Word: smersh
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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What with all those gourmet meals he has to tuck away in line of duty, 007 alias Sean Connery, 34, is finding avoirdupois harder to liquidate than his old pals from SMERSH. Relaxing with his real-life wife and child in Nassau, the 6-ft. 1-in. actor weighed in at 198 Ibs. Tsk! The Communists plainly don't think that Bondism is flabby. In East Germany, two party newspapers ran bombastic reviews of his "capitalistic, reactionary" adventures, concluded that the dashing Briton's addiction to "opening safes and bras" epitomizes Western decadence. They sound jealous...
...Before SMERSH opens a file on me, rendering a future trip to Russia hazardous, may I hasten to point out that I relinquished my "00" number and handed in my Smith & Wesson .38 as long ago as 1947, when I left the army...
While your article "007 v. SMERSH" [June 29] will probably sell more books for Ian Fleming, it somewhat left the authenticity of SMERSH up in the air. After some research, I have discovered it definitely existed. SMERSH is short for two Russian words, Smert Shpionam (Death to Spies). It was formed just before World War II by the then NKVD. Its mission was the tracking down and punishment of foreign spies, and to detect any signs of dissent within the ranks of the Soviet armed forces. Every battalion, regiment and company of the Red army had a SMERSH agent attached...
...Fleming, who has chronicled his career in ten best-selling spy thrillers (From Russia with Love, Dr. No, Live and Let Die). Author Fleming (TIME, April 13), a wartime Royal Navy intelligence officer and now a member of the editorial board of the London Sunday Times, swears that SMERSH really existed and was "the most secret department of the Soviet government." In any event, the task of liquidating Secret Agent Bond has now passed to the all too real operatives at Russia's Communist Party organ Izvestia...
Soviet officialdom has good reason to fear Fleming's "propaganda." In no time, underprivileged Russian spymasters who read Bond's adventures will be demanding their own share of oversexed fillies and undercooked filets. Their expense accounts could wreck SMERSH more effectively than 007 himself...