From Russia with Love

2002 Penguin Books paperback edition.
Author	Ian Fleming
Cover artist	Richard Chopping Devised by Fleming
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	8 April 1957
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Diamonds Are Forever
Followed by	Dr. No

From Russia with Love, published in 1957, is the fifth James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming and is considered to be one of the best in the series—the 1963 film version has been often cited by several film critics as the best of the movie franchise. Its biggest boost came four years after From Russia with Love was published from an article in Life Magazine on March 17, 1961 in which U.S. President John F. Kennedy included it in a list of his favorite books; the James Bond novel was the only work of fiction in the list of ten. Download high resolution version (430x648, 35 KB)A 2002 Penguin Books paperback edition File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... It has been suggested that Penguin Modern Poets, Penguin Great Ideas be merged into this article or section. ... This article is about the author. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... 007 redirects here. ... The spy fiction genre (sometimes called political thriller) first arose just before the First World War, at about the same time, the first organized intelligence agencies were being formed. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Jonathan Cape has been since 1987 an imprint of Random House. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ISBN redirects here. ... Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth novel in Ian Flemings James Bond series. ... 2002 reissue of the original novel. ... Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar). ... 007 redirects here. ... This article is about the author. ... A cover of Life Magazine from 1911 Life has been the name of two notable magazines published in the United States. ... is the 76th day of the year (77th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas  US Government Portal      For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... John Kennedy and JFK redirect here. ...

The title of the book sometimes is printed with a comma, as "From Russia, with Love", depending upon the publisher. It is more commonly printed without the punctuation.

Plot summary

From Russia with Love differs from Fleming's previous Bond novels in that the first one third of the novel revolves around SMERSH executioner Red Grant, as well as the organization, SMERSH, itself. (Bond himself is not mentioned by name until the end of Chapter 5, and does not actually make an appearance until Part 2 of the novel commences with Chapter 11.) SMERSH (in capitalised letters) is a Soviet counterintelligence agency featured in Ian Flemings early James Bond novels and films as agent 007s nemesis. ... Red Grant is a fictional character in the James Bond novel and film From Russia with Love. ...

The novel is a series of elaborate plots and counterplots, between the British and the Russian intelligence agencies. It begins with SMERSH, the Soviet assassination agency, seeking to redeem itself from a series of failures that have made some within the Soviet government begin to criticize the organization. SMERSH plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, SMERSH has targeted British secret service agent, Commander James Bond. Due in part to Bond's defeat of Le Chiffre detailed in Casino Royale and Mr. Big in Live and Let Die, Bond has been declared as an enemy of the Soviet state and has been issued a "death warrant" for him. Soviet redirects here. ... Terrorist redirects here. ... Casino Royale by Ian Fleming was the first James Bond novel. ... Mr. ... For other uses, see Live and Let Die. ...

He is to be not just killed, but "killed with ignominy"—his death precipitating a major juicy sex scandal which will run through the world press for months and leave his reputation and that of his entire service in tatters. (In fact, the Soviets seem to be aiming at the kind of scandal which was to materialise in actuality six years after the book's publication, with the 1963 Profumo Affair.) The Profumo Affair was a political scandal from 1963 in the United Kingdom that is named after the then-Secretary of State for War, John Profumo. ...

1959 Pan paperback edition. 208 pages

Mainly through the agency of Kronsteen, the chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, SMERSH lays a trap for Bond, by setting pretty young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to pretend to defect from her post in Istanbul, claiming to have fallen in love with Bond, after a glimpse from his file photograph. As an added incentive, Tatiana will provide the British agent with a Spektor decoder, a prize much coveted by MI6. The ultimate goal is to set up James Bond for assassination and cause a scandal, but SMERSH does not count on Tatiana actually falling in love with 007. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (533x840, 95 KB)James Bond 007 - From Russia with Love © 1962 Pan Books (paperback). ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (533x840, 95 KB)James Bond 007 - From Russia with Love © 1962 Pan Books (paperback). ... This article is about algorithms for encryption and decryption. ... Tatiana Tanya Romanova is a fictional character in the James Bond novel and film From Russia with Love. ... Istanbul (Turkish: , Greek: , historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see other names) is Turkeys most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. ... The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6), or the Secret Service, is the United Kingdom external security agency. ...

After all the actors on the Soviet side are introduced and the hatching of the plot against Bond (but not the details of the plot itself) is described in detail, Bond comes to the center of the stage and sets off to Istanbul where much of the book takes place. There follow many action-packed chapters, where Bond gets a secret peek into the inner sanctum of the Soviet Consulate, followed by bouts of intensive fighting against various Soviet agents and lovemaking with the beautiful Tatiana, takes part in the exotic rituals of a Gypsy tribe interspersed with more fighting, and forms an instant and firm comradeship with the engaging bon vivant Darko Kerim Bey, head of the British Service's agency in Turkey (which would be sadly cut short by an MGB agent killing Darko on board the Orient Express). Istanbul (Turkish: , Greek: , historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see other names) is Turkeys most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. ... Languages Romani, languages of native region Religions Christianity, Islam Related ethnic groups South Asians (Desi) The Roma (singular Rom; sometimes Rroma, Rrom) or Romanies are an ethnic group living in many communities all over the world. ... Poster advertising the Orient Express Orient Express is the name of a long-distance passenger train originally operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. ...

The reader (and Bond himself) get the satisfying feeling that Bond is taking the initiative and getting back at his enemies. As seen later, this was a complete illusion, and the entire Istanbul section turns out to have been a giant bunch of red herrings: all the Soviet agents which Bond had fought and killed were worthless pawns, completely expendable for their side. Look up red herring in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

After all the fighting, Bond (as well as his superiors up to M. in London) unwittingly play the precise role predicted and defined in the plan devised by chess-master Kronsteen. Bond boards the Orient Express on the journey from Istanbul to Paris—and heads directly into the Soviet "Killing Bottle". He unhesitatingly accepts Red Grant's bona fides as a fellow MI6 agent (not least, because Grant dresses and talks like a fellow member of the British ruling class) and goes to sleep under Grant's watchful eye, after having obligingly handed to Grant his gun.

However, there was one flaw—which turns out to be fatal—in Kronsteen's fiendishly clever design: having very accurately predicted the responses of Bond and his fellow Brits to the carefully selected stimuli, the chess master did not take into account that the SMERSH ace executioner Grant was not only a homicidal psychopath who enjoyed killing for its own sake, but also an Irish Catholic from Northern Ireland—in no sense religious or a coherent holder of any nationalist ideology, but evidently sharing the anti-British attitudes prevalent in the society where he grew up. (In Grant's biography in the early part of the book, it is mentioned that he had been marginally involved with the IRA.) Stimulus-response theory, referred to a S-R theory, is a theoretical model of behavioral psychology that suggests animals, and people, can learn to associate a new stimulus- the conditioned stimulus (CS)- with a pre-existing stimulus - the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), and can think, feel or respond to the CS... Irish Catholics are persons of predominantly Irish descent who adhere to the Roman Catholic faith. ... Northern Ireland (Irish: , Ulster Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a constituent country of the United Kingdom lying in the northeast of the island of Ireland, covering 5,459 square miles (14,139 km², about a sixth of the islands total area). ... The original Irish Republican Army fought a guerrilla war against British rule in Ireland in the Irish War of Independence 1919-1921. ...

Instead of killing Bond without further ado, as Kronsteen's plan called for, Grant cannot resist the temptation to crow at the top British agent, humiliate him and engage in a long boastful conversation. Growing careless and overconfident, Grant gives Bond the chance to improvise a desperate small ploy which works against all odds—with the result that Grant loses his life and the entire careful Soviet scheme falls into ruin.

Later, after successfully delivering Tatiana to his superiors, Bond has a final encounter with Rosa Klebb—which leaves her captured but 007 poisoned and seemingly dead from the final kick of her poisoned toe, though he would recover in time for his next adventure. Tatiana, who has no further place in the Bond saga, has successfully defected to the West, entirely at the initiative and instigation of SMERSH (since for herself, she had been quite content to live out her life in Moscow).

Ian Fleming's tasks in his own WWII clandestine career included writing a memorandum describing the structure and functions of a secret service organisation, with which General William Donovan was satisfied and parts of which were later used in the official charter for the OSS. Notwithtanding this, Fleming's depiction of the British Service's Turkish setup seems to ignore some basic rules. This article is about the author. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see Wild Bill and/or Bill Donovan. ... The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency and was the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Special Forces, and Navy SEALs. ...

To be sure, Darko Kerim—the aforementioned head of "Station T"—is a highly energetic and capable man, and being half-British he has a warm feeling for Britain. Still, he clearly also has his own agenda which is not necessarily in accord with Britain's diplomatic interests, finances his activities through his own (legal and apparently also illegal) business activities, engages in all kinds of private alliances and vendettas, and relies mainly on a large clan of sons and other relatives whose loyalty is purely to himself.

Such a network can be extremely valuable, but doctrine (and common sense) would dictate the stationing of a regular British agent, with some diplomatic cover at the embassy, to keep an eye and make sure Darko Kerim and his band do not get out of line. In Fleming's depiction, there is no such agent and no supervision short of London itself—with the result that when Darko is killed by the Soviets, his furious sons and relatives take a very drastic retaliatory action and blow up the Soviet Consulate, presumably without any authorisation from London or even bothering to let anybody know they were going to do it.

In the book, this is just told in passing and there are no further consequences. However, in reality such an unauthorised major provocation by British agents might have created a scandal at least as big as the one carefully planned by Kronsteen, and the Soviets might have recouped the loss from their fiasco on the train and made use of the affair to drive a wedge between Britain and its NATO ally Turkey.

Ian Fleming in Istanbul

Ian Fleming happened to be in Istanbul on September 1955—covering the International Police Conference for the London Sunday Times—when the Istanbul Pogrom broke out, with the city's Greek community brutally assaulted by mobs with the tacit consent of the Turkish government of the day. Fleming's account, entitled "The Great Riot of Istanbul", appeared in that paper on 11 September 1955. Not to be confused with International Police. ... The Istanbul Pogrom (also known as Istanbul Riots; Greek: (Events of September); Turkish: (Events of September 6-7)), was a pogrom directed primarily at Istanbuls 100,000-strong Greek minority on September 6 and 7, 1955. ... is the 254th day of the year (255th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar). ...

Quite soon afterwards, Fleming started work on a fictional James Bond novel of which a large portion is set in Istanbul, which became From Russia with Love. The book makes no mention of the city's Greek community. However, Fleming does make the point of depicting the Turkish police and security services as completely passive and uninterfering in the fictional private war conducted in Istanbul between British and Soviet agents—just as they did not interfere in the actual anti-Greek pogrom which Fleming personally witnessed.

Adaptations

Main articles: From Russia with Love (film), James Bond (comic strip), and From Russia with Love (video game)

For the Ian Fleming novel, see From Russia with Love. ... Starting in 1958 and continuing to 1983, James Bond, the fictional character created by author Ian Fleming appeared in 52 comic strips that were syndicated in British newspapers, 7 of which were initially published abroad. ... This article contains a trivia section. ...

Film

The cinematic From Russia, with Love was released in 1963, produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young. It was the second James Bond film in the official EON Productions series, and the second to star Sean Connery as the suave and sophisticated British Secret Service agent James Bond. The year 1963 in film involved some significant events. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Terence Young in the 1960s Stewart Terence Herbert Young (June 20, 1915 – September 7, 1994) was a British film director, born in Shanghai, China, was public-school educated, and read Oriental History at St Catharines College in the University of Cambridge (like the fictional character James Bond - see below). ... EON Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. ... Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a retired Scottish actor and producer who is perhaps best known as the first actor to portray James Bond in cinema, starring in seven Bond films. ...

Changes made

• The main villains change from SMERSH (a division of Soviet Intelligence) to SPECTRE (a fictional espionage and terrorist organisation).
• A layer of complexity is added to the movie plot with SPECTRE playing British Intelligence against the Soviets, who remain secondary villains.
• The name of the decoding machine was changed from Spektor to Lektor.
• Unlike his behavior in the book, Red Grant stalks and anonymously assists Bond throughout the Istanbul phase of the film.
• The cipher machine, simply delivered by Tatiana in the book, must be stolen by means of an elaborate attack scene in the movie.
• Red Grant's method of death changed from being stabbed and shot to being stabbed and strangled with his own weapon.
• The Bey family's bombing of the Soviet embassy (in retaliation for Kerim's death) is omitted from the film, though Kerim bombs it to assist Bond's attack.
• The film's climax is punched up with a truck escape, a helicopter attack and a powerboat chase, not found in the book.
• Instead of being apprehended by the French, Rosa Klebb was shot by Romanova in Venice.
• Bond was not poisoned in the movie, unlike the book. Also, the movie removed Klebb's poisonous sewing needles. Furthermore, puffer-fish poison from the novel was changed to a faster working poison.
• Rene Mathis (from "Casino Royale") appeared in the book, but not the movie.

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Spectre, taken from the Battle for Wesnoth computer game. ...

Comic strip

Fleming's novel was adapted as a daily comic strip published in the British Daily Express newspaper, and syndicated worldwide. The adaptation ran from February 3 to May 21, 1960, and was written by Henry Gammidge, and illustrated by John McLusky. The James Bond 007 Fan Club published a reprinting of the strip in 1981. From Russia with Love was reprinted again in 2005 by Titan Books in the Dr. No collection, which in addition to Dr. No, also included Diamonds Are Forever. This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... For other uses, see Daily Express (disambiguation). ... is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 141st day of the year (142nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... John McLusky, born the son of creole lesbians, lived a life of prostitution and debauchery. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Titan Books is a UK publisher of graphic novels. ... Dr. No can refer to a number of things Dr. No (novel), the 1958 novel by Ian Fleming on his inspirational character James Bond Dr. No (film), the first James Bond film, starring Sean Connery. ... Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth novel in Ian Flemings James Bond series. ...

Video game

In 2005 it was adapted into a video game by Electronic Arts and featured all new voice work by Sean Connery as well as his likeness and the likeness of a number of the supporting cast from the film. This game adhered to the basic plot of the movie but with changes made for better game-play such as the addition of the jet-pack from Thunderball and the Aston Martin DB5. Computer and video games redirects here. ... Electronic Arts (EA) (NASDAQ: ERTS) is an American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of computer and video games. ... Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a retired Scottish actor and producer who is perhaps best known as the first actor to portray James Bond in cinema, starring in seven Bond films. ... For other topics with this name, see Thunderball. ... The 1963 Aston Martin DB5 was an improved DB4. ...

External links

• Ian Fleming Bibliography of James Bond 1st Editions
• From Russia with Love overview on the Ultimate James Bond Community
• From Russia with Love at the Internet Movie Database.