Shaken but not Stirred:
Or
The Blended Bond
How the James Bond films
fit into the WNU

By Dennis E. Power



Doctor No

1956 February-March

THE NOVEL: A summary of the novel

THE FILM: A Summary of the film

THE BLENDED BOND: A recreation of the true events

POST MISSION BRIEFING

 

Novel Summary

Doctor No begins shortly after the cliffhanger ending of From Russia, With Love with James Bond in the process of dying from poison courtesy of Rosa Klebb’s razor tipped shoes. Bond makes a full recovery from the poison tetrodotoxin and after a rest cure is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of Station J’s head Strangeways. Strangeways had been investigating something for the Audubon Society. The island of Crab Key was a wild bird sanctuary that was supposed to have been maintained by the island’s owner Doctor No as a condition of purchase.  However all of the inspections for the island had been suspended and the last Inspector who had made an unannounced visit to the island had returned badly burned and muttering of a Dragon. Doctor No had bought the island to take advantage of the guano deposits and re-opened a processing factory. It is not certain if Strangeways had succumbed to foul play or if he had just skipped out with his secretary. His bungalow was burned to the ground but that could have been to cover his tracks. M considers this case as total waste of the Secret Service time and expense and since he is angry at Bond for having botched the previous mission by getting poisoned, he assigns Bond to the case, knowing that being on a worthless case will be a blow to Bond’s ego.

Bond is met at the airport by his friend Quarrel. A girl takes Bond’s picture at the airport. Bond and Quarrell are followed by a cab but Quarrel shakes the driver. They meet at a club called the Joy Boat to discuss their plans. A girl takes Bond’s picture it is the same girl from the airport. Quarrel grabs her and the camera. Bond destroys the film but the girl will not reveal whom she is working for.

Before Bond even begins a serious investigation of Doctor No, No tries to kill him with a poisoned fruit bowl placed in his room and a centipede placed in his bed. When he checks with the Governor’s secretary for files about Doctor No, he is informed that they have all disappeared. The secretary, Miss Taro, like Annabel Chung, the photographer was Chinese.

According to local sources Doctor No employs Jamaican and Cuban laborers for good wages at the guano plant but under the brutal supervision of Chigroes, (Chinese-Negroes) from Jamaica. No one is allowed to leave the island. Bond recruits his friend Quarrel to take him to Crab Key. Quarrel is initially reluctant to go due to the dragon however after Bond agrees to buy a life insurance policy for him, he agrees to go. While on Crab Key island they met up with Honeychile Rider, a beautiful young woman who collects exotic shells to sell in Miami. She wants to get enough money so she can get her nose fixed and become a call girl which she believes is a laudable and lucrative profession.

After exploring the island for a bit, they are discovered by Doctor No’s men. They first elude them but eventually confront the Dragon which is a flamethrowing tank. Quarrel is burned to death by the tank and Honeychile and Bond are captured. They are led into Doctor No’s subterranean retreat, allowed to shower and put on clean clothes. After drinking drugged coffee and sleeping for a while they are escorted into the presence of Doctor No.

Dr No is an extremely tall Eurasian who is totally bald except for eyebrows. Oddly enough he does not have eyelashes. He also has two mechanical pincers in the place of hands. Doctor No entertains Bond and Honeychile Rider with his story. He was the son of a German Methodist Missionary and a Chinese girl but raised by his aunt. When older he became involved with the Tongs, a Chinese crime syndicate. Sent to the United States he became the treasurer for a tong in the United States. During the Tong wars of the 1920’s Doctor No embezzled a million dollars in gold and disappeared. The Tongs found him and tortured him cutting off his hands and shooting him in the chest when he refused to talk. Since his heart was on the right side of his chest he was not killed. After recovering from his wounds he attended medical school. He purchased the island of Crab Key to be a legitimate front for his crime syndicate. He was paid by the Soviets to use the island as a staging area for Soviet sabotage using a radio controlled beacon to scramble the guidance systems of US missiles, forcing the Americans to spend time and money redesigning their missiles. He also recovered missiles from the ocean and turned them over to the Soviets.

Doctor No also informed Bond and Honeychile that he was a student of the human spirit, which was best, studied when under duress. To this end he would subject Bond and Honeychile to torture and study their reactions.

Honeychile was placed on the edge of the beach and pegged down. She was placed directly in the path of the black land crabs migration route. Like locusts they devoured everything in their path and Doctor No assumed Honeychile would be slowly consumed.

Bond had to run through a gauntlet of tortures in a shaft that could lead to freedom. He encounters, electrical shock, extreme heat, a cage full of tarantulas and finally is emptied into an inlet with a hungry octopus.

Bond succeeds in getting through the maze and out to Doctor No’s guano plant where he commandeers a crane and buries No under a ton of guano. When he rescues Honeychile he finds her untouched by the crabs because she knew enough about their nature to dissuade them from eating her. Bond is so wounded by the experience he has to once again go on sick leave. He sends M a sarcastic thank you for the easy mission.

Film Summary

The film begins with three blind men walking with canes along the streets of Kingston, Jamaica. They pass by the Queen’s club where a bridge game is in progress. One of the players Mr. Strangeways has to leave the game for a bit to report into his office, which he has to do every day at the same time. In the parking lot he notices three blind men near his car as he opens his car door the three blind men pull out silenced pistols and shoot Strangeways. A old black sedan hearse drives up and the body is thrown inside and it speeds away.

At Strangeways’ office his secretary opens a panel in a book case revealing a shortwave radio. She warms the radio up and makes the initial call while waiting for Strangeways. The three blind men shoot at her from the windows, killing her. They take her body and any records pertaining to Doctor No.

At Le Cercele club James Bond is playing baccharat against a beautiful young woman named Sylvia Trench. He is called away but she makes a date to play golf in the morning.

Bond is summoned to M’s office and told of Strangeways’ disappearance and his secretary which has taken on serious import because it was done in the middle of transmission. Strangeways has been working on something for the Americans, something has been playing havoc with their missile and moon rockets and they have pinpointed the trouble to the area near Jamaica. Bond is to work with CIA agent Leiter.

M makes Bond replace his Beretta for a Walther for his own safety, blaming it for his recent failure. When Bond returns to his room to pack he finds Sylvia Trench in his room dressed only in one of his shirts and playing with his putter. She convinces him stay for a little while before leaving.

When Bond arrives at the airport a young woman takes his picture. He is met by a young man who calls himself Mr. Johnson who claims to have been sent by the government house. Bond tells the young man he has to check on his reservation and makes a phone call to the government house. As he suspected they had not sent a car for him. Johnson drives very rapidly until Bond tells him to slow down however Johnson points out that they had picked up a tail. Bond tells them to shake them by driving off the road behind some trees. Bond holds a gun on Johnson, demanding to know who he is working for. Johnson tries to pull a gun but Bond disarms him. Johnson agrees to talk but wants a cigarette first. Johnson bites down on the end of his cigarette and dies.

Bond drives to the government house with Johnson in the back seat. Investigation reveals that the cigarette contained cyanide and that the car was stolen. Johnson was not from Kingston. Bond asks Pleydell-Smith to arrange a meeting the last people who saw Strangeways alive. Pleydell-Smith says that three members of Strangeways bridge game that included Professor Dent, General Potter and himself. Dent is a geologist and Potter was a career military man who had been there for years. While searching Strangeways’ office Bond sees a picture of Strangeways with a black man. Bond asks who it was. He is told it is Quarrel a local fisherman. Bond comments he was in the car tailing him from the airport. Bond also found a receipt from Dent. Bond learns from them that Strangeways’ latest kick had been deep-sea fishing. He had gone on many trips with Quarrel, one of the best fishermen in Jamaica.

Bond looks up Quarrel and his fishing boat but Quarrel is reluctant to talk to him, telling him he takes a lot of people fishing. When Bond wants to rent his boat Quarrel says it is not for rent. Following Bond into a bar, Quarrel agrees to talk privately with Bond, that out by the boat had been too public. In a storage room Quarrel pulls a knife on Bond while the bartender holds Bond’s arms. Bond breaks the hold, knocks Quarrel into a stack of boxes and pulls out his gun. He is stopped by a gun at his back.

Holding the gun is Felix Leiter of the CIA. After they realize that they all working together they meet in the bar to compare information. While sitting in the nightclub a young woman takes a picture of Bond. Bond tells Quarrel to get the girl and the camera. As Quarrel bends her arm backwards, Bond asks who she is working for she said she works for the local paper the Daily Gleaner but when Bond asks the nightclub owner to call and see if the Gleaner sent a photographer, she claims to be freelance. She refuses to say whom she is working for and tries to get away by raking Quarrel’s face with a broken flashbulb. Bond lets her go after destroying the film.

Quarrel tells Bond that Strangeways visited almost all of the islands in the area, except for Crab Key since they were not allowed to go there. When asked what was so special about Crab Key, Leiter told Bond it was owned by a Chinese character that did not allow visitors. He ran a bauxite mine. Quarrel admitted that Strangeways did take some soil and water samples from Crab Key at night. Bond, Leiter and Quarrel agreed to meet on the following night to make another trip to Crab Key.

When Bond returned to his hotel the three blind men were set up to shoot him but a car passed in front of them and blocked their shot.

Bond met with Dent to ask him about the samples that Strangeways had given him. Dent said that they were of no value and had thrown them out. When asked if they could have come from Crab Key Dents said that was geologically impossible. After Bond leaves Dent hurries to the waterfront and takes a boat to Crab Key defying the orders to stay away. Once on Crab Key he was led to into a palatial building and into a large room that its empty except for a chair and a table several feet distance from each other. A voice asked Dent why he had violated the rule about coming to Crab Key. Dent told him he had come to warn that Bond knew about Crab Key. The voice said that Bond would not be a problem if Dent had not failed in his attempts to kill Bond. He told Dent to go the table and pick up what was on it. This was a cage containing a tarantula. Dent was told to use this against Bond.

Bond awakened at night to feel the tarantula crawling across his naked body. He had lay quietly and let the spider crawl up his body and away from him before moving. He then killed flipped it off of his bed and killed it.

In the morning Bond visits Peydell-Smith to ask him on any information about Doctor No. Peydell-Smith’s assistant, Miss Taro, a pretty young Chinese girl, informs Peydell-Smith that the files are gone. After she leaves the room Bond discusses his plans with Peydell-Smith and go out via her desk and finds her kneeling before the door. He tells her that is a nasty habit, listening at doors. She claims to have been looking for the file. Bond asks her if she will show him around the island. She agrees to do that in the afternoon.

Bond tests Quarrel’s boat and finds that it has residual radiation from the samples Strangeways had taken from Crab Key Island.

In the afternoon Bond gets a phone call from Miss Taro asking to meet her at her mountain house. Bond agrees and once he is off the main roads a hearse tries to run him off the winding mountain road. Bond drives under a rock shifting truck that the hearse has to swing aside to miss. This turn takes them over the side of the mountain. Miss Taro answers her door surprised to see Bond. She has just taken a shower. She receives a phone call and Bond overhears her say she will try to keep him there. Bond seduces her and then tries to get her to leave for Kingston for dinner but she wants to stay in the cabin with him. Finally he calls for a cab insisting on taking her to dinner

When the cab arrives it turns out to be the police and he has Miss Taro taken away. Bond sets up two wine glasses, leaves the record player on and makes the bed appear as though two figures lay underneath the sheets. He then sits down to wait playing solitaire with his gun out. Dent sneaks into the room and fires his gun into the figures on the bed. Bond tells Dent to put his gun on the floor. Dent drops it on a fallen sheet. Bond tries to get some information about Dent but Dent is too afraid to talk. He pulled his gun to him with his foot and tries to shoot Bond. Bond knew the gun was empty. He tells Dent that is a Smith and Wesson and he has had his six. Bond then shoots Dent.

Bond, Leiter and Quarrel go to Crab Key Island. Quarrel and Bond land on the island and began to explore. In the morning Bond sees a young girl come walking out of the surf. She is collecting shells and suspicious of Bond, thinking he wants to take her shells. Her name is Honey Rider. Quarrel comes down the beach to warn them of a coming patrol boat. They hide in the sand dunes. The patrol boat tells them to come out or be fired on. When they remain hidden a machine gun rakes the beach. They are told that they will be back with dogs. The only casualty is Honey’s boat. She takes them to a hiding place and walk through a stagnant pond. Honey tells Bond that she has seen the dragon. A patrol with dogs chases after them but they elude them by hiding under water breathing through reeds. Bond is forced to kill a straggler when he comes too close to their hiding spot. Honey agrees to take them to where she saw the Dragon. There are several warning and dangers signs in the area. They ignore these and soon see the dragons tracks, which are tank treads. The dragon is a flame throwing tank. Bond tells Quarrel to shoot at it head lights and the driver when it comes out. Quarrel and Bond both shoot at the tank but Quarrel is incinerated by the flames. Bond and Honey are captured by men wearing suits with glass helmets.

They are led to a subterranean palace where they are immediately decontaminated. They were  exposed to a great deal of radiation. After being decontaminated two Chinese woman named Sister Rose and Sister Lily took Bond and Honeychild to comfortably and expensively furnished rooms by. The are told to freshen up and have some breakfast, Doctor No will see them at dinner. Their breakfast has drugged coffee and they fall asleep. As Bond sleeps a man wearing a gray tunic and  large black gloved hands sneaks into his room and looks him over.

After they have awakened and dressed appropriately in Chinese style clothing, they are escorted to an elevator that takes them down to a large drawing room with a window aquarium. This lets them know they are below sea level. The window cost one million dollars said a tall Chinese man with black gloved hands. Doctor No escorts them to the table. He tells them his story as the unwanted child of a German missionary and a Chinese girl of good family. He became the treasurer of the most powerful criminal society in China and then escaped to America with 10 million dollars. He studied in American specializing in atomic energy which cost him the use of his hands. When Bond told him that his island could be destroyed with ease by the American or British navies, Doctor No said he planned to destroy it once it had accomplished his purpose.

When he began to tell Bond what his plans were Bond insisted that Honey be sent away. Doctor No agreed, adding that she might amuse his guards. Under Bond’s protests she was dragged away.

Doctor No said that he had offered his service to the West and to the Soviets but they had all rejected him and so he worked for SPECTRE. They planned to disable the American space and missile programs. Doctor No had to attend to matters in the control room, he told his guards to soften up Bond, he would talk to him later. Bond was knocked unconscious and awakened in small prison room with a small grate. He found the grate to be electrified. He knocked it out with his shoes and then climbed the airshaft. The airshaft was rigged with traps becoming sharp, growing red hot and flooding with water. It exited in the decontamination center. Bond disabled a passing person in a radiation proof suit and entered the control room. They were preparing to knock the Mercury rocket off course. Bond used his disguise to get close to the atomic reactor. While everyone’s attention was centered on the preparations he overloaded the atomic reactor. While most of his minions fled Doctor No attacked Bond. They fought near the coolant pool with Doctor No falling into the pool and dying.

Bond rushed through the plant to find Honey. He finally found her staked out on a ramp near the ocean. Freeing her they found a boat and escaped the island before the atomic reactor blew up. Their drifting boat was found by Leiter and the US navy and given a tow. Bond untied the towing rope to give Honey and he some privacy.

THE BLENDED BOND: A Recreation Of The True Events

A blind man walked along the streets of Kingston, Jamaica helped by another man. A third companion accompanied them.[1]

Passing by the Queen’s club they noted that a bridge game is in progress. Their target was one of the players. Mr. Strangeways had to absent himself from the game to report into his office, which he had to do every day at the same time. In the parking lot he noticed a blind man near his car. As Strangeways opened his car door the “blind” man pulled out a silenced pistol and shot Strangeways. An old black sedan hearse drove up and the body was thrown inside by the blind man and his two companions. The hearse sped away.

At Strangeways’ office his secretary was shot through the open window with silenced guns. The  “blind” man and his companions take her body and any records pertaining to Doctor No.[2]

The events of the Doctor No incident began a few months after the events novelized as From Russia, With Love. James Bond rebounded from imminent death due to being poisoned by Rosa Klebb’s razor tipped shoes. After Bond made a full recovery from the tetrodotoxin he met with M and was briefed on a simple mission.[3]

Bond was being sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of Station J’s head Strangeways.[4] Strangeways had been investigating something for the Audubon Society. The island of Crab Key was a wild bird sanctuary that was supposed to have been maintained by the island’s owner Doctor No as a condition of purchase.  However all of the inspections for the island had been suspended and the last Inspector who had made an unannounced visit to the island had returned badly burned and muttering of a dragon. Doctor No had bought the island to take advantage of the guano deposits and re-opened a guano processing factory. It was not certain if Strangeways had succumbed to foul play or if he had just skipped out with his secretary.[5] M considered this case as total waste of the Secret Service’s time and expense. Since he was angry at Bond for having botched the previous mission by getting poisoned, he assigned Bond to the case, knowing that being on a worthless case would be a blow to Bond’s ego.[6]

When Bond arrived at the airport a young woman took his picture. A young man who called himself Mr. Johnson greeted Bond. Mr. Johnson claimed to have been sent by the government house. Since Bond was supposed to have been met by his friend Quarrel, Bond told the young man he had to check on his reservation. Bond made a phone call to the government house. As he had suspected they had not sent a car for him. Johnson drove very rapidly until Bond told him to slow down. Johnson pointed out that they had picked up a tail. Bond noticed that the “tail” was Quarrel. Bond told Johnson to shake the tail by driving off the road behind some trees. Once they do so Bond pulled a gun on Johnson, demanding to know whom he was working for. Johnson tried to pull a gun but Bond disarmed him. Johnson agreed to talk but wanted a cigarette first. Johnson bit down on the end of his cigarette and died.

Bond drove to the government house with Johnson in the back seat. Subsequent investigation revealed that the cigarette contained cyanide and that the car had been stolen. Johnson had not been from Kingston. Bond asked Pleydell-Smith, the Governor’s secretary, to arrange a meeting with people who had last seen Strangeways alive. Pleydell-Smith said that three members of Strangeways bridge game that included Professor Dent, General Potter and himself. Dent was a geologist and Potter was a career military man who had been in Jamaica for years. While searching Strangeways’office Bond found a picture of Strangeways on a fishing Boat with Quarrel. Bond had earlier learned from the members of his bridge club that Strangeways’ latest kick had been deep-sea fishing. He had gone on many trips with Quarrel, one of the best fishermen in Jamaica. Bond also found a receipt from Dent.[7]

Bond met up with Quarrel at a club called the Joy Boat. Quarrel told Bond that Strangeways had visited almost all of the islands in the area, except for Crab Key since they were not allowed to go there. Quarrel admitted that Strangeways did take some soil and water samples from Crab Key at night but that he did not accompany him.[8]

While sitting in the nightclub a young woman took a picture of Bond. He recognized her as the same girl from the airport. Bond told Quarrel to get the girl and the camera. As Quarrel bent her arm backwards, Bond asked who she was working for. Annabel Chung said she worked for the local paper the Daily Gleaner but when Bond asked the nightclub owner to call and see if the Gleaner had sent a photographer, she claimed to be freelance. She refused to say whom she was working for and tried to get away by raking Quarrel’s face with a broken flashbulb. Bond let her go after destroying the film.

The next morning Bond met with Dent to ask him about the samples that Strangeways had given him for analysis/ Dent said that the samples had been of no value and he had thrown them out. When Bond asked if the samples could have come from Crab Key Dent said that was geologically impossible.

After Bond left Dent hurried to the waterfront and took a boat to Crab Key defying the orders to stay away from the island unless summoned. Meeting with Doctor No Dent was asked why he had violated the rule about coming to Crab Key. Dent said he had come to warn Doctor No that Bond knew about the radioactivity on Crab Key.[9] Doctor No replied that Bond would not be a problem if Dent had not failed in his attempts to kill Bond. He told Dent to go the table and pick up what was on it. This was a cage containing a centipede. Dent was told to use this against Bond. Dent placed the centipede in Bond’s bed and for good measure placed a basket of poisoned fruit on his table.[10]

Bond awakened at night and felt the centipede crawling across his naked body. He  lay quietly and let the insect crawl up his body and away from him before moving. He then killed flipped it off of his bed and killed it.

In the morning Bond visits Peydell-Smith for any information about Doctor No. Peydell-Smith’s assistant, Miss Taro, informed Peydell-Smith that the files on No are gone. Miss Taro, like Annabel Chung, the photographer was Chinese. After she left the room Pleydell-Smith told Bond what he knew about Doctor No. According to local sources Doctor No employed Jamaican and Cuban laborers for good wages at the guano plant and a bauxite mine but under the brutal supervision of Chigroes, (Chinese-Negroes) from Jamaica. No one was allowed to leave the island.  Bond discusseed his plans with Peydell-Smith and left by the back entrance near Miss Taro’s desk.  He found her kneeling before the door. He tells her that is a nasty habit, listening at doors. She claimed to have been looking for the missing files. Bond asked her if she would show him around the island. She agreed to do so that in the afternoon.

In the afternoon Bond received a phone call from Miss Taro asking to meet her at her mountain house. Bond agreed. Once he drove off  the main roads a hearse tried to run him off the winding mountain road. Bond drove under a rock shifting truck that the hearse had to swing aside to miss hitting. Avoiding the truck took the hearse over the side of the mountain.

Miss Taro answered her door surprised to see Bond. She had just taken a shower. After she lets him inside the room she received a phone call and Bond overheard her say she would try to keep him there. Bond seduced her and then tried to get her to leave for Kingston for dinner but she wanted to stay in the cabin with him. Finally he called for a cab insisting on taking her to dinner

When the cab arrives it turned out to be the police and he had Miss Taro taken away. Bond set up two wine glasses, left the record player on and made the bed appear as though two figures lay underneath the sheets. He then sat down to wait. He played solitaire with his gun next to the cards. Dent sneaked into the room and fired his gun into the figures on the bed. Bond told Dent to put his gun on the floor. Dent dropped it on a fallen sheet. Bond tried to get some information about
Doctor No but Dent was too afraid to talk. Using his foot, Dent slowly pulled the sheet with his gun on it towards him. Once it was in reach he tried to shoot Bond. Bond knew the gun was empty. He told Dent that he had a Smith and Wesson and he has had his six. Bond then shot Dent.[11]

Bond recruited his friend Quarrel to take him to Crab Key. Quarrel was initially reluctant to go due to stories about the dragon however after Bond agreed to buy a life insurance policy for him, he agreed to go.[12]

Quarrel and Bond landed on the island and began to explore. In the morning Bond saw a young girl come walking out of the surf. She was collecting seashells. Spotting Bond she was immediately suspicious of him, thinking he wanted to take her shells that she sold in Miami. Her name was Honeychile Rider and wanted to get enough money so she can get her nose fixed and become a call girl, which she believes is a laudable and lucrative profession.[13] Quarrel comes down the beach to warn them of a coming patrol boat. They hid in the sand dunes. The patrol boat told them to come out or be fired upon. When they remained hidden a machine gun raked the beach. They were told that the security forces would be back with dogs. The only casualty of the shootout was Honey’s boat. She took them to a hiding place by walking through a stagnant pond. Honey told Bond that she has seen the dragon. A patrol with dogs chased after them but they eluded them by hiding under water breathing through reeds. Bond was forced to kill a straggler when he came too close to their hiding spot. Honey agreed to take them to where she saw the Dragon. There were several warning and dangers signs in the area. They ignored these and soon saw the dragon’s tracks, which were tank treads. The dragon was a flame throwing tank. Bond tells Quarrel to shoot at its head lights and at the driver when it came out. Quarrel and Bond both shot at the tank but Quarrel was incinerated by a stream of napalm. Bond and Honey were captured by men wearing suits with glass helmets which Bond recognized as radiation suits.

They were led to a subterranean palace where they were immediately decontaminated because had gotten exposed to a great deal of radiation. After the decontamination two Chinese woman named Sister Rose and Sister Lily took Bond and Honeychile to comfortably and expensively furnished rooms. They are told to freshen up and have some breakfast, Doctor No would see them at dinner. Their breakfast had drugged coffee and they fell into a deep sleep.

After they awakened and dressed appropriately in Chinese style clothing, they were escorted to an elevator that took them down to a large drawing room with a window aquarium. This let them know they are below sea level. The window cost one million dollars said a tall Chinese man with large black gloved hands.[14] He introduces himself as Doctor No. Doctor No was an extremely tall Eurasian who was totally bald except for eyebrows. Oddly enough he did not even have eyelashes. Doctor No escorted them to the table.

He told Bond his story. Doctor No was the son of a German Methodist Missionary and a Chinese girl but had been raised by his aunt.[15] When older he became involved with the Tongs, a Chinese crime syndicate. Sent to the United States he became the treasurer for a tong in the United States. During the Tong wars of the 1920’s Doctor No embezzled a million dollars in gold and disappeared. The Tongs found him and tortured him for the whereabouts of the gold. Wen he refused to talk they cut off his hands and shot him in the chest. Since his heart was on the right side of his chest he had not been killed. He told Bond that after recovering from his wounds he attended medical school.[16] He had purchased the island of Crab Key to be a legitimate front for his crime syndicate. He was paid by the Soviets to use the island as a staging area for Soviet sabotage using a radio controlled beacon to scramble the guidance systems of US missiles, forcing the Americans to spend time and money redesigning their missiles. He also recovered missiles from the ocean and turned them over to the Soviets. He was also to disable the American space programs [17]

When Bond told him that the American or British navies could destroy his island with ease, Doctor No said he planned to destroy it once it had accomplished his purpose.

When he began to tell Bond what his plans were Bond insisted that Honey be sent away. Doctor No agreed, adding that she might amuse his guards. Under Bond’s protests she was dragged away.

Doctor No also informed Bond and Honeychile that he was a student of the human spirit, which was best studied when under duress. To this end he would subject Bond and Honeychile to torture and study their reactions.

Honeychile was placed on the edge of the beach and pegged down. She was placed directly in the path of the black land crabs migration route. Like locusts they devoured everything in their path and Doctor No assumed Honeychile would be slowly consumed.[18]

Doctor No had to attend to matters in the control room. He told his guards to soften up Bond, he would talk to him later. Bond was knocked unconscious and awakened in small prison room with a small grate. He found the grate to be electrified. He knocked it out with his shoes and then climbed the airshaft. The airshaft was rigged with traps, its surface became sharp, it became red hot and finally it exited into a cage of tarantulas. Past the tarantula cage was another tunnel that flooded with water and emptied Bond into a small pool filled with a hungry octopus. Having survived the gantlet Bond found his way back to the main area. After disabling a person in a radiation proof suit and stealing the suit, Bond entered the control room. Dr. No and his crew were preparing to knock the Mercury rocket off course. Bond used his disguise to get close to the atomic reactor. While everyone’s attention was centered on the preparations he overloaded the atomic reactor. While most of his minions fled Doctor No attacked Bond. Their fight damaged the machinery and started a meltdown in the nuclear pile. Bond knocked No unconscious and fled the area. Bond rushed through the plant to find Honey. He finally found her staked out on a ramp near the ocean.

They ran to the island’s shipping center which a shipping port. Bond saw that Doctor No had escaped from his underground lair and was running towards the boats. Bond commandeered a crane and dropped its contents, a scoop of processed guano on top of the fleeing Doctor No. Honeychile and Bond found a boat and escaped the island before the atomic reactor blew up.

Bond had sustained serious wounds and had to once again go on sick leave. He sent M a sarcastic thank you for the easy mission.

POST MISSION BRIEFING

According to Fleming after her relationship with Bond came to an end Honeychile Rider went to Miami and had her nose fixed. She became involved with her surgeon, whose name was Wilder and eventually married him. She had two children.

John Pearson however depicted quite another story[19]. In this version, Honeychile Rider did indeed marry a doctor only to divorce him after a couple of years and take up with a much older and richer man named Schultz. Honeychile Schultz had been widowed by 1972 and was on the prowl for husband number three. She had her sites set on James Bond. The years had transformed Honeychile from a strong quiet beauty that had educated herself by reading the encyclopedia into a loud, brassy middle aged American woman who avariciously seized what she wanted.

As Pearson noted at this time Bond was aging and exhausted. He was tired of his life of constant stress and duplicity, in a weakened state he seemed ready to fall into the clutches of this mantrap.

John Pearson had written a biography of Ian Fleming and shortly after it had been published, he accidentally learned that James Bond was not an entirely fictional character. Pearson doggedly pursued his threads of information and soon found that his inquiries had not gone unnoted by British Intelligence. Pearson was at first threatened with violation of the Official Secrets Act. However someone approached him from the Ministry of Intelligence who offered him the chance to write the true story of James Bond, as told by Bond himself. The Ministry wanted their intelligence coup to be known and they also wanted to control how the story would be told . They knew Pearson would be cooperative.

The Ministry’s coup was in “fictionalizing” Bond, that is to make the public at large and most of the world’s intelligence agencies believe that James Bond was entirely fictional.  Since any accounts of the activities of “James Bond” were regarded either mere rumor or some sort of publicity stunt, one of the Ministry’s top agents could work in the open without much chance of exposure.

Pearson believed that Bond had agreed to go along with the biography out of a sincere desire to set the record straight. He also thought that since Bond was thinking about retirement he wanted this to be a fitting summary of his life.

Just prior to his pending nuptials Bond was called away on a mission to Australia that involved Irma Bunt. He promised to continue his chats with Pearson and also to return to Honeychile Schultz.

Apparently he did neither. No specifics are known of Bond’s mission to Australia to fight Irma Bunt and her mutant rats. And we know that Bond did not retire in 1973.

During the course of his talks with Pearson Bond had divulged that many foreign powers including the Russians had become wise to the “fictionalization”. It is further interesting to note that despite its title when Pearson’s biography was published it was published as a novel. That is as fiction. The question arises why?

What was the real purpose of Pearson’s biography and what was the truth about Honeychile Shultz?

Although we will get into more detail in the Never Say Never Again article the Pearson biography was part of a Ministry of Defense disinformation and misdirection operation. John Pearson was their unwitting accomplice in a plan to further muddy the already murky waters of Bond’s life. It was designed to once again create doubt as to whether Bond really existed, was entirely fictional or was series of identities used by the British Secret Service. The other main purpose of the biography was to lay the groundwork, for those who believed in the existence of Bond, that he was on the verge of retirement.

When the biography was published as a novel, because MI5 withdrew support prior to publication.When a younger, more vital Bond appeared on the scene shortly after its publication, great doubt was laid on the veracity of the account and on the existence of James Bond as a true living individual. 

While it seems quite true that the man that Pearson met really was James Bond, much of what Bond told him about his life and career was a carefully prepared blend of truth and disinformation. There was just enough truth to have Bond’s account cast Fleming’s novels as overblown exaggerations, just enough truth to make Bond’s account seem like the “real story”. Providing ancillary proof of Fleming’s exaggerations was the true person whom Fleming had based his characterization of Honeychile Rider upon. The man hungry, twice wed Honeychile Schultz, who happened to be in Nassau just as Pearson was interviewing Bond, gave Pearson a vivid picture of the juxtaposition between Fleming’s works and the reality of Bond’s life.

That woman was not Honeychile Schultz nee Rider but rather a woman posing as such. Honeychile Rider as stated by Fleming married a young doctor named Wilder and had two children by him. She remained married to him and lived until his death in Philadelphia. Honeychile Schultz was a fictitious identity created by MI5 to bolster Bond’s account with Pearson and anyone who might be spying on them. Honeychile Schultz was role played by a United States Treasury Agent attached to the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco. Della Church was on loan from the US government, having been vouched for by none other than Felix Leiter. Leiter and Church were close friends, such close friends that this friendship would lead to the breakup of Leiter’s marriage. Della and Leiter would be married, with tragic consequences, in 1988.[20]

Although it may not have seemed like it, Doctor No was a very lucky man, at least so far as escaping death. Like his literary prototype Dr Fu Manchu, he was hard to kill. Because his heart was on his right side instead of his left, he survived a Tong assassination, although it cost him his hands.

As previously noted Doctor No fought with James Bond in his control booth and was knocked unconscious, falling into the cooling pond. The water revived him and he escaped from the control room as the reactor went into a meltdown. He slid under the doors sealing off the room and fled towards his shipping harbor. Doctor No had nearly reached a vessel that would take him to safety when he was spotted by James Bond, who commandeered a crane and dropped a ton of guano on him. Certainly being buried alive in a ton of guano should have killed him. However his luck held true and he survived.

Just as his arrogance made him overplay his hand and lose all he had built up, it also contributed to saving his life. The badly made nuclear reactor sent tremors through the island because it not only went into a meltdown, it caused various electrical overloads. The sparks combined with natural gas and methane leaking from rents in the underground caverns and caused several massive explosions that ripped through the island. Doctor No had, despite warnings from his engineers, overly excavated the natural caverns beneath the island, seeking to also mine the large deposits of bat guano. The over excavation weakened the caverns in several places, including under the port necessitating that they be shored up. The shorings crumbled loose when the tremors struck the island. Doctor No happened to be in one of the weakened sections when the ton of guano fell on him. The cavern ceiling gave way and Doctor No tumbled down into the caverns beneath Crab Key Island. Normally the air would have been toxic from the guano deposits but ocean water had already begun pouring into the tunnels from various weakened areas around the island. More ocean water followed Doctor No as the cracked section of the harbor widened. Doctor No was carried in a rush of foul liquid of ocean water and guano and deposited out a crevice and into the ocean. Not being able to swim because of his pincer hands, he knew he would drown. And he would have had he not chanced upon a broken tree floating near him. Using his pincers he was able grab onto it tightly and swing himself aboard. He sat upon the log, which was forced further out into to ocean by the currents from the emptying crevice.   

For five days he drifted on the log and he nearly died of thirst when a small fishing boat found him. Doctor No gladly accepted their water and when he had recovered his strength, he used his pincers to snip the carotids of his guests.

He used the boat to get to the Bahamas. Once had obtained enough cash and supplies Doctor No fled the Caribbean, fleeing not only MI5 but also SPECTRE. At first taking up residence in Thailand he gained wealth by getting into narcotics, prostitution and illegal arms. Hiding from SPECTRE he began using the name Han.Once he obtained a fortune that he was able to purchase a small island from the Chinese government. He had convinced them that his activities targeted the West to bring about their eventual downfall. Ever wary of assassination he trained extensively in martial arts and had the weapon maker Lazar create him specialty hands that were deadly weapons. 

Partially to recruit bodyguards and partially to ferret out possible assassins, Doctor No, as Han, began having annual martial arts tournaments on his island. The Hong Kong police department had traced the majority of their narcotics, prostitution and gambling activity to Han. They sent two of their best agents to infiltrate Han’s organization but they disappeared. It was believed that they had been either killed or co-opted. The Hong Kong Police tried their luck with outside help, an renown martial arts instructor who had been contacted by Han with an invitation to attend his tournament. Normally Lee disregarded the invitation; Inspector Braithwaithe urged that he accept it. Showing Lee, that his sister’s addiction to narcotics and subsequent career in prostitution were attributed to Han’s organization were enough to convince him.[21]

Lee accepted the assignment to gain access to Han’s fortress. En route to Han’s island, he met two men, Williams and Roper, both were fugitives from the United States and had accepted the invitation to the tournament to get out of the country. However they did not seem like the type to willingly join an organization dealing in narcotics and prostitution, so Lee marked them as possible allies. During the course of the tournament Han did attempt to recruit Williams, admiring his fighting prowess and believing that since Williams was a black militant, he would could be a suitable front man for operations in the United States. Williams rejected this offer and was subdued. When he still resisted Williams was impaled on meat hooks and lowered into a vat of acid.[22] Having witnessed this Roper had second thoughts about joining Han. Roper joined forces with Lee. Lee investigated Han’s operation. Underground tunnels beneath his mansion contained cages of women awaiting transportation for enforced prostitution. There was also a drug processing plant. Lee was forced to kill one of the guards, who was one of the missing Hong Kong Police officers.[23]

Lee and Roper sabotaged Han’s operations and got a message to the Hong Kong police who raided the island. During the course of the raid, Lee engaged Han in hand-to-hand combat, seeking to kill him for the death of his sister. Their combat took place inside No’s armory. No used his specialty hands, one hand was had four razor sharp knives, the other had pincers with razor sharp edges. Lee, besides being younger, was a much better martial artist than Doctor No[24]. He broke through No’s defenses several times despite No’s fierce weapons. To gain some distance between Lee and himself No grabbed a spear and used it as a slashing weapon. When Lee jumped back from No’s attack, No used this opportunity to throw the spear at Lee. Lee dodged it easily and the spear transfixed one of the panels in the room, revealing it to be a revolving panel with access to another room. Doctor No ducked into the other room and hid among a maze of mirrors. A fight in the room full of mirrors ended with Han being kicked backwards and impaled upon the spear sticking out of the wall.[25]

Fortune once again smiled on Doctor No for he had been impaled on his left side, entirely missing his heart. Regaining consciousness only moments before an explosion destroyed his mansion, Doctor No managed to hide in a secret passage in the caverns underneath his mansion until the island was free of police and their prisoners. Although he was stuck on the island, he knew that it would only be a matter of time before looters showed up to sift through the ruins of his estate. He spent this time convalescing from his wound. It was two weeks before anyone dared to show up. Doctor No killed them and stole their boat.

Doctor No decided to relocate once more, believing it would be unhealthy for him to try and re-establish his criminal empire in Southeast Asia. Taking another page from Fu Manchu, Doctor No turned his interest to the Middle East, foreseeing vast fortunes to be made in black gold and various other enterprises. By posing as a Malaysian, Doctor No joined and eventually came to control a Pan-Islamic terrorist organization known as Iblis.[26] He claimed that his injuries had been caused by Christians and Jews, seeking to stop his holy jihad. Elbis, like SPECTRE, carried out acts of piracy, sabotage, assassination and terror for a price. Doctor No’s goal was to increase the tensions between Israel and the Arab States and also to increase chaos within the seemingly stable Islamic nations. (Iran, Iraq, Syria) Doctor No learned of Maximillian Largo’s failed attempt to irradiate much of the oil in the Middle East[27] and decided to try something along that nature. He planned to destroy much of the oil supply in the region by setting the oil fields on fire with fuel bombs. Fortunately James Bond, with the aid of Fatima Khalid, a Palestinian Freedom Fighter stopped Doctor No’s evil plan.[28]


 

SECRET HISTORY TABLE OF CONTENTS

© 2007 Dennis Power



[1] The film version has three blind men walking down the street in unison. This is a rather striking and memorable cinematic image and helps set up the first James Bond film. However in real life unless they were the decoys or a diversion, an assassination team would not go out of their way to be memorable so it is likely that there was only one “blind” man accompanied by two other men.

[2] Although the film Strangeway’s secretary depicts as warming up the shortwave radio just prior to her death, thus alerting MI6 of trouble in Station J, in reality an assassination team which was careful enough to remove most of the evidence that Strangeways had collected on Doctor No would not have made this serious of a blunder. In all likelihood the secretary was killed first and Strangeways was killed secondly. Had the shortwave been turned on as depicted, M would not have treated the case as if it were a waste of time and as a punishment for Bond. That he did so is indicated by the duplication of taking away Bond’s Beretta in both the novel and the film.

[3] In the film version of Doctor No Bond is in the middle of a game of baccarat at the Le Cercele club, interrupting a planned tryst with Sylvia Trench. As stated above there was no real emergency so the point of this episode is to demonstrate that there was a relationship between Bond and a woman named Sylvia Trench in this time period. Like many of his women Sylvia Trench was married. In this case to Lord Frederick Trench many years her senior. Lord Frederick Trench was depicted in the play “The High Road” by Frederick Lonsdale. (Londsale’s grandson Edward Fox would later play M in Never Say Never Again)

[4] Strangeways first appeared in the novel Live and Let Die (1954)

[5] In the novel Strangeways’ bungalow was burned to the ground but it is thought that this could have been to cover his tracks. However had this been true it would have been much easier for Doctor No to have covered his tracks by putting the bodies of Strangeways and his secretary in the bungalow before it was burned to the ground, thus making it appear as though they had died in a tragic accident.

[6] As noted in the previous section, although John Pearson in his 007: An unauthorized biography of James Bond, makes the case that M’s displeasure grew from a growing jealousy, there were indeed valid reasons for M’s attitude towards Bond. Bond had attempted to singe handedly capture one of the top Soviet spymasters and it had gone badly.

[7] In the film Bond also sees a picture of Strangeways with a black man. Bond asks who it was. This an addition to the film in order to introduce the character of Quarrel. Bond of course would have recognized Quarrel immediately. The scene however is telling in that it demonstrates that Quarrel had followed Bond from the airport rather than picking him up as in the novel.

[8] Bond asks Quarrel about his many excursions with Strangeways. Quarrel is a bit defensive but as Bond learns this is because he feels guilty about Strangeways’ disappearance. Quarrel had refused to accompany Strangeways to Crab Key Island and so Strangeways went alone and disappeared. The film version builds on this moment of tension between Bond and his friend to turn it into an outright confrontation in which Quarrel pulls a knife on Bond while the bartender holds Bond’s arms. Bond breaks the hold, knocks Quarrel into a stack of boxes and pulls out his gun. He is stopped by a gun at his back. The person holding the gun is Felix Leiter. The cinematic account of this confrontation adds a little dramatic tension and also introduces the character of Felix Leiter to the cinematic audience. Like the fight between Bond and Quarrel, Leiter’s presence in the case is purely an invention.

[9] One of the main plot points in the film which was never fully explored was the radioactivity of Doctor No’s island. While it is assumed that the radioactivity was a by product of Doctor No’s nuclear power plant, it is never explained why the plant put out so much radioactive waste to the point that Strangeways could find radioactive rocks or that Honeychile and Bond became contaminated by nuclear waste. It also never made clear why Doctor No needed a nuclear power plant unless his ray to divert the rocket launches or missiles of the Americans took that much power.

[10] The novel is not specific about how the poisoned fruit or tarantula were placed in Bond’s room. The film clears up that mystery. The film however replaced the centipede with a tarantula, believing that most people would not know that a centipede was poisonous. Although the tarantula had a reputation for being poisonous in most cases to an adult male the bite would be painful but not fatal.

[11] The character of Dent was not in Fleming’s account of the Doctor No episode. There are various reasons for this but chief among them was the fact that Dent came from a rather distinguished military family. His grandfather General Dent distinguished himself at Crimea and India and in Zululand. General Dent was acquainted with some very influential people such as the Rochesters, Sir Harry Flashman, The Darcys and Lord Saville and his family, although reduced in circumstances, continued its acquaintanceship with these families. Dent had served with distinction during World War II but had in a moment of weakness married an actress. They did not have a happy marriage because she refused to settle down and accumulated great debts. One child resulted from their union but when Dent went to Jamaica he left his estranged wife and child behind. After Dent’s death his wife died in a drunken fall. Leaving young Arthur to be raised by his maiden aunt in Cottington. Young Arthur was never quite able to get over the shock of losing his parents at a very early age. When he came of age he clung to the small house in which he had been raised to the point of insanity, refusing to leave when it was to be demolished for a highway bypass. The destruction of his house was the final straw and Arthur Dent was institutionalized. According to his MI6 dossier, Dent has many conversations with mice, two headed aliens and other figments of his tortured mind.

[12] Although we never meet Quarrel’s family in the books this would seem to indicate that he had a family.

[13] Although the film and novel version of Honeychile’s background are almost identical there are notable differences. In the novel Honeychile is the last survivor of an old time Jamaican family. Her family lost all of its wealth and was reduced to living in a beachfront property. After Honey’s father died she was raised by an old servant who also eventually died. The property was bought by a man who at first attempted to have Honey pay for her rent  with sexual favors but when she refused he broke her nose and then raped her. Afterwards she placed a black widow spider in his bed so that he would die an agonizing death. The film however states that Honey’s father was a globetrotting marine biologist and that he died suddenly while in Jamaica leaving Honey stranded. In this version Honey was also raped and she killed her rapist with a black widow spider, her nose however was not broken. The marine biologist father background seems to have been added to provide Honey with a reason for her vast knowledge of marine life. Since this knowledge could have come about from careful study and her natural life style, the novel version is probably the truer version.

[14] One notable difference between the novel and the film version is that in the novel Doctor No’s hands have been replaced by thick metal pincers whereas in the film he had mechanical, which although were strong enough to bend a gun were also very unwieldy. The novel version is probably more accurate, although Doctor No may have had an assortment of mechanical hands with various different functions.

[15] Doctor No was the son of Julius Von Herder, a German national who was a maker of specialty weapons for such luminaries as Professor James Moriarty. Although blind, Von Herder became an intelligence operative and was stationed in China, posing as missionary. While in China, he met the superlative surgeon Doctor Fu Manchu who cured his blindness and by doing so added Von Herder to his compliment of world wide operatives. A brief but passionate affair with one of Fu Manchu’s female agents called Madame de Medici resulted in the birth of Julius Von Herder in 1899. For more details please see The Malevolent Moriartys by Win Scott Eckert. Ernst Lazar, a great-grandson of Julius Von Herder’s by another woman also became a manufacturer of specialty weapons operating out of Macau. One his best known pieces was a gun made of gold.

[16] Although it is possible that Doctor No did indeed attend medical school despite his lack of hands, it is highly unlikely. In the film version he claimed to have lost his hands through accidental exposure to nuclear material while studying atomic science in America. This too was probably quite false. It is more likely that he spent his time building up a criminal organization while studying both atomic science and medical science on his own through intensive reading and by hiring tutors. Although highly intelligent and highly knowledgeable, Doctor No was probably not a medical professional nor an atomic physicist. His title was either self-styled or from a diploma mill.

Doctor No’s egotism was what led to his defeat by Bond. It was also probably responsible for why his operation was uncovered in the first place. You will recall that the original reason that Strangeways was brought into the incident was because of the Audubon’s Society’s complaints about Doctor No not honoring his agreement with them. Since most of Doctor No’s operation was underground or disguised by his guano factory or bauxite mine one has to wonder why he did not let the Audubon Society on the grounds in the first place. Doing so would have alleviated suspicion and not have raised the red flags that his seeming intransigence did.

The film provides us with the main clue for Doctor No’s refusal to allow the Audubon Society to inspect the island by revealing that Doctor No had an atomic power plant. This atomic power planted generated a lot of contamination, possibly because of a poor design. As if it had been designed by a self styled expert in atomic energy, such as Doctor No. Doctor No could not allow the Audubon inspectors on his islands because the radiation had killed off a large portion of the birds that were supposed to be protected. The radiation leak was a serious flaw that would have lead to the exposure of Doctor No’s operation. This is why he had to kill any intruders on his island lest they even inadvertently through contamination revealed the presence of the radioactive waste. The radioactive waste was probably why Doctor No was prepared to eventually abandon the island, despite its lucrative guano factory and bauxite mine. The radiation leak may also explain why the flame throwing tank was used to kill intruders. The outer layers of the epidermis were burned away and as was any radioactive contamination that might have been picked up.

However this was not first time that the combined character traits of hubris and self aggrandizement had worked to his disadvantage. In the late 1930’s No was calling himself a Doctor and claiming to have extensive knowledge in many sciences. He became involved with the Nazi’s, gravitating towards them because of his German heritage. He rejected his Chinese heritage because of  his betrayal and attempted assassination by the Tongs. Doctor No became involved in a project involving germ warfare. He was assigned to alter a virus that attacked specific food stuffs into one that would attack specific ethnic groups. The virus had been around since the Great War. Efforts by the Great Detective and Tarzan had kept the virus from falling into German hands ( Farmer, Philip Jose Adventure of the Peerless Peer) However when Dr. Moreau had defected from England and joined with the Nazis he had brought a version of the virus with him. Moreau was however deeply involved in Germany’s Super-Soldier project and could not be spared for the speculative germ warfare program. It was given to Dr. No for him to prove his allegiance to the Nazi cause.  Dr. No did manage to alter the virus so that it became lethal to human biology.  The virus was so lethal that it killed 90 percent of the people infected within hours. Despite his efforts Doctor No could not make the virus lethal for targeted populations and so in 1941 absented himself from the project hiding from his Nazi sponsors. The virus ended up in the hands of his young protégé who called himself Dr. Noe. Dr. Noe nearly unleashed the virus which would have caused such a virulent pandemic as to make the Black Plague and Spanish Influenza  seem like summer colds. It was only through the sacrifice of Sir James Bond that the Dr. Noe was stopped, as demonstrated in the true story behind the first film version of Casino Royale.

[17] In the film Doctor No works for SPECTRE, said he had offered this services to the Americans and to the Soviets only to be rejected. As was revealed in From Russia With Love, both could be true. The Soviet intelligence system had been thoroughly infiltrated by SPECTRE as demonstrated by several of its highest echelon members being double agents for SPECTRE while still seemingly pursuing the aims and goals of the Politboro. In many of the Ian Fleming Bond novels, career criminals or corrupt millionaires turn out to be loyal agents of the Soviet Union. Mr. Big, Goldfinger, Doctor No, Scaramanga, Moonraker to give the main examples. One has to wonder why these men all of who exemplified capitalist greed combined with a lust for power willingly worked for a world power that promoted socialism and the communist values that were the antithesis of their individual entrepreneurial careers. With the possible exception of Moonraker, who was motivated by vengeance, none of these men were ideologues who truly believed in the Soviet system. So why would these men whose criminal careers were motivated by the acquisition of wealth work for a system that wished to eliminate personal wealth. The answer seems to be that they actually were not working for the Soviet’s per se but were in fact working for SPECTRE. In the Thunderball it is revealed that SPECTRE is a combine create of career criminals from large criminal organizations and intelligence operatives from several nations. The combine sells their services to anyone who can meet their price. Described operations show that they work for both the capitalist and communist nations. SPECTRE’s purpose is the apolitical acquisition of wealth. Doctor No, Mr. Big and Goldfinger all are described in the novels as working for the Soviets and from the perception of MI5 and so to Ian Fleming, it may very well have appeared that they were working for the Soviets. This is because their primary contact people were Soviet agents who had been coopted by SPECTRE. Also the contract for these operations had been purchased by the Soviets and so was in a sense working for them but actually in the sense that they were a contractor rather than a true Soviet Union. It was not until the existence of SPECTRE became publicly known, during the Thunderball incident that SPECTRE’s involvement was suspected. Considering however that Fleming kept dropping hints such as the SPEKTOR machine in From Russia With Love and the town Specterville in Diamonds Are Forever, he probably was aware of their involvement but was not allowed to state it. 

[18] In fact Honeychile Rider was not even touched by the supposedly voracious crabs because she knew that they would not react to her. This is yet another instance in which Doctor No’s arrogance outstripped his actual knowledge.

[19] Pearson, John James Bond: The Authorized biography of 007, Grove Press, 1973

[20] As is depicted in License to Kill

[21] In the film version of events, Han only had one artificial hand and this was not generally known.  As Han Doctor No used two fully functional prosthetic hands covered in black gloves, similar to the film version of Doctor No although much less bulky.

[22] Although the film version portrays this incident, Williams was dead when he was lowered into the acid. This was in fact not the case, Doctor No still liked to pursue his experimentation with torture. Williams was impaled through the shoulder and lowered into the acid while still alive.

[23] This officer was Eddie Chan, the twin brother of renown police detective Kevin Chan. Kevin Chan’s career has been portrayed in such films as Police Story, Police Story II and Police Story III.

[24] Some credit should be given to Doctor No however since he had only seriously begun practicing martial arts a few years prior to this event and had become proficient to hold his own with Lee for even a short while. While it is true he may have had some training prior to losing his hands, it does not seem that he had trained with them after losing them, at least until his career as Doctor No had ended. His vitality is a bit puzzling as well since he does not seem to have access to one of the life extension treatments, like his predecessor. It may have just been a side effect of his Wold Newton genes or from the ? Meteor.

[25] Hong Kong authorities never knew or even suspected that Han was the same man as Doctor No. MI5 would not discover this to be the case until after Doctor No met up with James Bond once more in 1975.

[26] The published account portrays Iblis as Elbis. Iblis is the Islamic equivalent of Satan.

[27] Maximillian Largo’s plan is detailed in Never Say Never Again.

[28] This plot by Doctor No and Iblis was depicted, with some changes, in the James Bond Newspaper strip Hot Shot, The Daily Express, January 1976. My fellow Wold Newton researcher  Win S. Eckert places this incident as happening in 1973 in his James Bond Chronology and Genealogy. Why he would make such an error is unknown, perhaps he was led astray by the similarly plotted Never Say Never Again incident, which did occur in 1973.