Eyespy Explore Fleming’s Goldfinger Bank Plot

Did Bond author Ian Fleming draw his inspiration for the plot of Goldfinger from his knowledge of a real-life plot to blow up the Bank of England? This is the intriguing thesis put forward by historian Andrew Cook and it formed the basis of a British Channel 5 documentary shown on July 9th, narrated by Honor ‘Pussy Galore’ Blackman. Now the latest issue of the British espionage magazine Eyespy (issue 63) contains a brief tie-in article based on his research, entitled ‘The Real Goldfinger’.

Documents recently discovered by Cook, a specialist in intelligence history, indicate that Fleming’s Fort Knox plot at the heart of his novel Goldfinger may have been based on the Bond author’s knowledge of a real-life plot by German Intelligence agents to blow up the Bank of England, and thereby disrupt the British economy, in 1914. Fortunately, the dastardly plot, led by German spy master Gustav Steinhauer, was foiled by the Secret Service Bureau, the predecessor of both MI5 and MI6.

The Bureau had been set up in 1909, consisted of just eleven men, and was run by former police Special Branch chief William Melville (who, interestingly, was known as ‘M’). Melville was a larger-than-life character and was a master of disguises. He also used the famous escape artist, Harry Houdini, to train some of his Secret Service Bureau operatives. In 1911 Melville, apparently working undercover, had a real stroke of luck when he overheard a conversation on a train where a man of German descent referred to a letter he had just received from Germany asking about Britain’s coastal defences.

This clue led Melville to place a mail intercept on all the correspondence of ‘F. Reimers’, a known alias of Gustav Steinhauer. The letters in turn led Melville to a German barbers shop on the Caledonian Road in London which, it emerged, was being used as a ‘letter-box’ by Steinhauer to send communications to his network of spies in Britain. The barber shop was placed under observation and all the mail was intercepted, read by Melville’s agents, and passed on as normal.

According to a 3-page memorandum written by one of Melville’s assistants, recently discovered by Andrew Cook, this is how ‘M’ came to learn about the German plot to wreck the British economy by targeting Britain’s main bank in London. At first, the British thought the Germans might be planning to steal all the gold in the Bank of England but, after investigating the heavy security measures run by the bank, Melville decided this was impossible. He realised that the Germans were planning something more devious: the placing of high explosives in a former London Underground tunnel which runs under the bank. ‘M’ initiated extensive searches of the tunnel system to wreck any possibility of the plan going ahead.

In Cook’s estimation: “If Britain’s Secret Service Bureau had not uncovered the plot and the Germans had succeeded, Britain would almost certainly have lost the First World War”.

Where does Fleming enter the picture in this story? As his biographers have revealed, the Bond author worked for the British Naval Intelligence Department (‘NID’) during the Second World War, and it is more than likely that Fleming, who had access to many secret files during the course of his work, came across information about the plot and this fired his imagination. It is well-known that Fleming used many ideas in his later post-war Bond adventures that were inspired by the extensive knowledge he picked up during his wartime desk duties.

It is quite possible that the Bank of England plot may have influenced the Fort Knox plan in his novel Goldfinger. Cook told the British press recently: “We will never know for certain, but I believe that is where Fleming got the inspiration for Goldfinger”. He added: “Fleming no doubt found out about the real-life plot against the Bank of England in 1914 and simply transposed it to America where the equivalent target would be Fort Knox”.

Perhaps coincidentally, the actual plot scenario used in the EON film version of Goldfinger, which differed slightly to Fleming’s novel, tied in more closely to the real-life 1914 plot. Rather than steal the gold in Fort Knox, the screen version of Auric Goldfinger (played by German actor Gert Frobe) planned to explode a small-scale radioactive device at Fort Knox in order to create financial chaos, and thus make his own gold reserves rise in value on the world’s gold bullion markets.

Although Fleming’s biographers disagree about where Fleming actually gained the idea for ‘M’ from (was it Melville or was it from Maxwell Knight, another British spymaster?), Cook’s new discovery adds another interesting dimension to our growing knowledge about the man who created James Bond.

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