International Spy Museum -- Part 2

So, here is part 2 of our visit to the International Spy Museum. While the first half is all about real-world spying through history, the second half of the museum is all about Bond. 

One of the cool things we got to see is the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger. While this one doesn’t actually have gadgets like an ejector seat and an oil slick spray from the bumper, it’s still a gorgeous car.

Between his time with Naval Intelligence during WWII and his successful career as a novelist, Ian Fleming worked for the Kemsley newspaper group, which owned The Sunday Times. He was a foreign manager, putting him in charge of the paper’s correspondents around the world. Even after leaving the newspaper business to focus on the Bond books, he would occasionally write for his old employers, like this opinion piece written in 1962, about U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

The popularity of the Bond films led to a lot of toys and merchandise, like this Odd Job action figure.

Milton Bradley got into the Bond mania, too, with this James Bond board game. (I wonder if it was any good?)

You might remember, at the end of “From Russia With Love” creepy old Rosa Klebb attacks Bond with a secret knife on her shoe. Apparently, this little detail may have been based on a real spy gadget, used by the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) during the war. These real shoes have a fold out knife in the heel and a rough edged stopping plate in the arch. If someone tried to grab a woman either to force information out of her or hold her for leverage, the shoes gave her an extra edge in fighting back or making her escape. Running the arch plate along the front of an attacker’s shin, for example, would definitely slow down an attacker (and hurt like crazy!), and the knife in the heel could be used to cut restraints.

Before using the fictional SPECTRE as the primary source of villains in the Bond novels, Fleming set his books in the very real Cold War, with Bond facing off against the KGB, and specifically SMERSH. SMERSH was a real group--the name SMERSH is short for Smert' Shpionam; meaning "Death to spies" in Russian--the main Russian counter intelligence group. Formed during World War II to combat German infiltration into the Red Army, SMERSH was well-known among other intelligence agencies for being ruthless, regularly using blackmail, torture, and executions to accomplish objectives.

Here is an ID card from one SMERSH agent.

Another particularly nasty human being that served as a model for several Bond villains was Otto Skorzeny. As a Nazi, he rose through the ranks to lead several commando units, earning himself the nickname “The Most Dangerous Man in Europe.” He also served as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and assassin. His most distinctive physical feature was a dueling scar that ran across his cheek, which in turn informed the looks of many scar-faced Bond villains.

After the war, Skorzeny was convicted of war crimes, but escaped. He then played a major role in helping other Nazi war-criminals escape prosecution, smuggling them to Spain and South America, and would go on to provide commando training to some of the first Middle Eastern terrorists, served as the personal bodyguard to Juan and Eva Peron, and tried to resurrect Nazi-ism in a “Fourth Reich” on more than one occasion. Bond faced all sorts of bad guys, but this guys was pretty much a monster.

Did you know that James Bond was married? You may have caught a few references in a couple of the Roger Moore films, or one of Timothy Dalton’s two Bond movies, but if you haven’t watched “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (the one with George Lazenby) then you missed the wedding and all five minutes of married Bond.

These delightful mandibles might be the most famous dentures in the world. These fitted mouth pieces were the metal teeth that gave Bond-villain Jaws his distinctive smile. If you ever wanted to chew through steel cables, these were the teeth to wear.

You can’t be a self-respecting Bond villain without some properly uniformed goons, and every well-dressed henchman should accessorize with some sort of menacing weapon. It’s what all the fashionable movie bad guys are doing!

This helicopter miniature was used as the EMP-resistant chopper in GoldenEye.

Here’s a page or two of the original storyboards from the helicopter saw chase in “The World Is Not Enough.” It takes a lot of planning to coordinate all of the stunt crews, and special effects, and camera crews, and everyone else, so the individual shots that make up the scene are all planned out in advance, sketched out sort of like a comic book.

The threat of nuclear attack was a prevalent concern during the Cold War, and nukes have shown up in several Bond films. This prop device puts a warhead into a suitcase-sized carrying case. Somewhere along the line, Bond disarms it, and now it sits in the Spy Museum.

I’ll just say that this particular prop was used in a memorable (and uncomfortable) scene in “Casino Royale.” And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

On that note, that wraps up our visit at the International Spy Museum. It’s the only sightseeing spot we paid admission for, but it was totally worth it! I highly recommend it to anyone visiting D.C..