcho
Toronto, ONPosts: 245MI6 Agent
I came across something of interest for Bond fans when I was reading The Illuminatis Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. For those unfamiliar with this mind-bending cult novel, any brief description would not do it justice. A multitude of characters investigate and come into contact with a centuries-old all-powerful secret society known as the Illuminati.
One character, the cop Muldoon, doubts its existence:"But this international conspiracy existing in secret for 800 years, it's like opening a door in your own house and finding James Bond and the President of the United States personally shooting it out with Fu Manchu and the five original Marx Brothers."
Muldoon and his partner Saul come across a mysterious series of memos which examine the Illuminati's existence. On Page 20, this memo appears:
ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #4
Here's a letter that appeaed in Playboy a few years ago("The Playboy Advisor,Playboy,April 1969,pages62-64):
I recently heard an old man of right-wing views...assert that the current wave of assassinations in America is the work of a secret society called the Illuminati. He said that the Illuminati have existed throughout history, own the international banking cartels, have all been 32nd-degree Masons and were known to Ian Fleming, who portrayed them as SPECTRE in his James Bond books- for which the Illuminati did away with Mr. Fleming, At first all this seemed like a paranoid delusion to me. Then I read in The New Yorker that.....
Playboy. of course, puts down the whole idea as ridiculous and gives the standard Encyclopedia Brittanica story that the Illuminati went out of business in 1785. (End of memo)
Obviously,for some, this is wild-eyed X-Files territory. But for others (myself included) the notion that a criminal organization such as SPECTRE existing in our present world does not seem that far-fetched. ( A collection of smart,tough men with the profit-motive scruples of pirates? Sound familiar?)
Whether one agrees or not in the existence of the Illuminati (or any super-elite) is not quite the issue here. In the James Bond universe...the Illuminati exists...and its name is SPECTRE.
Ponder this, fellow Bond fans, ultimate power requires ultimate secrecy. With Blofeld as its CEO, SPECTRE was exposed and vulnerable for a criminal secret society. It had to "disappear" and go underground (which it accomplished in the '70's) and has not been heard of since. Bond's single-handed destruction of SPECTRE is one of the greatest accomplishments in popular fiction...if it were true. In reality, SPECTRE decided to convince Bond and the rest of the world that it did not exist anymore...by using a producer named...Kevin McClory...to claim ownership of the concept of SPECTRE...and thus prevent its appearence ever again...by tying it up in endless litigation...Result? SPECTRE has passed into a fading legend...which is where it ...wants to be...for now.
SPECTRE/Illuminati was exposed by Fleming, buried by McClory(Spectre Agent No.17)..and fought to a stand-still by James Bond.
What a relief it must be to the Blofelds of our world that a man like 007 does not exist. The white pussy-cats can sleep calmly tonight.
BOND-"But sir, who would want me killed?
M-"Jealous husbands, outraged chefs, humiliated tailors. The list is endless."
One character, the cop Muldoon, doubts its existence:"But this international conspiracy existing in secret for 800 years, it's like opening a door in your own house and finding James Bond and the President of the United States personally shooting it out with Fu Manchu and the five original Marx Brothers."
Muldoon and his partner Saul come across a mysterious series of memos which examine the Illuminati's existence. On Page 20, this memo appears:
ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #4
Here's a letter that appeaed in Playboy a few years ago("The Playboy Advisor,Playboy,April 1969,pages62-64):
I recently heard an old man of right-wing views...assert that the current wave of assassinations in America is the work of a secret society called the Illuminati. He said that the Illuminati have existed throughout history, own the international banking cartels, have all been 32nd-degree Masons and were known to Ian Fleming, who portrayed them as SPECTRE in his James Bond books- for which the Illuminati did away with Mr. Fleming, At first all this seemed like a paranoid delusion to me. Then I read in The New Yorker that.....
Playboy. of course, puts down the whole idea as ridiculous and gives the standard Encyclopedia Brittanica story that the Illuminati went out of business in 1785. (End of memo)
Obviously,for some, this is wild-eyed X-Files territory. But for others (myself included) the notion that a criminal organization such as SPECTRE existing in our present world does not seem that far-fetched. ( A collection of smart,tough men with the profit-motive scruples of pirates? Sound familiar?)
Whether one agrees or not in the existence of the Illuminati (or any super-elite) is not quite the issue here. In the James Bond universe...the Illuminati exists...and its name is SPECTRE.
Ponder this, fellow Bond fans, ultimate power requires ultimate secrecy. With Blofeld as its CEO, SPECTRE was exposed and vulnerable for a criminal secret society. It had to "disappear" and go underground (which it accomplished in the '70's) and has not been heard of since. Bond's single-handed destruction of SPECTRE is one of the greatest accomplishments in popular fiction...if it were true. In reality, SPECTRE decided to convince Bond and the rest of the world that it did not exist anymore...by using a producer named...Kevin McClory...to claim ownership of the concept of SPECTRE...and thus prevent its appearence ever again...by tying it up in endless litigation...Result? SPECTRE has passed into a fading legend...which is where it ...wants to be...for now.
SPECTRE/Illuminati was exposed by Fleming, buried by McClory(Spectre Agent No.17)..and fought to a stand-still by James Bond.
What a relief it must be to the Blofelds of our world that a man like 007 does not exist. The white pussy-cats can sleep calmly tonight.
BOND-"But sir, who would want me killed?
M-"Jealous husbands, outraged chefs, humiliated tailors. The list is endless."
Comments
Ian Fleming, Crowley and Fleming's enigmatic brother Peter Fleming are said to have taken part in elaborate occult rituals in Ashendean forest during WWII, supposedly to convince superstitious SS agents that the "Order of the Golden Dawn" was alive and well in Britain and wanted peace with Germany. (See "The British Conspiracy")
According to William Kelly in a 1998 COPA address:
"Goldberg, who came into NANA as Fleming was ushered out, concurred that there was a thin line between what was Fleming's responsibilities as an editor and his espionage operatiuons. Fleming, notes Goldberg, had a reputation for hiring beautiful, young women as NANA correspondents. It was his man Richard Hughes however, who got to meet Burgess and Maclean in Moscow."
Bond fans are all aware that Fleming was in British Intelligence his whole life but , it seems,have not been willing to take the leap that the books somehow reflected, at least in some part, a realistic viewpoint of that secret world. "Fairy tales for adults" is how he described his novels, and who could argue with that? However, one of the greatest fantasy characters of all time happens to be a secret agent...created by a secret agent.
John LeCarre , Frederick Forsyth and Len Deighton, to name a few, all have connections to the labyrinth world we call Intelligence. CIA spook Howard Hunt has written dozens of novels. Who knows what information Tom Clancy has access to? In short, the world of publishing is filled with writers with one foot firmly planted in the Intelligence world. Are they more honest in their look at that world than Fleming? Or did Fleming code his information with a healthy dose of sex and violence?
Lets keep this rolling. Anybody know exactly what Harry Saltzman did for the OSS during WWII? (I'm sure I read that somewhere) Or Terence Young? Or the films fix-it man, General Rushon (sp.?).
If , as Bond Agent points out, there was a friendship between Fleming and Crowley, that by itself opens a world of possibilities in the worlds of intelligence and the occult. (BTW, Crowley is mentioned several times in the Illuminatis Trilogy)
If any man would have constituted the title of super-villian (at least to some people) of the 20th century, it would heve been Crowley (who would have relished the infamy)
Perhaps Fleming was taking notes all along.
"Extortion is our business".
Once you begin to comprehend anything of Fleming's true role as a significant post-war spymaster, all bets are off. Kelly indeed suggests that "marital problems" story was a bit of a red herring and the James Bond books were actually part of a secret plan to restore British Intelligence's dented image, harnessing the rumours of their quirky mystique and black ops prowess for propaganda purposes (eventually via Hollywood), while ensuring that no one would ever believe them again!
Fantastic you say - yet it isn't too hard to imagine Ian Fleming selling his superiors on such a project!
Daniel Craig... Illuminati... hmmm... !
Happy Christmas and Good Will to All
Why remind posterity of his characters' non-person status in the undated inscription of his personal first edition of his own first novel? Had anyone doubted it? One would have thought this was covered in the usual front-matter of the book! While in the same breath, he admits that "some of the events are factual"... (!)
The two theories need not be completely exclusive. After all, the best red herring is a real red herring!
There's something particularly strange about the plot of the film and its reflection on reality. A mysterious, reclusive billionaire (living in a Las Vegas penthouse, no less) is kidnapped and replaced by sinister forces.
In November/1970 (just before filming begins) Hughes disappears from Las Vegas in the middle of the night and ends up in the Bahamas. Hughes right-hand man of ten years , ex FBI Robert Maheu, claims that Hughes has been kidnapped.
Although Maheu has never met Hughes face-to-face, he maintains that Hughes is now a helpless prisoner of the board of Hughes Tool Co. and the Mormons who take care of the billionaire. Maheu's storied past includes being the connection between the CIA and the Mafia during the early '60's when both forces joined sides in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. (Operation Mongoose)
Bruce Roberts of The Gemstone Files speculated that Howard Hughes had been kidnapped as far back as 1957 (the last year of Hughes out in public) and that his kidnapper was none other than...Aristotle Onassis! According to Roberts, Onassis, besides being a giant in shipping, was also the uncrowned head of the world Mafia and , as such, had replaced Hughes with a number of doubles in the subsequent years. (Roberts even points out that DAF is the story of Hughes and not just 007 fiction. He also speculates that Ian Fleming had used Onassis as the model for...Ernst Stavro Blofeld).
A fascinating web of intertwining stories, DAF and the Howard Hughes saga seem to become mirror images of each other . The inspiration for DAF's plot? Well, that was Hughes' buddy Cubby himself who says he saw the whole Hughes/Whyte plot in a dream.
If there is a film in which SPECTRE and the Illuminati blur into each other than that film is DAF. (Blofeld...dies...disappears...?)
"Bert Saxby? Tell him he's fired!"
If one theme is predominant in the world of Bond it is this: nothing is what it seems. Except...of course...James Bond.
"If you see a Mad professor in a mini-van, just smile."
Hughes was indeed the very model of a modern megalomaniac mogul. Good thing he was on our side! Who could forget, for example, those fabulous RKO propaganda films like "30 Seconds to Zero"?
Sir William Stephenson is comparable in many ways. Now believed to have been an orphan from the boondocks who fabricated his whole priveliged anglo-canadian background, he flew with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in WWI. Then, an innovative but frustrated electrical engineer, he popularized mass-produced home radio receivers to become a super-rich activist industrialist, soon branching out into electrical plant and aviation. Placing his extensive commercial intelligence network at the service of Churchill in the 30s, he personally toured top-secret factories to obtain the most accurate estimates of German aircraft production then available to Western leaders.
Appointed head of BSC in New York by Churchill, in charge of British covert activities in the US, he was Fleming's immediate superior there in 1941, and remained a close confidante and supporter. He is said to have vetted the unpublished manuscript of Casino Royale, the first Bond novel, with the famous half-wrong quip: "It'll never sell, Ian. The truth is always less believable."
Stephenson remained a major intelligence "player" decades after WWII. Having long since "weeded" his clippings from public archives, British Intelligence allowed two admiring but somewhat unreliable authorized biographies, The Quiet Canadian (aka Room 3603) by H. Montgomery Hyde in 1962, and A Man Called Intrepid, by William Stevenson in 1976. More recently the investigative The True Intrepid apparently reveals startling and important new information. Unconfirmed rumours of overzealous, even "erratic" activities sadly clouded the image somewhat in later years. Stepehenson was eventually sidelined, remaining a revered yet enigmatic figure.
64K Question: Did Hughes and Stephenson ever meet?
I don't nessisarily believe in a single group dominating all, but a variety of groups competing to dominate, perhaps under a pretence of truce, or non-existance, is very plausable.
The US oil cartells are such a group (i'd imagine), as are the mafia and the CIA and their contemporaries worldwide. The meaning of SPECTRE's accronim could surely apply to any of these groups. SPECTRE may be seen as 'criminal' in the Bond franchise, but their methods and actions could probably be applied to the secret services of many countries, who would argue that this is in the best interest of their citezens, or shareholders.
For me there's always been a tangible yearning for Bond to recognize this in his superiors in the movies as much as in the books. In the latter there are many instances when he questions his loyalties - the inference being that the Secret Service do not hold the moral high ground, but are the opposite number of SPECTRE, both of them ruthless and despirate to win. Certainly SPECTRE's methods are outragouss, but how many hundreds of thousands of innocents has the british empire slain in persute of her colonies?
Its the 'cowboys and indians' arguement that Bond has with Mathis in Casino Royale. Luckily for readers the climax sets Bond on a vendetta and he decides to put the question of loyalties until he's revenged (as McCartney said, '...When you got a job to do...).
However, the question is still raised by Fleming that good guys and bad guys are just labels in a game where self-interest is the only real belief.
I'd love to see a future novel or film address this question again, and in questioning loyalties Bond might finally recognize that his master's identities are far more complicated and suprising than he thought. Bond is introduced to a mythology that reveals the illuminati at war with the common man and using SPECTRE to scare us all into needing their leadership.
Having said that, its just possible to discern such a narrative in the abomnible original film version of Casino Royale, so maybe its a bad idea!
Sorry for going a little off topic and i look forward to future revelations in this thread.
Conspiracy theories may be a response to the arrogance of our rulers, elected and otherwise, but can also be used to influence opinion and create spurious public enemies. This can result in the "conspiracy within a conspiracy", as in the case of the so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". A cursory examination evidences inflammatory language no self-respecting conspirator, however fanatical, would ever write in their "to-do" list, clearly (to anyone but a complete idiot) the work of agents-provocateur. (No correspondence please - oy vey!)
Just as interesting are the conspiracies of silence. They can be society-wide: the general mistreatment of orphans and wards of state would be an example. I have a particular scenario in mind:
Imagine if you will - some inconvenient fact (or indeed some theory) is annoying some executives whose corporations have recently plunged on a very special franchise, a modern legend with roots deep in the deception of the secret world... let's call it "Bulldog Drummond" aka "X-29". Seems most folks had thought he was completely made up. Alas, there is a certain amount of evidence that they may be completely wrong.
CEOs get wind of a website and the hotshot lawyers are called in to deal. A take-down notice can't fly in such a case so tame experts are summoned, certain powers-that-be are notified, and arm-twisting pressure is exerted by advertisers upon haplessly complicit infocrats. Our dissident author's work disappears from the search engines, becoming effectively invisible to human knowledge. He is reduced to posting, on sufferance, on "conspiracy" blogs, framed by his tormentors' computer-generated ads, just so long as he doesn't hurt "their" feelings. Some "rigorous debate"...
Meanwhile Bulldog's even-more-dashing son, Bulldog Jr., aged but fiercely loyal, goes begging. His exploits are just too controversial, even now, and British Intelligence can't be associated with any "flamboyant" Bulldog Drummond types. So no medals, no credit, no thanks. Everyone continues to cash in nicely except our (semi-) original hero and his unfunded advocate.
However, "they" just can't resist an information counterstrike. Some former journo VP immediately pumps out a widely-circulated "backgrounder" press release (not uncommon as such) that rubbishes the reality of the Drummond concept with debate-closing language, pins the whole rap on one of the "usual suspects", then inexplicably wanders off into quite unknown areas of European postwar historic blame-mongering.
Our investigator is discouraged, broke and can't seem to nail the final proof. What's next? Only the silence (amid the usual fanfares) it seems...
But our conspirators may yet learn to their discomfort that fact is stranger (& certainly less predictable) than fiction.
Meanwhile, I do have one handy conspiratorial tip: It is always the cover-up that gets you into the deepest sh*t!
And remember - it's only a (fictional) conspiracy theory, isn't it?
Of course, Bond Agent realizes that such facts as his protagonist posits, in all good faith, might reasonably be expected to upset certain interests, and his work consequently to be held to a much higher standard of evidence even than, say, most non-fiction books, never mind what passes for normal on "news" blogs, rants, op-eds and websites (perhaps impossibly so). And researching the old "wilderness of mirrors" can prove a bit tricky at the best of times. Of course, his guys don't (any more at least) have a substantial secretariat, a battlegroup, or hordes of mercenary ninja at their disposal! Perhaps they should apply for a Barclay card... or a Literature Board grant... fries, anyone? s!)xr
You would know, Oddjobbie, that "British Intelligence" is a mysterious and heterogenous group of services, sharing, it may be, an intimidating mystique with a somewhat 'masonic' style of management. But it has fallen under the baleful influence of deep-cover ideological cliques and renegade operations on several occasions in the past. This was partly a result of the old "gentleman's club" approach to recruitment and security re Philby, Maclean et al. And if you would believe John Le Carre's The Night Manager (1996), at least one international drug and arms trade "control" operation got way out of hand in the 1990s, becoming both compromised and inordinately important in the greater scheme of things.
Bigzilcho is well aware that discovering and concealing information is only part of the intelligence task. Putting it out there is equally important and just as "sensitive". Fact and fiction jostle uneasily in this twilight world: the novels of Ian Fleming furnish a salient example.
"British intelligence" also discreetly helped out the career of disillusioned socialist writer George Orwell, funding numerous foreign translations, including a Thai comic-strip version of Animal Farm. Orwell's 1984 was mandated by Commonwealth school curriculums around the world, ensuring its massive sales and iconic status.
Even so, throughout the postwar era, any notions held by military intelligence of prising unruly European "satellite states" away from the Eastern Bloc with firm support for popular uprisings were sharply rebuked by Western diplomats, intelligentsia and students. In an atmosphere of pacifism, "Bomb" hysteria and later detente, any such tendencies were increasingly portrayed as extremist, crackpot right-wing conspiracies (culminating laughably in The Billion Dollar Brain, 1969, in which iconic British spook Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) implicitly helps his KGB opponents to foil such a plot).
Purely defensive Western weapon systems were (and still are) routinely excoriated in the Western press as provocative threats to the peace. These episodes mark the high water of Soviet propaganda and the sophisticated covert political warfare apparatus.
The effects of such campaigns often outlive their original purposes, with incalculable consequences. Nowadays, of course, everyone wants to play at this particular "Great Game", hence the well-funded "think-tanks" , zealous NGOs, politicized blogs and even some big media plays.
You are on the money, Nemesis. The impossible takes a little longer, and resistance is inevitable (if futile). Also, when information is free, only indiscretion is unpardonable. It's when other reference material goes missing that I really start to worry. Search engines are proprietary services, with every right (& responibility) to rate, exploit or delete whatever appears in their directories, in an (evidently) concerted, cooperative manner if they choose. (Have you compared them lately?) However, the Internet must remain a relatively "open", competitive system, priveliging individuals, dissidence and fact-based debate over commercial pressures, undue censorship and banal dishonest cheats.
A superb piece of writing, BA.
My time is limited today so therefore I cannot breakdown your post in the manner it deserves.
The "Great Game", as you call it, reflects back to us through the prism of the Bond films in such a manner that our collective perceptions are being manipulated with the same assurance of a Spectre operation.
The one constant in Bond and Fleming's worldview:
Nothing...is...as...it...appears.
Bond as MI6 propaganda? Thats a given. The genius of Fleming was to present the unseemly world of intelligence with a colossal windfall of goodwill: James Bond.
007 is the greatest advertisement for spies in the history of espionage. To some, he IS espionage.
Kim Philby and James Jesus Angleton were best friends and chessplayers of the highest order, for crying out loud!
If THAT friendship makes any sense...(which it shouldn't... but it does) Ian Fleming had a part in making us understand that the "Great Game" is being run by rules and men beyond our control or comprehension. A hall of mirrors, indeed.
Once again, great job, Bond Agent.
To be continued.
PS- Billion Dollar Brain is one of my faves with an absolutely insane performance by Ed Begley. Chilling.
"World domination. Same old dream."